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KickStarter Thaumistry: In Charm's Way. A New Comedy Text Adventure Game by Bob Bates

Tramboi

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I would have liked static backgrounds, but no graphics is still ok by me.
 

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Meh, I never really liked Bob Bates Infocom games (Arthur and Sherlock, right?). I know he was using the Infocom development tools but they just didn't feel like Infocom games to me. I'll always associate Legend more with games like Death Gate and Companions of Xanth rather than their earlier text-based games, so it just seems a bit strange to have a text-based game from him, rather than for example Brian Moriarty (which I would back the hell out of).

I'll still back it if it looks like not making its goal, but otherwise will watch with cautious optimism.

Another reason for finding this incongruous is that there's a decent sized text-adventure community using free tools. Unlike kickstarter RPGs I just don't think commercial text adventures need a comeback, and it'll be fairly embarrassing if the result isn't as good as some of the freely-available adventures out there.
 

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I'll always associate Legend more with games like Death Gate and Companions of Xanth rather than their earlier text-based games

Then you are doing it wrong. Timequest, Eric the Unready (both by Bob Bates), and Gateway are some of the best text adventure games of all time, and much better (imho) than most of Legend's later stuff, except arguably Callahan's and Mission Critical. You are missing out on some of the best the genre has to offer if you haven't played those three.
 

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Then you are doing it wrong. Timequest, Eric the Unready (both by Bob Bates), and Gateway are some of the best text adventure games of all time, and much better (imho) than most of Legend's later stuff, except arguably Callahan's and Mission Critical.

Well, I can't argue with a challenge like that. I actually have the boxed copies of Timequest and Gateway on a shelf - I've just never played them. I did enjoy Death Gate (considerably more than the books).
 

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https://www.kickstarter.com/project...s-way-a-new-comedy-text-adventu/posts/1798069

UPDATE #4: Press Coverage and Interviews!

It’s great to see articles about the game and our campaign appearing in the press.

RockPaperShotgun just published a preview of the game by Emily Short. You can find it here:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/02/01/if-only-thaumistry-and-southern-monsters-on-kickstarter/

CASA (Classic Adventure Solution Archive) did a preview here:

http://solutionarchive.com/

And here’s the first interview announcing the game in Adventuregamers.com:

http://adventuregamers.com/articles/view/31993

Here’s a video of an hour-long chat with the folks at Big Box PC Game Collectors. We talk about Thaumistry for the first ten minutes, and spend the rest of the time revisiting some of the older games.

http://bigboxpcgamecollectors.com/hangouts/bob-bates-interview/

For members of the (huge!) German-speaking adventure game community, you can find an interview I did with Jörg Langer for the spieleveteranen podcast at:

http://www.spieleveteranen.de/archives/2074

(Fortunately for me, my portion of the podcast is in English!)

And I am reliably informed that there is additional coverage coming soon on Gamasutra and in the “Stay Forever” podcast hosted by Gunnar Lott and Christian Schmidt.

Whew!

--Bob
 

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https://www.kickstarter.com/project...s-way-a-new-comedy-text-adventu/posts/1801055

UPDATE #5: So Close!

We are only about $700 short of reaching our initial funding goal. I’m very excited to be so close to knowing the game will become a reality! My thanks to all the backers!

In the meantime, a lot of people have asked, “How big is Thaumistry?”

It’s hard to define the size of an adventure game. You can’t just look at the number of “rooms,” because there are some places where a lot of things happen, and some places where very little happens. And it’s hard to estimate playing time, because some people zoom through a game only trying to solve the puzzles, while other people like to poke around and explore every nook and cranny.

The best I can offer are some comparisons…

To me, this game feels bigger than Eric the Unready, and smaller than TIMEQUEST. Thaumistry has 18 spells, while Spellcasting 101 only had 14. The level of difficulty feels as if it’s about as hard as Eric the Unready (which is to say, not very hard at all), and the hint system will be available to ease players over any rough spots.

So I’m confident in saying this is a “full-size” adventure game, one that hopefully will bring hours and hours of enjoyment to the players.

(But only if we can get that last $700!) :)

--Bob
 

Tramboi

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And it's done.
Though I don't think we'll see much of the stretch goals.
It's a bit sad, because people contributed an average 36$ just to get ONE new Bob Bates game, so I don't think we'll see a commercial resurrection of text-adventure-with-graphics.
 

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https://www.kickstarter.com/project...s-way-a-new-comedy-text-adventu/posts/1801840

FUNDED! The Land of "Yes!"

Last spring at GDC I gave a talk called, “Leading a Creative Life in the Land of No.” Here’s the summary I sent to the conference people…

"Whether or not you believe in the Indiepocalypse, living a creative life as an indie is hard. Wherever you turn there are people telling you, "No." Your game can’t succeed because it doesn’t have the right business model, or it won’t be discovered, or its genre is unmarketable, or whatever. This talk acknowledges the challenges that creative people face and gives specifics on how to overcome them. It details steps to building a creative life, and gives practical advice about managing your day, your project, and your anxiety."

So I gave the talk (you can find the video on the GDC Vault here), and that was the first time I mentioned publicly that I was working on the game we now know as Thaumistry.

Today, the game reached its threshold funding goal, and so suddenly I am in the Land of “Yes!” I couldn’t be happier or more grateful to the 700 people (so far!) who have joined me on this adventure by backing the game.

We do still have stretch goals in front of us, to take the game to more distribution platforms and to add music. But today we have achieved something that I wasn’t sure was possible.

A million thanks to you all!

--Bob
 

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https://www.kickstarter.com/project...s-way-a-new-comedy-text-adventu/posts/1804821

New Stretch Goal! Cyber Feelies!

Many of us remember the "feelies" that came with the old Infocom games - the Zorkmid coin, the glowing stone from Wishbringer, the pocket fluff from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

As I mentioned in the FAQ, I won't be doing physical feelies for this game. But by popular demand, I'm going to add a stretch goal for "Cyber Feelies." If we reach $35,000 in pledges, I will create a set of 3 fun digital items to accompany the game.

This is separate from the $250-level reward tier for digital copies of the game's Development Materials. That remains unaffected. But if we reach the $35,000 stretch goal, every backer who is getting a copy of the game will also receive the Cyber Feelies.

I have also rearranged the order of the stretch goals to prioritize the mobile ports over the art for a Steam release. This, too, is based on backer feedback, as well as today's announcement that Steam is planning to charge a new "publishing fee" that will potentially be "as high as $5,000."

So the revised list of Stretch Goals is:

  • $35,000: Cyber Feelies
  • $40,000: Android
  • $50,000: iOS
  • $60,000: Trading cards and other art for the Steam version
  • $70,000: Musical score by Chris Huelsbeck
  • $100,000: Expanded soundtrack by Chris Huelsbeck
--Bob
 

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An interview with Bob Bates: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...an_experiment_in_reviving_textbased_games.php

[...]

How improved parsers change the classic IF experience

Bates still prefers the parser-based text adventures made during the heyday of the Z-machine used to make Zork and other Infocom classics, but is hoping to give his a “modern feel.” This is on account of using the TADS engine (written by Mike Roberts and documented by Eric Eve), which allows him to determine the way the game is presented, whether on desktop or mobile.

“One feature [of the TADS engine] I like is that it has an Integrated Development Environment within which you can edit your code, compile, run the game, and debug, all without leaving the program,” Bates says.

“I like that it is well-documented and comes with several different ways for you to approach learning it. And I like that it is totally user-customizable, which means that I can change any part of the engine that I care to.”

Bates also notes that the TADS engine allows for advances in parsing that will take Thaumistry well beyond the days of >take sword, >kill dragon. He loves that these new, more sophisticated tools avoid the “guess the parser” problem that plagued many older adventure games.

“Some of this is due to the removal of size restrictions. Remember that the first ZIL games had to run in 64K of memory, and even the later ones had only 128K. This severely restricted, for example, the number of synonyms you could have for any given object,” Bates says.

“If you wanted to let the player refer to the ‘couch’ as a ‘sofa,’ you might be out of luck. Today, I can include as many synonyms as I want for an object, and even allow for misspellings.”

Improved parsers won't help Bob Bates make his game humorous. One of the tougher promises he has made in his Kickstarter is that Thaumistry will be funny, like his fondly remembered fantasy genre parody Eric The Unready. “I had a blast making that game, and I thought that, even though the market for such a game might be small, it would be very satisfying for me to make, and satisfying for fans of the genre to play,” Bates says.

He has some confidence in how to produce comedy in adventure games. “John Cleese has said that comedy comes not only from jokes, but from the creation of comedic scenes. I had that very much in mind,” Bates says. “Sure, there are lots of jokes, but the trick is to put the player in comedic situations, and let the comedy flow from there."


How removing graphics can set the game designer free

What Bates loves about parsed-based games is that he has complete control over what he’s building, and can try to get inside players’ heads. He sees his role as designer to anticipate their actions and to acknowledge their most bizarre ideas with a response.

“Most players don’t think an author will have anticipated that crazy action, but if the author does, then a bond is formed between the author and player,” Bates says. It’s in those moments “when players stray from the straight-and-narrow and try weird stuff” that Bates is able to transmit his personality. This is what he seems to treasure most as it allows him a kind of “intimacy” with players that’s rare in games.

Another quality of, specifically, text-only parser games that Bates appreciates is that they don’t cost millions of dollars to make. “Text-only or even point-and-click games are less expensive to create than games with highly sophisticated graphics,” he says. “Uncharted, God of War, and GTA each reportedly cost well north of $30 million to make.”

“When games cost this much, there are fewer publishers capable of funding them, and those publishers become disinclined to take risks. The result is less innovation, and less choice for gamers.”

Bates attributes a lot these staggering expenses to what he calls a “graphics binge” in the game industry. He remembers a time before this, when graphics weren’t the primary assets of a game, when they only required one or two artists. “It is now not uncommon to have between two-thirds and three-quarters of a development staff be artists,” Bates says.

“The result of this cost increase is that games with inferior graphics have a hard time finding an audience, and studios who cannot compete fall by the wayside,” says Bates. He got first-hand experience of this back in the early ‘90s when competing against the likes of Sierra and LucasArts, first at Infocom and then with the company he founded afterwards, Legend Entertainment.

“I really liked the games those companies were making and I rooted for them to be successful, because I wanted the overall market for adventure games to thrive,” Bates says. “I also knew a lot of their authors as friends. But at the same time, they were outselling us by a lot, and that’s always a difficult pill to swallow.”

By going text-only, he is able to create the game almost entirely on his own. He has a few people helping with audio, production, and artwork for Steam thumbnails and trading cards. And he says that he's getting help with coding from the TADS community at intfiction.org, and invaluable feedback from testers. But the core game experience is almost entirely created by Bates.

It’s not just the cost that draws Bates away from the lure of making games with graphics. There are also design issues introduced by graphics that he prefers not to have to deal with. He recalls when he first worked on a game with graphics, the 1989 adventure Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur, which was published by Infocom, and the problems he found at that time.

“As soon as players see an object, they want to interact with it. So, as a designer, suddenly you have to start creating satisfying responses for objects that aren’t necessarily relevant to gameplay,” Bates says.

“Players might want to pick them up, or destroy them, or look behind them, or whatever. It’s very unsatisfying to get a default response like ‘That’s not important’ or ‘You can’t do that.’”

“So suddenly your job as a writer has become much larger, because you want to customize a response that entertains the players, while subtly letting them know that interacting with this object won’t get them anywhere.”[...]
 

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The one major text adventure I can think of, Hadean Lands, took forever to get made but is pretty triumphant. Hopefully that's more the paradigm.

Hadean Lands is THE premier text adventure game, as far as I'm concerned. It's as if it's the Betrayal at Krondor of the genre.

Myst (and Riven et al.) doesn't hold a candle to the puzzles, either. Christ, the puzzles in that game are some of the hardest I've ever encountered, and I've been playing adventure and puzzle games almost since I learned to read.

Anyone who remotely enjoys adventure games or puzzle games and who hasn't played Hadean Lands should definitely play it, with no reservations.

Oh, and uh, Thaumistry sounds cool too, I guess.
 

ERYFKRAD

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The one major text adventure I can think of, Hadean Lands, took forever to get made but is pretty triumphant. Hopefully that's more the paradigm.

Hadean Lands is THE premier text adventure game, as far as I'm concerned. It's as if it's the Betrayal at Krondor of the genre.
Whoa. I thought Underrail was your most favourite game or something.
 

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https://www.kickstarter.com/project...s-way-a-new-comedy-text-adventu/posts/1807676

7 Days To Go! Last Chance for Kickstarter Exclusive!

With only 7 days left in the campaign, I want to send out huge thanks to all you backers. It’s amazing to me that nearly 800 people have opened their hearts (and wallets) to support the game!

And here’s a reminder that with the end of the campaign comes the last chance for you to have your name immortalized in the annals of adventure game history when you are called up onto the stage to deliver your personal “shout out” to the world. This offer is a Kickstarter-exclusive and will not be available to anyone after the campaign closes.

Crossing the minimum funding threshold last week enabled me to peek out toward the horizon to see where this great journey may one day take us. As I mentioned in a previous update, I hope that we will get to mobile, which will enable “Play Anywhere.” You could start the day playing the game on your desktop at home, resume playing on your phone while you’re on the train to work, and check in on your tablet at work (while the boss isn’t looking).

But peeking even further into the future, wouldn’t it be cool if we could one day play these games while stuck in traffic in our cars, using nothing but our voice? With your phone bluetoothed to the car, you could talk to the game and the game could talk right back to you. It won’t be this game (gotta watch out for feature creep), but maybe one day…

In the meantime, we’ve been getting some great coverage from the gamer press. Here’s just a sample.

Gamasutra:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...an_experiment_in_reviving_textbased_games.php

PCGamer.com:

http://www.pcgamer.com/infocom-veteran-bob-bates-is-making-a-new-text-adventure-called-thaumistry/

And this very nice preview by Emily Short on Rock Paper Shotgun, for those of you who missed it earlier:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/02/01/if-only-thaumistry-and-southern-monsters-on-kickstarter/

--Bob
 

Tramboi

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Myst (and Riven et al.) doesn't hold a candle to the puzzles, either. Christ, the puzzles in that game are some of the hardest I've ever encountered, and I've been playing adventure and puzzle games almost since I learned to read.

Anyone who remotely enjoys adventure games or puzzle games and who hasn't played Hadean Lands should definitely play it, with no reservations.

Oh, and uh, Thaumistry sounds cool too, I guess.

Ok, this time, I'm buying Hadean Lands.
Yet puzzlefests are too hard and frustrating for me, so I think Thaumistry will me more in my league .
 

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Whoa. I thought Underrail was your most favourite game or something.

It's definitely right at the tippy-top of cRPGs in this century so far, and belongs in any shortlist of the best cRPGs of all time, but Betrayal at Krondor is also on that list and probably somewhat higher up, at least in terms of prestige.
 

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...s-way-a-new-comedy-text-adventu/posts/1811232

THE HOME STRETCH!

Just two-and-a-half days to go! 58 hours. We have Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday-until-midnight EST, and then the clock runs out.

They say that the last 2 days of a Kickstarter campaign end in a frenzy, with lots of people who were "on the fence" making the decision at the last minute to make a pledge. If that happens, we are definitly within reach of our lower stretch goals.

But I don't expect to see any more widespread publicity between now and Tuesday night. Most of the magazine interviews and website previews have already appeared, and so there is nothing left to remind the fence-straddlers that time is running out.

So if you have any friends who said, "I'll think about it," see if you can give them a nudge, and maybe we'll see one final round of the magic that has already carried this campaign so far!

Thanks!

---Bob

It's at 32k.
 

Tramboi

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Cyber feelies would be cool. And I'd feel better about the state of gaming if Bob raised more money.
 

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