Imagine Cup: It’s almost game over!
How can I win the Imagine Cup Games category with only one week until the deadline?
Well I can’t guarantee a win, I can share a few tips that can help improve your chances before the Canadian deadline of 8 PM GMT Saturday April 4th, 2015.
When you enter Imagine Cup there is a clear scoring matrix. You can see the matrix in the Competition rules.
When the judges review your video and project proposal they will score you based on that matrix. Each question in that matrix is worth points. You have probably spent a lot of time getting your software up and running which is great! As you decide how to prioritize your time over these last weeks, you should take a look at the matrix and ask yourself where are the opportunities to improve your score?
Give a group of friends the matrix and present your game to them. Give yourself only 10 minutes to present. Now ask them to score you on each individual question in the matrix. You may discover a couple of questions where you score 0 or 1 that you can improve simply by adding a bullet point to a slide or by doing a little research. The software is important! But great software does not always equal success (Look up Sega))
Here are a few areas where many teams often miss an opportunity to improve their score:
. Is the game exciting to play? – Fun is a huge part of the scoring (50%) so making sure your game is exciting is very important. This is where having your group of friends do some play testing for you can come in really handy.
. Is the game appropriately challenging? – Part of being fun is making sure the game is challenging but not so hard that users get overly frustrated. Make sure you spend some time on really tweaking the challenges your game presents.
· Does the game have a clear target market or audience? – Sure your game is cool, but who are your target audience? Have you stated that clearly? Have you explained why this game will do well for that audience?
· Is there good player feedback? – You have probably been focused on game play, but how are you helping your player learn to play your game, to discover new levels and challenges?
Don’t miss out!
You can find all details such as important dates, registration and rules at www.imaginecup.ca. Please reach out to ImagineCupCanada@microsoft.com or me @Scruffyfurn if you have any questions. Looking forward to all your submissions and good luck!