Game Design Secrets

Getting Your Game on Jay Is Games, the Web Game Kingmaker

Jay Is Games happens to be my personal favorite for web game recommendations.

Many sites host web games, but Jay Is Games (jayisgames.com) is among the largest and the most influential. At the moment, 1.5 million people visit the site 2.5 million times; a well-made game hosted on the site averages about 250,000 plays, whereas some of the biggest hits will draw 2-3 million. See Figure 7-6.

Figure 7-6: The Jay Is Games homepage

Through its annual Casual Gameplay Design Competition, games like Gimme Friction Baby and ...But That Was [Yesterday] have become viral hits. So clearly the site is a web game kingmaker. Trouble is, JiG features only a limited number of games that developers submit to the site. How do you increase the odds that yours will become one of them? Editors Jay Bibby, John Bardinelli, and the rest of the team share some insights and advice.

What They’re Looking for in Games: Quality, Ease of Use, and Fun

“Lots of factors go into the decision to host a game, including overall quality, ease of use, and of course, how much fun it is. Each time we evaluate a game we get as many of our reviewers to play it as possible. That gives us a wide range of opinions to pull from, since some people will be die-hard fans of the genre and others just occasional dabblers. Once we play the game, we start our discussion, ...