Discussion about future games

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jack1974
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Re: Discussion about future games

Post by jack1974 »

Ah OK lol. Yes before I embark in new games I definitely want to finish all the old ones :)
Palmettogamer14
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Re: Discussion about future games

Post by Palmettogamer14 »

It's cool. I'm looking forward to all of your games that you're doing.

I also hope you do an Ancient Egyptian mecha game one of these. Or a mecha game with Kitsune and Japanese folklore involved. :)

But yeah I think playing as a Kitsune would be a cool feature. But that's just me.
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jack1974
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Re: Discussion about future games

Post by jack1974 »

So yesterday wrote about future games plan in my blog: http://www.winterwolves.net/blog/2017/1 ... der-games/
it has really become obvious to me, that except for really A FEW selected writers, I MUST get back into writing myself using an editor.
There are just too many things that can go wrong if you're not careful or know how my games work. And often it's not even writer's fault. In practice guiding them and then even redoing things twice to fix mistakes, in the end takes me much more time than if I was just writing the games myself :shock:

If writers know exactly how my games work, word-length, what people want, etc it's all good. But in some games like my RPGs set in Aravorn it's really hard since there's a lot of gameplay, an existing game world with law/rules to obey and so on. Really hard even for the best writers.

I don't talk about everything that happens "behind the scenes" but believe me: it's A TOTAL MESS :lol: honestly it's a miracle if the next few games will be out, with some of them I was ready to give up completely, despite having already invested a lot of time/money in them.
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Re: Discussion about future games

Post by Troyen »

The other benefit is you're forced to have a smaller game lineup, since you can't have 15 drafts you're writing yourself. ;)

But I think another large part of your trouble is that you've made all these development changes "for future games", but your pending backlog of games in development (as far as we know) is still the old-style games that gave you a lot of heartache. Just from the "estimated release dates" thread I can count six old-style development games plus a few more you've mentioned but haven't "officially" announced.

Of course, if it was easy to clear out that backlog, then you wouldn't have a problem in the first place.
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jack1974
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Re: Discussion about future games

Post by jack1974 »

Yes, but the main reason I got that backlog it's exactly because I stopped writing my games myself :lol:
Now don't get me wrong: I know VERY WELL how hard is to write. And write a decent story, not just "write" :) In my original idea I thought that if I started 5 games with 5 different writers, I could have done things faster.
In some cases it worked, in others not. I won't make names, but in some cases the writer took his/her time but the result was really good. In others the writer was fast but the result was average. And in the worse case writers quit :oops:

In 2008-2010 when I was writing the games myself I would start a game and work on it from beginning to the end. Of course I'm not saying that they were good/better games (even if I got some recent comments saying that they were written better than some of my recent ones lol) but it was also due to the fact that at those times I couldn't even afford a half-decent editor :mrgreen:

But still in two years I did: Heileen 1-2, Bionic Heart, Spirited Heart, Planet Stronghold (released in 2011 but most of writing done in 2010) and the two Vera Blanc games. That's 7 games in 2 years, which is not that bad. Now with the method I described in my blog and (luckily) with more money available to hire better editors, I think the result could be good, and I shouldn't have anymore a backlog of games like that in future.

At least I hope! :)
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Callista
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Re: Discussion about future games

Post by Callista »

A good editor totally makes a difference. I'm an editor and I know how important it is to make the writing look as polished as possible. ^^

Oh and it's great to hear about the progress of the games you're developing. I don't tend to comment often although I do check here a lot. ;)
Looking for a high quality editor? Then check out my page here: https://callista.itch.io/
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jack1974
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Re: Discussion about future games

Post by jack1974 »

Yes, in the past I did that already - wrote the games myself and then asked some people to proofread/edit them. However at those times were friends doing it for free or very low compensation and that's probably why the result wasn't as good as I hoped.
Anyway we'll see, as said I'm not planning to write the games exclusively myself, but for those mixed with gameplay like RPGs I think the final result will be better.
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Re: Discussion about future games

Post by Callista »

Yeah, that's understandable. There is the saying that you get what you pay for (or I suppose, what you don't pay for). When I get paid commission to edit, I take very special care to do my best since I know that a lot will be expected of me. I say to never underestimate the importance of having an editor on board (although some people seem to think that they aren't needed lol). :)
Looking for a high quality editor? Then check out my page here: https://callista.itch.io/
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jack1974
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Re: Discussion about future games

Post by jack1974 »

In my experience is really hard to find out good ones. I still can't pay the "pro rates" (if I did I would earn nothing from the games :lol:). So in the "semi-pro" range there are a few good ones, and a lot that are rather bad. I think the only way to find out it's through referrals from other people or maybe doing some tests.
That's why in the past I didn't want to use them, was hard to know if was worth it or not, also because I had to use them on other people's writing. In this case, if I write the scenes myself, I remember what I wrote so I can check the differences and judge better the work done on the script :)
Palmettogamer14
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Re: Discussion about future games

Post by Palmettogamer14 »

jack1974 wrote: Tue Oct 31, 2017 7:16 am In my experience is really hard to find out good ones. I still can't pay the "pro rates" (if I did I would earn nothing from the games :lol:). So in the "semi-pro" range there are a few good ones, and a lot that are rather bad. I think the only way to find out it's through referrals from other people or maybe doing some tests.
That's why in the past I didn't want to use them, was hard to know if was worth it or not, also because I had to use them on other people's writing. In this case, if I write the scenes myself, I remember what I wrote so I can check the differences and judge better the work done on the script :)
Oh man! And here I thought I could work for you as a freelancer. :(

Oh well.

Anyhow, I think if you do any more games set in the Planet Stronghold universe, you need anthro foxes piloting mecha!
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