Writing for GamesRuleOK



Writing for PlayThisThing

If interested in writing for PlayThisThing, please contact Greg Costikyan .

1. What We Publish

Game Reviews

Primarily, we publish brief reviews of games. In general, we prefer reviews of games that are obtainable online, whether that means playable in the browser or as a download; the exception is for tabletop (non-digital) games that require physical purchase.

Both free games and paid games are acceptable. Primarily, we are interested in games playable on PCs, but games for OS X or Linux are also acceptable (preferably when it is also playable on a PC, of course).

Specifically, we target:

Free, web-playable games (Flash, Shockwave, Java, etc.)

Free downloadable games

Downloadable shareware games with some free play offer (time limited, level limited, whatever).

Demos for games that can be purchased and downloaded online (but not demos for commercial release software from major publishers).

Indie games.

Online multiplayer games, whether playable in browser or not, and whether free or not (so long as there is some free play offer), but not major release MMOs. (Niche or indie MMOs are fine).

Total conversion mods (i.e., not just a new map or such).

Tabletop games (on "Tabletop Tuesday")

ARGs and "big urban" games, even if the online component is slight.

Specifically, we avoid:

Console games

PC games from major publishers that have a conventional retail release.

Mobile or PDA games.

While we cover casual games, casual games are not a central focus, and we have little to no interest in "pick three" games. When casual games are covered, it should be because a) the game offers original gameplay or an interesting approach to its theme, or b) has crossover appeal to core gamers.

Game reviews can vary greatly in length--anything from a couple of hundred words to several thousand.

However, it is essential that the first paragraph (or first two or three paragraphs, if short) should hook the reader and say, upfront, something about why this game is interesting. In essence, once the review moves out of the topline ("game of the day") position, only this short text (with a "more" link) will appear on any page, so this must suffice to give the reader a sense of whether or not he or she will find the game of interest.

NOTE: While these are "reviews," keep in mind that raison d'etre is to feature one interesting game per day. If a game sucks, we shouldn't be featuring it at all--our readers expect that whatever game we feature has some merit and will be of interest to some portion of our readership. Hence, pans or negative reviews should be rare; if you don't like it, don't write about it--write about something you do like.

Reviews of other Game-Related Products

We are also interested in reviews of books about games, game design, or game culture, and of novels in which games play a prominent role. Reviews of documentaries about games or game culture, music that deals with games in some fashion, etc., may also be of interest. Such things as pointers to YouTube videos, web comics, Flash animation, or other things found online that deal with games in some fashion are possibilities as well.

Brief News Items (Not Publisher News)

We're interested in news about games or gamers--but not news related to announcements by publishers or console manufacturers. Some examples of items that might be of interest:

• Xyzzy, IGF, or Slamdance finalists are announced.

• A student is expelled from his high school for making a mod depicting it.

• A controversy erupts over an MMO's terms of service.

• An episode of a sitcom deals with games.

• Sid Meier claims to have been kidnapped by aliens.

In general, we are not a news site, and make no attempt to keep up to date on news. People can go to Gamespot for that. But brief items that gamers are likely to find either funny or outrageous are good things.

2. Style Guide

American, Not British Conventions: We follow American rather than British spelling and conventions; Merriam Webster's 3rd ed. is our reference for such.

Chicago Manual: In general, we follow Chicago Manual.

Serial Comma: We use the serial comma. That is: "I'd like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand, and God", not "I'd like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God". Which should make it obvious why we use the serial comma.

Acronyms: Acronyms likely to be widely known to and familiar to gamers (RTS, MMO, FPS, RPG) are fine. If an acronym ends in an 'S', its plural is formed with '-es' (e.g., RTSes); if it ends in any other letter, with '-s' (RPGs). If you are uncertain as to whether an acronym is sufficiently widespread as to be immediately understandable to our users, either eschew it, or spell it in full the first time used, with the acronym in parentheses following (e.g., "what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG)").

We loathe and despise "MMORPG". Use "MMO" unless you have some vital reason not to.

Don't Use 'Videogame': We rarely use the term "videogame," for a variety of reasons too lengthy to go into here. "Game" suffices in almost all circumstances.

Concise Genre Names: We prefer to avoid hyphenated game genre names, and elide spaces in game genre names when the compound version is in common use, e.g.,:

a. Wargame, not war game.

b. Roleplaying game, not role-playing game or role playing game.

c. Videogame, not video game (but see above).

Game Names in Italics with Initial Caps: We view the title of a game as analogous to the title of a book or a movie, and render it With Initial Caps, and in italics. Thus World of Warcraft, not World of Warcraft or WORLD OF WARCRAFT. This is true even of classic card and boardgames, which Chicago Manual would have us render as normal English words. That is, Chicago Manual would call it chess; we call it Chess. Just as an anonymous and ancient work of prose is rendered in the same fashion as a modern book (Gilgamesh just as Kavalier and Klay), so too an ancient and anonymous game should receive the same treatment as a modern one.

Do Not Ascribe Authorship to Publishers: Under no circumstances is a game ever to be possessively attributed to a publisher (e.g., Playfirst's Diner Dash). It may be attributed to the developer (gameLab's Diner Dash), or to its lead designer (Nick Fortugno's Diner Dash). In the latter case, make sure you have this right, however (Brian Reynold's Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri). Note that it's acceptable to mention the publisher (gameLab's Diner Dash, published by Playfirst)--we just don't feel that it's appropriate to imply creative ownership by a publisher, any more than you would ascribe a novel to its publisher rather than to its author.

3. A Note on Auctorial Voice

We encourage you to write in your own individual style. We actually want different authors to have different 'voices' on the site, and for readers to come to know them as individuals. We do insist on correct spelling and grammar, except for calculated and intentional effect.

We imagine that our typical reader is an intelligent person knowledgeable about games--not an expert, but experienced with a wide variety of them. We do not write down. We strive to be clear and accessible to a wide audience--but just as we are willing to use a sophisticated vocabulary, with the expectation that people unfamiliar with a word will mostly figure it out from context, and be motivated to look it up if they wish, so too we assume that most readers will either know the historical context in which we describe a game, or be interested and motivated to learn more about it.

Thus, for example, a number of games on the site are tagged as "Elite-style". In body text, we might explain what we mean, but not invariably--though we would strive to explain enough about the nature of gameplay that even someone who does not get the reference will be able to understand what the game is like.

Our first objective, always, must be to entertain; our second, to provide enough of a sense of a game that the reader will be able to judge whether or not downloading it (or clicking through to its page) will or will not be a waste of time; and thirdly, to inspire in our readers the aspiration to learn more about the ars ludorum and the history of our beloved form.

Note that being pretentious enough to use a phrase like ars ludorum is my personal style, and you are by no means encouraged to do likewise. Indeed, if you prefer to come across as a Maxim-reading bloke who loves games with plenty of jiggle and as much gore as feasible, well, so long as you write better than the typical Maxim contributor, and can remain in character, more power to you.

4. HTML Style Guide

In some cases, authors will be set up as "editors" on the site; editors have access to more features than either anonymous or logged on users, but not as many as administrators. Editors are encouraged to enter their articles directly on the site (see the separate Editorial Manual). In other cases, authors will simply email their articles to an editor for entry.

In either case, we encourage (but except for editors, do not require) authors to include basic HTML formatting in their text. E.g., rather than using Word to put text in italics, instead enclose it in the appropriate tag.

XHTML 1.0 Transitional: We adhere (to the degree feasible) to XHTML 1.0 Transitional. In particular, this requires some things that old-school users of HTML may not be familiar with:

a. All HTML tags and literals should be lower case. That is, a link should look like this. Note that "a" and "href" and "/a" are all lower case.

b. All tags, even those that in old-school HTML did not require a closing tag, must be closed. Thus, in a list, each tag must have a matching tag. Some tags can be "self closing," meaning there is a space-plus-slash in the tag itself: thus we use rather than . The tag doesn't enclose anything, so it needs to be self-closing.

No Tags: Do NOT insert paragraph () tags in your document; simply break paragraphs normally, that is, with returns. Our content management system adds paragraph tags automatically.

and : Use , not ; use , not .

Legal Tags: Our content management system uses what it calls "filtered HTML". This permits the following tags (only) in documents: .

Using Other Tags: It IS possible to use other tags (by setting a document to allow "full HTML"), and if you need to do so, that's okay--but alert us to the fact that you have done so (if submitting via email). Note that we can add images without the use of HTML in the text itself--just tell us where you want the image (put any such comments in the text with curly quotes, {}, about them). And supply the image(s) with your submission, of course.

5. Supplying a Review to Us Via Email

When you submit a review to us, in addition to the text of your review itself, please provide:

Title: A title for your article (note that our reviews all have some title in addition to the name of the game itself).

Large Game Image: A "large game image." Typically, this is a screenshot. On the site, these images are at most 320x240, and if you can supply it at that size, that's great--but we will reformat if necessary.

Small Game Image: A "small game image." On the site, these are all 70x70 pixels, and it needs to look good at that size. If you can supply at that size, great; if not, so long as it's square, that's okay. If you're uncomfortable editing to get a decent square image, send along whatever image you think would be useable, along with some ideas for where to crop it to extract a good small image.

Tagging: A list of "tags" for this review. On the site, you'll see these as links, separated by |'s, to the right of the review's title. See section 9, "Game Taxonomy" below for more information about this.

URL(s) for Play or Download: An URL. For web-playable games, this should be the URL of the page where someone can play the game, for us to link to directly. For downloadable games, this is ideally the URL of the actual file itself, rather than a download page. If there are multiple versions (e.g., PC, Mac, Linux), the ideal is to supply the URLs for each download file. If there's no directly linkable URL for download, the URL of a download page instead is acceptable. For tabletop games, this should either be a) a link to the game's site, or b) a link to the downloadable PDF (when that's available).

Game Type: The game's "type" (which appears in the information block to the right of the large game image in the review). Currently, these are the "types" we use:

a. Flash (free)

b. Shockwave (free)

c. Java (free)

d. Other Web Playable (free)

e. Free Download (free)

f. Mod (free)

g. Shareware (paid)

h. Demo Download (paid)

i. Subscription (paid)

j. ARG (either)

k. Big Urban Game (either)

l. Interactive Fiction (either)

m. Other (either)

n. Tabletop (Free)

o. Tabletop

Note that the first six types appear in the "free games block" that appears in the right column of the site, and the next three in the "Demos and Shareware" block in the left column. Thus, a shareware game implemented in Java isn't (in our taxonomy) a "Java" game, but a "shareware" game (since it's not free).

The difference (in our taxonomy) between a "shareware" game and a "demo download" game is little more than semantic: a "shareware" game's initial download can be unlocked, after purchase, into the full game. A "demo download" game requires the user to download a second, separate installer after purchase.

It is feasible for us to add additional "types", if necessary, but we prefer to do so only if truly necessary.

System Requirements: If any; e.g., for a Flash game, there are none (other than Flash on the user's machine, which is already implicit in the "type").

Developer: The name of the developer, and the URL of its website.

6. Current Game Taxonomy

This is as of June 2, 2007. Because we allow free tagging, there are probably lots more now. It's worth checking from time to time and seeing what's available.

|Tag |Notes |

|1-Man Team | |

|2 Player | |

|3rd Person Shooter | |

|4X | |

|Abstract | |

|Abstract Strategy | |

|Action/Adventure | |

|Adventure |Use Graphic or Text Adventure preferentially. |

|Africa | |

|Alaska | |

|Aliens | |

|Amoebas | |

|Animals | |

|Anime | |

|Anti-game |In the sense of "anti-hero," not "opposed to games" |

|Anvils | |

|Arcade Shooter | |

|Arcadia |Games like those you might find in an arcade. |

|ARG |Alternative Reality Game (e.g., I Love Bees) |

|ASCII | |

|Aufbaustrategiespiele |"Up-building strategy game", e.g., the Anno series |

|Big Urban Game | |

|Bowling | |

|Bugs | |

|Casual | |

|City-Building | |

|Comic |"Related to the comics," not "funny". |

|Controversial | |

|Crime | |

|Czech | |

|Diplomacy | |

|Divas | |

|Doodles | |

|Dungeon-crawl | |

|Ecology | |

|Educational | |

|Elite-style |I.e., similar to the old computer game Elite. |

|Extreme Sports | |

|Fantasy | |

|Fast Play | |

|Female Protagonist | |

|Fighter | |

|Finnish | |

|Fire | |

|Flight Sim | |

|For Kids | |

|FPS | |

|Games for Change |Tag for award nominees & recipients, not all such. |

|Gangsters | |

|Garbage | |

|Ghosts | |

|God Game | |

|Graphic Adventure | |

|Greece | |

|Hex-Based | |

|Historical | |

|Hollywood | |

|Horror | |

|IGF | |

|Infocom | |

|Interactive Drama | |

|Interactive Fiction | |

|Jewish | |

|Life Sim | |

|Linux | |

|Mac | |

|Medieval | |

|MMO | |

|Mod |As in "game mod" not "mods vs. rockers". |

|Modern |As in "wargame of the modern era" |

|Movies | |

|MUD | |

|Multiplayer |If playable multiplayer NOT over the Net, e.g., hotseat. |

|Music Game | |

|Naval | |

|New York | |

|Ninjas | |

|Non-Violent | |

|NSFW |Not Safe for Work. |

|Old School | |

|Online Multiplayer |Please do NOT tag MMOs this way--other multiplayer only. |

|Opera | |

|Original UI | |

|PBEM |Play-by-email. |

|PC | |

|Physics | |

|Pick-3 | |

|Platform Shooter | |

|Platformer | |

|Police | |

|Politics | |

|Puzzle | |

|Rabbits | |

|Racer | |

|Rail Shooter | |

|Railroads | |

|Real Estate | |

|Real-Time Tactics | |

|Retro | |

|Rhythm | |

|Risk | |

|Robotron | |

|Robots | |

|Rock-Paper-Scissors | |

|Rogue-like | |

|Romans | |

|RPG | |

|RTS | |

|Sacrilege | |

|Schoolyard | |

|Science Fiction |Do NOT use "Sci Fi" |

|Serious | |

|Shmup |Restrict to space games. |

|Shooter | |

|Short Play | |

|Sidescroller | |

|Sim | |

|Slacker | |

|Slamdance | |

|Snowboards | |

|Space Shooter | |

|Space Sim | |

|Space Station | |

|Sports | |

|Sports Management | |

|Student Project | |

|Subscription-Based | |

|Superheroes | |

|Surreal | |

|Tactics | |

|Tamagotchi | |

|Tank Sim | |

|TCG |Trading-card game (do not use "CCG"). |

|Text Adventure | |

|Tongues | |

|Trading | |

|Trojan Wars | |

|Turn-Based Fantasy | |

|Turn-Based Strategy | |

|Tycoon | |

|Vampires | |

|Vehicle Combat | |

|Vehicle Sim | |

|Wargame | |

|WWII | |

|XCom |Similar to the XCom series of games. |

|XYZZY Awards | |

|Zombies | |

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