We’ve talked in the past about creating a good first impression – icons are possibly the most important asset you have aside from the game itself. Regardless of what type of game you’re creating, the icon is the thing that will represent your game on the user’s homepage or desktop. If your game is a mobile app, the icon is often the first thing people will see before they buy your game – a well-designed icon will help you cut through an incredibly crowded market place.

Whilst a poorly designed icon may not stop people from playing your game, a great icon can entice people to play more often – especially useful if your revenue model is dependent on repeat use.

We’ve put together a set of principles to help guide you in creating beautiful icons that make people want to click / tap. (We’ve focused more on principle for mobile game icons as generally the icon is the main asset users see before downloading, as opposed to PC games on services such as Steam.)

Note – we’re talking explicitly about icons here – the little square graphics that represent your game in app stores, on phone and on people’s desktops. We’re not talking about logo. Whilst there are cross overs, logo design is arguably a different discipline and something we’ll cover off at a later date.

Make it consistent

Icons should be as representative of your game as possible. We’ve already covered keeping it simple, so by representative I don’t mean trying to cram a screen grab into the little box. Rather the icon should take elements and styling cues from the game. If the game is cartoony and about fruit, put a cartoon piece of fruit as the icon. It’s an obvious sounding principle but there are an alarming number of games with icons that are seemingly unrelated. Users will have expectations of the game from its icon – if there’s a disconnect then they you’ve just annoyed them. Not the best way to start a potential relationship.

Stand out

Before starting to design your icon take a look at what similar games have done. It may give you some inspiration but more importantly it will show you what you’re up against and how to stand out. Think of app stores like supermarket shelves – some people go shopping knowing exactly what they want, but a significant number spend time browsing shelves. Anyone in marketing knows how important package design is. Next time you’re in a supermarket check-out the cleaning products aisle – they all tend to be white (because people associate it with clean) but here in the UK there are a few products that stand out, Cilit Bang being one, because they have a completely different colour.

They’re the first products you spot on the shelves. The package is still clearly for a cleaning product – long neck, spray nozzle – but yet it grabs customers’ attention due to its stand out. One quick tip to help stand out is to avoid using Apple’s gloss feature. It is specifically designed to give icons a consistent look and feel. The exact opposite of what we are going for.

Keep it simple

Icons are small. They are meant to be simple; the simplest possible way of representing your game graphically. First things first, avoid text. Text is a big no no in icon design. Icons should be graphical, should be instantly recognisable. Text will always be harder to read than looking at a picture, especially when we’re dealing with such a little box. Secondly, avoid clutter. Too many elements will make your icon ugly and confused, and will make people think twice about downloading.

Finishing touches

Whilst I’ve just hammered the point that the key for any good icon is simplicity this doesn’t mean it should be dull or lifeless. Pay
 attention to the little things, the small details. They can make the difference between a good icon and a great one. Shading, gradients, bevels – you may think the icon is too small to notice but you’d be wrong. Every little thing you can do to optimise your icon, the better.

Test it

There’s no rule that says you can’t show people your icon before submitting it. In fact I’d be in favour of a rule that says you have to. Show it to friends and family. And then show it to people slightly
more impartial. Get them to tell you what they think when they see your icon. Mock up what your icon looks like next to competitors’ – see if people spot yours first. Show them your actual game and see if the icon does a good job representing. Ask as many questions as you can before they tell you to bugger off.

So those were our top five tips; if there’s anything we’ve missed, share it in the comments. And if you’re working an your icon design at the moment don’t hesitate to share your progress with us if you’re looking for some feedback.

One of the most powerful types of promotion is word of mouth marketing, getting people to talk about your game. It’s quite obvious really, how many times have you gone to see a film, read a book or tried a restaurant based on the recommendation of a friend? Word of mouth marketing is all about encouraging and helping people recommend your game to their friends.

Whilst a lot of players will promote your game if prompted or asked to, if you offer an incentive for doing so you will see much higher rates of advocacy. If you have some form of in-game currency this can be as simple as throwing a few extra coins in their direction as reward for their action. If you don’t employ an in-game currency then you can still incentivize player sharing, but you may have to think harder about how you do it. It may be that you give away wallpapers or concept art, XP points, or unlock new parts of a map or items.

Below I’ve identified 5 mechanics for encouraging people to talk about your game.

Score sharing

People are competitive. It’s one of the reasons we like playing games, to beat other people. We are also competitive with ourselves. We love to beat our own high scores. If your game has a point scoring mechanic, be sure to let people share their scores online. Your best bet is to focus on sharing through facebook or Twitter since these are the most adopted social networks. Posting to Twitter is simple since the API allows you to contain the tweet in the URL. If you want post to both Twitter and Facebook from a mobile game then integrating a platform such as OpenFeint could be a simpler process. It also gives you immediate access to functionality such as high scores. That said, requiring a login to a third party application will be a barrier to your more casual players

Asking for a review

Especially for mobile platforms, having high ratings is a key thing users will check before downloading games, so having a large number of high ratings is a great way to help increase your downloads. Even though a lot of people will like a game, and rating it is a very simple process, very few people actually think to do it themselves, it’s not part of their thought process. So something as simple as a polite prompt is a great way to encourage them to do so -it’s not particularly obtrusive and a simple prompt is all most people need to go ahead and rate. Our advice is always to let the user play the game a while before asking them to rate the game, there’s nothing more frustrating than downloading a game and immediately being asked to rate it.

You could also consider encouraging people to rate your game with some form of reward for doing so, such as in-game currency if you have one. Remember to be careful how you ask, you don’t want to imply that you’re bribing people for positive reviews!

Challenging / playing with a friend

Humans are very social animals, we tend to seek out other people to talk too, and indeed, play games with. Social games have capitalised on this massively, with the likes of Farmville amassing huge numbers of players quickly by tapping into people’s social networks (read spamming their feeds). And as I mentioned earlier, people are also quite a competitive bunch. These two things combined means that mechanics that try to pit friends against each other, such as setting a high score and then challenging your friends to beat it, are a fantastic way to get people telling their friends about your game.

Liking / following

We’ve talked in the past about the importance of social media and specifically creating account of social networking sites. It’s a great way to give loyal fans additional content and drive engagement with your game brand. However, it’s also a great way to gain access to your fans’ friends. Every time one of your players talks about you on Twitter, or likes a wall post you write on Facebook there is a chance that their friends will see this. Provide fans with great additional content on social networks and they might even share it themselves. Do it well and you can create an army of advocates for your game, recruit new players through their actions.

Member get member

Lastly, and probably the oldest form of word of mouth marketing, is member get member. The principle is simple, you reward existing users for going out and recruiting new players. This can be through extra experience, in-game currency or bonus items – whatever reward your game can offer basically. World of Warcraft do this very well, offering incentives such as 2 free months for the friend, bonus experience when the user and friend play together, and unique bonus items for the user for recruiting a friend.

All in all, word of mouth can be a fantastic way to drive new players to your game. However, it’s important to remember that with an exception or two, these features and mechanics work best when they are properly integrated into your game, rather than tacked on as an afterthought, and definitely not to the detriment of the actual game. They should also add something to the user experience – this doesn’t have to be literally with a reward (though that obviously helps) but through tapping into human phycology (being social, being competitive).

We’ve included 5 main example here, but there are dozens of variations and combinations out there. Let us know in the comments which ones you’re using, and how they’re working. We’d also love to hear from you if you now are going to incorporate these in your game in the future.

Be conscise

The point of an elevator pitch is that it enables you to describe your game quickly and interestingly to people. This is especially useful at events, in your press releases and if you are pitching to publishers, investors etc. These people will not have much time, so you need to gain their interest very quickly!

Use combinations

This can be simply expressed as ‘X meets Y’. Most good elevator pitches reference two strong things. They can be whatever you like (films, books, TV, historical events…), although it’s usually difficult to do it without a reference to at least one game. To explain this better we can look at one famous example; the elevator pitch for Alien was ‘Jaws in space’.

Express the challenge

The best game elevator pitches explain the core challenge. Every good game can generally be described as ‘a beatable challenge’. After all, if there was no challenge then where would be the fun? Explaining the challenge is important. This may be communicated by one of the things you are refencing (most likely another game or mechanic), but you must get it across. If people keep asking, ‘so what do you have to do?’ you need to change your pitch.

Describe your target audience

Who is going to play and enjoy your game? It’s important to realise that ‘gamers’ is a very broad term and can mean anything from young children who play education/learning games, to a much older hardcore FPS fans.

What are the game’s most striking elements

What do you think is the most attractive thing about your game? Art, mechanics, story, sound… Now what do your trusted critics (friends, family etc.) think? You should be able to work out what really stands out about your game. Make sure that features in your elevator pitch.

Reference successful things

It’s no use referencing something that people don’t like. Sure, you may think that Mirror’s Edge was underrated, but now’s not the time to have that argument! Keep it to things that lots of people like. It’s no wonder that most MMO’s use WoW as a reference.

Be interesting to the reader/listener

As with so many parts of marketing, you must know who you are talking to. You need to make sure that who you are talking to will have heard of your references. For example, some obscure Japanese cartoon is not a useful reference point, unless you are at a specialist convention. This reference doesn’t have to make sense to everyone, but it must resonate with potential players, members of the press etc.

Be fairly obvious when you hear it

For example, which games are these? If you have played them, chances are you can name them.

• World of Warcraft meets Star Wars. Pick your side and fight on a huge scale.
• Diablo’s gameplay meets Braid’s art style. There’s a powerful narrative and you use lots of exotic weapons.
• Super Mario in a creepy, black and white land. You play a small boy who has to survive traps and large insects.
• Guitar Hero for DJs (OK, that’s a bit too obvious. But you get the point)

So what is the elevator pitch for your game? If you don’t have one yet, how would you describe your favourite game to people? It’s all good practice!