Re: Stand-alone games - worth the trouble?


17 Dec 1995 16:26:15 -0500

>mol@oberon.df.lth.se (Magnus Olsson) writes:

>> In the upcoming new release of "Uncle Zebulon's Will", I'm planning to
>> make three packages: one with a .gam file, one with a standalone DOS
>> executable, and one with a standalone Macintosh application.
>>
>> It's obvious that this will be of some service to some people, viz.
>> those Mac and DOS users who don't already have the TADS runtime. On
>> the other hand, it's means increased work for me, and it means two
>> more files on the FTP archives, as well as some risk of confusion (if,
>> for example, a DOS user obtains the Mac version but not the DOS
>> version).
>>
>> I'd like to know what users and other authors think of this. Does the
>> increased trouble of maintaing and distributing three different
>> versions outweigh the advantages of standalone games?

I use a PC and I tend to play text games from Windows- all I need to do is
associate a given extension (like .gam for TADS and .ga1 for TADS 2.2, et
cet) with a given interpreter and boom! I'm there. But I can see Z's
point regarding not having to worry about having the interpreter and the
game in the same directory- it saves a lot of typing from a DOS prompt.
The main reason I prefer stand-alone games is that I'm sure that I have
the correct version of the interpreter to run the game- no attempting to
associate the game's extension with TADS v1.1, TADS v2.2, TADS v2.2.04,
TADS v300,000,000,000.4378.the square root of pi divided by the meaning of
life- whatever versions are out there. And it's always a little letdown
to download a game I'm reeeeeeally looking forward to playing and then to
find out that I don't have the correct TADS version to run it.
So yes, it's worth it ffrom a player's point of view. From THIS player's
point of view, anyway.
As to whether it's worth it from an author's POV- I guess that's up to
you. And I think you can discount the concern about possible confusion on
the downloader's part- the indexes in the FTP archive are pretty clear
about which programs contain what and what will run with what, and there's
that handy-dandy subdirectory thing that they do for each computer make.
BTW, I really enjoyed "Zebulon" and am looking forward to playing the
sequel. Any news on that yet?
Anne :-)