When asked to describe my game world, I use this phrase (or words to this effect)
Terry Pratchett: Discworld and Geroge R.R.Martin: Game of Thrones have a kid, They adopted Adam Poots:Kingdom Death Monster as their first child, so their own child gets some overbearing influence and they have to ensure that their next kid is not so screwed up.
Or in more concise terms:
Terry Pratchett and Game of Thrones have a kid who discovered Kingdom Death Monster.
How to describe your game
I've actually had arguments with people about this, when asked "how to describe their game" I saw people write whole blogs about it.. (this is not a blog about my game, its a blog about blogs about peoples games..lol)
They just didn't seem to get it, I have Zero interest in your game yet, I have yet to understand anything about it, I am a random person on the internet, So why would I read your whole blog about how Zee of the underworld rose against whY and eXx to fight with the grand master of duble-Wuu, to defeat the power of Vee. None.. and I don't expect anyone reading anything I write to have any more of the time of day than I do.
So You make an elevator pitch, 1 line, references that you should be aware of if you're part of my target audience. Do you read? are you aware of two authors, Terry Practchet is known for his discworld novels, yet if you say Discworld to some people, they look at you slightly quizzically, say Terry pratchett and their eyes light up. vice versa with Martin, say George RR Martin and as often as not, they think RR Tokien, but say Game of thrones and they know exactly what you're on about. If the two of them had a kid.. what would that be like.. now, that kid, has recently discovered a new game, Kingdom Death monster, and he's into that.
Now this is the interesting part, there is an even smaller audience that knows what Kingdom Death Monster is, but the words by themselves explain enough of it. Its a Kingdom.. right? it has a lot of Death in it, and Monsters.. could be any generic RPG clone, but just enough people, usually board gamers, and more often Kickstarter backers, have heard of the no.1 most funded board game on Kickstarter. And since its typical that a Game of Throne player, who has read Terry Pratchett is going to be a board game player, then likely they will know what these three references are..So likely this sounds interesting..
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| Practhett: Rincewind on a walking chest |
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| The TV series cover for Game of Thrones |
Yet, if they haven't heard of, they're heard of the first two, then maybe they're asking.. ok so whats this third one.. what am I missing out on.
Lastly, Because of the influence order.. Terry Pratchetts Discworld is a far more influencing factor here, so he goes in first. Game of throne is less of an influencer, but its a world where there is more humans and less magic, but yet, dragons and frost zombie and fire magic exists.. So while it has very little direct influence, its very well known, so people recognize the name, the genre and what it means as a character in that world.. death.. even if you're the main hero.
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| Had to cut off the NSFW bits.. KDM is quite the horrific game |
Finally Kingdom Death taught me two main points, Get your players into the game quickly, so they're invested faster, and give them showdowns, because we can always fight off small hoardes of mini monsters, but its the boss monster we're trying to get to.
So, giving your readers / audience a nice quick title with plausible descriptions of your game will likely bring in interested people.. Or, scare them away if its not what they're looking for..
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| Darkest Dungeon, It indeed looks like something I'd quote, if I'd even played it. someday.. someday.. |
Cataclyzm is being played (and play tested) at Concentric this Saturday and Sunday (15th and 16th of September 2018). I'll do a write up of the results.
The premise: (if you are unaware), Your characters have awoken, strangely, in the dark, small fungal light sources exist, but not much else, yet at some distance, something else has awoken and it seems to sense you, smells you.. hungers for you. It approaches. You glance around at others also awakening, quickly you scramble for something, anything.. too late, it is upon you.. scratching biting, can you kill it before it kills you.
Character Creation is only partly played out during this first combat, then added to in the next phase, and completed over several phases as your characters slowly begin to remember their pasts and how they got here.. I won't include any spoilers.. but you must survive to unlock the secrets.
Stay tuned for more.
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