Hi everyone.
I'm working on a new project:
The aim is to "remaster" the 1980's adventure games by Magnetic Scrolls for mobiles and desktop, making them friendlier to play and adding a modern, touch based UI and possibly to add extra content.
They would be released on App Stores for people to enjoy, either as free games or, possibly, charged at a small fee/lowest tier to cover inevitable direct costs (eg website hosting and Apple developer fees), with permission from copyright holders.
Supported Platforms: Windows/Linux/OSX, Android & iOS.
How it would work:
Built by combining the Brahman front-end GUI with a plugin back-end IF "engine". The back-end plugin is an adaptor onto the Karlsson/Kinder/Meier/Doherty magnetic emulator.
The project would be open source so anyone can tinker with the code and features for themselves afterwards.
Here's a picture that shows how it might work (although the final UI is likely to be a lot different). The Brahman "text touch" interface, illustrates one way how these games could be made much more playable on mobile with only the bare minimum of typing required. Many other enhancements are also possible such as a Map Page and Inventory Roster with icons.
I'm looking for people's opinions:
Thanks.
is it public domain? If not, do you have permission from the owners to do this?
I presented a demo where I plan to eliminate almost all typing so that the products will work well on mobile devices.
The copyright holders of the original material and trademarks have granted me permission to go head.
Is this worth doing?
Yes
Do you think it should be free or have a small charge?
Release a demo for free, and the full version for a small fee.
If additional gameplay or content were possible, is this a good idea?
Yes
Is (3) still true if it means charging more to cover the effort.
Wrong way to go. As you release additional content, then it goes to people that have paid for the full version AND there's a small, say a dollar, fee for the new content. Which means you'd want to release new content in chunks, maybe every 6 months. You might also look at a membership fee, say $2.00 to $5.00 a month, with new content being added to those that are members for free as long as their membership is current.
There could be a small budget for new icons/cameo pictures of objects in the games, would anyone be interested in this?
As in are you looking for artists? or what?
Hi Crystalwizard,
Thanks for your feedback and suggestions. all good stuff. My current idea is to have a free demo and a paid for edition for $0.99. Basically, i think this is what you're suggesting. I agree. Despite charging a small fee, i plan to make this non-profit.
I hadn't thought about "chunks" of new content. This is an interesting idea, one that I'll have think about.
I plan to make the mobile version nice to play with almost no typing. Regarding the icons idea. I'd like to have new icons for objects within the game. These would be small color icons that would appear on the menus and maybe within the text when you encounter those objects. The original games did not have any icons.
For anyone considering this, I would have to make definitive list of icons to come up with a cost. I don't mind paying for them, because that's fair. Any money made by the paid for version would go toward recouping this cost.
For artists for your icons, I suggest looking on deviantart.com. Lots of good folks there that would be happy to work with you and not overcharge you.
Is this worth doing?
Yes
Do you think it should be free or have a small charge?
a charge is ok when the game is translated to german :-)
If additional gameplay or content were possible, is this a good idea?
No, I want the original game
There could be a small budget for new icons/cameo pictures of objects in the games, would anyone be interested in this?
No
No, I want the original game
I agree, except that any parser improves should be added (thinking about extra synonyms here)
Hi,
Thanks for this. It's one of the reasons why i asked the question. There's a strong argument to say don't change the game. The theory being, the people who would want to play it, will want the original and not some hacked up version.
Food for thought.
Is this worth doing?
YES!
Do you think it should be free or have a small charge?
I'm willing to pay for a job well done.
If additional gameplay or content were possible, is this a good idea?
Better not... for authenticity's sake.
Is (3) still true if it means charging more to cover the effort.
Eh... no.
There could be a small budget for new icons/cameo pictures of objects in the games, would anyone be interested in this?
Again, no.
Love the project! It brings back memories for me. I'd love to have these games on my Andriod. But what about the typing? As far as I remember the original texts, many commands are not hinted or available in the original texts. So you'll have to come up with a keyboard, one way or the other. Any ideas on how to do that?
Hi, thanks for your feedback.
After collecting people's opinions, it appears that people want the games to be original, but the UI be improved. So the effort should be put into making the games nice to play on mobile.
The plan is to add links to alleviate a lot of the typing. So look/example and get/drop can be from graphical UI. Insofar as the puzzles are concerned, I'm going to experiment with choice dialogs. Turns out that it's possible to query the game state, ie location and properties of the objects. Knowing that, i can build context sensitive dialogs.
Simple example. if you've got a key for a door. The game "knows" this can can suggest "unlock door with key and open it", or similar.
This idea isn't final. I'm going to build some cases and see how it looks.
Thanks,