Game Design: The Deck ( X-Men example)
When your working you usually have to do a couple of different things but most likely you will have to create a Deck next.
The Deck is basically the Power Point or Keynote presentation of your game. You will be submitting this to the company that has requested the game - so let’s say our company is Marvel since we are doing X-Men right now.
What a lot of people forget to do is this - write an outline for your deck! This outline will make your life so simple! Really at the end of the day you will need these things.
1- The outline: This will have all the copy (text) to go in the game. It will also call out what kind of images you think you want for the presentation.
2- Images: This can be of gameplay ideas or just awesome images that represent what you are talking about.
3- Custom backgrounds: I know Steve Jobs put the seal of approval on the gradient background but think of this as half game design and marketing pitch. You need to make someone say WOW when they see your presentation. You will need these types of backgrounds to make the magic happen.
Template background that can support a title and bottom labels.
The Outline for the presentation can go like this.
X-Men standing fighting an off screen enemy
Take the front cover and make it smaller - to put on the right side of the page.
Solo or Co-Op play and become Wolverine, Cyclopes, Beast or Storm!
Battle the infamous Magneto and an array of villains!
Each hero has his own fighting style.
Replay value is key. Earn experience, upgrade your Hero, and replay levels to earn maximum rankings on each.
Image of Wolverine with call outs to his attacking arms, defense, speed and special move (like he is being analyzed by some weird terminator)
Classic side-scrolling brawler gameplay and view
Pick up and play but deep and rewarding combat system
Attack, defense, speed, special move
Special upgrades for each Heros!
Call in character to switch between two characters at once.
Slide 4 (Gameplay Objectives)
Concept of an implied New York City, Statue of Liberty in the BG, character running in a side scrolling environment.
Travel from level to level via comic book pages!
In-level, destroy sentinels, and destroy advanced robotic future soldiers that the US government has sent to destroy ALL MUTANTS!
Crazy bosses end out each level! We are talking full screen madness with simple puzzle mechanics - think Contra in flavor.
Slide 5 (Art – Comic comes to life!)
Image of concept that looks in game and comic
Our mission is to play the comic!
The concept shown here is very close tonally and artistically
We want this to be the first game that someone says “I actually saw comic pages come to life!”
X-Box game controller with labels calling actions out.
Character Call In: L or R Shoulder Buttons
Slide 7 (Company History)
Anything you have about your company. Screenshots or your logo.
Call out amazing achievements
Recognition from magazines?
Stuff like this - only 3 things do not make it long.
Slide 8 (Thanks for Reading!)
Close up of Professor X - he is trying to mind control you!
Let's set the standard for Brawlers and make something awesome!
This is the game we have been waiting for!
Just to put this out there, this is not God-nor-Gold. This is JUST a simple template of things you MIGHT want to cover. You might want to add other slides like:
Monetization ( if your game needs it)
These are all things that will make your pitch solid. Now I want to point out another thing. I did not put a whole lot of info on these pages. This Deck is meant to gain someones interest. This interest should spark a phone call or email asking questions. Even better you will get to pitch it and explain orally more of the details. Remember the producers that read these don’t have time to read a novel, keep it simple silly.
This also needs to be created with the person that you are going to pitch too in mind. If you have worked with this person before and you KNOW they like pictures then make sure your pictures rock and you can explain everything really well. If they don’t care about images but want to get more nuts-n-bolts then you might want to ease down on how many images you put in. This is a sweet science that is heavily based on relationship so you can make sure you deliver something familiar to the person you are trying to win over.
The reason I called out the images in this outline is so you can start to visualize everything about how this will look to someone. This will also give your artist solid direction when you pitch to him what you need for this presentation.
I guess the next thing I would have to show you is what one of these pitches look like. Let me see if I can find something to put up this week.
Remember to catch me at: http://www.entertainmentartsacademy.com/
I am working on an awesome game design course for the school which literally has made plenty of companies millions-n-millions of dollars. The education on this site is so low-priced too - $20 bucks a month...yeah that is it!
This is something you don’t want to miss.
