Week 1: Initial game pitches

For the first tutorial, everyone with a game idea presented their pitch; including me.

It seemed like a marathon event that ran from 9 til 2:40.

I elected to present two ideas- a "party-based platformer", and an RTS called "Forbidden Forest". I received some very good feedback that helped me to decide which game to stick with for next week's pitches and how it can be improved.

The largest and most important pieces of feedback I recieved were to cut back my scope for the first game, and to narrow down my idea for the second game. Some of the implied feedback that I picked up on is that my first idea requires a sharper, more eye-catching and unique hook.
Lazaros suggested that in order to properly develop my game ideas, I should cut one now.
If I am to cut an idea, my intuition says I should stick with the party-based platformer. This is because it seemed to have a warmer audience reaction, and possibly more potential. More reflection on this will come in a later blog post.

Some of the stand-out pitches of the day (from my view) included:

• Skeleton Wars
• The Red Enemy
• Unnamed Side-Scrolling Arcade Shooter & Unnamed RPG Racing Game

Skeleton Wars seemed like a very novel concept- the use of bones as a team-wide health resource. I enjoyed the uniqueness of this mechanic, and thought that some of the other less interesting areas of gameplay (combat, match objectives) could be changed to embrace the bones mechanic more fully.
I personally am wary of working on the project, simply due to the fact that my ideal vision for the game may be too different to the pitcher's.

The Red Enemy had a great setting and narrative. I feel that the gameplay described may be somewhat lacking, but this could be changed to more fully embrace the game's strong points- the story.

The ideas presented by Robert (Unnamed Side-Scrolling Arcade Shooter & Unnamed RPG Racing Game) were very novel and eye-catching! Unfortunately he seemed to require no further programmers.

I've requested the presenters of these games as "connections" on LinkedIn.