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Are you kickstarting Andrew Plotkin?

Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 12:59 am
by darius
I am. I'm backing him with $25 because I think he's the closest to Infocom and Magnetic Scrolls we have nowdays and now he wants to go writing text adventures full-time. Who wouldn't want to kickstart him?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zar ... the-iphone

or shorter:
http://eblong.com/kick

Re: Are you kickstarting Andrew Plotkin?

Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 9:10 am
by Mr Creosote
I certainly wish him all the best and I hope he succeeds, but to answer your "who wouldn't?": Developing games exclusively for some phone (even worse: one without a keyboard!) is not something I want to actively support. This just isn't a serious platform.

I'm curious to see, though, what will come out of this. Apple customers are very hard to figure out, they sometimes buy masses of crap for insanely high prices, but then, they don't buy great stuff at reasonable prices. The initial support of the 'hardcore fans' is certainly overwhelming, but that's also something which will only happen once. He has to find an audience outside of that small demographic.

Re: Are you kickstarting Andrew Plotkin?

Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 11:59 am
by darius
I agree with you, actually, or rather, agreed. Initially I was a bit miffed about Andrew Plotkin only wanting to support the iPhone-platform, but after reading his explainations and giving it a thought on my own I'm reasoning like this:

a) If I back him now I will get a version I can play, i.e. the Windows/Mac/Linux CD you get on the $25 level. I'm looking forward to it.

b) Andrew Plotkin is just one guy with a very limited amount of time and resources. He has to set up some boundaries in order for him to go through with the project. The iPhone is a good enough inital platform with a lot of potential to succeed upon. I don't think he is making a statement about other platforms. He's only trying to increase his chances for success. No one knows what will happen if he succeeds; he might release it on other platforms as well or perhaps have the money to hire somebody to do it.

c) Text adventures need all the attention they can get. If this game is a success, even only on the iPhone, text adventures in general might get a lot of attention which would then hopefully spill over to other games on all platforms.

Mr Creosote wrote:I certainly wish him all the best and I hope he succeeds, but to answer your "who wouldn't?": Developing games exclusively for some phone (even worse: one without a keyboard!) is not something I want to actively support. This just isn't a serious platform.

I'm curious to see, though, what will come out of this. Apple customers are very hard to figure out, they sometimes buy masses of crap for insanely high prices, but then, they don't buy great stuff at reasonable prices. The initial support of the 'hardcore fans' is certainly overwhelming, but that's also something which will only happen once. He has to find an audience outside of that small demographic.

Re: Are you kickstarting Andrew Plotkin?

Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 12:49 am
by dave
His choice of platform confuses me: generally the sort of people who'd buy an iphone would not really like text adventures, and its far to easy to fall afoul of the random app store policies that change every other week. I'd have thought that android/kindle/windows mobile would be a much better choice.

The other thing is that app store has been known to remove applications that allow programmable content - if he's just porting glulux then this would fall foul of this rule and would be removed.

Personally I boycott anything Apple; I may have been persuaded to support him if he bought it out for Windows/Linux first.

Re: Are you kickstarting Andrew Plotkin?

Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 12:56 am
by darius
@dave Am I correct to assume that your feelings about Apple takes precedence over your feelings about text adventures? ;)

Re: Are you kickstarting Andrew Plotkin?

Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 2:23 am
by Samwise
This is an odd one. I don't have a problem with him picking a popular platform that is likely to prove more profitable, given his goal. However, I'm not sure I'm completely comfortable paying out for a closed source binary game, esp. one which won't be made widely available on other platforms. On the other hand, he is going to open source the application framework for his iPhone game, if not the game itself.

Hrmm ... I may have to think about whether or not to contribute.

As well as the open source app framework, he also says he'll spend more time on glulx and things like that, which are all worthy causes.

Sam.

Re: Are you kickstarting Andrew Plotkin?

Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 9:58 am
by Mr Creosote
dave: While I personally agree with all your sentiments (yes, I believe all Apple products are overpriced, inferior crap), you have to keep in mind that Apple's marketshare and mindshare (the latter even more than the first) in the USA is huge. Especially in "IF" circles where I'd assume Apple users to be the majority. Andrew Plotkin, being from the USA and moving within these circles himself, logically chose based on what he sees around him.

Re: Are you kickstarting Andrew Plotkin?

Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 11:14 am
by Gunness
dave wrote:Personally I boycott anything Apple; I may have been persuaded to support him if he bought it out for Windows/Linux first.
Yeah, it's funny how Apple went from being everybody's favourite underdog to being prominently placed on a lot of people's hate lists. For the record, I'm right with you. I've only used iTunes once, and it was indeed a day I'm not proud of. I was weak. Won't happen again.

I think Hannes is right about Apple's mind share in the US, so choosing this platform makes perfect sense.

In the plus column, everybody, please remember that this project should finally give Howard Sherman/Malinche's repeated claims of being the only publisher of IF the kiss of death.

Re: Are you kickstarting Andrew Plotkin?

Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 11:29 am
by darius
Gunness wrote:In the plus column, everybody, please remember that this project should finally give Howard Sherman/Malinche's repeated claims of being the only publisher of IF the kiss of death.
Hilarious! That alone is worth $10 I think. :D

Re: Are you kickstarting Andrew Plotkin?

Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 12:03 pm
by Mr Creosote
Well, there is Textfyre, too... ;)

Re: Are you kickstarting Andrew Plotkin?

Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2010 6:44 pm
by darius
Mr Creosote wrote:Well, there is Textfyre, too... ;)
Indeed, you're right. Thanks for reminding me. They have been around for a while. I went there and saw that they are selling The Shadow in the Cathedral in a Hobbyist Edition which can be played in any Glulx interpreter so I just bought it in the hopes to be able to play it on Ubuntu, which is what I am running. Has anybody played The Shadow in the Cathedral?

Re: Are you kickstarting Andrew Plotkin?

Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2010 8:51 pm
by Mr Creosote
Yes, when that "hobbyist" edition was released, I contemplated buying one of their games, too, but it really seems they're all aimed at a specifically young audience which somehow put me off. My 'inner child' is still very much alive, but I fear it might not just a childish story, but also a very simple game - which would be disappointing if I had payed for it. Let me know if my suspicions are wrong!

Re: Are you kickstarting Andrew Plotkin?

Posted: Mon May 21, 2012 1:22 pm
by Gunness
Did anyone sign up? What's the status of the project? I gave the Kickstart page a brief look, but others might have been keeping up with the development.