This is an old checklist from the FE2 wiki that we were going to use to gauge how close we were to winning the contest. This was to be used with other entries that were monitored on this site to see how ours compares against theirs. This isn't what the judges are using by any means, but it might look similar to this checklist based on what we've seen in previous contests. Anyway feel free to take a look. It might be helpful for you all that are in polish mode. How To Win This Contest Please excuse the raw formatting. The wiki format doesn't seem to copy properly. -_-

Wow, I got quoted.

If you want some filler for Kudo points, the key thing to remember that it's up to the judges to decide how to award points (that goes for everything apart from a few key items like including at least 2 elements and running on the hardware).

So if you are deliberately trying to make an entry purely designed to win (well I guess who wouldn't), don't try and follow the "teach the test" approach. If you want to win, you should focus on impressing the judges with how good your game is (graphics, gameplay, amazing never seen before features/techniques), while avoiding any rough edges the judges could cut themselves on (buggy menus, incomplete or worse incorrect manuals, broken or half done features).

While polish is technically only some of your score, applying polish to make your entry shiny and spotless is probably the best way to get points in all categories (i.e. in graphics you might have some amazing stuff, but if the judge gets jerked out of their eye candy trip by some polygon aboniation, it will hurt the graphic score because the graphics where not polished).

Thank you Michalson. I should have actually stated the purpose of this document ahead of time. While it is important to have a good entry, this document can also help you gauge where you're at so you can realisticly assess where you are on the scale of Win to Not Win. Basically by breaking down each category, you can better categorize your strengths and weaknesses and other entries strengths and weaknesses. So pay close attention to the "Introduction" of the document.

Quote:
This document is designed to be used as a checklist throughout the development process. This document should only be used in the QA process and not in the Development or Design process.

In other words, anyone who chooses to use this document or make a derrivitive of it should only use this as a means of controlling, but not implementing your game design process.

Also, note that you were quoted in the project wiki which was monitored by everyone working on the project. ;)


Also, bump and thank you posts are appreciated. ;)

Thanks nessie, you rock!~~~~ ^__^^^_^

(besides the whole Pulling Out Of The Contest At The Last Minute(tm) thing :P)

-Know Thy Target Market-

A lesson in market research

A key to any business, and games are business, is to know your target market. Basically, who are you making the game for? It is dangerous not to ask the simple question of, "What do our players want?" when making games.

In games you have a Publisher, Developer and Customer. Well the "Publisher" in this case would be GameDev.net. The "Developer" would be 3rd party and those people would be the contestants. The "Customer" or "Target Market" would be the judges. Now it only makes sense to ask who these people are. Obviously we can't ask who they are exactly, but this applies to any market research. So basically we just need to have a feel for who we're making games for. These are the emails that were sent.

Quote:
From: Timothy Barnes
Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2005 6:22 PM
To: Kevin Hawkins
Cc: Scott Hilbert
Subject: [4e4] Target Market

Hello Kevin,

Since you're running the contest as if GDNet was the publisher and we the developers are the 3rd party, then I'd like to ask a few standard 3rd party questions.

#1 - Who is our target market? Basically, who are the judges? I know it would be unfair to ask who exactly the judges are, so I'm really just asking what types of games they play. If our judges aren't the target market, then are the judges judging objectively for a specific target market? If thats the case, then who are those people?

#2 - How much do they play games?

#3 - Do they like story based games or action based games?

#4 - If they play FPS games, how often do they play them?

#5 - Do they like FPS games? Why?

Any information regarding this would be extremely helpful. I figured that emailing you and PMing you would be the best way to ask this question to preserve the anonymitity of the judges.

Thanks for any information you can provide for my team. This will definitely help us provide a much more appealing game to our target market.

Thanks,
Tim

And the reply was...

Quote:
From: Kevin Hawkins
To: Timothy Barnes
Cc: Scott Hilbert
Subject: RE: [4e4] Target Market
Date: Sun 08/21/05 06:31 PM

1. Unfortunately, the judges haven't been finalized yet. But a good target market would be more of the action space than adventure/rpg. The judges will be objective, though.

2. Varies, but leaning toward the more casual gamer than the hardcore.

3. Answered by #1.

4. Mostly play FPS games. Play them for the action.

I know it's short, but I don't have much information about the judges yet either since they haven't been determined. Good luck,


Kevin

So there you have it folks. In regards to applying this to your contest entry, then know this...you can know that emphasizing on the exciting parts may produce better feedback than emphasizing on story for example. While the judges are going to be objective, it is still safe to say that pleasing their desires will yeild better results.

So here's what I recommend on a per case basis:
1. If you have a first person shooter - Make sure its exciting and action packed. Make sure its up to spec with other first person shooters. Do not diverge too far from the norm as your game will be under heavy scrutiny by those who play first person shooters. I would apply this to other action based games too.

2. If your game is an RTS - Make sure its really fun. Test your game on first person shooter gamers. Mainly those who play common stuff like Halo. Those people are less likely to have a "tainted" view on what an RTS game is like. Those people will probably give you the purest view on how your game feels from a non-RTS gamers perspective.

3. If your game is a sidescroller - The judges are likely to have played mario and sonic and all those oldies and goodies. Make sure your mechanics are easy to use and fun to play with. If you have anything awkward, then bug it and have your team fix it.

I think you can see a common theme here. Basically I would just recommend that your game is fun. The judges are intelligent people and are probably not going to be ignorant to any specific genre, but you can give yourself more leverage if you prepare your entry with the expectation that they only play action games.

So how do we test fun? Focus groups of course...

- FOCUS GROUPS - READ THIS -

If you intend to skip this whole post, then I recommend you read this at least.

If there's one thing I can tell you now, its to test your game with as many people as possible. I used to work at a game studio and they would spend a lot of time and money to have focus groups every month. Sometimes it came down to a weekly event. Listen to your players, make sure they don't get stuck, frustrated or bored. Test with EVERYONE. Use your friends, use your family, use your classmates, use coworkers. (as long as it isn't conflict of interest) Whoever you can. Just word of caution though, don't take everyone's advice too seriously. Obviously you must use proper judgement when people tell you things based on who they are, what they play, and what they know.

Anyway there's a reason for all this testing.

#1 - You can find frustrating parts of your game
#2 - You can find boring parts of your game
#3 - You can find out what you need to take out
#4 - You can find bugs
#5 - You can get a whole new perspective on your game

The first two are important factors because with any form of entertainment, you must never break suspension of disbelief. (That is unless you're doing some sort of fancy pants art crap that normal people don't like) Once you break suspension of disbelief then your player no longer pays attention to the story of your game. They begin to look at your game from a negative view and start scrutinizing things. Thats why producing effective games is actually harder than it seems.

The 3rd and 4th thing are two topics that are hard to accept by any developer. You must not be passive aggressive when dealing with this particular part. Most of you have probably fallen in love with your project and believe that its the best thing in the world. Well you must break that preconception and look at it objectively. If there is a common dislike for a feature in your game amongst your players, then you need to take it out. Same with bugs. If your player finds a bug then you need to write it up in your database and have your development team take care if it.

Also, I would recommend that when you approach people for testing, you ask them to test your game without telling them you're the developer. You could tell them you're just doing a survey for a class or something. Once you tell them you're the developer then your game will always be rated higher than it should. Also, the best people to find are people that haven't played your game yet.

Anyway thats everything I have for now. I'll post more later when I can think of it.