Working on Skyward Collapse marketing copy...

[x4000]

Trying to get this figured out so that it pitches the game in a vastly briefer format than I've managed to do so far.  Comments welcome!  I know that at the time of this writing none of you have actually played the game yet, but that's actually okay; if you're in this forum, you've probably read a ton about the game.  So here's what we're working on so far, and I'll revise this post as suggestions come in:


Game Description
How do you balance -- and indeed encourage -- a war between factions without letting either side obliterate the other?  How do you rule over gods, creatures, and men who refuse to obey you?  How do you build a landscape of villages when bandits and mythology are conspiring to tear it down?  Skyward Collapse places you into the role of The Creator, and frees you to tackle these problems your own way.  Brought to you by the developer of the modern strategy classic AI War: Fleet Command, Arcen's second full strategy title is equally unique (but far easier to learn): a turn-based 4x strategic god-game.

Your task is to build and populate the floating continent of Luminith.  You create -- but cannot control -- gods, creatures, and artifacts from both Greek and Norse mythology.  The power you wield with these is immense: Heimdall's horn causes everyone outdoors to drop dead, for crying out loud.  Your task is to keep both factions alive and fighting until The Master calls you home -- but this is harder than it sounds.  Bandit Keeps pop up periodically, as do Woes such as floods, serial killers, guild strikes, and vegetarian uprisings.  Every game plays out differently, and you'll need even the craziest of your powers in order to survive what lies in store for you.

Game Features
* A turn-based strategic god-game where you control neither faction, but instead strive to maintain the balance of power.
* Make towns and war as the boardgame-like floating continent continues to construct itself around you.
* Persuade your minions into doing what you want by controlling the circumstances of their (brief) lives.
* 16 gods, each with unique passive abilities and three active powers, help you further your goals as you pass into the Age of Monsters.
* Level up your player profile by winning games. Twelve unlockable buildings in all!
* Straightforward controls paired with an intuitive and helpful interface make this an easy title to pick up... but the strategy runs deep.
* Multiple difficulty levels let you play a very relaxed game up to a nail-bitingly difficult one.  There's no one best way to win!
* Co-op multiplayer for up to 8 players.

[Mick]

Well, I really want to play it, so this must be doing its job.

[madcow]

Maybe its just me, but I don't really like the line  "without letting the other side commit genocide."  Maybe others could weigh in, but I would personally prefer something like "without letting one side wipe out the other." or "keep the war perpetual and in check, without one side overpowering the other."

Saying this is a game where you need to prevent the other side from committing genocide just rubs me the wrong way, its just that specific phrasing.

[x4000]

Okay, I think that this is tighter wording in general:

How do you balance -- and indeed encourage -- a war between villages without letting either side win?

[Mick]

I think the phrase "balance of power" should be worked in.

[x4000]

Great idea, worked that into the first bullet point.

Also other changes to the top description paragraphs from emailed notes from Keith.

[PokerChen]

How wordy should it really be? Here are some of my impressions with biases towards subtlety. Feel three to take and refine anything that jumps out.

On Game Description..
I'm not all that keen on 100% second-person descriptions, and for the lack of a better term, the logic-flow tastes of US-marketing influences (i.e. question, answer, method triplet). Wouldn't actually catch me all that well. My first attempt to rephrase it thus:

Enter the role of a conflicted Creator, tasked to create an endless arms-race that is balanced on a knife-edge. In this living board game, you will create two proud civilisations and their pantheons as the pieces rise into place. Under their own free will, they will thrive, build, and most of all massacre each other across the floating world of Luminith. Your celestial master is inscrutable, and his demands are unyielding. He will have maximum carnage. What does it take to achieve stalemate in the midst of powerful artifacts and capricious godlings? Will you achieve your master's perfect vision, or will you fade into obscurity as just another myth?

Shepherd the unwilling. Fuel their bloodlust. Maintain absolute equilibrium.


Game Features...
> * Choose from among 16 gods, each with unique passive abilities and active powers, to further your goals during rounds 2 and 3 of each game.

I would suggest: "...to further your goals as the game develops over three phases."

[x4000]

That's mostly a really different style from what I'm terribly comfortable with.  It also comes off a little generic to me, just because the statements there are so broad that they could refer to anything.  I'm not saying that the way I've started with it is the only way I'll consider, but I think it gets the uniqueness across better; and let's be honest, this is all about you-the-player in a god game.  You're not controlling an avatar, as with most games.  Hence the second person.  But I think a lot of that is just down to taste, honestly.

Under the game features one, very good note, and I've changed that.

[Cinth]

Enter the role of a conflicted Creator, tasked to create an endless arms-race that is balanced on a knife-edge. In this living board game, you will create two proud civilisations and their pantheons as the pieces rise into place. Under their own free will, they will thrive, build, and most of all massacre each other across the floating world of Luminith. Your celestial master is inscrutable, and his demands are unyielding. He will have maximum carnage. What does it take to achieve stalemate in the midst of powerful artifacts and capricious godlings? Will you achieve your master's perfect vision, or will you fade into obscurity as just another myth?

Shepherd the unwilling. Fuel their bloodlust. Maintain absolute equilibrium.

To me this reads like the flavor text on the back of a console game case/box.

[JAlfredGoodwin]

Arcen's second full strategy tile

Title?

How do you build larger towns while bandits and powerful artifacts are upending them?

Upend is an unusual and IMO poor word choice.  Perhaps, "while bandits and powerful artifacts try to tear them down?"

Also, if you are the Creator, then how do you have a Celestial Master? Perhaps it would be better to say something like World Builder?

[x4000]

Great on the first two notes, changed -- thanks.

In terms of The Creator and The Master, that's what they are actually called in the game, and that won't change.  There is a humorous thing coming soon that will make more of the backstory clear.  At any rate, you're the upper-middle management of the cosmos, basically.

[JAlfredGoodwin]

Great on the first two notes, changed -- thanks.

In terms of The Creator and The Master, that's what they are actually called in the game, and that won't change.  There is a humorous thing coming soon that will make more of the backstory clear.  At any rate, you're the upper-middle management of the cosmos, basically.

Does that mean that in Round 2 you get a trophy wife and Round 3 you are afflicted by swivel-chair spread and male pattern baldness?

[PokerChen]

As an aside, while it's all good here on the forums, I think there needs to be an effort in the blurb/previews to discourage the association of the game itself to middle-management. Who wants to play a middle-management game? ;P

[x4000]

@JAlfredGoodwin: Hahaha, unfortunately not, but that's funny.

@zharmad: That's not something we're actively promoting, for sure!  But it's something that I find humorous, and we're always looking at the funnier side of this game.  In the same way that Boatmurdered is the hilarious side of a grim situation in DF, if that makes sense.  Or the same way that some of the murderous things the AI does in AI War are humorous.  I like that kind of humor.

In the case of The Master, we needed him in order to have the Edicts make any kind of sense.  Those were a player suggestion, and it fit really well with what we were doing; now I can't imagine the structure of the game long-term without the edicts!  But in order to have edicts to you-the-creator, there had to be some sort of higher-level entity that is giving those edicts.  Hence... a bit of a demotion.

[cupogoodness]

As an aside, while it's all good here on the forums, I think there needs to be an effort in the blurb/previews to discourage the association of the game itself to middle-management. Who wants to play a middle-management game? ;P

Depends on how fun the gameplay is. I think press would absolutely love a middle-management themed game from an indie developer (if it was enjoyable to play).