Lately I have discovered the importance of a good title screen. I have never really dwelled on title screens as you may see from my previous games but Title screens have many different purposes.

1. A Game with a poor looking title screen will immediately give the player a pre-set on how they feel about the game. What I mean by this, is that they we start playing, see a crap title screen, and then will always see the game as crap : like they say, first impressions - you only get one. Whereas a game with a good title screen, (ED is an excellent example) will have the player very keen to see more of the game.

2. A title screen/menu screen (may be together or not it is up to you) is where the player spends alot of time, choosing what to do, finding out what to do etc, so it has to be pleasant to look at.

http://www25.brinkster.com/Ashman3205/Balloon_Title.gif

That is the title screen from one of my older games. I made that really quickly and it is very bad. I thought chucking in a balloon and some fancy font work would be enough. As you can see it is crap.
Heres the screenshot of the title screen for my upcoming game KRAMERS QUEST

http://www.create-games.com/preview.asp?id=435

hee hee might as well get some free advertising lol

http://user.domaindlx.com/Ashman/Kramers_Quest_Title_New.gif

Now I know it's still a pretty crappy title screen as my graphics are not very good, but you have to agree it's a vast improvement from the first.

-You need a big picture, sort of a still shot ( like the KQ title)
-A still action shot using the smaller graphics (almost like a level screenshot but it can be doctored)
-A title screen that tells the story.
-A still title screen but with movement (like ED the girl reads her book)

Even if you have no confidence in your graphics, You can do a big still picture and even if it looks really bad, make a screenshot of it, paste it into paintshop pro and use the special effects to make it look blurry. It is really effective but the player can't tell that the GFX are crappy.

Also if you intend to have a menu in the title screen instead of a seperate screen, it needs to be effective. It needs something to change when you a flipping through options. ED the log rolls. In Kramers Quest, the selection your on lights up and the others are dark.

I hope I have helped you.