unWritten Continuum

Well, I’ve recently playtesed it and it went great. The design process is done. Now I need to playtest the hell out of the thing. There are some little details that need to be ironed out, but that should just take a couple more in house playtests. 

My biggest concern now is making sure the text is clear and that people can play it when I’m not there to teach it to them. I’ve got several people I can tap on the shoulder for help. However, they’ve played it. I fear that they might make assumptions based on prior knowledge that might not get caught before publishing. 

Anyway, that’s were I’m at today. Oh yeah, I took the playtest off line until I can edit it’s current version. That should take a couple of days or so… Please be patient. 

I want my game book to have 3 actual plays. One for each Narrative Focus; dramatic, cinematic, and fantastic.

These are my ideas, tell me (again) what you think.

Dramatic,

I’d like to do some high fantasy, forgotten realms type setting, with characters that are dealing with diplomatic issues between two struggling nations or perhaps somethng that deals with a group of adventurers setting out to retrieve the great macguffin that will save the world. The story will be about the relationships that are built and fall apart during this process. mighty battles and death defying stunts will not be in the conflicts, those will be accepted cart blanche. The conflicts will be dealing with the relationships between the heroes and what happens on their journey… What happens when the musclebound barbarian goes into town and his lady love finds the wizard absolutely “charming.”

Cinematic

this game should be a starcraft like game. Imagine 3 societies against each other game. Each player represents a different society or faction.

Fantastic

The 3 bugs try to escape a mad scientists mad laboratory. I’m thinking modern day, in the mountains, we can have… wait, what if its mice, or ferrets, or rats… we’ll decide later, but you get the gist of the idea. Think “my life with master” meets “a bug’s life.” What do you think? Genius?

I’m trying to figure out how to build buzz for my game and Justin D. Jacobson designer of Passages asked in this thread why people aren’t buying his game. This is what i came up with based on the thread.

actual plays
theme = thematic purpose, how does it address its theme?
tag line (elevator pitch)
how is the game unique? What does it do?
situation generators?
use my blog!!!
keep price in the low $20’s, don’t go over $30.

Some of those are obvous, while others I struggle with. Like the tag line, or situation generators.

So any of you have any ideas of how to address these issues? can you come up with others I should consider?

[edit] There’s also this to consider.