The Vampyr Armande (furiop@cii3112-25.its.rpi.edu) wrote:
: I was just wondering how many inform games are actually in progress
: right now and what their authors plan to do with them once they finish.
Well I am working on one at the moment. I don't want to say to much about
it because it don't want to create any unsustainable hype. When I have
finished it and some helpful volunteers out there have done some beta
testing I intend to dump it on if-archive, saturate the newsgroups with
hype and wait for a reaction. It will be freeware.
After that is all done, I will start on another game... :-)
: I'm currently about 75 0one with a game whose working title is 'The
: Institute: Part 1 - Midnight Deadline' (and is entirely unlike any other
: games about college life, I hope). I plan to include a very readable
: manual and plenty of trinkets which will also provide copy protection,
: and am considering distribution possibilities. Are any other authors
: considering selling their games, or "jazzing" them up? If so, what
: methods of distribution, packaging, cost, etc. are people thinking about?
I, personally, would feel uncomfortable charging for a game written with
inform. If I were to make a commercial game I would definitely use TADS
instead. This is not because TADS is better but because TADS is a
commercial product with a definite licensing agreement. Inform and its
interpreters were written by others who donated their time to a hobby
freely, and it seems a little unfair to them to make money out of their
efforts. Also the zmachine specifications are actually owned by Activision
so their could be serious legal ramifications, although the actual chances
that activision could be bothered are slim.
In terms of market, I think text-only adventure games are dead. If infocom
were still around they would be doing Sierra clones, sort of like Legend.
We have to face facts... we are a dying breed. Most of us are left-overs
from the mid-eighties craze. I bet the number of people being introduced
to text only adventures and liking it, is far less than those who stopped
playing them because they haven't got the time now due to real life, kids,
or whatever.
In terms of money marketing, the shareware concept of "play the game and
if you like it send me money" won't work any more. You have to have
packaging based copy-protection, but make the copy-protection about a
third into the game. Also you have to make the game very good. Remember,
you are competing with games like CURSES (and my own forthcoming one :-) )
which are free and very very good. Another thing that helps shareware is
the ability to accept credit card orders. Writing checks for over mail
stuff is a big big hassle. I take it you are American due to your .edu
address. A large amount of your market is in England and Europe. Due to
dirt cheap computers like the ZX Spectrum, a lot of school kids had access
to home computers with adventure games.
I really like text-only adventures. I have bought several shareware ones
including the much underrated T-Zero, all the ADVENTIONS, and Perdition's
Flames. I will buy more, too. I look forward to both The Legend Lives, and
Avalon (perhaps the most hyped text adventure game ever), and I will buy
them too.
Hmmm, since I am waffling on anyway howabout this for a complete change of
topic. What do people like in an adventure game background? Im not talking
about puzzle types but more mood and plot types. Here, for example, are my
likes and dislikes..
I like...Isolation. You are all by yourself. Easily in done in adventures
since NPCs are such a bitch to program. :-)
...Antiquity. In my games I would rather wander around ruins than a
factory or power plant.
...The Outdoors. Many applied to fantasy games like the Zorks. I
always disliked that most of the adventure games were set always
underground in just rooms. A bit of roaming about outside
makes for nice diversity. SEARCH FOR AMANDA was good in this regard.
I dislike...Spoofs and comedies. Very hard to do in adventures. Text based
humour needs wit and that is something you can't just do half right.
Save the humour for the error messages. Having names formed from
silly expressions is not funny (I can forgive the unkuulian
adventures for doing this since SEARCH FOR AMANDA was so good,
but I can't do that to for Legend). You can't make people burst
out laughing when they are reading, but you can produce a wry
smile on their faces. Things like summoning the implementers in
ENCHANTER is witty. Poorly done Monty Python and Star Trek spoofs
is not (Am I alone in the feeling that ERIK THE VIKING was
really really really awful? I still can't believe I actually paid
money for that pile of guano).
...Games based on real people and places. This includes ones based on
peoples old schools and universities. SAVE PRINCETON suffers from
this. If you wan't to do this I would recommend making up a new
name for the place. LURKING HORROR did this. Apparently there are
major similarities between its GUE and MIT, but they wisely never
refered to MIT at all, both in the game or the documentation. Don't
mention the real place name... it really does turn people off the
game. (To be fair, I have heard several people save that SAVE... is
actually quite a good game, but every time I have played it I keep
getting turned off by it's start).
...Cyberpunk. Can't justify this one, as its just personal taste.
(Everyone I have ever meet that liked cyberpunk also would also
like to be a vampire, what can you say? :-) )
: Thanks for your input. I'm not trying to gain an unfair "market"
: advantage, I'm just wondering what the consensus of the interested user
: is...
Well, I have ranted enough. Good luck with the game.
-- Be seeing you,Brendon Wyber Computer Services Centre, b.wyber@csc.canterbury.ac.nz University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
"Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."