Notes from Saturday: Pitch Your Game Panel

This panel was held in the annex building of the convention center among the teaming throngs of crazy tabletop gamers. While I was hoping for actual thought out gaming pitches, ultimately, this panel was mostly tongue and cheek, but that didnt make it any less fun. Actually it probably made it more entertaining. Basically the plan was to have two rounds of judging. The first round consisted of about 50 initial pitches of about 20-45 seconds in length which were either ok'd or nixed immediately. Those games ok'd in the initial round made it to round 2. After the second round, the panel judges chose a 3 winners who got some prize (I have no idea what).

One thing that made this panel super interesting was the fact that a guy from a Day 1 panel we attended about actually preparing your serious game idea for a serious pitch to a serious game publisher sat directly in front of us and began making snarky comments along with us as the session wore on. This guy works in Bus Dev for Namco Bandai and informed us during his panel that he gets 1500-2000 pitches per year and ultimately only green lights ~5 games, so it was pretty interesting to hear his opinions on the pitches of fellow goofy con goers.

So...the first pitch: "Think Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit meets GTA 4". This was met with tons of laughs and was immediately pushed into round 2. Turns out that this guy already has Bill Murray and John Leguizamo signed for vocal work and the game should be out sometime around September 5th. Keep an eye out for that one..... See what I mean? Ridiculous and entertaining, but not quite what I was expecting.

Rundown of Some Other Ideas of Note:

1. Two words: Zombie Golf

2. Surveilance Van/Field Agent Co-op Game: Co-op game involving the sexy field agent who breaks into top secret facilities but relies heavily on his/her "Dorito eating fat guy in surveilance van" who completes puzzle games to disable cameras and security systems allowing the sexy partner to advance. (Ultimately this game won first prize. I loved this idea. Dead serious. Love it.)

3. Lords of LARP: role play pasty white kids role playing elves and orcs in a suburban neighborhood ... awesome on several levels. Amazing cosplay potential.

4. All Steroids Olympics .... juicing athletes push the very limits of physical ability and perhaps inadvertently rip off their own arms in the process .. family game, obviously

5. Wild Wild Wii .... lots of western themed Wii mini games ... lassoing, quick draw competitions (I also think this one would sell and work well....but what do I know)

6. Monkees with Guitar Hero mechanic....you play through episodes where your band gets into wacky situations and have to somehow can get out of them through the power of pop music. (I would TOTALLY play this game, but I'm pretty sure that few other people would be nearly as enthusiastic)

7. Ecoslayer (this was a crowd favorite) ... billed as a man vs. animal game ... this basically involved clubbing baby seals for points and murdering manatees with motor boats. Among other things I think this game could benefit from a carbon footprint mechanic.

8. Autism Platformer....this one was almost unintelligible. I *think* it had to do with inserting randomness into the game (you tell your player to do A but he sometimes doesn't comply correctly and does B)

9. Wasteland Tycoon .... you basically play Tina Turner in Beyond Thunderdome and build up your post apocalyptic empire. Panel wanted to insert a 2 men enters 1 man leaves PVP mechanic. (Another crowd favorite and honorable mention)

10. Medieval Tank .... you are a time traveller who is sent back in time to conquer Europe with a single tank. OK, this game won 2nd place from the panel....and shockingly the Namco guy rated this game as his favorite. He told us that he cold possibly see this game making it to publication. My thoughts ...... meh.

11. "I'm a Lawyer, I Belong in Heaven!" - DS platformer where you play a recently deceased lawyer who must argure your way into heaven. Part platformer with certain stages where you must "argue your case" somehow. Funny...but silly.

12. Cyber Noir Text Based game for the DS ... girl in red mohawk pitches this game. Panel loves the idea of bringing back the text game. (This pitch won 3rd place....I think the panel gave her the nostalgia/fashion vote. Nerds and their cyberpunk obsessions.)

Most of the other pitches are a mixed bag of completely retarded and too complicated to explain within the confines of this already too long post. If you ask me I will probably be able to explain some in more depth. But really, the above ones were some of the absolute best. Good times.