I'm compiling a list of journalists to contact about our upcoming game and I could use a bit of help from fellow gamedevs and players! I already got a bunch, but you guys probably read more outlets than me.

"Karaski: What Goes Up..." is a nonlinear, story-driven detective FP-RPG set on a 1920s Slavic Airship that is being actively sabotaged, and you are one of the suspects. I'm looking for journalists who enjoy similar titles (Gone Home, LA Noire, Deus Ex, Consortium, Walking Dead, The Novelist, To The Moon, etc) and focuses on single-player PC indies. Don't want to waste time of those who aren't interested.

So if any of you know or have favorite writers/bloggers/youtubers who might be interested please let me know! Thanks

Hmm... Based on a quick look at your page, I think that your game would generally be classified as an "adventure game" rather than an "RPG". Further, to the best of my knowledge all of Gone Home, LA Noire, The Walking Dead, and The Novelist are adventure games. As such, have you looked into adventure-centric sites/reviewers, such as Adventure Gamers, Just Adventure, or Adventure Lantern?

I am curious about something, if I may: Since you list your game as an RPG, and mention on your site that "... your interactions with others shape your character ...", will there be some sort of mechanical character progression, or is the shaping of the character purely narrative?

Rock, Paper, Shotgun seems to cover a lot of less-mainstream genres on PC.

Have you thought about trying to put it on Steam Greenlight?

As another poster mentioned, Rock, Paper, Shotgun is probably the most popular PC centric site out there. Then there is always the staple of PC Gamer. I'd also recommend Total Biscuit as a youtuber. He can be polarizing but I've seen first hand what type of traffic he can generate from his WTF series.

Thinking of Youtubers and the like, if--or once--you have a release-ready build, I second the recommendation of TotalBiscuit; in addition to him, you might consider sending copies to the Yogscast and Jim Sterling, as well as looking for others. (The Yogscast might want you to be paid via their YogsDiscovery program, but it'll likely not hurt to contact them, and you might find it worth it, especially as they ask a percentage over a period of time rather than a flat rate, I believe.)

For myself as a gamer, I've found Let's Plays and First Impressions to be a rather useful means of both discovering new games and figuring out whether they look like something that I want to buy.

You could gain a ton of "coverage" by targeting "Let's Play" YouTube channels - if you're having trouble getting 'publications' from trying your game.

Thinking of Youtubers and the like, if--or once--you have a release-ready build, I second the recommendation of [snip] Jim Sterling, as well as looking for others. [snip]

For myself as a gamer, I've found Let's Plays and First Impressions to be a rather useful means of both discovering new games and figuring out whether they look like something that I want to buy.

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He will rip him a 'new one'.

Sterling does not go easy on new games, especially if their graphics aren't decent or game play isn't good [ LINK ]

Some one like NerdCubed would go a lot easier on early indi games.

Sterling does not go easy on new games, especially if their graphics aren't decent or game play isn't good [ LINK ]

Actually, I generally find him to be pretty fair, and he does compliment and provide links for those that he finds to be good or promising, I believe.

For example, see his video on Her Story (which I believe to be more or less an adventure game, and a somewhat experimental one at that), which his video description calls "[a] fascinating little mystery".

A moderate example might be The Rake: the graphics aren't great and the gameplay starts off somewhat slowly, but he notes that he does become involved as the game progresses, and has fun with it. His video description begins with "A cheap horror game that's... actually somewhat promising?", and he goes on to link to its store page.

If Koobazaur's game is good, then it should be fairly safe to send it in; if it isn't, then I'm not inclined to want that covered up. Critique, including such as Jim Sterling's produces, isn't something to avoid, I feel--indeed, listening to it can help us to improve our games, I believe.

For what it's worth, Jim Sterling is on my own list of people to whom to send my current project, presuming that I complete it.

Hey thanks for all the suggestions! Yea, RPS and TB are high on my list, but they're also the hardest to reach being most mainstream. I agree "smaller" LPers are best to start building hype, but I frankly dont know any good ones, so researching those.

Regarding Jim Sterling, I like his stuff but I do feel he tends to focus more on the negatives; his whole "Greenlight trailers" is basically making fun of them (I don't think I've ever seen a positive one). But I still plan to pitch it to him either way. If my game is shit, it should be called out on it.

(Also, it's not shit. it's pretty pretty awesome omgplsplayitkthxbai...)

Hmm... Based on a quick look at your page, I think that your game would generally be classified as an "adventure game" rather than an "RPG". Further, to the best of my knowledge all of Gone Home, LA Noire, The Walking Dead, and The Novelist are adventure games.

That's a good point, I didnt realize the other ones were classified as Adventure. Yea I've been struggling to classify the game as its a bit of a mix but leaning towards dropping RPG moniker. The term brings an image of stats and levling to mind which is misleading. It's more of a literal interpretation - how you play your role by interacting with others or completing quests affects the narrative, rather than dice rolls. For example you don't pick your gender, early on you get to introduce yourself as either Mr. Or Mrs. your-name and bam, you're gender is now defined. Similar choices are made about the overarching story, and even others.

I am curious about something, if I may: Since you list your game as an RPG, and mention on your site that "... your interactions with others shape your character ...", will there be some sort of mechanical character progression, or is the shaping of the character purely narrative?

Both I already described the narrative aspect, but on top of that there are a number of tools you can find ingame that give you new abilities like picking locks or tinkering with machinery. You don't get them all so which tools you choose and in what order will allow you to "customize" your build, so to say.

Have you thought about trying to put it on Steam Greenlight?

That's the plan too

Regarding Jim Sterling, I like his stuff but I do feel he tends to focus more on the negatives; his whole "Greenlight trailers" is basically making fun of them (I don't think I've ever seen a positive one).

I do agree that his Greenlight Trailers seem to focus specifically on the negative. As to his First Impressions, I'm not sure to what degree the preponderance of negative reviews reflects his choices, as opposed to the spread of quality on Steam, from what I've gathered of that service. (I'll confess that I have that impression of Steam second-hand--I don't buy there myself, preferring to stick to GOG.com.) That said, I wouldn't be surprised if he did make a point of highlighting poor games (and especially "asset flips") as a means of warning consumers about them, and of producing entertaining content, of course. (I think that I recall him stating that he picks games that catch his interest in one way or another.)

Nevertheless, as I pointed out above, he does seem to give praise to games that turn out to be enjoyable.

Both smile.png I already described the narrative aspect, but on top of that there are a number of tools you can find ingame that give you new abilities like picking locks or tinkering with machinery. You don't get them all so which tools you choose and in what order will allow you to "customize" your build, so to say.

Interesting! I'm a big fan of having multiple solutions and approaches in adventure games, although I do recognise that it can call for quite a bit of additional work. I'm impressed! ^_^

Yea I've been struggling to classify the game as its a bit of a mix but leaning towards dropping RPG moniker. The term brings an image of stats and levling to mind which is misleading. It's more of a literal interpretation - how you play your role by interacting with others or completing quests affects the narrative, rather than dice rolls.

I'm inclined to the belief that the genre-name "RPG" is somewhat of an artefact title in video games, and now has a slightly different meaning than it does in other media. While video game RPGs did descend from the tabletop form, the lack of a human GM resulted, I believe, in a shift in the core focus of the genre. Specifically, it moved away from the communal storytelling/play that is the core of tabletop games, I gather, and instead focussed on the mechanical elements: on character progression through character abilities and statistics. (Note: I'm not saying that the latter isn't present in the tabletop form, nor that one can't play a mechanically-focussed tabletop game; I'm talking more about the identifying characteristics in general.)

Funnily enough, something similar happened with "adventure" games, I believe: The name comes, as I have it, from comparison with Colossal Cave Adventure--often simply called "Adventure": such games were "Adventure-like" games, just as we now have "roguelike" games, and once had "Doom-clones". But we would hardly look at Colossal Cave Adventure to determine the properties of a modern adventure game, as the genre has branched out quite a bit since then; the name tells us where the genre came from, rather than what it is now--and I feel that something similar is true of RPGs.