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Well, it took me about two years to make The Zone and half a year to make the things around it run as well. And I am still not done with all the things I'd like to do (US CD version, soundtrack ...), so I can clearly see what you have been up against. If I hadn't made the project semi-commercial (see my previous post in this thread), The Zone would either have been released now but not been what it is today (which is very close to the vision I had in the beginning) or not yet released.

I run a freelance business called Verkligheter and mostly work with different projects. Sometimes I don't have money for the rent or food, but being able to work with this sort of thing still beats the hell out of flipping hamburgers or designing advertisements. You have to do boring, tedious tasks as well, but it's not like any ordinary job would be less boring. And there are plenty of methods to reduce that kind of work, such as having Lulu.com and Fabel Förlag handle manufacture and mail order so you can concentrate on creation. I also have a accountant bureu that handles taxes and stuff. (And they actually enjoy doing such things... wierd people.)

Another issue to consider is your current level of insanity. If you are crazy enough, even the boring stuff will seem worthvile doing since they are steps toward your utopian goal. Masochism and perfectionism also helps here. I am probably all of these things... I did, for instance, just spend three hours getting a five second tape rewind sound just right for the first expansion released for the Zone.

The first time you do these things, it is overwhelming since it's more common to under- than overestimate work needed on a project, but gets easier with each production. It's like training a muscle - you will be in pain if you try to exert it too much too soon. In time, large projects and administration is less daunting.

The new update adds a new area to explore as well as a few new artifacts to discover. It also fixes a number of bugs present in the first release of The Zone.

Get the update at The Zone web site

- - -

And for those who live in Sweden, you might be interested in knowing that The Zone was featured in Swedish television. The series "Design 365" features various objects that are considered being examples of good (and scandinavian) design. Day number 362, this object was the boxed book series in which the Zone was released. (And I also did the graphical design for the box. )

http://svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=43444&a=500815

If you think the design looks good, you are welcome to vote for the Zone (which is part of BerättarBoxen) as the best design object of December 2005.

Again, the point is the jury. Can we demand that everyone on the jury must buy all the commercial AGS games that people want them to consider? If not, how can they give them a fair consideration?

I have some ideas for how to deal with this. For instance, if the creators of a commercial game want to be considered for an award, they have to provide complementary (i.e. free) copies of the game for the people on the jury. Or we could officially exclude commercial games from the competition. Or they could be included at the jury's discretion. Or they could be evaluated based on their demos. Etc. Whatever solution we choose, it's something we have to decide how to deal with.

I think that giving complemenyary copies to the jury is the least a commercial project could do.

In the case of the Zone for example the link would take us to the zone site, where you can find all relevant information there (and an option to buy). Also the demo idea is not a bad one, providing that there is a demo available (which there isn't in the zone, yet, is there?).

There is.

jet: I know that these things aren't very common, but perhaps they would become more common if these things were endorsed?

mordalles: Perhaps video should be bundled into the animation category? Not so that I'd win the category (I sincerely believe that the video isn't good enough for that), but not to exclude it since I'd like to see more video in games.

Well jet, I think your genre definitions are a bit narrow and normative. It isn't exactly so that the two possible genres of point and click games are either comedy or horror/thriller. Can't we come up with something a bit less Hollywoodistic?

I also agree with Petteri that sound is a different cup of tea than music. And how about voice acting? And what about video sequences?

No, I am not. That was the whole point of my post.

I have not and probably will not make any profit out of making AGS games. Nor will I endorse commercialism on the behalf of games that are made just for the sake of it.

[Profit]

I have a little theory about these things. The idea is that you can adopt different attitudes/priorities towards your work and think that is what we are discussing. It's not as simple as commercial/non-commercial.

Here are my list of attitudes and their consequences for artistic work.

Profit The primary reason for doing the project is to get money. The author charges as much as possible to get profit. The scope of the project is limited to what you can gain profit for, which means you have to limit production so that it does not keep you from getting profit. This attitude also suggests that you do stuff that many people potentially would like. No niche stuff here, you have to be mainstream and polished to succeed (which is one reason why there are so many similar games in the store).


Idealistic The primary reason for doing the project is to get the work done and done good. The author charges nothing for her/his work. This means the author either must limit the scope of the project, be rich (and have all the time in the world) or gain money from an external source to pay for basic needs. This often results in the author burning him-/herself out in an ambitious project, trying to cram regular work and artistic work into a small time frame. This not only damage the quality of the project, but the author as well.


Non-profit The primary reason for doing the project is to get the work done and done good. The author charges very little for her/his work, just enough to sustain a living. The author does not have to limit the scope of the project as long as minimum living costs are provided for. More work gets done as there is no conflict between having to work to get money for basic living costs and working on the project. If the author can get this model to work, he/she can go on with one or many projects over an extended period of time and still be able to produce niche stuff that wouldn't be profitable under other circumstances.


It is of course hard to see where one model starts and another ends. They are more like extremes rather than exclusive states. Personally, I use and support the "non-profit" model, which is very common among artists, musicians, activists etc. And in Scratchware. They would not be doing what they were doing if they had a day job (at least not as much). I have tried the "idealistic" model and noticed that it doesn't work out very well in the long run if you want to make more ambitious stuff, since there is always a conflict between what you should do and what you want to do. I am happy for those of you who have the economic capabilities to work this way. I refrain the profit model, as it has more to do with greed rather than artistic ambitions in my opinion.

From a consumer's perspective, it can be very hard to know if the person charging is working for non-profit or profit. It could be anything, all I see is that I'll have to pay. But is the sum reasonable? Does the author live on a tropical island? Is he secretly an agent of Microsoft? These are questions that are not easy to know the answers to if you don't get a statement from the author, which is the reason why I have included links with my game project to the Scratchware manifesto which I agree on.

That's my five pennies.

What's that? Do you have a link or something?

I don't think it's a good idea to try to compete with the Hollywood of games. They'll just outresource you, and sell people a longer game with 3D graphics and whatnot (except cool print supplements). You need to compete with them in areas where they are weak to provide something that is so different that it's worth it. I am talking niche games here. What about it?

I certainly would pay for an AGS game, if it was something special and I thought it would promote future efforts. In particular, I pay for stuff that is targeted at a smaller market to support such productions. What matters is the result, not the engine used.

When making The Zone, I decided to ask people to pay for it. While my original intention was to give it away for free, there was no way I could justify working on it as much as I did. 

Now don't get me wrong. I don't have a regular job, I spend my time working on projects such as The Zone and other wierdness. Most projects are for free, but they end up limited in scope as I have to work with more profitable projects to finance the free ones. The Zone turned out to be a bit too time and resource consuming, so I decided to go commercial and do the full production scheme: a 70 minute soundtrack, several custom made costumes, video footage and so on.

I don't expect to earn any money from the project really, but I hope to cover some of the costs to be able to produce more stuff in the future. Another reason for goin commercial was to try the business model suggested in the Scratchware manifesto.

And Fatman looks great! 

Woow! Glad to see this.

META is a nightmare, a waking dream not meant for the living.

Don't download it, don't play it. Keep your Sanity Points intact. Protect your children.

Yep.

I have contacted them and asked them to update, but so far no update.

Thanks!

I guess the Zone more or less is the story, though I have new idea in mind where the gameplay and story would merge in a more smooth manner. Perhaps you'd like that better if I finish it.

There is no clear version of that song as it is sampled from an obscure track that was released in the 1920s. The whistling emerged out of an otherwise happy song and touched something inside me, so I decided to revive it. The version in the Zone has undergone serious noise reduction, and I think that is as good as it gets.

Thank you for the feedback! That was really encouraging.

I used a quite variety of productions softwares aside from AGS when making the Zone: Adobe Photoshop, Inno Setup Compiler, Sound Forge, Adobe Premiere, iMovie, Adobe Illustrator, Bryce, IconDeveloper, RAD Video Tools and Tsunami MPEG Encoder. I also used Macromedia Dreamweaver and Adobe ImageReady for making the web site.

And I am still working on the CD version, but has gotten the flu or something lately.

One of my users got this error message:

Code: ags

---------------------------
Illegal exception
---------------------------
An exception 0xE06D7363 occured in ACWIN.EXE at EIP = 0x7C81EB33 ; program pointer is +1004, ACI version 2.71.880, gtags (0,8)

AGS cannot continue, this exception was fatal. Please note down the numbers above, remember what you were doing at the time and notify CJ on the Tech forum.

in Room 54 script (line 10)

That line is:

Code: ags

PlayFlic(1,2);

What could be wrong?

I wouldn't buy a CD, but maybe downloadable tracks. If you decide to go on with this, try Lulu.com. They support Paypal, downloadable tracks and software, and has a CD production service in the US.

Thanks for pointing this out.

Wierd, when I try it out it does work. We have had some DNS troubles with this site and I know how to fix it, but the guy who has the passwords ran off to Istanbul a couple of months ago. Unless he cares to return soon and there still are problems with the form, please send your submissions to:

thezone@verkligheter.se

Five copies of the Zone are given away. :o Please check web site for details on how to get your free copy of the Zone.

http://www.interactingarts.org/thezone/

Yes, I should have thought of that from the beginning. The only thing I have against the demo is that it's very linear compared to the game itself.