I prefer writing a million of pages that those 20 blurbs.
It is I consider them useless. The template kills any possibility of anyone taking them as a serious indication of the game.
I would love the chance of being bluntly honest about my game highlights.
I suck at the marketing strategy. But I think many people would find a sincerw no bs highlight refreshing
Ah, that makes sense. Hope it goes well!
I misread this as there had to be minimum 20 options! Almost gave myself a heart-attack 
Marketing is absolutely my least favourite part of the job. I understand why they require us to write the ad copy, I just wish that, you know, I didn’t.
Reddit tends to be pretty unfiltered. You’re more likely to get very honest feedback there for good or ill. Doesn’t mean it’s “right”, but it will be what the person who wrote it is thinking.
That’s two separate things in there. Comments about pacing, not understanding what’s happening, and pronoun errors are constructive crit even if it hasn’t been articulated in the most kindly manner. You need to fix them or it’ll get ripped to pieces on release.
Comments like “you suck” fall under the “unconstuctive crit” label and can be safely discarded. If you are getting comments where people are attacking you as a person, please flag it for the mod team as it’s not considered acceptable on the forums here.
Basically what I’m saying if you need to stay objective and separate your personal feelings from the game itself. Criticism of the game itself can be taken on board or not as you choose, but if it strays into personal attacks then that is not constructive and not something you need to take on board.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but “gaslamp gothic” doesn’t flow very well and makes me think of something set more in the style of ye olde london (like fallen london).
I would take care with telling people it’s “thrilling”. Again this may just be me but when I see movies and the like advertised as “thrilling” it makes me wonder if it actually is due to overuse in advertisment of books/movies. I’d maybe try for a more descriptive term? Maybe mystical, creepy, mysterious, estoric etc
I’ll second this. Telling people how to think is always a gamble. You’ll come off as a genius if that’s what they’re actually thinking, and as trying too hard if it isn’t.
And with a store blurb, they’re not primed to think one way or another, so you’re more likely to come off as the latter than the former.
They need blurbs of different lengths for different marketing opportunities. IIRC from my CoG-writing experience, the requested 20 options are for the short “selling points,” where they expect to use several of them. They also ask you to come up with a few medium-short blurbs, a couple of paragraph size ones, and 1 full-length multi-para one.
It’s mind-numbing and I loathe it – but it’s also undeniably a useful exercise in thinking through the core elements of your work and how to share those. I hate it like I hate steep uphill bike rides to get somewhere I need to be.
I thought it was only HG writers who had to compose their own blurbs.
Can’t speak for any other COG authors, but I had to, and I’m pretty sure that was standard practice. 
Here’s the guideline shared with me:
How To Write…
45 characters
This is the most important description because it will be seen by the most people. It’s the subject line on our emails; it’s the content of our tweets. This is the “elevator pitch” that will draw people in. Spend the most time polishing this one.
Do :
Don’t :
80 characters
This one is only used in the Google Play store.
Do:
Don’t:
Spend characters mentioning the game’s name. This description will almost always be presented directly alongside the game name anyway.
155 characters
This is the “web description:” the blurb that appears beneath the game’s cover art on the Choice of Games “Our Games” page: Our Games Archive - Choice of Games LLC It’s also on our Steam curator page.
Do:
45: Defend the heir of Napoleon’s steampunk France
80: Defend Napoleon’s heir in this political romantic steampunk adventure
155: Defend Napoleon’s heir in a steampunk game of political maneuvering, airship adventure, and romantic intrigue! Bring liberty to France, or plunge into war?
Example, from Runt of the Litter:
45: Steal and raise a baby war gryphon!
80: Steal and raise a baby war gryphon! You’ll fight dragons to save the empire!
155: Steal and raise a baby war gryphon! Will you fight dragons together to save the empire, or defy the empire and lead your people to freedom?
Don’t: write lots of these.
Full Description
This is the long description that will appear everywhere: on the iTunes App Store, in Google Play, on the Choice of Games Website, and in our mailer. There’s no character limit to this one, but it gets truncated after 200-250 characters with a “Read More” link. Make sure the first 200-250 characters can stand on their own.
Glad I’m not the only one. I just do three each and call it a day
Tonight’s vocabulary frustration: I spent the whole night trying to remember the word “evac”, and I’m still not sure it was the actual word I was looking for.
I have had readers compare it to Fallen London which I have never played, so I do not know how accurate that is or isn’t.
I had a couple of readers say my story is surreal and imaginative, so I think I will substitute those adjectives in place of “thrilling”.
I sincerely appreciate everyone’s input. The success of Patchwerks is related to everyone’s feedback.
Evacuation, perhaps?
That’s the same word.
Hmm not sure I’d call it that that similar to fallen London unless it changes further in. I think surreal is good though
That (to me) is a good thing, then. Just because I really want the Patchwerks world to be uniquely its own.
Extraction! That’s the word. 
Finally.
I once spent an afternoon twenty-three years ago trying to remember a word. I will never forget that the word in question was “performance.”
“You called for extraction?”
“Not for myself, for the data. Sorry about the confusion. The codebook lacks a sign for ‘shit hit the fan, going to pull a heist, need a courier’. An oversight, really.”
Hey, everyone!
As August winds down to a close, I’m pretty happy with the development speed of Once in a Lifetime.
So much code has went into the game in the last few weeks, setting up multiple sprawling foundations for future development.
Even with several additional refactors, my code-word count has skyrocketed in size. Since I began getting Pre-School implemented, this reminded me fo the need for code to accompany friends and the like.
As development ramps up, I’ve had to focus on targeted performance limitations and optimizations. At the end of the day, I’ve already broken a thousand variables easily, and I’m on track to go quite a bit more.
So, with the friendship system, I’ve settled on the following:
Whilst I would love for players to be able to befriend everyone they meet, I have to draw a line on the amount of work this takes and how much I have to prioritize performance. That said, I will be implementing a mechanic shortly that allows players to drop an existing friendship to befriend someone else.
All in all, the OiaL train chugs forward at high speed!
Hi everyone.
I hope the last week of August is starting well for everyone. Time for a quick update from me:
The Deathsight Pass continues to take me on a journey. If all goes well this week, I should reach the halfway point. (Nine of eighteen text files worked on.)
I’ve added over 30,000 new words over where the word count started the month at. That is the equivalent of adding three short stories, on the subject of deathsights.
Since the earlier files have more deathsights in them, I don’t see myself doubling the added words again, but since this pass is focused only on deathsights, future passes should add more material too.
I hope everyone’s writing goes well this week.
. 
I’m taking a break from writing and am doing some chores that have been waiting for too long.