Hey Guys, I've had a few really interesting meetings lately and wanted to quickly tell you why customers are getting games featured by publishers more than on their own. There is really only one difference: Polishing. I can absolutely not stress how important this is. When we finish level design on a game like Phases or Sky, it's usually about 20% done at that point. We literally will spend 80% of the time polishing the game to make sure it's perfectly fluid, the gameplay is on point, there are no little technical or level design issues and that all graphics are completely coherent from start buttons to backgrounds. This final polishing stage is what separates the great games from the good ones. Publishers know this - and ask anyone that has signed with a publisher - they make you polish like CRAZY. They will not submit until the game is TIRELESSLY perfect. When we emailed customers about our publishing company, we got over 40 responses. From these responses, we had 13 possibles. From these possibles... we had ONE that was polished. Literally only one game that was ready to go by our standards. Now, this is fine. The one big benefit with Buildbox publishing is you guys are our customers. If we see potential in a game, we'll work with you (heck, on one game we redid the name, background, logo and all the characters). This post isn't about that though, it's about YOU getting featured on your own. If you want this to happen, you have to polish like a publisher. How much is enough? Here's a good rule: If you don't hate your game, you haven't polished it enough I say that jokingly, but it's completely true. You have to spend so much time with the game that it nearly drives you crazy to get it perfect.
Wisdom from the BB guru himself. I also would like to add that in the past I have shown my game to people I trust when I wanted fresh perspectives who were not even game developers. This has helped me polish some games where I didn't even see that they needed polishing! Those fresh perspectives helped me. This is for those who are not submitting to BB pub since they will be the ones to help you polish it as Trey said.
@TreySmith though I entirely agree with everything you mention here, there's just a qualitative nature to polishing a game to make it just right that is difficult to pin down. I compare it to the first time I learned to whistle, you try this, you try that, you morph your mouth into every possible position until you hear that sound. Once you've done it once, you can do it for the rest of your life and you can't believe you didn't figure it out sooner. The only difference with game design is that you never really know when we are actually whistling. In my mind, this is where I, as a business owner, see the value of working with a publisher. They know how to whistle, and once they take you on, they will tell you when your game is whistling. Only then will I really know what I need to do, and where I need to focus, and most importantly, when it's time to stop! The trick for me right now is how to interest a publisher enough to take me on. Padawan looking for a Jedi! Alain Grignon zHeroez Founder
@alain_grignon I like your comparison and point. I think that in game design there is no one ultimate whistle, but in the game design business, there are several key whistles to listen for, and this is what the media (graphics, audio, text, interactivity) should aim at: functionality of the game - it isn't broken, everything works the game is fun (for your target market) - people can be observed actually enjoying it and reporting that they enjoyed it User testing or playtesting is good for hearing these whistles. Quality assurance. The main 2 reasons there is no one whistle for quality of gameplay fun is that (1) there is no one kind kind of gameplay fun, and (2) there is no one population that enjoys every type of fun. Combine those 2 things and we end up trying to serve particular markets, not everyone. Of course, though, we game designers hope our games are fun and liked by as broad a market as possible.
Great tips thanks Trey, am learning on the design side of things but feel this is improving all the time.
@TreySmith you Rock! I just found the jump pack story dvd and it made me smile. You recorded sounds in a fast food joint lol I started following your blog just before the AE craziness. Thank you for being so open to teaching the community all these years.
So weird you mention that. I brought that up to Nik yesterday... that was a fun one though the production quality was severely lacking .
@alain_grignon On Trey's suggestion, I managed to find Jesse Schell's book in the library: "The Art of Game Design: A book of Lenses. Highly recommend. I then found that he has an app in a flash card format: https://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/art-game-design-deck-lenses/id385531319?mt=8 This is very useful to assist in looking at everything from a user perspective rather than a developer. I have found it very helpful. Tony
I had no idea that App existed! Thanks for the heads-up @alain_grignon. If anyone else knows of any good Apps for game design please pass on the info.
@AndyG Jump Pack was our first hit game (broke the Top 25 in 2012) and I recorded the whole process from coming up with the idea to publishing the game. It was also when I had just first met Nik and our second game we made as a team. I took all these videos and packaged them together into a documentary DVD I called The Jump Pack Story. This was before I started Game Academy and one of the first things I did teaching people about making games. Actually, that is what really kicked everything off. We sold like 7,000 of those DVDs. Now it's a bit dated, but back then no one was talking about games so it was really new stuff. I recut a 720p version of it about a year ago. I will try to find and upload it later this week.
