Wednesday 4 January 2017

January Open Thread: Game Plans for 2017

This was the open thread I started off 2016 with, and it seems like a good open thread to have at the beginning of a year.

Authors/potential authors: What are your game plans for 2016? What projects are you working on? What ideas do you have that you would like to do? If your an author who has been around since last year, what progress/changes have you made?

19 comments:

  1. My goal is to finish the current game (the follow up to First Date) I'm working on! I doubt that will take me the whole year but it is a few months away at least. Beyond that I'd like to maybe put out a couple smaller games as well.

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  2. Well, after I finally get Pervert Action: Legacy finished (pretty soon) I'm planning to do a little bit of image design work for EFon's current project, then make a quick sequel to Let Me In before launching into the next Pervert Action project. It's a busy schedule!

    The big thing I'm trying to change is putting more out this year. Technically I didn't have any full public releases in 2016, which I'm not very happy about. I'm guaranteed to have PAL out this year but I want to accomplish a lot more than just that.

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    1. Have you considered using an other support, maybe something like Twine for example ?
      I don't mind adrift/tads, I'm just wondering if you would be tempted by something else !
      Of course the question is valid for other authors.

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  3. I've got a few ideas that I'm exploring lately.
    One of them is an AIF/RPG hybrid (similar to the Lost Hound), another is a political intrigue-style game with some sex and another one is a game about a psychic with the ability to control the minds of attractive females.

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    1. I'd be really interested in the psychic game !

      If you don't know this community already, I suggest you the Hypnopics site : http://www.hypnopics-collective.net/smf_forum/index.php based on the hypnosis/mind control fetish, with plenty of free games available. You could find a lot of inspiration there !

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  4. Over the last year my main problem has been actually taking the time to write the story of my AIFs. I've gotten a lot better at programming things, but frequently I finish getting something set up and then I don't have the desire to write it, but instead another idea for something I want to set up.

    Things that may come out: I'd like to get at least one game released this year.
    Tutor: This game is set up, I just need to write in the scenes. The premise is that the player has been hired to tutor a girl who needs to get her grades up to get into school. The mother really wants her daughter to do well, while the daughter just wants to have fun. The girl says she'd much rather 'play around' with you, but the mother is watching over the tutoring sessions.

    So you have to think of ways to get the mother to leave you alone. Additionally you have to decide how much help you want to give the girl with her studies.

    This idea was inspired by Octarine Flash's idea from the summer discussions about trying to get a friend out of a room so you could play around with his sister.

    Thriving in a Scary Movie: This is an in progress work and something of a challenge to learn to program things. The first rule of surviving a scary movie is: don't have sex or you'll die. The player in this game realizes that means in a scary movie there is sex to be had.

    This kind of plays as a parody of horror movies and the main character understands the "rules" of horror movies, but instead of using them to survive, he uses them to try and get as much sex as possible. Thus he needs to avoid the ever present serial killer while also dealing with the girls who somehow are completely oblivious to the danger they are in.

    Since last year:
    A few of my ideas I've put aside as basically needing redone. My Marvel game has a lot of writing, however the code is more complex than it should be.

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    1. I've actually thought about doing a similar story to that tutor one myself a number of times, I look forward to seeing that one happen.

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  5. My resolution for 2017 is to finish my game Happy Birthday, with Love, Your Friend Rachel. The main path is finished, and I finally added some more things to do, but I need to add a lot more events to turn it into a full game.

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  6. As you may have noticed I have not had much focus on AIF writing last year and at the risk of repeating myself I am still working on a couple of games including Seduce code which I talked about in last years version of this post and My entry for the Minifest Your best friends Sister. While I have completed the story for Seduce code I need to add more fluff and sexy times before it is ready for release. At the risk of jinxing myself I would hope to get one or both of these games out this year. *Cross fingers.

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  7. Plans for 2017 – I have to stop getting side-tracked with new ideas and idle rendering on Daz. Complete the pictures that will be added to MWA1 (am more than 80% there) and then work on MWA2.

    The big question for me echoes the topic that Deus ExLibris just raised on the Overanalysing blog – do I keep using Adrift or do I move to Renpy or Unity or some other more visual platform. There is a special enjoyment in the written word that TADS and Adrift allow us to focus on (ignoring how successful we are for a moment!). And there is a great deal of visual pleasure in using programs like Daz to create images. Also, platforms such as Unity and Renpy seem to allow their images to be of higher quality than the quality I can put into Adrift.

    So, early days in my thinking, but once I get off my backside and complete pix for MWA1 I may dabble in a new platform, trying to keep a good amount of text but also bringing in more images.

    Grateful for other comments on this topic.
    P

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    1. As someone who likes AIF, I think the text-parser is going to make the game less accessible for players. It is a real pain to have to play 'guess the verb/noun/whatever', and a mouse-controlled navigation system is a much smoother experience for the user. Since several well-respected AIF games used menus for dialogue (I'm thinking of Meteor in particular) I can't really see any reason a text parser is necessary. This goes double now that images are becoming more-or-less mandatory.

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    2. That makes me sad - parser sucks + images required.

      My recent parser games have included a choice system that appears when necessary.

      As far as clicking links...well. Perhaps I didn't realize that people actually play these games one-handed.

      This attitude is why sometimes I feel it's a waste of time to even dabble in AIF.

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    3. Don't get disheartened, Hanon! It's true that AIF is a niche product, that's always been the case. People who don't like parsers and expect a visual experience have plenty of material to choose from.

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    4. That makes me sad - parser sucks + images required.

      I'd add the caveat, "if you want to maximise your Patreon dollars".

      Based on what I've seen of Patreon, patrons of adult games are far more interested in graphics than they are in good writing or gameplay (given how many successful Patreons there are that have poor writing and/or gameplay).

      It's hard to say how the text parser affects profitability, as there are so few parser-based Patreons. But my guess is that it's a barrier to entry unless you're already familiar with it. The fact that choice-based IF is currently commercially successfully (which parser-based IF hasn't been for 25 years) supports that.

      Personally, I think that parser-based gameplay is superior to choice-based. It's a lot more immersive and involving to work out what you want the PC to do than it is to choose from a list of options. The only USP that choice-based games have is that they're easier. Easier for a new player to grasp. Easier for an author to tell a particular story with.

      I didn't realize that people actually play these games one-handed

      I'm genuinely curious as to whether or not people do this. If you're looking for a masturbatory aide it seems to me that, even if you removed the text parser, AIF wouldn't be as effective as pure text/images/video.

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  8. I will WILL release at least one game this year, dammit!

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  9. My plan for 2017 is to finish a TWINE game and get it at least beta tested.

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  10. I'll keep on working on my current projet. Progress is going well, but there is still a lot to do.
    Ice

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  11. Hopefully releasing Emily: Homecoming. Such a complicated project though but I'm optimistic.

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  12. I just released (Joe White) & have started working on a Cyberpunk themed game that I plan to release by mid year.

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