A high concept document is primarily a sales tool, although you can write one for yourself as well, just as a way of kee
Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2022 2:16 pm
A high concept document is primarily a sales tool, although you
can write one for yourself as well, just as a way of keeping a
record of ideas you’ve had. Think of it as a résumé for a video
game. The point of a résumé is to quickly convey a job applicant’s
qualifications and try to get him an interview with the hiring
manager. The point of a high concept document is to try to get a
meeting with a producer, the chance to “pitch” the game. It should
communicate rapidly and clearly the idea of the game—to whet her
appetite and make her want to hear more about it. It doesn’t matter
that you haven’t thought through all the details. You’ll almost
certainly end up changing several of the features during
development anyway. The real point is to convey how much fun the
game is going to be.
A high concept document should be two to four pages long and
should take no more than 10 minutes to read. The longer it is, the
less likely it is that the producer will finish reading it. It
shouldn’t have a title page; the title and your name appear at the
top of the first page, and the text begins immediately. Its most
important material must appear on the first page.
In the sections that follow, we describe the key elements of a
high concept document.
High Concept Statement
After the title and your name, the document should begin with no
more than two lines that state the idea of the game. In a
commercial environment, it is imperative that the idea be instantly
comprehensible because everyone’s most precious commodity is time.
If the producer doesn’t get the idea in a sentence or two, he’s
going to worry that the publisher’s sales staff, the wholesale
buyers, and, most important, the retail customers won’t get it
either.
Of course, there are exceptions to this, and those exceptions
are often some of the greatest and most innovative games. In
Pac-Man, for example, the player is a circle that eats
dots and fruit and is chased by ghosts in a maze—not exactly an
obvious idea. However, Pac-Man is an arcade game, which
means that people can actually watch it playing by itself before
they commit their money. If you’re going to propose something
really strange for a retail game, you need to be very good at
explaining it!
Features
The rest of the first page should be devoted to a bulleted list
of the key features of the game. Each item should consist of two or
three sentences, no more. Remember that unless you have included a
concept drawing, your reader doesn’t have a mental picture of the
game, so this section needs to build one for him. It’s much more
important at this point to convey the game’s look and feel than to
give the details about how it works. You’re not selling the game’s
internal economy or its AI; you’re selling the player’s
experience.
Avoid letting the feature list run on to the next page, if you
can. More than about 10 bullet points in a row starts to look like
a mass of text to read and discourages the eye. You might want to
put the items that you think are the most fun, the most innovative,
or the most important in bold type, just as you would in a
résumé.
Overview
In this section, beginning on the second page, you summarize the
key commercial considerations about the game: what machine it’s
for, who would buy it and why, and what you’re hoping that the game
will achieve. Consider including any or all the following
items:
Further Details
In the last section, you can include additional material that
you think the reader will enjoy learning about the game. You might
include notes about the characters, the artwork, the music, the
plot, or anything else that might pique his interest. Don’t add so
much that it makes the document too long, however.
can write one for yourself as well, just as a way of keeping a
record of ideas you’ve had. Think of it as a résumé for a video
game. The point of a résumé is to quickly convey a job applicant’s
qualifications and try to get him an interview with the hiring
manager. The point of a high concept document is to try to get a
meeting with a producer, the chance to “pitch” the game. It should
communicate rapidly and clearly the idea of the game—to whet her
appetite and make her want to hear more about it. It doesn’t matter
that you haven’t thought through all the details. You’ll almost
certainly end up changing several of the features during
development anyway. The real point is to convey how much fun the
game is going to be.
A high concept document should be two to four pages long and
should take no more than 10 minutes to read. The longer it is, the
less likely it is that the producer will finish reading it. It
shouldn’t have a title page; the title and your name appear at the
top of the first page, and the text begins immediately. Its most
important material must appear on the first page.
In the sections that follow, we describe the key elements of a
high concept document.
High Concept Statement
After the title and your name, the document should begin with no
more than two lines that state the idea of the game. In a
commercial environment, it is imperative that the idea be instantly
comprehensible because everyone’s most precious commodity is time.
If the producer doesn’t get the idea in a sentence or two, he’s
going to worry that the publisher’s sales staff, the wholesale
buyers, and, most important, the retail customers won’t get it
either.
Of course, there are exceptions to this, and those exceptions
are often some of the greatest and most innovative games. In
Pac-Man, for example, the player is a circle that eats
dots and fruit and is chased by ghosts in a maze—not exactly an
obvious idea. However, Pac-Man is an arcade game, which
means that people can actually watch it playing by itself before
they commit their money. If you’re going to propose something
really strange for a retail game, you need to be very good at
explaining it!
Features
The rest of the first page should be devoted to a bulleted list
of the key features of the game. Each item should consist of two or
three sentences, no more. Remember that unless you have included a
concept drawing, your reader doesn’t have a mental picture of the
game, so this section needs to build one for him. It’s much more
important at this point to convey the game’s look and feel than to
give the details about how it works. You’re not selling the game’s
internal economy or its AI; you’re selling the player’s
experience.
Avoid letting the feature list run on to the next page, if you
can. More than about 10 bullet points in a row starts to look like
a mass of text to read and discourages the eye. You might want to
put the items that you think are the most fun, the most innovative,
or the most important in bold type, just as you would in a
résumé.
Overview
In this section, beginning on the second page, you summarize the
key commercial considerations about the game: what machine it’s
for, who would buy it and why, and what you’re hoping that the game
will achieve. Consider including any or all the following
items:
Further Details
In the last section, you can include additional material that
you think the reader will enjoy learning about the game. You might
include notes about the characters, the artwork, the music, the
plot, or anything else that might pique his interest. Don’t add so
much that it makes the document too long, however.