Pitch Submissions – Boss Fight Books

Seeing as this is The World’s #1 Gravity Rush Forum figured I’d link this here

I’ve been putting together my own pitch for Fate/Stay Night and I’m really feeling the “curse of knowledge” here where I have to constantly remember “right, I have to succinctly explain this to someone who may have never even heard of this” whereas I am keenly familiar with it to the point that I take it for granted.

Never actually read any of their books myself though, so I have no clue what the baseline of quality they’re expecting is.

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Man I’d love to a Gravity Rush boss fight…I’ve also never read the books and don’t know if I’d ever have the time.

Good luck!! I’d love to read one on FS/N, there’s a ton of ground you can cover there lol.

I wish my old longform posting about Sonic the Hedgehog was in a more presentable state…though I only got about halfway through the game

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Not to revive a dead thread or anything but uh, any of yall willing to look at my current pitch draft and give me your thoughts? (as always, no worries if not)

Pitch

Hey there, my name is [Real Name]. I saw your open submissions page, and after considering several games I might pitch, I decided there was only really one choice for me.

The game I’m pitching is Fate/Stay Night, a Japanese urban fantasy visual novel developed by Type-Moon and released in 2004. I’d argue it’s one of the most important visual novels ever released, spawning a multimedia empire and causing ripples that would eventually become a tsunami across the games industry. It’s also a pretty cool piece of work unto itself.

A visual novel doesn’t exactly have a lot of “gameplay”; it’s mostly clicking to progress the text until you get to a decision point. The story branches at these points to different scenes (or straight to a game over), setting flags and tracking variables behind the curtain. You’re probably familiar with something like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, which I’d broadly consider a visual novel. That has more “game” to it, asking the player to puzzle out solutions, but the core idea that you only progress the story by choosing the correct options is the same.

Fate/Stay Night’s plot takes place in the modern day and focuses on a concept called the “Holy Grail War”, where mages summon “Servants” - spirits of figures from myth and legend like Hercules or Gilgamesh - to battle on their behalf for the chance to have their wish granted. A supposedly ordinary teenager stumbles into this conflict by accidentally summoning “Saber”, known as the most powerful Servant. The story branches out from this event in multiple ways.

Three ways, to be specific. Depending on the choices in the first few hours of the game, F/SN diverges into bespoke “routes”. Each starts from the same base, but goes off in a different direction and offers new insight on the plot, characters, and setting. The rub is that they only unlock in sequence, a sort of nested New Game Plus system where each new route assumes you remember the plot details from the last and changes accordingly.

In a vacuum, perhaps a random visual novel doesn’t seem particularly interesting or notable, but we have to consider multiple angles here, and there are several angles from which one could tackle F/SN.

Take for instance the aforementioned multimedia empire. If you’re looking for a video game that affected mediums beyond video games, look no further. There are (so far) at least nine TV anime, six films, and God-knows-how-many manga and novel adaptations, spinoffs, and adaptations of spinoffs. Which isn’t to say it hasn’t made waves in video games; there are at least a good half-dozen non-visual novel Fate video games, from RPGs to Fighting Games to Cooking Mini-Game Compilations.

The mobile spinoff Fate/Grand Order could probably fill a book in itself. It’s made over 7 billion dollars to date, and its “gacha” gameplay leveraged existing franchise roots to pave the way for mobile games to achieve market dominance. We wouldn’t have titans like Genshin Impact or Honkai Star Rail without it, at least not in the same way.

Though it’s huge now, F/SN has relatively humble indie origins. Type-Moon’s previous game - Tsukihime - was literally distributed on floppy disks at a convention. The original version of Fate’s plot was written while its creator was still in high school and college, shelved for over a decade before he picked it back up.

F/SN’s format and narrative, steeped in game tropes without being beholden to them, are perfect for sparking imagination and keeping fans engaged. We all reference the Marvel Cinematic Universe when it comes to shared universe, wiki-fied media, but Iron Man came out in 2008. Way back in 2004, Fate/Stay Night was dangling loose threads connecting back to previous Type-Moon works dating back as far as 1998. The Servant character template practically begs to be filled with different interpretations of different mythological figures. New releases and fan discussions alike still scramble to fill the gaps.

The game reached these heights despite never legitimately releasing westward. Spinoffs and anime versions made the jump, but only now - in 2024! - is the updated version of Fate/Stay Night getting an official worldwide release. I’d argue this fact is vitally important to the franchise’s appeal specifically to the western fanbase. The language barrier enhanced the game’s ambience via creating a sense of mystery and obfuscation for the English-speaking world.

And if none of these angles are cool or sexy enough, we can’t forget the actual sex. The original 2004 release of Fate/Stay Night was an “eroge”, or “erotic game”', featuring multiple scenes with partially-censored sexual content. No subsequent version has retained these elements (at least not directly), but it cannot be denied they’ve informed all other branches of the Fate franchise tree. One could argue this makes F/SN the most important and influential adult game yet released.

What I’d want to examine in a book is how Fate/Stay Night contains within itself more than itself; it is simultaneously a sponge full of holes and the seed taking root within it. Each of these angles are components of the proverbial gunpowder that primed the franchise to explode. With this in mind, the game’s three routes can be seen as akin to books in their own epic cycle.

Whether intentionally or not, Fate/Stay Night ended up an act of modern mythmaking. Is a fictional universe’s fan wiki not in its own way a form of canon, constructed from interpretations of imperfect translations, molded through the debate and concord of its faithful? Fate’s particular flavor of mythopoeia - drawing from not only traditional folklore but popular anime and games - was uniquely poised to surf the rising tide of the social media age.

A potential hurdle is that Fate is a Japanese game and I do not speak or read Japanese, which inherently limits my ability to do research for a hypothetical book. The franchise has an infamously obsessive fanbase that’s translated plenty of interviews and side material, but much of it isn’t necessarily translated well. Various versions of the story (its anime adaptations, mostly) have gotten official English releases, but when it comes to the original visual novel itself, we’ve been working off the same old fan translation since 2008. While this means I don’t have a holistic view of Fate/Stay Night’s development and domestic success in Japan, I genuinely believe this sort of fan-driven, imperfect understanding helped the game’s spread in the west. I was there as it happened.

I’ve written lengthy pieces on the subject before. Most notable is my 2021 review of the third film adaptation of the third story route of Fate/Stay Night (I was, for better or worse, attempting to imitate the style of Tim Rogers’ Action Button reviews at the time). I cover many of the topics I mention above in slightly more detail there. I also wrote a franchise retrospective in 2020 that mostly served as an overview of mainline installments. More recently, I wrote a review of Type-Moon’s newest non-remake visual novel, Witch on the Holy Night, examining how that game’s main appeal relied less on its own merits and more on the fact it broadly takes place in the same universe as Fate.

I have a compilation post on Cohost with what I consider my more notable pieces on the writing sample front. My Sea of Stars review is probably some of my best work, thoroughly critiquing the game’s tone and intent. Also particularly worth checking out are my CRPG Beginner’s List and my post examining the characterization of Fire Emblem: Three Houses via a side character.

It’s not an exaggeration to say the Fate franchise is a formative work to me and many others. It defined my late teens and early 20s as I watched it grow into the titan it is today, and I can scarcely imagine a world without its effects. You can trace some of the threads back further, but the original Fate/Stay Night is the flashpoint that changed everything.

Thanks for your consideration.

I’ll look tmrw fur sure

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okee here u go, hope it helps and of course take and leave what you will

Pitch + Edits

Hey there, my name is [Real Name]. I saw your open submissions page, and after considering several games I might pitch, I decided there was only really one choice for me for me to write about.

edited this slightly to explain that this is the only thing you want to write about, as the rest of the pitch describes why

The game I’m pitching is Fate/Stay Night, a Japanese urban fantasy visual novel developed by Type-Moon and released in 2004. I’d argue it’s one of the most important visual novels ever released, spawning a multimedia empire and causing ripples that would eventually become a tsunami across the games industry. It’s also a pretty cool piece of work unto itself.

I dunno if this line is needed? I can see it either way. I get that you’re basically saying the game is more than the sum of its impact, but i dunno. feel free to ignore me tbh lol

A visual novel doesn’t exactly have a lot of “gameplay”; it’s mostly clicking to progress the text until you get to a decision point. The story branches at these points to different scenes (or straight to a game over), setting flags and tracking variables behind the curtain. You’re probably familiar with something like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, which I’d broadly consider a visual novel. That has more “game” to it, asking the player to puzzle out solutions, but the core idea that you only progress the story by choosing the correct options is the same.

Could probably tool around with this a little. I think explaining the genre of game is useful of course, but it feels a little disjointed from the rest of the pitch - the name “Fate/Stay Night” doesn’t appear anywhere in the paragraph. Also would drop “which I’d broadly consider a visual novel” - it is, and anyone who says otherwise is unhinged. You explain the difference in the next sentence anyways

Fate/Stay Night’s plot takes place in the modern day and focuses on a concept called the “Holy Grail War”, where mages summon “Servants” - spirits of figures from myth and legend like Hercules or Gilgamesh - to battle on their behalf for the chance to have their wish granted. A supposedly ordinary teenager stumbles into this conflict by accidentally summoning “Saber”, known as the most powerful Servant. The story branches out from this event in multiple ways three specific ways.

Three ways, to be specific. Depending on the choices in the first few hours of the game, F/SN diverges into bespoke “routes”. Each starts from the same base, but goes off in a different direction and offers new insight on the plot, characters, and setting. The rub is that they only unlock in sequence, a sort of nested New Game Plus system where each new route assumes you remember the plot details from the last and changes accordingly.

Just altered slightly - no reason to say multiple ways and then specify the number of ways right after imo

In a vacuum, perhaps a random visual novel doesn’t seem particularly interesting or notable, but we have to consider multiple angles here, and

Would suggest just cutting this flat out - no need to downplay the reasoning. If I ever said “you might not think Gravity Rush is interesting because it’s a 3D Platformer” you’d think I’ve been replaced with an alien. F/S is interesting - just get straight into explaining why.

There are several angles from which one could tackle F/SN. Take for instance the aforementioned multimedia empire. If you’re looking for a video game that affected mediums beyond video games, look no further. There are (so far) at least nine TV anime, six films, and God-knows-how-many manga and novel adaptations, spinoffs, and adaptations of spinoffs. Which isn’t to say it hasn’t made waves in video games; there are at least a good half-dozen non-visual novel Fate video games, from RPGs to Fighting Games to Cooking Mini-Game Compilations.

just removed some italics in words here 'cause they show up a lot

The mobile spinoff Fate/Grand Order could probably fill a book in itself. It’s made over 7 billion dollars to date, and its “gacha” gameplay leveraged existing franchise roots to pave the way for mobile games to achieve market dominance. We wouldn’t have titans like Genshin Impact or Honkai Star Rail without it , at least not in the same way.

Think you can remove the last bit. When you put it down like that my question because “what other ways?” but you understandably don’t get into them because you have a pitch to write. The general point - that GI and HSR would be naught but a twinkle in Mihoyo’s eye without F/S - remains regadless

Though it’s huge now, F/SN has relatively humble indie origins. Type-Moon’s previous game - Tsukihime - was literally distributed on floppy disks at a convention. The original version of Fate’s plot was written while its creator was still in high school and college, shelved for over a decade before he picked it back up.

No real notes here, but maybe mention the creator by name? Nasu will be showing up a lot if you write this book, may as well get them familiar lmao

F/SN’s format and narrative, steeped in game tropes without being beholden to them, are perfect for sparking imagination and keeping fans engaged. We all reference the Marvel Cinematic Universe when it comes to shared universe, wiki-fied media, but Iron Man came out in 2008. Way back in 2004, Fate/Stay Night was dangling loose threads connecting back to previous Type-Moon works dating back as far as 1998. The Servant character template practically begs to be filled with different interpretations of different mythological figures. New releases and fan discussions alike still scramble to fill the gaps.

This is a great angle and you’re right. F/S is the original MCU and that’ll be an interesting aspect to explore. That said made a slight edit because my least favorite book is Harry Potter and the Audacity of these Adverbs

The game reached these heights despite never legitimately releasing westward. Spinoffs and anime versions made the jump, but only now - in 2024! - is the updated version of Fate/Stay Night getting an official worldwide release. I’d argue this fact is vitally important to the franchise’s appeal specifically to the western fanbase. The language barrier enhanced the game’s ambience by creating a sense of mystery and obfuscation for the English-speaking world.

And if none of these angles are cool or sexy enough, we can’t forget the actual sex. The original 2004 release of Fate/Stay Night was an “eroge”, or “erotic game”', featuring multiple scenes with partially-censored sexual content. No subsequent version has retained these elements (at least not directly), but it cannot be denied they’ve informed all other branches of the Fate franchise tree. One could argue this makes F/SN the most important and influential adult game yet released.

What I’d want to examine in a book is how Fate/Stay Night contains within itself more than itself: it is simultaneously a sponge full of holes and the seed taking root within it. Each of these angles are components of the proverbial gunpowder that primed the franchise to explode. With this in mind, the game’s three routes can be seen as akin to books in their own epic cycle.

Whether intentionally or not, Fate/Stay Night ended up an act of modern mythmaking. Is a fictional universe’s fan wiki not in its own way a form of canon, constructed from interpretations of imperfect translations, molded through the debate and concord of its faithful? Fate’s particular flavor of mythopoeia - drawing from not only traditional folklore but popular anime and games - was uniquely poised to surf the rising tide of the social media age.

A potential hurdle is that Fate is a Japanese game and I do not speak or read Japanese, which inherently limits my ability to do research for a hypothetical book. The franchise has an infamously obsessive fanbase that’s translated plenty of interviews and side material, but much of it isn’t necessarily translated well. Various versions of the story (its anime adaptations, mostly) have gotten official English releases, but when it comes to the original visual novel itself, we’ve been working off the same old fan translation since 2008. While this means I don’t have a holistic view of Fate/Stay Night’s development and domestic success in Japan, I genuinely believe this sort of fan-driven, imperfect understanding helped the game’s spread in the west. I was there as it happened.

I’ve written lengthy pieces on the subject before. Most notable is my 2021 review of the third film adaptation of the third story route of Fate/Stay Night (I was, for better or worse, attempting to imitate the style of Tim Rogers’ Action Button reviews at the time). I cover many of the topics I mention above in slightly more detail there. I also wrote a franchise retrospective in 2020 that mostly served as an overview of mainline installments. More recently, I wrote a review of Type-Moon’s newest non-remake visual novel, Witch on the Holy Night, examining how that game’s main appeal relied less on its own merits and more on the fact it broadly takes place in the same universe as Fate.

I have a compilation post on Cohost with what I consider my more notable pieces on the writing sample front. My Sea of Stars review is probably some of my best work, thoroughly critiquing the game’s tone and intent. Also particularly worth checking out are my CRPG Beginner’s List and my post examining the characterization of Fire Emblem: Three Houses via a side character.

It’s not an exaggeration to say the Fate franchise is a formative work to me and many others. It defined my late teens and early 20s as I watched it grow into the titan it is today, and I can scarcely imagine a world without its effects. You can trace some of the threads back further, but the original Fate/Stay Night is the flashpoint that changed everything.

Thanks for your consideration.

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Thanks chief, I guess I do use italics a little too often…

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