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You can't be expected to build your full game before pitching to publishers, but they also won't fund half-baked gameplay and a collection of concept art. So what's the middle ground? A vertical slice.
A vertical slice is a segment of your game that demonstrates its potential to interested parties, including publishers, playtesters, and future customers—but mostly publishers. It’s close to a demo, but it’s much rougher. Unlike a demo, it doesn’t need to have polished visuals, music, or even gameplay. It just needs to show your game’s potential.
Publishers and investors care that your game will sell. To figure out its potential, they’ll scrutinize your gameplay loop (is it fun? is it engaging?), and they’ll judge your team’s ability to demonstrate professional-grade visuals. They recognize that early-stage development means your game isn’t polished.
Since building a game is quite a lot of work, it’s important to build what matters first. Rather than diving straight into development, first consider what features and content your vertical slice will need to attract the publishers you’re looking for.
Your vertical slice will need the following:
A clear gameplay loop
A moment
A beautiful corner
A clear gameplay loop
We want players to walk away from your vertical slice understanding the flow of gameplay and how it develops. To do so, they’ll need to experience enough of your game to understand its structure and path.
Let’s take a look at a few games from different genres and articulate their gameplay loops:
Game | Genre | Loop |
|---|---|---|
Risk of Rain 2 | Roguelike | Kill and evade waves of enemies in search of a teleporter to the next level. Gain experience and currency by killing enemies. Use currency to open chests to get powerups. Defeat a powerful boss to proceed to the next stage. |
Roller Coaster Tycoon | Management | Build a rollercoaster. See how people respond to your coaster, and how it affects the overall theme park. Use ride income to build new attractions. |
Overcooked | Co-op party/sim | Complete a certain amount of recipes within the allotted time to progress to the next level. |
Skyrim | RPG | Talk to various NPCs in town, who offer quests. Venture out from town, defeat monsters, and return for rewards and relationship progression. |
Rocket League | Competitive Sports | In teams of three, score more goals than your opponent within the allotted time. |
Starcraft | RTS | Build a base, generate units, and use those units to wipe out enemy forces. |
Mario | 2D Platformer | Advance a 2D character through a side-scrolling environment, jumping over obstacles and enemies until you reach the end of a level. |
When a player first understands your gameplay loop, they can say “I get it.” It’s the first of two “I get its” you’re looking for. Understanding the gameplay loop gives a game familiarity and helps your player enter a flow state while playing it. They see familiar checkpoints, experience rising and falling action, and find a convenient stopping point that will only make them five minutes late for dinner.
In many cases, especially in roguelikes and stage-based games, your gameplay loop is the equivalent of a level. But across some genres—management, 4X, some metroidvanias—your game may be more continuous. In those cases, you’ll need to dissect player actions to see where the player starts repeating themselves, and then build a loop around that logic. In these cases, it’s important to script the player experience (which I cover more below).
A moment
The gameplay loop shows the player your game's identity. But you also have to convey the magic your game can offer. I believe that each game has moments—a feeling when you’re playing, and something clicks, and you feel immense satisfaction. A dopamine rush. A true understanding of the game. A mastery of it.
In many ways, the gameplay loop is the easy part. If we can deconstruct games of every genre into iterative loops, then we can cobble together cheap imitations. I’m sure you can think of many cheap imitations out there—soulless games, often built by large studios, that slap great graphics and a popular IP onto a tired formula. That’s not the game we’re here to make, so a clear gameplay loop isn’t enough.
Building a moment is the hard part, particularly in a vertical slice. Here are a few reasons why:
A moment often comes after mastery is achieved, which takes time and investment. That’s a lot to ask from a vertical slice.
A moment stands in contrast to the struggles that came before it—so you need to build the struggle. Again—a tall order.
A moment separates great games from okay games, so of course it’s going to be hard!
Since you have limited time and resources to construct your moment, you need to be deliberate about the slice of gameplay that you develop. You need to make sure that the player is challenged, and that they overcome that challenge in a satisfying way—through the understanding of a satisfying gameplay mechanic.
Importantly, that makes the typical tutorial segment a lousy candidate for a vertical slice. While tutorials help new players acclimate to a huge game, they’re never what you remember, right? They often feature a underpowered protagonist who’s missing almost all of what makes them cool. “Here’s a fallen log to teach you that ‘B’ is to crouch, here’s a ten-foot gap that teaches you to double jump.” While these things are important, they can’t take up too much real estate in your vertical slice.
Instead, offer the player more to play with. Introduce mid-late game abilities that show the depth of your game design abilities and your vision for your character’s most powerful form.
This principle applies well to loot- and gear-based games. When you start an RPG, you’ve got piddly, gray-tier gear that doesn’t feel fun to use. Fans of the genre know that if they stick with it, they’ll get great gear—and that’s a big part of the payoff. But in a vertical slice, your audience needs to know that you’re capable of delivering that payoff. Introduce fun, game-breaking abilities in the midst of your vertical slice to make your player smile, nod, and say “now this is fun.”
In the same vein, sometimes moments are about making the player feel like a god. The original campaign of Destiny 2 is great with this, giving the player every toy at their disposal right from the start. God of War (2018) introduces the chaos blades in one of the most satisfying moments ever—a complete and utter change in combat mechanics, something you didn’t know you needed until you had it, and it gives you tons of fodder to slice through.
This requires scripting the player experience to ensure they feel what you want them to feel. Lots of games present overwhelming options to allow players the freedom to experiment and find an all-powerful build. While that might play in your final game, you really don’t want players latching onto suboptimal builds, items, and choices as they play through your vertical slice. You don’t want them to miss the good stuff.
So script it. Make sure certain items drop, especially the ones that synchronize with their starting build. If you’re building an RTS, give them the tools to build sick units, even if they wouldn’t have already unlocked. Introduce them to your best-written quest, and give them your coolest reward at the end. Give them the platforming mechanic that makes your game rock.
If you still want to provide options, highlight the ones first time players should choose. Show them the strategy. Ensure each new player has the experience you want them to have.
Developing your moment
We’ve established that creating moments isn’t easy. You may not even know what moments your game has to offer yet. There are probably a lot that you have yet to uncover. I offer two pieces of advice for discovering moments.
Spend some time brainstorming. Jot down potential moments that your game has to offer. Then try to create the experiences that lead to them. Build a system, master it, and see how that feels. It’s a great way to progress your game’s development.
While you’re playtesting your nascent game, keep an eye out for experiences that feel weirdly satisfying. Invest in building those further—they may just lead to moments.
A beautiful corner
A beautiful corner is a polished section of your vertical slice that demonstrates your team’s ability to create high-quality art assets.
Consider a craftsman decorating the inside of a chapel. If they can decorate one corner with beautiful carvings and stained glass windows, you can be sure they’ll be able to do the same across the entire interior (with adequate time and materials).
The beautiful corner theory follows this principle. If your team shows they can create a beautiful corner within your game, they show that they can create a beautiful game. It’s a time-saving measure for your team, since they don’t have to create polished art assets for the entirety of your vertical slice. It dramatically lessens the art load when you’re scoping your vertical slice.
A beautiful corner typically refers to the visuals, but I believe in applying it across more disciplines. While music and audio are less important than visuals for publishers, it’ll still be helpful to have a few great sound effects and one well-produced track segment to hammer the point home that your team is capable of greatness.
We can apply this to gameplay, too. It’s a little harder, because your gameplay needs to feel fun and engaging all the time. But you could take a look at upgrade systems, which come with tons of options and flavors, and we can script a moment. You don’t need to design all upgrades perfectly—pick one or two, design them flawlessly, and then guide the player to select them.
Crucially, your player needs to see the beautiful corner! If you tuck it away somewhere on the map that they’ll never visit, it’s not doing you any favors. Make sure your player runs into it head-on.
Consider something closer to a beautiful hallway, or a beautiful room, or a beautiful cave. Your game might consist of various different areas that the player steps through. Make one a masterpiece. Invest heavily in the modeling, the decor, the ambience, and everything else that makes up an environment. This allows you to show off a lot more, and it’s easier for the player to see what you’re capable of.
Tying it all together
Once you’ve sketched out your gameplay loop, figured out the features and content you’ll need for your moment, and identified the art assets necessary for a beautiful corner, you’ll have the framework for your vertical slice. All that’s left now is to build the damn thing. Well, first you have to scope it all out. Let's learn how in Scoping Your Vertical Slice.
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