Firstly I appologize if this is Gen Gen material, but I think it fits here.
Here's the scoop.
As some people know I've been working on a few games, for myself and others. I'm the weakest link on Neole's God game, one of the main writers for the team challenge team 5 game (which is still running), and the creator of Edge of Reality (now with improvements, about 85% done).
This summer I started a new *short* project which is currently 60% done. It should be finished by the end of September (I meant to finish it in 2 weeks... and then it expanded, and expanded). The concept was simple. I do a juggling/comedy show starring myself as a slightly mad goofball called Drake Blakely with a stuffed sidekick named Kropkin the Communist Penguin. I thought they were great characters, and decided to make a game based on them for Kids in my show. Naturally, the game would be 100% voice acted--since I would be playing my own character.
Well, the game is funny, the plot is pretty good, the puzzles are challenging but not impossible, and the voice acting has gotten good reviews. I did a lot of work stretching my voice and finding good actors from my family and friends. The graphics are generally poor, save my young brother's pretty good anime characters (which I messed up a bit by shrinking).
The game is worth playing, especially with the voice pack. But here's the problem. Right now the game is 45 megs uncompressed. No big deal. But since this was always meant to be given out to kids on a CD, I have gone nuts with descriptions and voice. The voice pack is now around 450 megs, and should reach nearly 700 by the time I'm done. I have a lot of already recorded dialog yet to put in, and a large amount of myself yet to record (but I write and speak it more or less simultaneously, knowing the characters and plot).
So. I don't want to extend the finish date of this or Edge of Reality by coming up with a whole new demo, but I also want people to be able to see the voice, actions and puzzles interacting before they download. Would people download 700 megs sight unseen (or unheard in this case) from a relitively accomplished AGSer (or me)? How do I even upload such a project? Would people download the game without sound and allow themselves to guess how much better it is with sound?
Any suggestions?
Thanks for any and all help, especially from fellows (and non-fellows) who know me.
Doddleeedoo!
For games this big a demo is always neede, prefferably with voices and sound.
That way a game can be seen in its full light, and still not take too much space, so the person knows what will he choose with the full game...
Thats just my opinion, which probably didnt help you anyway, but i just wanted to say what the basics IMO are for promoting bigger games.
Zip it. well, zip the game without voices and if people want the game with voices,then you'd make and send them a copy on cd for like5 bucks or something
Get Kazaa-lite and put it in your shared folder, then regularly go on the internet for a few weeks so that people have time to download it all. Then multiple users will have it in their shared folder, and voila - your game available (most of the time) for anyone who wants to download it.
This assumes you have broadband though, so that people won't go crazy waiting for the data to transfer.
are the sound files wav or mp3 or ogg?
if they're wav then FOO! compress dem bitches to mp3 or ogg!
eric
you have 450 megs of voices? what quality do you have them set at?? we don't need 320 kbs just for talking. convert tehm down to 90 or something.
Hmmm.. I like the idea of selling a voice CD for 5 bucks.
You could also have a low quality download version with limited SFX and voice acting. If you sold the CD cheap, I don't think it would be a problem.
MrColossal, i'm freaked out at the pacman in your sig not having a mouth like he used to. ???
EDIT: Stupid popup blocker doesn't allow gif animations. :S didn't notice.
Anyway, here are some promotion tips:
- Hype the game but not too much, hype it when you are at a position you can finish it and there aren't many bugs or anything.
- Have previews on your website that list the new features since the last preview you made, you can add screenshots aswell.
- Top notch gfx always appeal to a player, even if the game ends up as a terrible game. Don't ask me why...
- Advertise your site and what it's about in your sig on the message boards you go to, someone is bound to use the link.
- Share it over peek-2-peek software such as kazaa/kazaa-lite.
- Get a well known site to write a review of your game, and if possible, get your game listed on gamefaqs.
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Now, I would compress your music/voices a bit, and convert them to mp3.
If you want to sell the game, I suggest you use http://www.cafepress.com as you can setup a free shop and sell any type of product you want...you just have to design it.
Well, probably sending out CDs is your best bet, if you're willing to go through the trouble. Unless you know someone who can provide you that much host space/ bandwidth.
Also, putting it on kazaa wouldn't work very well because users connect to many different nodes. So you can't reliably find a specific file unless many, many users have it. I think. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Anyway, you project sounds cool.. I'm looking forward to seeing it if not hearing it.
You should offer a no-voice version for download and put the voice version on sharing programs. BitTorrent would be good.
Thanks folks, there are some options here I hadn't thought of.
First of all, quality isn't top notch (file size)--it's primarily good, but some files are crackly, so I wouldn't want to reduce any further. But MP3 compression sounds likea good idea.
Are there any batch converters for wav to MP3 out there? I have well over 500 voice files right now and I do not want to convert them all 1 by 1.
Thanks for all advice.
There is a plugin for soundforge for exactly that.
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/products/showproduct.asp?PID=478
So if you feel like paying, go to sonic foundry's site and check it out, otherwise there's Kaza, if you don't have a problem with it.
Edit: It might also work as a stand alone program
Goldwave does it and it's free... www.goldwave.com
wha? Spring Fever isn't a very big game? ;)
did some one say spring fever?
did some one say town square?
*FruitTree runs away*
sorry for the off-topicness :P
fruit tree, i FINISHED THE TOWN SQUAR!11!11ONEONEONE
Pay a visit to www.vorbis.com n download an ogg encoder.
It s free n superior to the mp3 format, and yes, it works with AGS.
Quote from: AGA on Thu 21/08/2003 19:23:33
Goldwave does it and it's free... www.goldwave.com
Yeah, good link AGA, I just tried this and it does the job, I just tested it and you can convert to ogg files if you want instead of mp3.
I just put 4 mp3's through the batch converter to ogg, you can convert pretty much between whatever formats you want.
to convert 500 wavs would take a while, just set it up, go to work and they'll be ready when you get home.