Author: Ian

Website Update Part 1

This morning I got to take care of some long overdue housekeeping with this site.  Since I have two domains, soulcastergame.com and magicaltimebean.com, it was time to merge them.  90% of links to this site were using soulcastergame.com, but with the advent of Escape Goat and other future IP’s, it’s definitely time to put it all under the magicaltimebean banner.  Fortunately, BlueHost makes it easy to set up wildcard 301 redirects to handle this, and the lore of the internet tells me Google should preserve my pagerank.

I also properly categorized these posts and added them to a menu bar at the top.  The Articles will have the most interesting stuff, because these are the thoughtful essays I write about every so often.

In preparation for Escape Goat, I’ll be adding some graphics finally, and should have a dedicated page for it within the next week.  Some other cool stuff to follow as well, stay tuned.

 

EasyStorage is Easy

Today was devoted to:

  1. Installing Nick Gravelyn’s fantastic EasyStorage code base into Escape Goat, and replacing my existing storage class. (What I had was very similar to EasyStorage, with fewer features, but I figured it was better safe than sorry since ES is very thoroughly tested for edge cases.)
  2. Improving perfomance with ANTS – literally under an hour’s work to reduce time spent in my collision checking routine by about 50%.  Very hard to get the game to slow down now.
  3. Fixing a couple typo’s in the story text for the game.
I also met up with Keith to discuss my impressions of his latest creation-in-progress, 7 Grand Steps, which is shaping up very nicely, and was totally a pleasure to spend time with.

One More Week…

Escape Goat has lost its first round against the monster king that is Peer Review, but it shall rise again in six days’ time…

How To Contact the Press About Your Indie Game

My favorite talk from IndieCade last week was Sue Bohle’s PR Clinic.  I could hardly take notes fast enough.  When I mentioned this talk on Twitter, I got some interest from people who couldn’t attend and wanted to know the basics.  So here’s my distillation of Sue’s PR principles.

This is all based on the notes I took, some of which became illegible scrawls, with missing pieces filled in from memory.  My apologies to Sue if I end up misrepresenting anything she said.  I think this is pretty close though.

How to Get The Press Interested

  1. Describe what is unique and distinctive about your game. What stands out about its production, team, concept, to create an interesting story?
  2. A fun event such as a contest related to your game could generate interest
  3. Always respond to emails from editors promptly, and assume their time is very precious
  4. Don’t use attachments!  Put the press release in the body of the email, and use links to your screenshots.  (Would you open an email with an attachment from someone you don’t know?)
  5. Gather 12 great screenshots.  Pick 3 sites you want to get coverage on more than the others, and send them two exclusive screenshots apiece.  Send the others to the remaining sites as non-exclusive.
  6. Two movies are better than one… but one is essential.  Make a trailer.  Need an idea for a second movie?  Behind the scenes, developer interview, stuff like that.
  7. Look at the recipient’s website before you blindly send a PR… would they even be interested?

Elements of a Press Release

  1. Header (and email subject) should be a grabber.  This may be your only chance to get the writer interested in your game.
  2. First paragraph: Location & Date (like a news story), then answer who-what-when-where about your game in 35-50 words.  Imagine you have ten seconds to describe your game.
  3. Second paragraph: What amazing, interesting and unique features does your game have? Use a bullet point list. Not too many items, maybe 4-8.
  4. Third paragraph: quote from the developer (you) “in quotes.”  This is the personal touch.  Interview yourself.
  5. End with a call to action. Do you want them to check out your review copy? Set up an interview? Figure out what the whole point of the email was.
  6. Write the whole thing like a journalist would. A well-crafted press release could be copy-pasted verbatim and look like a news story.
I found this talk extremely informative, since I definitely violated many of these principles in the past.  I hope you find it useful as well.
Have anything to add?  Please comment!