At GenCon this year, I had a chance to meet John S. R. Schutt. He’s a nice guy and an aspiring freelancer.
I got an email from him, telling me about his first gig for WereDragon Magazine. Called Into the Puppets Heart: The Otanshu Legacy, it’s got evil puppets, artifacts and creatures of the beyond. Sounds tasty, so I’m going to check it out.
Anyway, congratulate Mr. Schutt and, if you have the time, check out his work. I’m sure he’d love some reviews.
I’ve read through over 100 game books in the last two months. One thing keeps popping out at me – they take forevar to get to the point. Sometimes I have to wait for as many as 60 pages before I get to the ‘so what can I do’ part of the text. Most often, I get to read a chapter or two of background, in addition to the ‘What is an RPG’ stuff that makes my eyes glaze over.
*yawn*
The first couple pages of a game book is a pitch, folks. You need to tell me why I should play your game. What makes it fun? What can I do? I’m sure your history and setting and such are fine and dandy, but they should come after I’m hooked.
If you’re designing the layout of a new game book – thinking about how the information will flow – do me a favor and read the first two pages. If those two pages don’t contain content that will make me want to use this book in a game, then start over.
Write a pitch.
You can digress into examples of play and sample fiction and setting material once you have me hooked. But you need to hook me, first.
I need a logo for something called Moonstew. I have a vague idea floating in my head as to what I want, but I’m unsure if it’s even possible to execute properly. I’d do it myself, but I have no art ability at all.
The idea is two spherical objects – heavenly bodies – that are so close to each other that their profiles are overlapping. I Google’d “moon formation” and found an image that approximates what I’m going for. You can see it, to the right (and click on it to see a larger version).
I don’t think I want people to automatically connect the moon formation idea with the logo, though. I’d like the final version to be a stylistic representation of the idea. What I’m hoping for is a “glossy corporate” look that you might associate with new media companies. Something like this, in tone:
The reason I’m including this NASA 50 image is because it has the “spacey” outline look I was trying to play with in PhotoShop. Alas, my design-fu is terrible and I am too embarrassed to share my shameful results. Anyway, I’m thinking it might be possible to give the impression of two globes in close proximity (see image #1) by using the partial outlines, as is the objects were back lit. My hope is that this can be done, and then “prettied up” to look modern and corporate.
But _I_ can’t do it. Can you help me?