>However, the market has changed. When companies like Sierra can
>allocate a $4 million budget to games like the recent "Phantasmagoria",
>with more than 50 people working full time on the project, what hope do
>amateurs have?
That they are not bound by having to come up with state-of-the-art
technology, so they can in fact concentrate on making a decent storyline.
Most 'professional' adventuregames today completely suck at being
adventures. Some of them are good movies/cartoons (i.e. Full Throttle), but
adventures they are not. What the big companies don't understand - or simply
son't care about - is that a textual NPC which acts and reacts naturally is
much more believable (and enjoyable) than digitized bad actors who reuse
the same replies and sequences after their lives have been fundamentally
changed.
Of course there is the 'minor' problem of convincing the public of this
fact. The sad truth is that more and more people don't know the joy of
reading a good book, but watch ever more tv. And then it's only natural that
they opt for big, shiny 'interactive' movie-type things - often with a bad
storyline, bad actors and no actual control - instead of much more enjoyable
IF.
And I don't think anyone can do anything about this (d)evolution. I'm
continually shocked when speaking with people just 3 or 4 years younger than
me (that would be 17-18 yrs old) who have never read ANYthing outside of a
classroom. I even see some of this tendency among friends of mine who are my
age or older.
So my conclusion must be that IF-writers have one hope: That 'people' will
tire of glitzy stuff with little or no interaction and story.
Fat chance :(
Mnarf,
Kvan.
-- kvan@diku.dk (Casper Kvan Clausen) | What do you call 200 Americans blown up | in a Federal building? | http://www.diku.dk/students/kvan/ | - A start.