Concept Design: Loglines

The idea of loglines is to offer a simple and short description of your game in order to easily pitch your idea and contribute towards the appeal of the idea.

The basis behind loglines is that they must show off different things about your game. These things are the Setup, Type of game, Obstacles and the Goal.

Setup relates towards what the player needs to do in the game, such as leading armies, collecting resources, destroying aliens and many more. This incorporates what the main mechanic of the game will be.

Type of game relates towards the genre of the game, is it a strategy? is it an RPG? this topic is used to help establish the genre and could contribute towards deciding how the main mechanics are going to be implemented.

Obstacles is the obstructions and challenges that the player is going to face in the game. This can include the other players, enemies in the game or even the puzzles that have been put into the game. This helps show the audience what kind of challenges the player will need to overcome when playing the game.

Goal. This is self explanatory. It is simply the win condition of the game, how to finish, or what you need to accomplish. This sets the end-game up before the player has even begun their game.

Utilising these four points, I decided to come up with 4 different loglines for the game idea that I am doing for my concept design module. We were given a 30 word limit when coming up with our loglines and the ideas below all fit below that threshold:

1st
Develop your hero, craft your alliances, defeat your enemies, hunt for riches, glory and fame in your quest to kill the dragon!
This was my first idea and was done before any assistance was given. 

2nd
Embark upon your heroes quest to hunt the dragon! Claim your glory, loot your riches and forge alliances to discover your destiny in the magical land of Ithelios.
This idea was decided after having a talk with Phil about how to improve upon my logline, as were the ones below.

3rd
Begin your humble journey. From simple origins claim your place in legend as you embark upon your heroic quest to slay the dragon. Magic, riches and greatness await you!
This and the 2nd logline are my preferred choices.

4th
The dragon threatens your home. Venture forth to discover your destiny. Craft alliances, discover magic, destroy your enemies, hunt for riches and establish your rightful place in legend.

That was all the ideas that were developed after a lecture on loglines. After performing this exercise and only developing 4 ideas that I was happy with, it is easy to see how difficult it can be to develop multiple ideas on how to quickly describe your game in a small number of words.