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#1 Re: Main Forum » [NEW GAME] I Wanna Steal Your Wife » 2014-07-17 04:50:18

MoDDiB wrote:

"Make sure to pay royalties to Rohrer if you monetize this project, on a matter of conscience if nothing else."
There's no royalties about game design in video game, luckily for the players !
By the way, I do the game for the fun after my work ; I don't really know how I will monetize it and I'm sure it won't cover my spending ( servers, middlewares etc...).

I say this speaking as an artist. It's not a matter of legal obligation. Rohrer did most of the work for you in developing the concepts, mechanics, and in some cases, the sprites which IWSYW are based on. He deserves a piece of whatever pie you're making whether or not you turn a profit in the end. I disagree that the lack of a legalistic royalty structure is good for gamers on the basis that innovations are easily robbed from those that develop them, causing the greater effect that fewer developers are willing to take the risk of presenting games which diverge from the norm.

#2 Re: Main Forum » [NEW GAME] I Wanna Steal Your Wife » 2014-07-16 12:35:53

MoDDiB wrote:

Yeah for the tutorial I understand, but it's the only way to prevent players from creating 20 accounts each.

...nice trap. I guess I need to practice more, because I didn`t notice that one.

With respect to the interface, I think it`s the player animations. It`s only a slight delay moving from one tile to another, half a second or something, but those little delays add up quickly. TCD hasn`t got a movement animation, so the player can move as quickly as they can mash buttons on their keyboard. Let me just verify that I`m not talking out my ass...

Yes, sorry, I see that movement is unbound to animation delays. My mistake.

The other `flaw`I see is mood. This is part of a much deeper conversation about the value of art in society. I know you want a game that is family-friendly and accessible, for the sake of mass appeal and a broader userbase. I am not comfortable with this for several reasons. I would personally be quite offended if somebody took my work and sanitized it in such a way. People have tried to do just this with the like of Shakespeare and Mark Twain. My making the game friendlier, brighter, boppy music and whatnot while preserving the misogynistic theme the puzzle premise is based on, it makes the objectification women in more palatable.

Make sure to pay royalties to Rohrer if you monetize this project, on a matter of conscience if nothing else.

I read over the reboot thread just to make sure I wasn't flogging a dead horse with these criticisms and, criticism being something I take seriously, it is important to me that my points are both fair and constructive. I know that you have upset at least one fan of TCD through this venture, and it is regrettable that his criticisms were delivered with an aggressive tone. They are not _completely_ unfounded.

The only other concern I have at this time is the potential for bloat. Rohrer excels at minimalism. Passage is a perfect example of that. Something that we as players / designers sometimes forget is that good simple mechanics are often more fun and effective than lots of cool stuff. Lots of cool stuff might get you the extra wow-factor, but it can also water down that which made the game so good in the first place. While acknowledging an over-reliance on guessing games employed by the userbase, TCD's house objects are very versatile in terms of their ability to create deep-thinking logic puzzles. More objects do not necessarily add to a game's quality.

Fan of independent gaming as I am, I wish you good luck, and I will continue to watch the development of this project.

#3 Re: Main Forum » [NEW GAME] I Wanna Steal Your Wife » 2014-07-15 20:46:05

Tried it out... I have a few issues with it. Most immediately: the interface. By comparison to TCD, IWSYW has a very slow and clunky interface. Movement is much slower than in TCD. And the keybindings omit WASD movement, forcing the uncomfortable use of arrow keys. Stylistically, I prefer TCD's minimalism, but IWSYW isn't likely to change in that regard.

It bugs me that it forces a playthrough of the tutorial levels, too...

#4 Re: Main Forum » Can you even design an interesting trap anymore? » 2014-07-11 15:24:24

Sorry, hey, I ain't giving away my designs. Be creative.

EDIT: Just to be a little more encouraging, I try to lay things out in such a way that makes a robber think. I'm not the sort to hide one safe path in among 10 one-step killtraps. I also try to avoid magic dances... because yeah, that's just an exploit. But nobody has solved my vault quite yet --- though a few have forced their way through the entrance. It gets expensive, however, when the second trap *requires* completion of the first.

#5 Re: Main Forum » Can you even design an interesting trap anymore? » 2014-07-11 12:57:35

Yes.

I agree that guessing games stink... so I`ve built in a few clues to make my house solvable. It`s part of my strategy: lure them in.

Good luck.

P.S --- with respect to designs, try a modular approach. Start simple, build in complexity. You`d be surprised how often an obvious trap succeeds.

#6 Main Forum » M.S. Thompson --- robbed for $6500 » 2014-07-11 12:53:02

TacticalPteridactyl
Replies: 0

It was me.

I found a wooden house with nearly $6000 in the vault. Poor fella had no family.

It was a maze of doors and dogs inside. I was scared at first, and had to test a door or two using bricks, and made only a little progress before I found more dogs and they chased me out of the house. Can`t imagine how much you spend on kibble. They seemed a bit irate. Have you been playing with them?

In any case, on my way out the door, I glanced through a window and noticed that one of the dogs you had posted near the entrance was lagging behind. Once the coast was clear, I came back and paced lonely hallways until I found a spot. A little corner which your dog got caught on. I found I could trap your dogs in one hallway, giving myself freedom to roam while I mapped out your property... once I broke a window, that is. I knew it was safe, but every door opened had me shaking.

I came up with a plan.

And the money was mine.

Update: I later perished while fixing up my house. *facepalm*

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