Assignment — One Sheet

GAME 1303 · Introduction to Game Design & Development
Due: Week 4 — Tuesday, September 15, 11:59 PM · Submit in Canvas · 5 points

What a One Sheet is

A one sheet is the single page you hand a publisher, a producer, or a stranger at a conference. It has one job: make someone understand your game and want to play it, in under a minute.

It is not a design document. It contains no implementation detail, no level lists, no asset counts. It is the sales pitch of your Week 2 pitch, in writing, with a picture.

One page. One side. PDF. A one sheet that runs to two pages is not a one sheet.

Required contents

Everything below must appear. Layout is yours.

Element	What it means	Length
Title	The name of your game, set large	—
Hook / logline	One sentence that makes someone want to play it	1 sentence
Genre	Platformer, puzzle, narrative adventure, VR experience…	A few words
Platform	PC, WebGL, Quest 2, Cosmos Elite	A few words
Audience	Who this is for, specifically. "Everyone" is not an audience.	1 sentence
Core loop	The thing the player does over and over. Verb first.	2–3 sentences
What makes it different	The one thing that isn't in the games it resembles	1–2 sentences
Art direction	The visual approach, in words	1–2 sentences
Key art or mockup	An image. Yours, or clearly-labeled reference.	At least one
Your name	And your section	—

Writing the hook

The hook is the hardest part of the page and the part most worth your time. Two tests:

Can you say it out loud in one breath? If you run out of air, it's too long.
Does it contain a verb the player performs? "A game about loss" is a theme, not a hook. "You rewind time to un-break the things you've already destroyed" is a hook.

Weak → strong:

❌ A 2D platformer where you play as a robot in a factory.
✅ A platformer where your only weapon is the spare parts you tear off your own body — and every part you throw is one you no longer have.

❌ A puzzle game with blocks.
✅ A sliding-block puzzle where the blocks remember every move you've made and slide back along your path.

The second version in each pair names a mechanic and a tension. That's the whole trick.

Writing the core loop

Describe what the player actually does, in order, using verbs:

Explore a room, find a mechanism you can't reach, throw a limb to trigger it, then decide whether to retrieve the limb or move on without it.

If your core loop paragraph doesn't contain at least three verbs, you have described a setting rather than a game.

Art direction

Two or three sentences. Name a palette, a line quality, a reference. Concrete beats poetic:

Flat two-tone pixel art at 32×32, limited to six colors — rust, bone, and four blues. Heavy black outlines. Backgrounds are near-black so the player and interactables are the only bright things on screen.

Submission

Format: PDF, one page, portrait or landscape.
Filename: lastname_onesheet.pdf
Where: Canvas → Assignments → One Sheet
Legible at 100% zoom. If the body text is smaller than about 10 pt, you have too many words.

Rubric — 5 points

Criterion	Pts	Met when
Required elements	2	All ten required elements are present and identifiable
Hook	1	One sentence, contains a player verb, communicates the game
Core loop	1	Describes repeated player action with verbs, not just setting or story
Visual & format	1	Fits on one page, includes key art or a mockup, legible and composed

Common failure modes

Story synopsis instead of a game description. Nobody can tell what the player does.
Two pages. Automatic loss of the format point.
No image. The picture does more selling than any paragraph on the page.
Feature list. "Multiple levels, power-ups, boss fight" tells a reader nothing about why your game is worth playing.
Uncredited reference art. If the image isn't yours, label it as reference. Using it uncredited is an integrity violation.

Note on scope

Your one sheet is a promise. In Week 15 you submit a build, and the two get compared. A one sheet describing a game you cannot finish costs you far more at the end of the semester than it gains you now. If writing this page makes you realize your game is too big, that is the assignment working — come to lab and we'll cut it.