IGF - Some tips if you want to submit a game

Registrations for IGF 2015 are opened since 5 weeks, you have until the end of october to submit your game. I think it's the right moment to share some advice that I have been gathering as both a participant and a judge.

In 2008 we submitted Penguins Arena to the IGF, we did not necessarily had great ambitions but as our game offered some gameplay innovations (for a FPS) we chose to try and take a chance.

We were really disappointed after realizing our game was only tested by one judge for just a few minutes... As for a lot of developers these recent years, I was a bit angry against the IGF organization. Since then, they made certain internal efforts to avoid the occurrence of this kind of problem.

IGF pavilion GDC 2012 - © Jonathan Brodsky

Last year, they offered every concerned individual the chance to register as a judge. I had the privilege of being selected and be a part of the 375 judges of the IGF.

The end of 2013 has been both exciting and exhausting. In a few weeks, we had to play and evaluate a maximum of games from 656 submitted. I did not get enough sleep at that time but I was able to rate 74 games, it has been one of my best video game related experiences in the past 10 years!

In the light of that double-hatted "judge-developer" experience, I want to give some advice to those who want to submit their game to the IGF 2015.

The following reflect my own experience, other judges might disagree with my view.

You are on the wrong track if:

- Your game takes time to be tested properly.
The first game I had to play was a kind of Choose your own adventure book, 250 000 words about wrestling, I kid you not. The worst part is that I'm sure it is a great game in its genre, well received on the AppStore, its developers are specialized in this type of games. However, we have hundreds of games to consider in only 3 weeks.

- Your game is too average.
Take 10 minutes to compare your game to last year's finalists. If you feel it is not on par with at least the honorable mentions, don't be disappointed if it doesn't get selected.

- Your game is bad.
Releasing bellow than average or unoriginal games happened to all of us. Be honest with yourself, is it really worth submitting this particular game to contests like the IGF? (The answer might be no)

- Your game has IAP.
I don't really want to tiptoe with this one, frankly I doubt I have ever encountered a single interesting game that featured IAP. It is true for games that were submitted to IGF, but it seems true for most mobile games as well. 95% of the time, they influence gameplay mechanics or the way the game is built, like it or not. The remaining 5% is related to buying hats.

On a related subject you should watch this presentation by Jonathan Blow, "The Medium is the Message".

In all these cases, don't get big expectations from the IGF. Nevertheless it could be interesting to get listed on the official game listing, some websites might talk about your game (often no more than a screenshot and a description of your game). Best case scenario, you get feedback from the jury.

It may be worth the $100 it takes to participate!

But to be frank, as a judge, it was often bothering to take some time and evaluate games that are clearly not relevant to the IGF's basics.

You have a chance even if:

- Your game is not finished.
We often see finalists games that are far or very far from being finished.

- Your game has been released before IGF and already got noticed.
Games are assigned to each judge but they still can go download other games (to some extent) and rate them. That's why games that have been released a few month before the IGF and already have a good visibility are probably going to get several votes from the judges. Keep in mind that getting a lot of votes at this point in the judging process does not guarantee success but it may reinforce the chance your game has to appear as a finalist.

Nuovo Finalistes

Whether you have a chance or not, here some advice:

- If you work with an engine that allows you to build Mac/Linux versions in addition to a PC version, submit them! It's a shame not to receive potential votes because of laziness. Without going in too much details, the most commented games were those available on Mac and PC, that's no coincidence in my opinion.

- If your game runs on Unity3D, you can submit a web version but be kind enough to provide Mac/PC/Linux builds. Judges might not want to play games that require an internet connection.

- In short, submit your game to run on a maximum of systems, it does help.
For the record, one of the potential favorites did submit a Mac only version of his game for the first 2 weeks... while the game was made with Unity3D! It is not very effective.

- You have the possibility to write little notes to the judge's intention, do it! Explain who you are, how the development went, if the game is finished or not, why your game is worth playing.

- Offer builds with cheat codes if you're afraid that judges won't have time to reach the most interesting parts of your game.

- I often forget to read the notes developers leave for judges but I've always opened the readme.txt file that were accompanying games. It holds information about the game's current state, the way to play it (keybindings, supported hardware)

- It might not be the case of all judges but I enjoyed having a rough indication of the time needed to beat the game. I think it offer me better testing conditions.

- If you're hosting your game for the judges, make sure your hosting is good. When it's already 11:30pm and I’m still an hour away from finishing to download a demo at 22kb/s I really feel like clicking on "cancel" and move on to another game.

- Don't force players to use a gamepad, much less a specific gamepad (X360 or PS3) once again, it closes doors for your game.

- Answer the jury's questions, and don't wait 3 days to do so. If the jury is asking something, it's probably because they're encountering some technical issue, they're certainly not the only one. The more you wait, the more judges are likely to switch to other games.

- At the end of the contest you are going to receive comments from the judges that have tested your game. You are going to hate most of them but keep in mind these are very important. They are the sincere opinion of people that don't have to coddle you. This is the kind of feedback you rarely get and must value!

IGF Awards 2014 - © GDC

PS1: While finishing this article, I stumbled upon one written by Robert Yang, on which you will find other pieces of advice. It is worth reading.

PS2: IGF just posted about their judging process, go read it!

This article was translated from my french blog post with the help of KominAaa (AGHARTA studio) and Thomas (@mrhelmut).