Nobody Wants to Read Your Design

by Jesse Schell

It’s simple. Would you rather read this:

When starting the game the player (and AI) have three dice with the four elements on them, earth, air, water, fire. The player and AI roll their dice onto the screen and choose which three elements to use in their spells. Both players get access to all dice rolled. Spells go off simultaneously, though quicker spells take effect sooner, thus if you have a fast blocking spell it might prevent the opponents spell from hitting you, unless his spell is quicker still.

This is also a game of trial and error, experimenting with mixing and matching the elements to see what happens. Use three fires together and it explodes in your face causing damage. Use two fires and an air and you get a fireball shooting across the screen and into your opponent's face. Place the air before the two fires and it's quicker, place it after and it's slower but has a chance to avoid blockage, place it in the middle and you get a little more damage.

Or this:To start with, both players choose three dice from their collection. The game rolls the dice and you get something like this:

Those are both from Magic Dice Duels by Palenoue. The art is fancy, but even stick figures would have done the job!

How about Tic Tac Toe?Do you prefer…

Tic Tac Toe RulesOverviewTic Tac Toe is a two-player game where the first player to connect a line of pieces from one side or corner of the board to the other wins. With perfect play, the game cannot be won.BoardThe standard board size is 3x3, but it is possible to play with grids of many different sizes. PiecesEach player starts with no pieces on the board, but has an unlimited supply of pieces to place on the board.RulesX moves first.A piece may be placed on any empty space.A player wins by being the first to connect a line of friendly pieces from one side or corner of the board to the other.The game ends when either one player wins or it is no longer possible for a player to win (in which case the result is a draw).

Or this:Tic-tac-toe is a game for two players, X and O, who take turns marking the spaces in a 3×3 grid:

The player who succeeds in placing three respective marks in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row wins the game.

The following example game is won by the first player, X:

Real-world game pitches mostly happen with powerpoint, rarely with a pure text document

There is something about a picture/text balance that lets the brain apprehend game designs more easily.

GameSprout supports the insertion of images into your design.

If you want people to see, understand, and vote for your idea, put in some pictures!

They don’t need to be fancy.

Because nobody likes a wall of text.

We are working to make GameSprout more image and video friendly. We welcome your

suggestions about how to make that happen.

But, for God’s sake, don’t wait for us – illustrate your designs right away!