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If Herculean Effort Productions decides to release Apprentice III for money I would for sure buy it!

Would it help to say that the Herculean Effort folks are doing the graphics for my next game?

I think DaveGilbert and Yahtzee's thing of doing donateware special editions for a very low price is a good compromise. I wouldn't pay $30 for Al Emmo (or $5 for that matter) but I would pay $5 to someone who has put some extra effort into a game I know already is good and has been improved more.

This is good in theory, but doesn't take into account that people aren't as understanding (or as generous) as you are, SSH. I've gotten a ton of "I'd totally buy it, but I already know the story" emails.  Many people don't see the point of paying for a game that, for all intents and purposes, they have already played.  It's totally understandable.

I've learned my lesson, which is why my next game won't be released for free. 

Going indie is not the worst idea.  I have met many people who have done very well making and selling small games that people love.  It has been done before.  Look at Spiderweb Games, EDIgames, or Amaranth games.  They are great examples of indie success stories.  Not everyone can be like them, but they are nice role-models to emulate.  Regardless of what you think of their games, they are selling.

Just making the game is a tiny part of the whole process, as I am slowly discovering.  The key is marketing.  No matter how good your game is, nobody is going to consider buying it if they don't know about it.  You're not going to get the word out by sitting in front of your computer.  You've got to get out there, talk to people in the industry, showcase yourself, and have your marketing materials ready to go even before you finish the game. 

It sucks, but it's true.  People are less inclined to fork over their cash then you'd expect!

Hi Typo,

I am no longer supporting the original version of the game.  It's still out there, though.  It's fairly easy to find.

-Dave

This is proving to be most fun to use!  However, I am noticing it acts a bit funky when it's used in the global script.  If you use more than one in the global script, every "instance" gets increased when you use it.  For example, let's say you have two inventory items, and since their look interactions are stored in the global script you'd have the following:

object 1:
response 1: "It's a magnifying glass"
response 2: "I said it's a magnifying glass"
response 3: "For the third time, it's a magnifying glass"

object 2:
response 1: "It's a toolbox."
response 2: "Nothing has changed since the last time."
response 3: "Actually, this toolbox has a false bottom"

Again, these are both in the global script.  If you look at object one, you'd get "It's a magnifying glass", but then if you look at object 2, you'd get "Nothing has changed since the last time."

This only seems to happen in the global script. 

mm, the game is quite large, but I think I can knock up a small example of the problem.  Thanks, Straze.

I think this is definitely something you should consider for the future, but as for Shivah there is already a non-deluxe version floating around and the copies of the deluxe version without any protection scheme.  Introducing one now seems fruitless, and most likely you would see the non-deluxe version start cropping up everywhere at the very least.

Nah,  Shivah is done and finished.  It's something I've thought about though, and not just for me but for anyone else planning a commercial ags game.

One advantage a small shop has is that we can keep track of individual sales.  Since everyone buys the game directly from us, we can keep track of who bought which copy of which game.  That's something large companies can't do, since people purchase their games in stores.  Of course, that all goes out the window once you start using online distributors, but again they keep track of each individual order.

Again, there is no way this method could STOP piracy.  It would just act as a deterrent.  In order to put the game on a download site, someone had to have purchased the game to begin with. 

I second this!  I have a listbox in my game that acts like notes on a notepad, and it was difficult to get the lines on the notepad to match up with the words.  Then I wanted to try a different font and had to refutz with the lines again.  It would be much easier to be able to set a gap between the listbox lines.

Yeah, as we said it's more of a deterrent than actual protection.  Since each sale will generate a different keyfile, then all the developer has to do is look at that keyfile and they'll know who has been being naughty.  Assuming that the developer keeps good records, of course. 

But, this doesn't solve the problem of people actually pirating the game.  If someone uploads the game, and doesn't care if you know who he/she is, then there's nothing you can do aside from glare at them from over the internet.

I was thinking about code embedded within the game itself.  That way if the game showed up on emule, the developer could just download it, boot it up, and type in a code to see the ID.  Then the developer could consult their records to see what customer matched with that ID, and you'd have your culprit.

If you created a seperate file to store the User ID, couldn't the pirate just leave out the file when uploading it to a torrent site?

It wouldn't stop people from doing it, nothing can prevent that.  But, it would take the anonyminity (sp?) away from it.  A customer would probably think twice about putting something on a download site if they knew that they could be found.  Of course, if the customer was an evil bastard, he probably wouldn't care.  It's more of a deterrant than a preventative measure.

What might be most effective is to watermark each copy you give to people with a unique ID and then at least when you find it on eMule you know which git put it there.

That was a plan I originally had, SSH.  But in thinking of it, it didn't seem practical.  Instead of a customer being able to just download it directly from a site, they would have to wait for the developer to compile a new copy of the game with a new ID.  Even if you only did CD sales, that would get extremely tedious very fast depending on how popular it is (for both customers and developers).  Unless there was some cool way of doing it automatically, but I can't think of how.

Hm.  I do find this incredibly disappointing, but I think some issues have definitely contributed to its downfall:

1 - The meetup was during Labor Day Weekend, in which many people are travelling

2 - It was scheduled just after Mittens, by which everyone is probably meet-up'ed-out

3 - It's been proven that us lazy Americans don't like to travel, in general.

I think there are a decent number of AGSers in the eastern US to make a meetup like this worthwhile.  D.C. is fairly simple to get to.  Maybe sometime in November, Anarcho? 

Hi all,

Manifestogames has offered to distribute one of my games on their website, but when they tried to put their usual security measures on it it did not work.  They tried to explain to me why, but I'm afraid it all went over my head.  I thought I would forward the message to this forum and see if anybody had any brainstorms.

According to the guy from Manifesto, it isn't worth it to implement this method in AGS, but it's certainly something to consider if there are more commercial AGS games in the future.

Here is the response:

-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Costikyan [mailto:greg@****.com]
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 4:24 PM
To: Dave Gilbert
Subject: RE: Manifesto Games product integration instructions: The Shivah

Dave:

Here's the basic problem:

1. As far as HASP SL is concerned your exe file has a "non-standard
data structure." Apparently, it believes -any- exe where the build
includes data tacked on after the actual executable code is
"non-standard" (which it is, but this is common for things like
Shockwave and, I assume, AGS, which like to produce one neat file for
people to distribute).

2. Other DRM solutions (such as Trymedia's) have a 'switch' you can
flip to allow these kinds of .exe's tobe protected anyway. HASP SL does not.

3. As far as I can tell from Aladdin's site, they aren't supporting
SL any more, anyway.

4. So we're probably going to have to move to a different solution
down the line, but it works okay for now.

But 5., it probably isn't worth the AGS' folks spending a lot of time
trying to solve the problem themselves.

But if you want some documentation, see
http://library.aladdin.com/

At 09:33 AM 8/26/2006, you wrote:
>Hi Greg,
>
>
>I am curious as to what DRM actually is.  Is there some literature I can
>look at? I'd like to forward to the techies of AGS and see if >they know
>why it won't work.
>
>-Dave
>

A bit of news.  Last night The Shivah was presented at the New York IGDA's annual Demo Night event.  I was incredibly nervous, but it went pretty well.  Our very own Big Brother was also in attendance.  I did a little write-up about the experience, which you can read on my website. 

Quick question, SSH.  Will this function support voice speech?

SSH, this is GREAT!  Thanks so much for this.

Dave, you must have broken something when you fixed that getting-stuck-in-clue-mode-on-computer bug in the new version.
Whenever a clue from the notebook is selected and the cursor goes outside the GUI, it goes back to walk/look/interact mode again. Yes.

That was done on purpose, Inkoddi.  You can't use the clues on anything outside of the GUI, and it was confusing people, so I recoded it so the clues revert back to the standard cursor when you move the mouse outside of the GUI.

Hi Custard,

Thanks for purchasing the game, and for the bug list.  Just always shows that bugs always slip through the cracks no matter how diligent you are.

Those bugs are fixed, and a new version is uploaded. It doesn't seem worth it to offer a patch since the bugs are fairly minor.  I know it's a pain to re-download, but to ease the pain I am sending you a free gift.  Check your inbox soon.

-Dave

That's... odd.  The guy who set the store up for me uses that service all the time.  I'll have to ask him about it.

EDIT: Ahhhhh.  That message appears because the store was created from a template, with a bunch of fake products to show you how it worked.  I removed them all, but that default message remains.  I have no idea how to remove it, though.  It's early in the morning here in NYC, so it'll have to remain there until the guy who set it up for me wakes up.  How annoying.

EDIT 2: aaand, i got it working.  Scary message is gone now.  So come and check it out.  It won't bite.