Greenlighting Process

Games: From Concept to Greenlight Approval

The primary goal of the Game Deisgn Studio I class is to create a large number of game design concepts, prototype and evaluate them, and then select the best of these ideas for realization as a functional computer game during the rest of the year.

Creation of new ideas occurs via a process of students giving a series of three game pitches (a presentation of a game idea) over the first three weeks. Over 85 students are expected in the class, so there will be over 250 game ideas pitched. Each pitch will receive brief feedback from the TAs, and more extensive feedback will be given in TA office hours.

Once all three pitches are complete, every student will select one of their three ideas to go forward. Each student will then individually develop their game idea via the creation of a non-digital prototype, and then a digital prototype. 

From the pool of ~85 student game ideas, there will be two stages of downselect to choose the ~15-20 games that will be greenlit. In the first downselect, all students will give a final pitch of their game concept in week 8 of the class. At the end of these pitches there will be 28 games selected by the instructor and TAs, and an additional 5 games selected by a vote of the class, for a total of 33 games. 

At the Greenlight Final pitches (early week 9), an external judges panel will select 10-15 games, which will be "greenlit". The class will select an additional 5 games by voting. All greenlit games will go forward for development in Winter and Spring (i.e., about half to 2/3 of the games in the finals will be greenlit). In the end, the best 6-7% of all game ideas generated in the class will go forward.

Game Categories

The greenlight process will consider many factors in selecting the best game concepts. One of these is a series of game type categories, and associated limits for total number of games that will be greenlit in that category. When developing game concepts keep in mind that a game concept in a less popular category will have a better likelihood of approval.

For 2015/16 the game categories are:

Open category (5 games maximum): A game that does not fit one of the other categories, and would generally be expected to be a novel computer game running on a PC or mobile platform using standard controllers.

Rhetorically focused game (5 games maximum): This category encompasses games designed to explore a particular social issue, be it a persuasive game, or a game design centered around values-based play. 

Social media game (2 games maximum): A game that makes non-trivial use of a social media platform (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) in its gameplay.

Game using a non-traditional/custom hardware controller and/or game cockpit (4 games maximum): A game concept that involves the use of novel user interface hardware, or a novel game cockpit. The custom controller could be a custom hardware device created by the game team, or some existing user input device that is not in widespread use as a game controller. An example commercial controller that would fit this category is the Novint Falcon, and an example of a commercial cockpit is theVolair Sim. UnoJoy is a library for creating custom controllers using an Arduino board. Games made using the Kinect would also qualify for this category, as would games that make use of custom hardware of any form (e.g., custom hardware with functionality similar to the Skylanders figures).

Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality game (3 games maximum): A game created using a commercial virtual reality headset, such as the Oculus Rift, or an augmented reality headset, such as Seebright, or an augmented reality library for a mobile device.

Game designed around a specific visual art style (2 games maximum): A game where the concept was built around a specific visual art style, where the art style serves as a guiding principle in the design of the game, and other aspects of the game are secondary to achieving the specific visual style. Games such as Proteus and Mirror Moon EP are games you might imagine resulting from an "art direction primary" design process.

Game designed around a specific audio track or style (2 games maximum): A game where the concept was built around a specific audio track or interesting audio style. Such a game might explore what a music video would be in game form (i.e., making a game matched to a specific song), or pick an unusual musical style (e.g., Spanish flamenco) and build a game matched to it. Game concepts will ideally explore beyond simple button-mashing rhythm-match games.

Innovation in an existing genre (5 games maximum): A game that is firmly rooted in the conventions and approaches of a specific game genre, but which is innovating within the genre in some non-trivial way. Examples of such games in the shmup genre are Everyday Shooter and Resogun.

Interactive art experience (2 experiences maximum): An interactive experience whose goal is to create a novel experience for the player/experiencer. Such experiences may have only light game elements, and may not be entirely recognizable as a game. They will be evaluated using an art frame of reference, not a game frame.

The instructor and TAs recognize that these categories have fuzzy boundaries, and will be somewhat liberal in our interpretation of whether a game fits within a category. That said, the instructor, with input from the TAs, will be the final arbiter of whether a game concept fits a given category. As well, the instructor reserves the right to change the number of games admitted in each category depending on the distribution of game concepts to categories (large quantities of excellent game concepts in a given category might lead to an increase in the number of games greenlit in that category).