Textfyre - Secret Letter Demo Responses
ChicagoDave
Eventually I will build this into the website, but I wanted to ping
everyone about the demo. I know that 540 unique visitors played the
demo. I also know that I have not sold 540 games (didn't expect to).
So if you played the demo, I'm just looking for a bit of feedback...
1) Were you able to install Silverlight and play the demo?
2) How long did you play?
3) Did you make it to the cutoff point?
4) If you didn't buy it, what was the reason?
a) Didn't like the story.
b) Didn't like the interface.
c) The price was too high. (and if true, what would you pay?)
d) I don't really plan to ever pay for IF games.
5) Any other comments?
I'm trying to be responsive to all concerns, even though I've said the
community is not my target market. I would like to make games that
attract a certain percentage of community players and for Secret
Letter, we fell short of that goal. We're planning to make some
changes to the game in a couple of areas, including opening up the
ending a lot. A "version 2.0" will be out in August.
It's possible each game will draw its own percentage of customers
based on the story. We'll find out more when Shadow is released in
September, as it has a slightly more community-oriented flavor (in my
mind). But I thought I'd ask for responses from the demo users
specifically.
Thanks,
David C.
S. John Ross
> 1) Were you able to install Silverlight and play the demo?
Yes. There were initial difficulties with legibility which prevented
me from playing, but a later release fixed the problem (huzzah)!
> 2) How long did you play?
About 45 minutes to an hour, total, I think. Gave it two tries, plus
other random stabs that didn't amount to much.
> 3) Did you make it to the cutoff point?
No.
> 4) If you didn't buy it, what was the reason?
> a) Didn't like the story.
> b) Didn't like the interface.
> c) The price was too high. (and if true, what would you pay?)
> d) I don't really plan to ever pay for IF games.
A bit of a, a lot of b and a smidge of c. I'd be EAGER to pay for IF
games that rock my world (EAGER, man - EAGER), but this one didn't
quite grab me at the current price (and especially with the pushy
interface). That said, I liked it much more as an adult than I would
have as a kid (as a kid, it would have turned me off completely ... as
an adult, I can at least appreciate it and enjoy it, if not enough to
feel rock-out excited about it). I may still purchase a later release
when the price goes down and/or the interface becomes more
customizable.
> 5) Any other comments?
Lovely map, and best of luck with future endeavors; I'll be tuning in
every time. Plus: lovely map, and the map was lovely. I also liked the
map, and the map was good.
David C.
> Hey everyone,
A reply-to-me is suggested if you don't want to share your thoughts
publicly. Either way, your feedback is valuable.
Thanks,
David C.
rpgs rock dvds
> So if you played the demo, I'm just looking for a bit of feedback...
>
> 1) Were you able to install Silverlight and play the demo?
> 2) How long did you play?
> 3) Did you make it to the cutoff point?
> 4) If you didn't buy it, what was the reason?
> a) Didn't like the story.
> b) Didn't like the interface.
> c) The price was too high. (and if true, what would you pay?)
> d) I don't really plan to ever pay for IF games.
> 5) Any other comments?
1 = yes, easily. i am running xp sp3
2 = i tried 4 times. each attempt lasted between 5 and 10 mins.
3 = no.
4a = unfortunately, the main character + marketplace location + target
age group didn't interest me enough. i think i prefer IF pitched at a
slightly older age group - not necessarily horror however.
4b = it seemed ok to me.
4c = definitely true. i would pay $5, and i appreciate this seems
very low, but gog.com are flogging some old games that initially cost
developers millions to develop for about that price.
4d = probably, yes. it's a genre from the past, and there's plenty of
free and interesting IF games to play in the present.
5 = i would like to see a new colour image every time i change
location.
Genstein
I already had Silverlight, and yes, it played well on Firefox 3, Vista x64.
> 2) How long did you play?
Around thirty minutes.
> 3) Did you make it to the cutoff point?
Sadly not.
> 4) If you didn't buy it, what was the reason?
> a) Didn't like the story.
> b) Didn't like the interface.
> c) The price was too high. (and if true, what would you pay?)
> d) I don't really plan to ever pay for IF games.
Some of b), a little of a), but mainly I felt it needed a teensy bit
more beta testing to achieve a higher degree of polish. Even if it were
free I might have stopped at the same point: I didn't love the story or
setting enough to get past the niggling issues. And I don't object to
buying commercial IF any more than I object to buying books or games in
general. The price seemed perfectly fair for a work of commercial IF of
this scale.
> 5) Any other comments?
Since you ask, I did make a few notes.
** VERY MILD SPOILERS **
--
Inappropriate Responses: -
>> CLIMB POST
>You need to find a way behind the stalls to get to the post.
>> GO BEHIND STALL
>There's not enough room to hide there.
And my favourite:
>One thing you can say about the rope stall: you'll never spend a
moment wondering what's for sale.
>> BUY ROPE
>(as sold at this stall)
>Nothing is on sale.
>"I have rope for sale!" calls the storekeeper.
--
User Interface:-
The menu cannot be navigated with keys.
The introduction appears in one scrolling page, but the main game text
never does.
The table of contents is accessible via a simple bookmark, but the main
game pages are not.
The blank pages at the end of the text seem odd, and can be confusing
when paging forward repeatedly.
The "do you wish to save before restarting" dialog can't be closed with
keys, nor can the transcript window or the quit dialog, etc.
They also steal input focus from the main window, meaning you can't use
keys until you click in the window again.
Input is initially in overly large serif text, but upon pressing enter
turns into sans serif text, then after a visible delay becomes italic.
This is a little distracting.
There doesn't seem to be an obvious means of turning off the pictures.
It's slower to respond that I'd expect, and I'm not quite sure why; it
may not be slower than Parchment, but as some time .NET developer I
would have expected a .NET VM to be faster than a Javascript one under
Firefox.
The main font is pleasant enough and quite readable, but could be
fractionally smaller. I'd like more separation between room names and
the preceding and subsequent text.
Text flow between pages is odd; one page does not end after another
begins, instead there is overlap and (most oddly) partial lines of text
appearing on a page. This rather intrudes upon the book metaphor which
is otherwise relatively convincing.
The text feels very verbose during play, perhaps because many responses
take up half a page; I think this is more an issue of the font size than
it is the text itself. If this adjusted itself based on screen
resolution, or even better was adjustable by the interactor, this would
be rather nicer.
--
Overall: -
Overall I find the start of the game perhaps a little contrived; it's
not clear why the mercenaries are after Jack, and other than the fact
that not escaping proves fatal, I don't feel motivated enough to want to
escape. The escape itself feels somewhat laborious, and I must confess
that after wandering multiple identical stores, encountering dialog
exchanges like the above, and not generally being able to reach the
posts, I lost interest in proceedings. Being dropped straight into the
action could be compelling, but feeling railroaded into a lengthy
exploration of the market doesn't quite seem pacey enough to match the
opening.
--eg.
Jim Aikin
>
> Overall I find the start of the game perhaps a little contrived; it's
> not clear why the mercenaries are after Jack, and other than the fact
> that not escaping proves fatal, I don't feel motivated enough to want to
> escape. The escape itself feels somewhat laborious, and I must confess
> that after wandering multiple identical stores, encountering dialog
> exchanges like the above, and not generally being able to reach the
> posts, I lost interest in proceedings. Being dropped straight into the
> action could be compelling, but feeling railroaded into a lengthy
> exploration of the market doesn't quite seem pacey enough to match the
> opening.
Having done a little testing on this game, I'd agree (in a mild tone of
voice) with most of the foregoing.
Except possibly "a little contrived" -- all IF is contrived, so I'm not
sure that's a fair criticism.
And if you had played further in the game (perhaps beyond the demo --
not sure) you'd learn that the lengthy exploration of the market has no
bearing on the later story. The market is not important, except as a
setting for a rather laborious opening puzzle.
--JA
S. John Ross
> Except possibly "a little contrived" -- all IF is contrived, so I'm not
> sure that's a fair criticism.
In the context of something which is inevitably contrived, the
criticism "contrived" takes on relative meaning, implying additional/
conspicuous/clumsy levels of contrivance beyond what would be
necessary for the work to function.
(See also criticizing any work of man as "artificial," any slice of
pizza as "oily," etc).
Context. It's what's for dinner.
Victor Gijsbers
Hash: SHA1
S. John Ross wrote:
> (See also criticizing any work of man as "artificial," any slice of
> pizza as "oily," etc).
I appreciate the point, but what a weird example? I have never seen an
oily pizza.
(Except for that one horrible occasion when I went to a "Pizza Hut",
ordered pizza, and got a *thing* that was three times thicker than a
pizza has the right to be and appeared to have been deep fried rather
than baked. This abomination was certainly oily--had it been squeezed,
it could have filled two medium-sized bottles with a oil, though oil
that no olive tree had engendered--but it as certainly wasn't a pizza.)
Regards,
Victor
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
iEYEARECAAYFAkpkuPAACgkQoiOrMwvIZLy3fACeIGjeRrBUMVFriYML+hkfqOph
z8UAn3oCKjpR5AhGmseCdX7XPHnmrFVh
=uXHg
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Jim Aikin
>> Except possibly "a little contrived" -- all IF is contrived, so I'm not
>> sure that's a fair criticism.
>
> In the context of something which is inevitably contrived, the
> criticism "contrived" takes on relative meaning, implying additional/
> conspicuous/clumsy levels of contrivance beyond what would be
> necessary for the work to function.
Point taken. Yes, given that meta-context, I think I'd agree that the
opening puzzle is a bit contrived, in a couple of senses. First,
although the presence of the mercenaries does relate to the rest of the
story, the tricky process of escaping from the market doesn't. And
second, realistically all Jack would need to do [SPOILER ALERT!] would
be to snatch a length of leather, slip between two of the tents to reach
the pole, climb the pole, and use the leather in the indicated manner.
All the rest of the activity in the market is irrelevant, IIRC.
--JA
S. John Ross
> I appreciate the point, but what a weird example?
Aye.
> I have never seen an oily pizza.
> (Except for that one horrible occasion when I went to a "Pizza Hut",
> ordered pizza, and got a *thing* that was three times thicker than a
> pizza has the right to be and appeared to have been deep fried rather
> than baked. This abomination was certainly oily--had it been squeezed,
> it could have filled two medium-sized bottles with a oil, though oil
> that no olive tree had engendered--but it as certainly wasn't a pizza.)
What you're describing is certainly the "pan" type, which is prepared
by (I kid you not) pumping several long pumps of oil (typically
soybean oil or a blend of mostly-soybean oil) into an inch-deep pan,
dropping a slab of very wet dough (almost a batter bread) into the
oil, covering it with a plastic lid, and letting that rise for several
hours, creating an almost texture-less pillow which bakes into an oil-
sponge, ready-immersed in its own puddle of grease. While the final
food-esque product is, in fact, baked in an oven, the oil-immersion
means that it is also, effectively, exactly as deep-fried as it
seemed.
If you find yourself trapped at a Pizza Hut and unable to slip away
next door for better food, you'll fare better with the "hand-
tossed" (which is not, of course, hand-tossed, but which uses a more
sensible, bread-type dough and no grease-puddle) or "thin and
crispy" (even drier, leavened differently, hard-rolled through a
mechanical press). Or better yet, just go for the salad bar, eat
light, and save your appetite for later.
S. John Ross
> (as a kid, it would have turned me off completely ...
And as long as I'm clogging this thread with cholesterol, I realize I
made this point in passing without being very clear.
When I was an _actual_ kid, playing actual solitaire fantasy
adventures, I did so with softcover gamebooks, RPG solitaires, and
paperback CYOAs (I didn't own a computer until the early 90s, when my
second publisher told me he wasn't going to accept typewritten
submissions anymore).
There's a series of softcover gamebooks that, as an adult, I like.
They're not all equally good, but the high points are very high, the
low points are forgiveable, and the writing is often fun. They're
called Golden Dragon gamebooks, and there were a half-dozen of them.
As a teenage gamebook fan, I was aware of them, but I avoided them
like the plague, because the American editions had covers like this:
http://www.gamebooks.org/gallery/gdfg3a.jpg
Check out our hero, there. He's a frickin' KID. I saw this cover when
I was about 14 or 15 years old, and the idea of _pretending to be a
ten-year-old in sneakers and plate mail_ struck me as absolutely
offensive. I could, on some days, tolerate fantasizing that I was a
teenager (provided I was at least a badass teenager or had some spells
or something), but since being a kid was my daily existence, I leaned
toward gamebooks where my avatar was an adult, facing situations that
I imagined that adults might face in an imaginary world (even if the
situations were not often, on years-later reflection, particularly
adult at all). This led me to pick and choose even among series I
enjoyed ... which is why I started leaning away from Choose Your Own
Adventure. Initially, they had a mix of styles (in some books, like
Cave of Time, you played a kid, but in others you played an astronaut
or explorer, etc), but as the run went on they started to lean heavily
on the 'you're a kid ... pretending to be ... a KID!" idea, which just
sucked.
Now, as the years begin to catch up with me, the idea of pretending
I'm a kid finally has some appeal, and a few years ago I revisited the
Golden Dragon gamebooks and sat down and really played them for the
first time, and they were (mostly) very good. I would have, in fact,
enjoyed them as a kid ... turns out those American covers lie like a
rug. But the initial turnoff was strong, and would have been the same
with Jack Toresal.
My friends in those days had the same attitudes I did, but I can't
guess if that's universal or just us, or regional or cultural or
whatever ... But that's what I meant, specifically, when I said that
this game would have turned me off as a kid, but that I can enjoy it
as an adult.
Beyond that, this game seems to have a kind of mildness to it, a lack
of wickedness (at least in the early parts) that I also always took as
a warning sign that something was meant to be good for me. Not quite
the hyper-twee rabbits-in-waistcoats vibe, but definitely the
goodhearted-ragamuffin-rogue vibe. That was a red flag when I was a
kid (warning: something wholesome trying to pass itself off as
something fun), and it remains so, and it's one of the reasons I
couldn't quite engage with the material.
That said, since the _paying_ target audience is really the parents,
and not the child who may suffer through it, it may be a wise strategy
to appeal to them first. Dunno.
Stephen Gilbert
Though I'm not your target audience, a neighbour of mine is, and I've
been considering buying the Secret Letter for her.
> 1) Were you able to install Silverlight and play the demo?
I'm afraid not. I'm on Linux, so Silverlight is a deal-breaker for me. I
may borrow a Windows computer to give it a try, but I am rather
disappointed with this choice for the interface.
> 4) If you didn't buy it, what was the reason?
> a) Didn't like the story.
The reviews I've read have confirmed that this probably isn't for me.
However, I expect my neighbour would like it.
> c) The price was too high. (and if true, what would you pay?)
Yes. For me, about $10 - $15 would be the sweet spot.
> 5) Any other comments?
Did I mention my disappointment about using Silverlight? I did? Oh,
sorry. ;) Even though the current IF-playing community is not your target
market, we could be some of your best salespeople. Right now, I want to
buy this game for a young friend, but I have to jump through some hoops
just to try the demo, and that, combined with the rather high price point
is somewhat discouraging to me. Still, I wish you the best of luck with
your venture, even if I'm not currently a customer.
Reiko
<snip>
> > c) The price was too high. (and if true, what would you pay?)
>
> Yes. For me, about $10 - $15 would be the sweet spot.
Along with this statement, I'd like to second another statement or two
already made, as well as make another comparison to a game I liked
when I was younger. To be fair, I'll say right away that I haven't
actually played the demo yet, although I may in the near future. But
I've seen a few screenshots and followed along with the discussion,
and this whole idea of commercial IF with a graphical interface has
caused a comparison to another game to come to mind.
One of my favorite computer games growing up was the Gateway game (and
its prequel) based on the books by Frederik Pohl. (Anyone else played
them?) Both games were mostly command-line IF with a picture for each
location, plus cut-scene pictures, sometimes with moving pieces like
someone's face or a spaceship flying by. Occasionally the interface
would switch to a temporary mouse-based button interface for something
like a computer, but the location pictures were generally static,
although they would once in a while switch a little bit depending on
something you did, like wearing glasses that would allow you to see
something in the location that you couldn't see without them, or when
another character appeared.
They weren't true IF in the sense of being able to be played
completely in text format, because there were a couple places where
important information would be present in the pictures; one puzzle
actually relied on what you could see in the location pictures, which
varied in real-time in a few places too. The parser wasn't as
sophisticated as our current ones, but the game was not buggy, either
- everything seemed to work as intended, even if the depth of
responses wasn't as good as we've come to expect these days. The
story, though, had all the depth of the books' background, and made
good use of it.
What I'm getting at is that once I do play the demo, my experience of
it is going to be colored by my experiences with the Gateway
interface, which I really liked. It wasn't fancy with simulated book
pages, but that's just icing on the cake. The implementation itself
was solid, so that (except for needing the pictures in a few places),
the game could be played almost completely with either the mouse or
the keyboard, or a combination of the two. The whole interface could
actually be stripped down to just a message window, like true IF, or
common commands could be chosen from a list with a mouse (not that I
used that very much).
Regardless of the demo's quality, I buy very few games new, so I'm not
likely to buy this one. But it's not because it's IF. It's because I
feel that if I'm going to purchase a game, I need to be convinced that
it will live up to its price in a way that's at least as good as
previous games I've bought and liked. Now, I didn't buy the Gateway
game myself (it was a gift), but I'm pretty sure it didn't cost $25,
and probably not even $15 (it can be found new for less than $15 now,
anyway), and its prequel has been made freely available on the
internet. So that means that a commercial IF game that's as good as
Gateway is worth $10-15 to me. But that means a game that has what I
liked about Gateway - pictures for each location (as someone else
mentioned already), cut scenes, puzzles based on gadgets (alien
technology works well for this), etc.
Before someone starts arguing again that IF doesn't need pictures, let
me clarify again that this isn't about the game being IF, but about
being commercial. It's sad but true that if you want to sell stuff,
you usually have to appeal to people's eyes as well as their minds.
That's what "feelies" are for, too. A game just seems more polished
and worthwhile (even if the gameplay is worse) if it has visuals, and
therefore likely to sell better. Gateway needed its visuals for
gameplay, but it'd work to make an IF game where the visuals simply
add atmosphere, flavor, and perhaps illustrate needed information in
another way.
If the text is good, the visuals certainly wouldn't be required to
finish the game, but we've probably all struggled with a piece of IF
where we're not quite understanding what the author had in mind for an
item, and being able to see it would have solved the problem
instantly. And, to continue the book metaphor which seems so
emphasized, even novels for adults usually have cover (jacket) art as
well as sometimes pictures or diagrams in the book itself to
illustrate something that may be difficult or tedious to describe in
text.
So I wish the venture well, but for now I'll just watch and see what
happens.
Jesse McGrew
Deep dish pizza is hardly unique to Pizza Hut.
And pizza being oily is hardly unique to deep dish style, either. For
instance, Sbarro's is thin, crispy, and oily.
I can only guess that Victor hasn't had much American pizza.
vw
S. John Ross
> Deep dish pizza is hardly unique to Pizza Hut.
Deep dish pizza is not _available_ at Pizza Hut. But if you want me to
wax poetically on the sublime ass-kicking wonder of a good deep dish
pizza, that would be, well, exactly the opposite of where we've taken
that tangent so far ;)
> And pizza being oily is hardly unique to deep dish style, either.
Hence my earlier example.
> For instance, Sbarro's is thin, crispy, and oily.
[shudder]
> I can only guess that Victor hasn't had much American pizza.
Which, given the examples being discussed here, can't be an omission
that's causing him lack of sleep :)
Victor Gijsbers
Hash: SHA1
S. John Ross wrote:
> If you find yourself trapped at a Pizza Hut and unable to slip away
> next door for better food, you'll fare better with the "hand-
> tossed" (which is not, of course, hand-tossed, but which uses a more
> sensible, bread-type dough and no grease-puddle) or "thin and
> crispy" (even drier, leavened differently, hard-rolled through a
> mechanical press). Or better yet, just go for the salad bar, eat
> light, and save your appetite for later.
I don't know. When your getting on the night train from Budapest to
Krakau, on which you will be roused from sleep again and again by big,
muscular, uniformed, roughly handsome border guards, "saving your
appetite for later" may not be the wisest decision.
But thanks for the explanations. :)
Regards,
Victor
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
iEYEARECAAYFAkplytQACgkQoiOrMwvIZLyV/ACggXf9Lwl7SJRh/+CA8plFpxd6
8WoAn2mShlglCNnBOafZXGW+8RM7MK1S
=J2zg
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
S. John Ross
> I don't know. When your getting on the night train from Budapest to
> Krakau, on which you will be roused from sleep again and again by big,
> muscular, uniformed, roughly handsome border guards, "saving your
> appetite for later" may not be the wisest decision.
"Gormnash floogle nomnetz!"
Victor Gijsbers
Hash: SHA1
"Alp! Habnez olinki!"
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
iEYEARECAAYFAkpm/VIACgkQoiOrMwvIZLwFigCfSJM0ukAp7fsOvENNui6M9muT
w+4Anj0ooqLjotup/cO7bWc/Q3xnhjE0
=rKjn
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Adam Thornton
Victor Gijsbers <vic...@lilith.gotdns.org> wrote:
>I don't know. When your getting on the night train from Budapest to
>Krakau, on which you will be roused from sleep again and again by big,
>muscular, uniformed, roughly handsome border guards, "saving your
>appetite for later" may not be the wisest decision.
Indeed.
Adam
Damien Neil
> 1) Were you able to install Silverlight and play the demo?
Yes.
> 2) How long did you play?
About ten minutes.
> 3) Did you make it to the cutoff point?
No.
> 4) If you didn't buy it, what was the reason?
I hated, hated, hated, hated the interface. It was clumsy, ugly, slow,
and just plain poorly implemented. Everything about it screamed
"amateurish".
- Damien
David C.
> I hated, hated, hated, hated the interface. It was clumsy, ugly, slow,
> and just plain poorly implemented. Everything about it screamed
> "amateurish".
I suspect you didn't like the UI.
You mention clumsy. Could you give me an example of a portion of the
UI that you felt was clumsy?
Ugly is probably subjective, but maybe you could expand on why you
thought it was ugly.
The slow part has mostly been fixed if you played it early on. If you
played it recently, then I'm not sure why it's slow for you.
The other comments are far too subjective and unhelpful for me to
question.
What sort of UI would you prefer in lieu of the book metaphor?
David C.
Damien Neil
> > I hated, hated, hated, hated the interface. �It was clumsy, ugly, slow,
> > and just plain poorly implemented. �Everything about it screamed
> > "amateurish".
>
> I suspect you didn't like the UI.
>
> You mention clumsy. Could you give me an example of a portion of the
> UI that you felt was clumsy?
I posted a fairly lengthy set of opinions in an earlier thread; Google
seems not to have recorded that post, however, so it may have fallen
into the void.
Clumsy: The page-turning metaphor doesn't work, at all. Turn back the
"page" and note where something is. Go to the last "page" and enter a
new command. Turn back the page again, and all the text has moved. To
make things even more fun, pages overlap. The text on the top of one
page can be duplicated on the bottom of the previous page.
The whole thing is confusing to the point of being unusable, and offers
absolutely nothing over a simple scrolling text window with a scrollbar
on one side. As a friend is fond of saying: The problem with
reinventing the wheel is that you usually end up with a trapezoid with
an offset axle.
Amusingly, the most usable view of the game text is available from the
game transcript window. It might almost be playable if there was a
command line there as well. (I note that the transcript window is a
tacit acknowledgement of the utter uselessness of the book metaphor for
managing scrollback--if the main UI was functional, there would be no
need for a separate transcript.)
Anther issue: Why is there an "increase storage space" button on the
save game screen? You know how much storage space is available. You
know the size of the saved game you're writing. Request space if you
need it!
Another one: Start the game. You get a couple pages of text. Press
space. Nothing happens. Press enter. Nothing happens. Beat on the
keyboard like a monkey. Nothing happens. Press page down, or discover
the invisible button in the lower-right. Oh, hey, there's all the text
I just typed.
In general, the flow of various actions shows a lack of good design. The
"Table of Contents" is a command menu, not a table of contents. There
are two ways to get at the map, and neither is particularly obvious.
"Introduction" and "Start a New Game" are prominently displayed at the
top of the game menu, while "Continue Game" is buried in the middle of
it.
The book metaphor is thoroughly subverted throughout. The content of
pages shifts and changes according to the whim of the UI. Everything is
forced into recto and verso pages, except when it isn't and a window
overlays everything.
> Ugly is probably subjective, but maybe you could expand on why you
> thought it was ugly.
I see that it has improved. The first version I used had a gargantuan,
unreadable font.
The very first impression one receives of the game is still the "cover"
of the book, on which it is embarrassingly obvious that the cover text
is a normal computer font overlayed on an image--the text doesn't seem
to be part of the book cover at all, which gives a slipshod and
amateurish feel.
The centered text on the "Table of Contents" is ragged and visually
unbalanced; there's a reason the entries in most real contents pages are
left-justified.
The occasional animations (pages flipping, page corners curling up)
still have a very small number of frames and are generally lacking in
grace, beauty, or any justification for existence.
> The slow part has mostly been fixed if you played it early on. If you
> played it recently, then I'm not sure why it's slow for you.
This seems to have improved somewhat as well.
> What sort of UI would you prefer in lieu of the book metaphor?
Scrolling text window. Scroll bar on the side. Illustrations off to
the side, or possibly inline with the text. Unobtrusive button
somewhere to call up an overlay with metacommands.
- Damien
Aaronius
> Now, I didn't buy the Gateway
> game myself (it was a gift), but I'm pretty sure it didn't cost $25,
> and probably not even $15 (it can be found new for less than $15 now,
> anyway)
Just a nitpicky point here: when this was first released in 1992, it
was a first-run adventure title from a major publisher, and I seem to
remember those costing in the range of $40 - $50. Adventure games
aren't intrinsically worth pocket change; their perceived value, like
everything in the economy, fluctuates with time, often wildly.
--Aaron