Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

Ken Downey Wed, 20 Apr 2016 00:23:01 -0700

Yes he could have, and I wish for his sake that he would have.

----- Original Message -----From: "dark" <d...@xgam.org>

To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org>
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 11:07 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

Actually Kennith, Swamp wasn't in development that long.

From the initial very simple offline version to the first multiplayerserver took roughly two months, and in four everything was up and running.yes, there's been massive expantions with maps and weapons and accountsand what not, and yes hacker trouble, but don't mistake that for thedevelopment time, had aprone been charging for the game earlier hecould've been earning money on it pretty dam soon.


all the best,

dark.

----- Original Message -----From: "Kenneth Downey" <kenwdow...@me.com>

To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org>
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 4:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

Yes, but think about how many years Swauk was in development… And it wasa free game… For a long time anyway, until stupid hackers started messingeverything up… Can you imagine swab for the iPhone! Anyway, it's back toblindfold pinball for me now… I'm addicted!


Sent from my iPad

On Apr 14, 2016, at 6:56 AM, Devin Prater <r.d.t.pra...@gmail.com>wrote:

Why would you need soundscapes and voice acting? A dark room is text,and does just fine. Touchmint’s games are mostly text, and do mostlyfine as well. Nano empire is wonderful, and is text also. I’m sayingthat you don’t need expensive acting and sound do make a good game.

Sent from my Mac.

Devin Prater
r.d.t.pra...@gmail.com

On Apr 13, 2016, at 3:29 PM, Darren Harris<darren_g_har...@btinternet.com> wrote:


Hi,

I have 1 thing to say about replayable games,

Swamp. That's a 1 man band doing all that, look at how good a game thatis?

Now have something like that on the iPhone and that would be awesome.

-----Original Message-----

From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of JeremyBrown

Sent: 13 April 2016 18:36
To: gamers
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

In response to Marty's post, I know that this is exactly the sort of
situation we have with Valiant Galaxy Associates.  Our company
consists of two people.  We began with a large project that took 3
years to get to commercial release and which is due to have an update
relatively soon in our schedule.  Our next two games were much simpler
and rolled out quickly, but only because we could reuse and centralize
a lot of the code.  We're still in the process of making a centralized
platform so we can roll out more of the smaller games as well as work
on more ambitious games.

Our hope is to eventually have more games in play, let the smaller
ones carry the load while we develop long term bigger games.

I disagree with you about the RPG as being simple to convert Dark:

You can convert the mechanics relatively easily, but then you have to
have the mechanics integrate with a group of player actions and
possible results.  Essentially you write an Choose Your Own Adventure
novel on top of the mechanics, get it all to integrate, and then have
to still work out why it's not working over 60,000-250,000 words of
text and god only knows how much mechanical issues.  This doesn't take
into account sound scape or voice acting.

It's not undoable, and I think we should see more of those types of
games myself, but the question is how much complexity can you build
from a small production standpoint and still stay sane, productive,
and on top of customer service.  It's not like you release a game and
it's a never go back to proposition.  Further, if you want to keep the
costs reasonable, you have to make choices.  You can't release a
professionally produced sound scape, voice acting, music background,
story, proofreading, and fully tested and stable code and charge only
10 dollars for it.  A lot of the sorts of games that people cite when
they mention this genre are games that originally retaled for well
over $35 or 40 U.S. or, have monthly subscription charges that come to
the same thing.  While Marty's assessment that most blind people don't
like RPG's might be skewed, he is right that most blind people will
not pay for the kind of quality that most would like to demand.  Not
in my experience in any case.  That said, I know all the developers on
list attempt to put out as professional and interesting a game as they
can.  Remember too, that by moving his company to an IOS focus, Marty
is not breaking new ground in terms of style of game perhaps, but by
moving into the mobile app market he has broken ground for blind
people and audio games in terms of providing well received simple
games that are inexpensive.  That is a huge step from the any audio
game is either cheap and developed as a labor of love by one
programmer or $40 and developed to be profitable, or at least,
hopefully profitable.

As usual, my two cents.  I'll expect change from that please :)

Take care,

Jeremy

--
In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa

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