Cataclysm of Chaos V9 (Text Adventure)

[lordpalandus]

Interesting, never heard of it till now. You mentioned you have some experience with it, so a few questions:
1. If you offered the game for free on itch.io, but had it listed for a specific price elsewhere, what incentive would buyers have in paying the full price, when they could just take the free version?

2. Offering a base price and allowing a user to donate more, is a novel idea for game distribution. I wonder how often on average users will pay over the base price. The question I have is, if after you have bought the game at a specific price, can the user go back and donate more to the developer?

3. You mention itch recommends giving at least 15%. What will itch do, if you pay them more than 15%?

Sounds a lot like Steam Greenlight in the later years; a sea of garbage releases. Regardless, thanks for bring itch.io to my attention!

===

Thanks for mentioning the installers. Very useful information.

That is very true, but would need to have a way to host a server to do that. I doubt textadventure.uk would allow me to put a paid product on their servers for people to pay on. Then again I've not asked either. Maybe I should.

Advice is always useful to know, so that I know of the options available to me and allows me to figure out which options to focus on and do more research on. So keep advising away.

Ah good old Jeff Vogel, of Spiderweb Software; his blog posts are always an interesting read. He is one of the first true Indies... before indies were popularized by Steam and GoG, having released his first indie game back in 1997 (Exile 1: Escape from the Pit) I believe. I was introduced to his stuff on an old shovelware CD-ROM that had Exile 3: Ruined World as shareware. Also I beta tested his Avadon 3 on the ipad last October (2016, not 2017)... I wonder if I'll be able to beta test his new Avernum 3...

[Vagabond]

lordpalandus, I wouldn't offer something for free on itch.io and then a paid somewhere else. Think more you want to offer it for free to anyone and just suggest/recommend they donate if they have the money. There is probably other ways to achieve this through PayPal, etc. I'm not sure about donating more later but you can definitely donate more on initial purchase. Itch.io allows you to set the amount they make for being the distributor from 0-100%. To my knowledge they don't treat you software differently based on what you chose to give them in return. I wasn't impressed by Steam Greenlight either, so I understand your frustration there.

Beta testing one of Jeff Vogel's game sounds fun. I've always appreciated his games as well. The Avernum series in particular is very enjoyable to play.

Well, I'll try to stop sidetracking this thread. Let me know when some more testing would be useful and I'll work it in.

-Brett

[lordpalandus]

Alright good to know. Thanks for answering my questions.

It is at that. I can't wait till the remake (Avernum 3: Ruined World) of the remake of Exile 3: Ruined World (Avernum 3) will be out.

As for testing, I'm nearly done overcoming my issues with my monster description system. Just as I finish solving things, more problems appears. Gah. I'll get through it eventually, but I don't think I'm going to make my end of November release date for a full game release.

[Hooman]

That is very true, but would need to have a way to host a server to do that. I doubt textadventure.uk would allow me to put a paid product on their servers for people to pay on. Then again I've not asked either. Maybe I should.

Digital Ocean provides virtual machine hosting for as little as $5/month. That should be more than enough for a text based browser game.


Interesting articles Vagabond.

[Spikerocks101]

If there is no backend, you can host a simple EC6 site on Github for free. I have a text-based adventure on github myself.

[Hooman]

Link?    (Perhaps in a new thread)
I assume you mean JavaScript ES6?

[Spikerocks101]

ES6 Javascript site, yes

also this: https://pages.github.com/

[Hooman]

I meant to your game specifically 
But yes, that is a possibly relevant hosting solution for lordpalandus.

[lordpalandus]

An interesting discussion. I'll look into it.

If I were to do it on GitHub though, wouldn't I have to learn how to use GitHub first...?

[Spikerocks101]

An interesting discussion. I'll look into it.

If I were to do it on GitHub though, wouldn't I have to learn how to use GitHub first...?

Yeah, you would, but Github is a super easy to set up and learn.

[Hooman]

Here's a 15 minute intro to Git, using the command line interface. That should cover the basics of Git. From there, I can recommend other short tutorials for GitHub specifically, and graphical tools that might better support your workflow.

[lordpalandus]

Thanks, Hooman.

I'm still puttering away at "hotfix" 2. The new monster description system is very good at providing immersion, but I have found myself running into a few issues with it... which is what has delayed hotfix 2 immensely. Also, what is delaying it is the tutorial; and well, both systems are very important for providing a polished, first impression for GOG. My plan is that after I've resolved the tutorial and at least Section 1s monsters I'll release hotfix 2 and work on hotfix 3, which will address the rest of the stuff that needs doing:

1. Monster Descriptions for Sections 2,3,4
2. Lore entries for Sections 3,4
3. A bunch of bugs I've encountered.

I'm hoping to have hotfix 2 out by no later than Nov 31. Hopefully. Just thought I'd give an update on the overall progress of Hotfix 2.

[lordpalandus]

Whelp, I missed that deadline.

Regardless, I'm still working at it and I'm in the process of also changing how the lore of the game is presented to the player, as well as having a different way of doing the Adventure Logs. I want to have at least 3 one-off journals (ie like Kerwyn in Section 1) and one larger journal for each character (Erika, Baldor, and Artemis). I'm also working on making creature compositions in each section to be immersive and realistic in terms of how the ingame universe works. I should have designed these properly before I implemented them, but I didn't. Now I am, which is why everything is taking so long.

In the future, with other gameplay features I have in the works (ie, I plan on including Alchemy into the game), I'll properly design them out before introducing them into the game proper. So that it doesn't take me forever to reorganize/refactor the codebase or refactor my lorebase to do it.

[Hooman]

Good to hear you're still working on it.

Alchemy sounds like feature creep. Though perhaps I'm an old curmudgeon and just don't want to learn something new. 

I am rather curious about the lore updates though.

[lordpalandus]

Yep. Just finding the refactoring of monsters is more complicated than I originally thought, but I'm getting there.

Alchemy is feature creep. I dunno, but it does seem like crafting seems to creep into pretty much every game these days, and I'm unsure if the game would benefit from a crafting system, or if my current ways of providing progress to players is sufficient. Thoughts?

Yes, I'm looking forward to the changes to the lore and how it is going to be presented to the player. More side character stories, more one-off stories, more background information to help set the world and scene, and bestiary information to make the creatures more lifelike and believable.

I'll keep at it, and hopefully soon, I'll have things tidied up enough for a hotfix release... or at this point of waiting, just go straight for V9.

[Hooman]

Alchemy is feature creep. I dunno, but it does seem like crafting seems to creep into pretty much every game these days, and I'm unsure if the game would benefit from a crafting system, or if my current ways of providing progress to players is sufficient. Thoughts?

Would adding it make the game substantially more fun?

Mind you, not a little more fun, but substantially more fun. Is the implementation cost justified. Also, this isn't about checking off boxes to provide more features. Sometimes limiting features to make something more focused is better. Having too many confusing options can detract from fun.

[lordpalandus]

I doubt it would make the game significantly more fun. I do think that something like more lore would make the game much better, as better story, characters and overall lore of the setting really helps with immersion and the desire to replay a game.

So with that, I think I won't bother with Alchemy, and instead focus on more lore and such instead.

Thanks for the input. I appreciate it!

[Hooman]

Agreed on the lore. That is important for an immersive setting.

[lordpalandus]

Alright, got Hotfix 2 released.

Working on Hotfix 3 now, as I intend to polish up V8 to see if GOG would consider selling it. They say they simply want quality games, and not necessarily care about what engine you release it in, provided all content is yours and yours alone (ie don't use freeware assets). So, going to try for that and see what happens.

[Hooman]

Cool. What changes should we expect to see? If someone was to replay, what should they look for?

Are you sure about no freeware assets? That seems like an odd restriction.

[lordpalandus]

Quite a few new things in the hotfix actually.

-I've implemented the new monster description system for Section 1 monsters.
-I've implemented a small portion of the tutorial.
-I've implemented a few new options for stealthy characters, namely pickpocketing and stealthy investigations.
-I've implemented the ability to ascend or descend stairwells, even in combat. However, if you do use a stairwell, if there is a monster present, you will be considered "fleeing" and thus the first monster encountered will always be a Tough, Quick or Spellcaster.
-I've implemented the ability to resist the effects of a lesser or greater debuff, provided you have sufficient Vitality.
-I've made changes to various game calculations / formulae, for balancing reasons and I've added a "calculations" section in the "display info" command, that explains how the values in the "attributes" section are calculated and what they are applied to, for interested players that desire to know.

==============

On their submission page: (https://www.gog.com/indie)

Q: I used some free or borrowed assets from different game, is this a problem?
A: Yes, this is an issue for us. We're strongly focused on more original content and free or borrowed assets mean that there's a very small chance we'll accept the game.

Its likely because they receive a lot of submissions from RPG Maker, and thus they want you to have your own assets, rather than reuse other assets that have likely been used by a lot of people.

[Hooman]

That could be a good rule, to prevent hundreds of identical looking clones. And maybe there is some concern over the wording "borrowed assets".

At any rate, your text only game doesn't use assets, so there should be nothing to worry about there.

[lordpalandus]

True.

As for free assets, one does have to wonder where those free assets, like freely available to use sounds or images, come from. Someone had to go to some effort to create them. So, its likely that they came from some other project, whether it was a school project, a movie, a video game, a slideshow, etc, as, there aren't too many people out there that will sit down and create a whole bunch of assets, for free, and just release them into the internet. Generally they would use it in something else, retain the copyright to it, and then let others use it afterwards. At least that is my line of thinking on the matter.

I wonder though, on their opinion of purchased assets, like from the Unity store, like those used in junk games released on Greenlight throughout the years. Would those be borrowed assets too, or fall under the issue of "lack of quality; we don't want it"

[lordpalandus]

Updated the game to Hotfix 3.

Biggest Additions:
-Added two new inventory items; Bestiary and Journal.
-Added two more parts of the tutorial (Store and Exploration); also added the Bestiary/Journal to the Inventory portion of the tutorial.
-Can purchase lore entries from the Celestial, though only Section 1 is implemented for Journals, but all 4 sections are available for Bestiary entries.
-Rewrote the recurring journals (Erika, Baldor, and Artemis) for Section 1.
-Implemented Section 2s Monster Descriptions.
-Fixed a bug with Investigatables that I accidentally put into the game in Hotfix 2. 

Hotfix 4, will hopefully be the last needed Hotfix for the game, before I feel its ready for showing off to GOG. It will include:
- The fully completed Tutorial (sections to do still are = Monsters, Warrior Play, Stealth Play, Caster Play, and Time Mechanics)
- New Monster Descriptions for Sections 3 and 4.
- Address any remaining critical issues to gameplay (Gamebreaking-Bugs, Up-to-date Command List, Game Ends when you Die, and Bosses Function Properly)

Progress is proceeding swiftly, and hope to have Hotfix 4 out before Christmas.

[Hooman]

Cool. Good job with pushing through that.

Are you going to have time between when you finish, and when you submit for people to play test and give any final feedback? I suppose there is the danger of always having something to fix and never finishing, so maybe not. Might be better to just keep pushing.