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Messages - shoptroll

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31
Order of the Thorne : The King's Challenge / Re: Filtered screenshots
« on: August 16, 2016, 10:48:02 PM »
Prisma is fun, isn't it?

It is!  I just wish they had a desktop or web client.  Seems to really like screenshots with obvious pixels :)

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as for larrys casino, got the hard copy of that also matey unless you mean you cant find it anywhere to dl or something.

No worries, I've got a physical copy too.  Got it to run under Windows 7 with a little bit of prodding although it has a weird bug where you need to disable audio acceleration to get the voices to work properly.  Should probably see if I can bribe Collector into making a proper installer for it one of these days :)

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imo the laura bow w voices is a bit hard to find vs the non (one has music with real singing) one doesnt etc

Ah yes, forgot about laura bow not being available for sale anywhere.  Same with the Dr. Brain series.

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Manhunter 1 & 2, Freddy Pharkas, the Mixed-Up series, and I think most of Dynamix's stuff isn't available legally anywhere either.  I also have a soft spot for Larry's Casino which isn't to be found anywhere.

Thexder and Silpheed were games originally created by Game Arts in Japan which Sierra published for the Western audience on DOS.  Square-Enix was the publisher for new games in each series in the mid 2000's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silpheed
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/silpheed/silpheed1.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thexder
http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/2009/10/brief-history-of-thexder.html

Things that probably won't ever get re-released are the Disney (I think that's mostly stuff Al Lowe worked on) and Hoyle licensed games due to the rights likely not being renewed long long ago.  Which is a shame because Hoyle 1 was a lot of fun when I was a kid.

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Order of the Thorne : The King's Challenge / Re: Post-mortem thoughts
« on: August 15, 2016, 10:48:44 PM »
It's not even the cost of the booth so much as the cost to just get, and stay, there!

Good point.  I don't travel much so that never even crossed my mind!

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Order of the Thorne : The King's Challenge / Re: Post-mortem thoughts
« on: August 15, 2016, 08:12:54 AM »
Most bundles are worthless from a developer point of view. One that QFI was in gave us back 14c per copy. That's really just bullshit giving it away.


Yeah, I've heard that.  There was a good blog post by Jeff Vogel a few years ago about pricing games and bundles are pretty much what you do to try and rake whatever you can off the husk of your back catalog.  I didn't think it'd be reasonable for you guys but I was thinking maybe that'd be a way to get more exposure for your team and others like Clifftop who are in a similar situation.  But you're right it's not an appropriate strategy at this time.

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6. We have. We've done PAX East, GDC, Adventure Con and a couple of other smaller ones in Australia, the UK and America. Unfortunately, they're not cheap to attend, even the smaller ones.


Yup, met you, Bt, and Broomie at PAX East this year (one of the highlights for me!).  I was actually surprised to see you guys had a booth since you're such a small outfit (hell, Wadjet Eye still hasn't done a booth!).  I don't know what the local one here charges, but I wasn't 100% sure if that was something you guys could really afford to do right now (which is why I tried to keep most of my suggestions to things that didn't really require spending money).

@Chadly : In case anyone else needs it here's the link for the book.  Doesn't look like there's a physical option yet :(

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As a side note, 70-80% of mergers fail. Just read that today!

Well if you guys don't have enough money coming into support 2 full and 1 part-time resources, it's pretty much guaranteed that adding more mouths to feed wouldn't solve that problem :)  I don't know what Himalaya's financials look like but I can't imagine their situation is all that different from your team's, with the exception that Al Emmo has been around a lot longer and came out at a time when there was much less competition in the market.

(For what it's worth, I think Crystal Shard has been trying to steer more towards commercializing their games with the Deluxe editions they're selling on their website.  But they still don't have much of a presence on any of the major storefronts barring Heroine's Quest on Steam)

As much as I'd love more of the teams working under the same umbrella I like that an IQ game feels differently than a Wadjet Eye game.  That sort of thing would be lost in a merger.  On the other hand, I really wish there was some way more teams could ride Dave's coattails to get more publicity for their products.

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Order of the Thorne : The King's Challenge / Re: Post-mortem thoughts
« on: August 14, 2016, 11:51:04 AM »
So I did some digging around and answered a couple of my own questions:

1.  An IQ newsletter does exist.  I found I had received a couple emails announcing the R2R/OotT kickstarter but I've got nothing in my email that announces OotT was actually released.  If I wasn't a backer of OotT I likely wouldn't know about the game's existence.

2.  I did find the QfI hint/art book for sale on the website.  But it's not exactly intuitive how to find.  The only way to get to the page selling it is to either click the "Games" section link or from the 4th segment in the image carousel.  There's nothing on the QfI product page that indicates the book exists!

And since thoughts and electrons are somewhat cheap here's a couple additional thoughts/suggestions:

1.  I would absolutely love to buy a simple IQ T-shirt (ie. just the name on the front and the logo on the back) from you guys.  One of the podcasts I used to listen to did a shortlived T-shirt sale through Teespring as a way to raise some cash.  I don't know what their margins were but maybe this is something you could look into?  I would gladly pay $15-25 for a shirt like this.

2.  Add a "Store" page to the website which puts everything you've got for sale in a single location.  This is one of the things I like about the layout of Wadjet Eye's website.  Make sure to include links to other storefronts where the game can be bought as some people (like myself) prefer some stores to others.

3.  If the Stranger Things fangame ever becomes publicly available, put a message at the end thanking people for playing and to check out your other games if they want to support you.

4.  RPGamer did a series of retro-reviews of the QfG series last year.  So maybe fire a copy of QfI at them once 2.0 is done?

5.  I suggested bundles earlier, but what about an AGS themed Humble Bundle with Himalaya, Clifftop, Screen 7, Owl Cave, Harvester, Crystal Cave, Wadjet Eye, and other community members?

6.  Any chance of you guys attending local game festivals?  We've got the Boston Festival of Indie Games in my area and I know Phoenix has exhibited there in the past.

I think that's everything I've got.  I don't know how realistic any of my past suggestions have been and I have no qualms about any of them being silver bullets to solve things overnight.  But I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe, some of them will help and maybe get the ball rolling towards getting the good word out about your games.

More importantly, is there anything we can do as fans to help you guys out?  I've been gifting copies of your games on Steam to people I know in hopes that maybe other people will find enjoyment and pass word or copies along to their friends.  I'm kinda running out of people to gift to so I'm feeling like I've done the best I can but it doesn't feel like it'll make a difference with only a couple copies here and there :(

EDIT:  Just found that JustAdventure did a review of QfI but nothing for OotT.  Give them a holler?

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Order of the Thorne : The King's Challenge / Re: Post-mortem thoughts
« on: August 11, 2016, 08:10:30 AM »
Some more thoughts:

1) Add the QfI hint/art book available as DLC on Steam if you can.  Then create a $20 "deluxe" edition including it.  Maybe you'll get some extra cash that way?  Also, why isn't it even available on the game's website?  I don't know about the official wiki but I checked and there's absolutely 0 FAQs for the game on GameFAQs, so if you're stuck on a puzzle or quest (like I was) you're really stuck!

2) Can you work something out with James to get the OSTs for your games on Steam as DLC?  That probably won't help out IQ financially but it might help him get some extra cash for his work.

3) Add a Finn cameo appearance in QfI 2.0 if you haven't already.  I know it's gaudy and shameless, but it's totally in the spirit of Sierra and games of that era.  Ask me about Loom!

4) In addition to cameos, Sierra games used to put plugs for upcoming or past games in their about screens.  It can't hurt to do something like that in QfI or TKC right?

5) Bryan Cebulski and Jonathan Kaharl seem to cover AGS games for HardcoreGaming101.net.  See if you can get in contact with them to write about your games.

6) If you have the resources, would adding additional language support help?  Is that something AGS supports?

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Order of the Thorne : The King's Challenge / Post-mortem thoughts
« on: August 10, 2016, 11:08:18 PM »
Not only do I not have a Twitter account, I also don't have one for Disqus! :p

Feedback was requested, so here it is:

1) Submit this to Gamasutra if you can.  It's a good read, maybe could use some fleshing out but I think this is the start of a conversation that needs to happen sooner or later.  IQ is uniquely positioned as a team which successfully delivered multiple KS projects (QfI, the companion book, and TKC/RtR/FoF), you're a considerable part of what people were dubbing years ago as a "revival" of adventure games, and you're operating in a niche most places don't really talk about.  So many different lenses to talk about this from!

2) The game itself is fine I thought.  I agree that the tone is different than QfI but that seemed intentional (I think I said as much in another thread) since this felt like something aimed at families whereas QfI is what the parents played after the kids went to bed.  I don't necessarily agree that bright and "candy colored" and cheerful isn't something people are interested in.  Look at the success of something like Pokemon Go or many other mobile games which feature bright colorful art.  Or even Amanita Design's stuff which is usually fairly colorful and isn't cynical or "grimdark" (I think).  But I'm also not really tapped in that tightly to what's selling on the market for adventure games.  It might just be possible that there's not a big audience for games that adhere closely to the Sierra style or maybe knight n' princesses style fantasy games/stories are out of favor due to things like Game of Thrones, Dragon Age, and The Witcher.

3) External factors.  I think the King's Quest reboot launching prior to TKC was unfortunate for you guys.  IQ (as well as AGDI/Himalaya and Phoenix) have a pretty good claim to the legacy of Sierra since you've been the public face of maintaining their franchises in the public eye via your VGA remakes.  Maybe if KQ hadn't been rebooted maybe there'd have been more pent-up interest in a "spiritual successor" of sorts?

Coverage in the press also seemed pretty non-existant.  Of the sites that cover PC, I primarily read Eurogamer, RPS, and USGamer.  None of them really had anything in the way of coverage for OotT.  This is especially weird considering RPS did a news post and review about QfI and Richard Cobbett also talked briefly about QfI in one of his regular columns there.  Checking a couple other sites further... There's a news blurb on PCGamer shortly after release but no review, a review on AdventureGamers, nothing on Destructoid, nothing on Polygon.

(On a side note: I'm not 100% sure when it went into effect but I believe Eurogamer also instituted a policy within the last year where they don't review 'episodic' titles until the series is complete.  I'm not totally sure I would consider OotT as episodic but I think you could make a case for that designation when it was originally pitched as a 4-part anthology series.)

So that kinda sucks.  I'm sure you guys got notices out to these sites but it wouldn't surprise me if part of the reason sales are low are because there wasn't much press.  I know the only reason I discovered QfI in the first place was because PCGamer included it in one of their year-end "Upcoming games we're excited about" back in like 2011 (likely because Richard Cobbett was still freelancing with them regularly).

The lack of Richard Cobbett writing probably hasn't helped you either.  For me, and probably others, he's probably been one of the biggest advocates for the genre (and especially classic gems in the genre) among the mainstream press.  As a freelancer he had a pretty good reach between Eurogamer, PCGamer, and RPS.

Would having a publisher have helped more with getting the word out?  I got the sense from QfI that was the main benefit from signing with Phoenix, but that's just an observation.  I have no idea what your arrangement with POS was.

4) Maybe the game needed to be marketed more as a family-friendly adventure?

----

I need to wrap up this up pretty quick here but here's a some more general thoughts

1) If at all possible I think it would be a good idea to treat QfI 2.0 as a re-launch of the game.  Not in the shifty "let's change the title and get a new Steam/Metacritic id" sense, but as a chance to try and get another round of publicity and sales from it.  Get a new trailer together if you have time.  Seed out some copies to outlets who didn't cover it originally, specifically targeting anyone who's covered the IA remakes in the past.  Revamp your store presences with any awards you won (I know you won some AGS awards).

2) Improve communication with your fans and backers.  I don't remember the last time I've seen an update on Roehm to Ruin or Fortress of Fire in the Kickstarter updates section.  I don't care for constant updates in my inbox but large periods of radio silence make me nervous (*cough*Spaceventure*cough*).  I expect most of the backers on either project even know that you did a post-mortem or the other recent developments.  Another idea here might be an IQ newsletter... it's a little slimy but you've got emails for most of your backers right?  Put them on the newsletter and blast out a reminder about OooT and how the new games are coming along.  Newsletter would be a good way to keep in touch with fans who aren't really on social media or aren't really paying attention to gaming sites.

3) I saw something on Twitter that you guys still get a decent number of inquiries about SQ3 VGA.  Is there anything you can do on the Infamous Adventures site to drive more traffic to the pages for QfI or TKC?

4) Not that you should try and get Youtuber stars to cover the game (that'd be cool but I think the appeal of your games wouldn't be something "the youth" would "get") but maybe as a promotional thing do a stream or do a podcast to talk about your inspirations (ie. Sierra and LucasArts games) as a sort of self-promotion / side project?

5) This relates to #1, but can you get endorsements/"box-quotes" for any of your games from any of the Sierra alumni?  What about other indie adventure game developers? Or someone like Jeff Vogel who deals in lo-fi somewhat throw-backish RPGs?

6) Are Steam coupons still a thing?  Could you send out coupons to owners of either game with a non-trivial (but not great) discount for the other game?

7) When the new games launch, maybe try offering a bundle so people can pick up the new game and the previous release for a slight discount on the price of both?  For example a bundle with QfI and Rohem or a bundle with TKC and Fortress.

8) Can you get in on any upcoming Humble Bundles or their monthly subscription service?

9) Where do Sierra/LucasArts fans congregate these days?  Are there any places with a higher than average concentration of older gamers?  One of the podcasts I listen to, Gamers with Jobs, caters more towards the older crowd with most of the hosts in their 30's or older.  Maybe there's other communities like that?

10) Keep up whatever you are doing on Twitter in regards to Stranger Things.  You know how to tap into that 80's nostalgia vein, and I keep hoping that turns into one of those "right place, right time" success stories.  (Even if nothing comes of it, at least put it out as a fan game and make some noise.  I noticed VG247 ran an article yesterday about some sprite art for the show.  So there's enough interest to get attention in places)

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Order of the Thorne : The King's Challenge / Filtered screenshots
« on: August 10, 2016, 09:52:40 PM »
I don't have a social media presence with which to tweet these at the IQ team, so here's some doctored up screenshots I generated with some filtering software called Prisma last night which I thought people might appreciate.  You all can blame RPS for this nonsense.















Enjoy!  (I would've done QfI as well but I didn't have any good screenshots in my Steam account :()

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Banter and Chit-Chat! / Re: Tv series
« on: August 10, 2016, 09:36:35 PM »
I decided this series of GoT what annoyed me about it. It's so damn uneven in it's pacing. It's like sometimes it's super fast and 17 awesome things happen, then 6 episodes of complete boredom while people walk around talking.

The most recent season was pretty good, although it still had some of the pacing problems you describe.  The season before that was a hot mess with too many plots that went nowhere (and continued to go nowhere in the latest season) and nowhere fast at that.

The Marvel shows on Netflix have been really good.  Jessica Jones was so far the best of the lot (Daredevil is also good but isn't as tight), and I'm looking forward a lot to Luke Cage next month.

Other than that, I've been trying to get through Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel as my girlfriend almost revoked my nerd card for never having seen either show.

Still need to watch Stranger Things.  The buzz around it has me intrigued!  (Also getting back to Season 2 of Twin Peaks)

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Yeah 5+ years is a long time for a game to be in the oven.  I was really excited for The Witness and SpyParty when they were announced years ago.  I completely skipped Witness when it came out earlier this year, and I expect the same will happen with SpyParty.  Same thing has happened with more Kickstarters than I can count at this point *sigh*.

I'd much rather the IQ team get paid to do what they love than to expect them to effectively work two jobs and not get paid for one of them.  That's not right.  That said, I won't say no to another IQ game on a smaller scale if any of you get the itch again to do so on the side :)

The whole situation sucks.  You guys do good work and that hasn't paid off.  I know most start-ups don't last but it's still heartbreaking to see.  I'm still naively hoping that a miracle or something will happen before end of the year.

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But those hundreds of thousands of free remake downloads hasn't equated to much more than 1000 copies of a $10 King's Quest clone (OOTT). That's not sustainable.

:(

I expect that Himalaya is in a similar situation.

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I would like to keep going, I love making games and I love the style we do it in. I don't think there's a wage in it. At least evidence I've seen doesn't seem to indicate there is.

I think the only one in the retro-adventure sector who's been reasonably successful is Wadjet Eye, and Dave's definitely benefited from the name recognition that came from being early on the "pro" scene.  Even then, they're not making crazy money since he only added a couple extra hands in the last year or two.


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Honestly you would know better than I, I suposse just because people keep releasing them and getting funded dose not mean they actually make a real profit.

I don't have any source for this, but my general impression is that most of the projects that get "funded" low-ball their expenses on KS so it's easier to get some sum of money.  The expectation then is that employees will either defer their wages or contribute part-time and make up for it if/when the game does well.

Making games is really expensive even with lower requirements and a small team.  Even something like Thimbleweed Park which raised ~$625k only had roughly enough to cover salaries for their team for about 2 years of development work after KS and Amazon took their cut of the money raised.

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IQ Chat / Re: The future of Infamous Quests
« on: July 19, 2016, 08:06:56 AM »
If I was to dig a bit deep here, I would say the failure to deliver of some of those "big names" from yesteryear has done a significant amount of damage to the entire adventure game scene.


There's also been some pretty massive failures in other genres (and on other services) which have poisoned the crowd-funding well for everyone :(

A bit of a longshot, but have you guys ever thought of working with Wadjet Eye?  They seem to have the biggest name recognition of the professional AGS scene and I think that's been the one of the biggest hurdles QfI and OOTT have had as far as sales.  For what it's worth, Kathy Rain has also struggled with sales so I have no doubts when you guys say it's a niche genre.

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We had already made the decision to whittle down OOTT into three games instead of four, Fortress of Fire includes some content that was going to be in the fourth game and Monk and the Mountain was going to finish the story. I'm not sure if we'll conclude the story with FoF now, we'll have to talk about that some more. It's at a stage where changing the ending of the game won't be a catastrophic problem.


This would be awesome to see.  My first thought after seeing that FoF was going to be the last game was that we wouldn't get to see the end of the story.

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