Magazine Covers

For this task, I had to create a magazine article to advertise my game. My planning and final version are below:

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This is my sketch of the front cover of my magazine. I will be using PCGamer as a base. The background will be a screenshot from within the game. In the top right will be the moon, and in the centre will be a medium shot of G1BS0N.
On the left hand side, it will advertise an exclusive interview with the developer, which I will conduct on the double page spread.
I have also included other news stories, as most of the covers I looked at in my research, featured more than one specific story on the main page.
On the right, I have a few unspecified quotes, making it obvious that the game is a Science Fiction game, as well as comparing it to Fallout 3. This will hopefully attract people who play Sci-Fi games and/or Fallout 3 and haven't yet heard of the game. It will also grab the attention of those who are fans of PC Gamer, and value the opinion of the magazine highly.
In the top right hand corner is advertising for an SSD. This will serve as the "free gift" incentive that PC Gamer seems to include in each edition of their magazine.

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This is my sketch of the double page spread. It is done on a landscape A4 page, so it isn't to the same scale as the spread will actually be.
There will be 3 main columns to the spread, the left hand side will be a short description from the magazine itself, which will act as if they had a small demo of the game, and give their thoughts. The middle section will be screenshots from the game, one of an action scene, one of a close - up with G1BS0N and the last one being the box art from the previous ancillary task. The far right column, will be the interview with the lead developer. This interview will talk about how the game is structured around its intended audience, and specific beginner features have been included, such as the terminal at the beginning of the level.

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This is the finished version 1.0 of my front cover to my magazine. There were quite a lot of changes from the original plan. I found an image for the original PC Gamer banner, which does change quite a lot. The circle on the right, which contained the advertisement for the free SSD, has been replaced by a gold star. This is because I think it is more fitting to use a star here. The quotes have been slightly changed. It now explicitly compares TimeSlip to Fallout 3, to clear up any confusion.
The boxes containing "Exclusive Interview" and "Is Call of Duty Dying" have been changed to red, to fit in with the PC Gamer theme. The background image was not actually sourced from the game, as there was no part of the level which was open enough to get a full shot of the moon like I wanted. To get around this, I made a small level using a similar tileset, then moved a replica of G1BS0N into the level and took a picture that way.

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After conducting the a round of audience feedback, it was noted frequently that the cover of the magazine was not as effective at it's task as the rest of the products created for ancillary task 1 and 2. A few of the criticisms included "The star doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the page" and "The title is lost in the corner".

As such, I have made appropriate adjustments as you can see above. I have replaced the star with an actual image of the device that the audience could win, and changed the font and colour text slightly so that it stands out a little more from the rest of the page. I have also moved the title from the bottom left hand corner, to the top right and have massively increased the font size to make it more obvious, as well as colouring it in the typical Science Fiction colours. It should be noted however, that this goes against the typical PCGamer house style, as in the majority of the covers I looked at, the game's title was in the bottom left of the screen, as it was the image from the game that was used as the selling point of the cover, not the actual game itself.

Another adjustment made, is the addition of the circle in place of the title in the bottom left hand side. This now contains relevant PC articles which would be included later on in the issue if this was a real magazine. They are coloured bilaterally as to fit in with the house style as well as break up the colour so that it is more easily readable. The last major change was addition of small circles containing other popular games, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and Crysis 3, that were realised that year. These help break up the front cover and provide attention to other games, which a real life front cover would do. Another text box was added, providing an explanation of "Trailer Analysis" to the images.

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This is the finished version of my double page spread. Essentially it is the same as the sketch plan I did. A few additions were the rating on the bottom and the text box in the centre. These were implemented to break up the page a little, and provide a little variation. 

The text on the left hand side reads as follows:

"When I first heard that BlitzHammer studios, a relatively small Indie developer was planning to make a “noob friendly” AAA equivalent game, I was sceptical at best. But after the promotional material we have seen and the small first level, in house Alpha, we were lucky enough to play, I have got to say, I am blown away by the amount of potential I think this game has. The level looks amazing, lacking in graphical sense, I must admit, but the layout and design is superb. Playing through it, I could tell that on the difficulty it was on, a new player would have no trouble navigating through the level as easy as they do their own house. On top of that, the enemies AI seems to scale with the difficulty level, so at the easier ones it’s like shooting fish in a barrel, which is what a new player needs on the first level. Whilst at the harder difficulties, I almost felt that the enemies I was facing were real, competitive players. There is still a lot we have got to look forward to, and the Lead Developer has been teasing a new trailer for some time, and I can say with full honesty that I am exceptionally looking forward to that. I can’t wait to see the story of the game unfold, and see some of these other characters. We were teased with G1BS0N in the Alpha, who serves as a unusual “G-Man” type character throughout the game, helping or hindering the player depending on the choices they did OR didn’t make. For an independent company, this is stellar game making, and im not excited to see if they will win any awards at E3, but how many they win."

The text on the right hand side reads as follows: 

"What game would say was the main inspiration behind the creation of TimeSlip?

Personally, I would have to say Fallout 3 by Bethesda Game Studios. I must have several hundred hours on that game across multiple characters and play-throughs. As soon as the executive producer came to me and said “I want you to create us a Science Fiction game” Fallout 3 was the game that immediately sprang to mind. Of course TimeSlip does have it differences; it’s more aimed at a younger, beginner audience than the hardcore players. Being a brand new IP, we thought it would be best to focus more on the “noob” demographic, and provide a game tailored around them.

You say TimeSlip is aimed at the beginner demographic, how have you tailored the experience to meet their needs?

That’s a good question and brings up something I mentioned at the last conference. TimeSlip is a very beginner friendly game, offering a very in depth and “tutorialised” first level.  On the easier difficulties, the game doesn't punish players who don’t have perfect accuracy, it doesn't penalise those players who might not understand the basic principles of a First Person Shooter, such things like reaction time, movement, perception. The game is much more focused on introducing the player to these principles slowly, and at their own pace.

What about players who are “veterans” of FPS’s and RPG’s? Why should they purchase TimeSlip?

Well basically, it’s a new IP. We can go anywhere, do anything we want with it. TimeSlip is extremely story driven, with a very interesting plotline, which in my honest opinion, would make for a cracking film. The harder difficulties are more scaled for the vets of games, precision and reaction times are essential and the game punishes you hard. The RPG element plays more of a role too, you have to watch your ammo count, mediate your med-packs and those surprises hidden in the corners.
Any Multiplayer or Co-Op planned in the future?

Not currently, but you never know, we have a lot of things yet to announce.