So a few weeks after the release of Master of the House, I've decided to take stock of how things went and give everybody a taste of what is to come. Overall, I was extremely pleased with the reception the game received, with a lot of people giving compliments above and beyond what I'd expected or even hoped for. Many players (especially those who were experienced with AIF) seemed to have an enjoyable go at it and I had a few people who said that even though the content was not particularly their cup of tea, the writing and story was strong enough to carry them through. To all of those who said kind words or offered up constructive criticism, I give you my heart-felt thanks and I hope to continue to produce games you enjoy playing.
Some disliked the linearity of the game and wished for more freedom. This was a point that I gave careful consideration to when designing the game and ultimately decided that the story would drive my decision. In my mind, it made sense that people already added to your harem should be able to help you gather more, rather than have each person as their own island, unconnected to each other. Plus, it was more interesting for me to write. The next game I have in mind will not have this issue,problem, gameplay style or whatever you want to call it (more on that soon).
Another minor issue was the difference/interaction between 'search object' and 'open object.' I will offer a mea culpa on this topic. It was a problem mentioned to me by my beta testers but I honestly thought that it wasn't a big enough problem to make much of a splash and I would change it if I were given the opportunity to do it over...which in a way I have been.
An AIF author always has a chance to make improvements on their next game, and one thing I want to do is enhance my ability with programming with ADRIFT 5. Another thing I'd already planned on doing was to release something as a preview of my second game. Honestly, I'm not a fan of demos because I'd much rather play a complete game rather than an incomplete one that gets me excited and then leaves me with blue balls until the rest is released. So I decided to combine these two ideas into one potentially awesome idea.
I've decided to work on a much smaller game (think AIF minicomp size) that pushes the limits of what I've done with ADRIFT so far, called 'Prologue--Hail to the King.' Facets I've decided to experiment with will include (but may not be limited to) variable arrays to produce random responses, layered clothing and conversation trees to replace the 'ask person about...' task. And the game will take place about 150 years before my full second game ('Hail to the King') and will lay the foundation for the main plot line in it, giving everyone an idea of what to expect in the full game. I think this will combine both my goals to everyone's benefit.
The good news is that I've already started working on the prologue and it will take much less time than Master of the House to write, but I still won't give a release timeline because...well, I don't like them either. The slightly bad news is that this will delay the start of Hail to the King, but I believe the game will be better for it. I'll try to do somewhat consistent updates here when I get the chance, so stay tuned.
Wow, this post went on much longer than I planned but I'm sure some of you could probably guess from my writing style that I tend to have problems keeping thing short and terse. Oh well!
Yours,
Minterlint
Monday, September 29, 2014
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Game is Released!
The game has been uploaded over at the Yahoo Archives! It'll probably be uploaded a couple of other places as well, but maybe not until this weekend. I hope you enjoy it!
EDIT: Here's a rapidgator link:
Here
I'm not incredibly web savvy, so please let me know if that link does not work for whatever reason.
Yours,
Minterlint
EDIT: Here's a rapidgator link:
Here
I'm not incredibly web savvy, so please let me know if that link does not work for whatever reason.
Yours,
Minterlint
Monday, September 1, 2014
Beta Testing and You...or...How I Spent Three Hours Banging My Head Against the Wall For One Fucking Problem.
So first, an update:
Beta testing is going fairly well. After about a week's worth of testing, fixing bugs, rewriting certain scenes and spell-checking the hell out of Master of the House, it's finally beginning to feel like a complete and coherent game, thanks in huge part to all of my beta testers. I've sent out what is hopefully a final beta version to help remove any further rough edges and polish it even more. I don't like the idea of giving a date for release, because obviously real-life circumstances can get in the way, so I'll leave it as a general 'soon'...hopefully...maybe.
Second, a word of encouragement to anyone writing a game of their own:
I was so excited when I 'finished' writing my game and started contacting beta testers about look at it. I had done it! I'd made my first game after hours, and hours, and hours (and then a few more hours) of writing and coding and I felt great! Nothing was going to stop me from releasing the awesomest, greatest game ever!!!!!!
Many of you who have authored games before can probably tell where this is headed. In my naive mind, all of the difficult work was done and I could just relax and let the beta testing handle itself. To my shame, I was in such a hurry to get the game out that I didn't even proofread a good portion of the text for the game, leaving a deplorable number of mistakes. And those issues were far from only ones.
When I first started receiving feedback for the game, I was incredibly depressed. My testers would send me pages upon pages of inconsistencies, bugs, and suggestions and I felt like I was drowning in the amount of work that I still had left to do to in order for Master of the House to be the best I could produce. It can be a hard blow when you realize that something you spent so much time and energy on wasn't the shining gem you thought it was. Especially when some of the problems were so obvious that I wasn't sure how I'd missed them myself (no, the main character shouldn't be allowed to run around naked! and yes, you should be able to sit on chairs!). I'd even considered scrapping it at one point, even though I was so close to finishing it. But I slowly worked out a lot of the issues, and with the encouragement and support of my first round of beta testers, I began seeing how the changes and fixes were taking my rough start and making it 1000 times better.
My spirits were much better when I started the second round of testing after my accident, girded with the knowledge that perfection was still a long way off...and that was okay. I took a lot of the feedback this time as a positive rather than a negative, and used it to push myself to improve my coding abilities. Case in point: One of the characters would give you a blowjob no matter where you were, or who was in the room with you. Now, I may have fantasies about just such a woman in real life, but that wasn't supposed to happen in the game. It took me about 3 hours to sort out how to fix it, mainly because it had certain restrictions tied to it from an earlier scene and also had to be separate from similar commands in future scenes. Long story short(er), I learned things I hadn't considered before in ADRIFT and made me realize that if I made the same game over again, I could reduce the amount of time spent programming by a great deal. Live and learn, as they say.
The point I'm trying to get across, in my own verbose way, is that you can't do everything on your own--or at least you shouldn't. I've had wonderful experiences with my beta testers. They've been hardworking, insightful and conscientious and Master of the House wouldn't be nearly as good without they're help. Don't be afraid to reach out when you feel stuck, bounce questions off someone else when you hit a stumbling block, or look for a word of encouragement from members of the AIF (and IF) community. For my second game (blog post on that after MotH is finished), I'm already planning on having at least one person look through it well before it ever reaches testing, just to make suggestions and catch mistakes before it takes three hours to correct them.
Moral of the blog post:
It takes an AIF community to raise an AIF game.
Yours,
Minterlint
Beta testing is going fairly well. After about a week's worth of testing, fixing bugs, rewriting certain scenes and spell-checking the hell out of Master of the House, it's finally beginning to feel like a complete and coherent game, thanks in huge part to all of my beta testers. I've sent out what is hopefully a final beta version to help remove any further rough edges and polish it even more. I don't like the idea of giving a date for release, because obviously real-life circumstances can get in the way, so I'll leave it as a general 'soon'...hopefully...maybe.
Second, a word of encouragement to anyone writing a game of their own:
I was so excited when I 'finished' writing my game and started contacting beta testers about look at it. I had done it! I'd made my first game after hours, and hours, and hours (and then a few more hours) of writing and coding and I felt great! Nothing was going to stop me from releasing the awesomest, greatest game ever!!!!!!
Many of you who have authored games before can probably tell where this is headed. In my naive mind, all of the difficult work was done and I could just relax and let the beta testing handle itself. To my shame, I was in such a hurry to get the game out that I didn't even proofread a good portion of the text for the game, leaving a deplorable number of mistakes. And those issues were far from only ones.
When I first started receiving feedback for the game, I was incredibly depressed. My testers would send me pages upon pages of inconsistencies, bugs, and suggestions and I felt like I was drowning in the amount of work that I still had left to do to in order for Master of the House to be the best I could produce. It can be a hard blow when you realize that something you spent so much time and energy on wasn't the shining gem you thought it was. Especially when some of the problems were so obvious that I wasn't sure how I'd missed them myself (no, the main character shouldn't be allowed to run around naked! and yes, you should be able to sit on chairs!). I'd even considered scrapping it at one point, even though I was so close to finishing it. But I slowly worked out a lot of the issues, and with the encouragement and support of my first round of beta testers, I began seeing how the changes and fixes were taking my rough start and making it 1000 times better.
My spirits were much better when I started the second round of testing after my accident, girded with the knowledge that perfection was still a long way off...and that was okay. I took a lot of the feedback this time as a positive rather than a negative, and used it to push myself to improve my coding abilities. Case in point: One of the characters would give you a blowjob no matter where you were, or who was in the room with you. Now, I may have fantasies about just such a woman in real life, but that wasn't supposed to happen in the game. It took me about 3 hours to sort out how to fix it, mainly because it had certain restrictions tied to it from an earlier scene and also had to be separate from similar commands in future scenes. Long story short(er), I learned things I hadn't considered before in ADRIFT and made me realize that if I made the same game over again, I could reduce the amount of time spent programming by a great deal. Live and learn, as they say.
The point I'm trying to get across, in my own verbose way, is that you can't do everything on your own--or at least you shouldn't. I've had wonderful experiences with my beta testers. They've been hardworking, insightful and conscientious and Master of the House wouldn't be nearly as good without they're help. Don't be afraid to reach out when you feel stuck, bounce questions off someone else when you hit a stumbling block, or look for a word of encouragement from members of the AIF (and IF) community. For my second game (blog post on that after MotH is finished), I'm already planning on having at least one person look through it well before it ever reaches testing, just to make suggestions and catch mistakes before it takes three hours to correct them.
Moral of the blog post:
It takes an AIF community to raise an AIF game.
Yours,
Minterlint
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