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

Crooked Bee

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http://www.adventuregamers.com/articles/view/31062

We are pleased to break the exclusive announcement that a new Bob Bates text adventure is on the way! It’s called Bodgers, a “comic fantasy that uses spells set in modern-day New York City.” That’s about all we can say for now, as a Kickstarter is planned for late January, and we don’t want to steal any of the campaign’s thunder ahead of time.

I love Legend Entertainment games and I cannot lie. Which means I love Bob Bates too. So, while pretty much all adventure game KSs have been a disaster so far, I won't be learning from my mistakes and I will be donating to this one. Thankfully this is a text adventure so hopefully no home equity loans will be involved.

cc Sceptic

The article is also a fairly lengthy interview with Bob, so do check it out if you're interested.

Kickstarter link: https://www.kickstarter.com/project...charms-way-a-new-comedy-text-adventu?ref=card
 
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Infinitron

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I wonder if any other old hands will be joining.
 

MRY

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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.
 

Tramboi

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Is this Hadean Lands any good ?
There's so much high-quality (and too hard from me) quality if that I don't even consider commercial ones, usually.
 
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MRY

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It depends what you like. Andrew Plotkin has a particular style, and not every digs it. He has lots of free games, so you can pretty easily figure out if you will.
 

MRY

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Spider & Web is really different from his other games IMO -- it's the only Plotkin one I really like. And even then I only really like the first half.

[EDIT: Actually, let me reframe this. I think the truth is that I generally like smaller IF games, and get lost in bigger ones, so I like S&W and Shade from Plotkin, Metamorphoses and City of Secrets from Emily Short, but not, say, A Change in the Weather and Savoir Faire, even though those are generally thought to be better.]

But people I consider highly reputable say that Hadean Lands is at the very top tier in design and execution.
 

Tramboi

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[EDIT: Actually, let me reframe this. I think the truth is that I generally like smaller IF games, and get lost in bigger ones, so I like S&W and Shade from Plotkin, Metamorphoses and City of Secrets from Emily Short, but not, say, A Change in the Weather and Savoir Faire, even though those are generally thought to be better.]

I've become so lame while getting older that I'm unable to solve a big game like Curses or Savoir-Faire by myself.
 

Infinitron

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Here's a new Digital Antiquarian article about the founding of Legend: http://www.filfre.net/2017/01/a-tim...b-and-mikes-excellent-adventure-game-company/

Though they had a very motivated potential investor, the plan Bob and Mike were contemplating might seem on the face of it counter-intuitive if not hopeless to those of you who are regular readers of this blog. As I’ve spent much time describing in previous articles, the text adventure had been in commercial decline since 1985. That very spring of 1989 when Bob and Mike were starting to talk, what seemed like it had to be the final axe had fallen on the genre when Level 9 had announced they were getting out of the text-adventure business, Magnetic Scrolls had been dropped by their publisher Rainbird, and of course Infocom had been shuttered by their corporate parent Mediagenic. Yet Bob and Mike proposed to fly in the face of that gale-force wind by starting a brand new company to make text adventures. What the hell were they thinking?

I was curious enough about the answer to that question that I made it a point to ask it to both Bob and Mike when I talked to them recently. Their answers were interesting enough, and said enough about the abiding love each had and, indeed, still has for the genre of adventures in text that I want to give each of them a chance to speak for himself here. First, Mike Verdu:

I believed that there was a very hardcore niche market that would always love this type of experience. We made a bet that that niche was large enough to support a small company dedicated to serving it. The genre was amazing; it was the closest thing to the promise of combining literature and technology. The free-form interaction a player could have with the game was a magical thing. There’s just nothing else like it. So, it didn’t seem like a dying art form to me. It just seemed that there were these bigger companies that the market couldn’t support that were collapsing, and that there was room for a smart niche player that had no illusions about the market but could serve that market directly.​

For some time, it looked like a deal would come together with Sierra. Ken Williams, who never lacked for ambition, was trying to position his company to own the field of interactive storytelling as a whole. Text adventures looked destined to be a very small piece of that pie at best in the future, but that piece was nevertheless quite possibly one worth scarfing up. If Sierra distributed Legend’s games and they proved unexpectedly successful, an acquisition might even be in the cards. Yet somehow a deal just never seemed to get done. Mike Verdu:

There seemed to be genuine interest [at Sierra], but it was sort of like Zeno’s Paradox: we’d get halfway to something, and then close that distance by half, and then close that distance by half, and nothing ever actually happened. It was enormously frustrating — and I never could put my finger on quite why, because there seemed to be this alignment of interests, and we all liked each other. There was always a sense of a lot of momentum at the start. Then the momentum gradually died away, and you could never actually get anything done. Now that I’ve become a little more sophisticated about business, that suggests to me that Ken was probably running around trying to make a whole bunch of things happen, and somebody inside his company was being the sort of check and balance to his wanting to do lots and lots of stuff. There were probably a lot of things that died on the vine inside that company.​

But of course none of these technical differences were the sort of things that end users would notice. For precisely this reason, Bob Bates was deeply worried about the legal pitfalls that might lie in attempting to duplicate the Infocom experience so closely from their perspective. The hard fact was that he, along with his two programmers, knew an awful lot about Infocom’s technology, having authored two complete games using it, while Steve Meretzky, who had authored or coauthored no less than seven games for Infocom, knew it if anything even better. Bob worried that Mediagenic might elect to sue Legend for theft of trade secrets — a worry that, given the general litigiousness of Mediagenic’s head Bruce Davis, strikes me as eminently justified. To address the danger, Legend elected to employ the legal stratagem of the black box. Bob sat down and wrote out a complete specification for Legend’s parser-to-be. (“It was a pretty arcane, pretty strange exercise to do that,” he remembers.) Legend then gave this specification for implementation to a third-party company called Key Systems who had never seen any of Infocom’s technology. “What came back,” Bob says, “became the heart of the Legend engine. Mark and Duane then built additional functionality upon that.” The unsung creators of the Legend parser did their job remarkably well. It became the first ever not to notably fall down anywhere in comparison to the Infocom parser. Mediagenic, who had serious problems of their own monopolizing their attention around this time, never did come calling, but better safe than sorry.

Spellcasting 101 was released in October of 1990, thereby bringing to a fruition the almost eighteen months of effort that had followed that fateful Cinco de Mayo when Bob Bates had learned that Infocom was going away. I plan to discuss the merits and demerits owed to Spellcasting 101 as a piece of game design in my next article. For now, it should suffice to say that the game and the company that had produced it were greeted with gushing enthusiasm by the very niche they had hoped to reach. Both were hailed as the natural heirs to the Infocom legacy, carrying the torch for a type of game most had thought had disappeared from store shelves forever. Questbusters magazine called Spellcasting 101 the “Son of Infocom” in their review’s headline; the reviewer went on to write that “what struck me most about the game is that it is exactly as I would have expected Infocom games to be if the company was still together and the veteran designers were still working in the industry. I kid you not when I say to watch Legend over the years.” “It’s such a treat to play an Infocom adventure again,” wrote the adventuring fanzine SynTax. “I know it isn’t an Infocom game as such, but I can’t help thinking of it as that.”

This late in the day for the commercial text adventure, it was these small adventure-centric publications, along with the adventure-game columnists for the bigger magazines, who were bound to be the most enthusiastic. Nevertheless, Spellcasting 101 succeeded in proving the thesis on which Bob Bates and Mike Verdu had founded Legend Entertainment: that there were still enough of those enthusiasts out there to support a niche company. In its first six months on the market, Spellcasting 101 sold almost 35,000 units, more than doubling Bob and Mike’s cautious prediction of 16,000 units. By the same point, the Legend hint line had fielded over 35,000 calls. For now — and it would admittedly be just for a little while longer — people were buying and, as the hint-line calls so amply demonstrated, playing a text adventure again in reasonable numbers, all thanks to the efforts of two men who loved the genre and couldn’t quite let it go.

Interesting how similar their deliberations were to today's "mid-sized" Kickstarter-driven nostalgia developers.
 
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LESS T_T

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Codex 2014
Kickstarter is now live:





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Thaum: (noun). A unit of magical energy

Bodge: (verb). To hack or kludge

Eric Knight was a child prodigy who was featured on the cover of Invent! Magazine at the age of 13 for his invention of an anti-stain chemical treatment.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t invented anything since and now, at the age of 23, he has a strong case of imposter syndrome. He feels like a failure.

For the past few years he has been given laboratory space in a start-up incubator, but as the game opens, he is holding a letter from IncuLab threatening to pull the plug if he cannot demonstrate within a day that his latest invention works.

As he thinks this over, an energetic stranger named Jack bursts into his lab and says, “I’m your wake-up call, dude. You feel like you don't quite fit in, right? Weird things happen when you're around? Traffic lights turn red just as you get to them. Elevator doors don't close when you push the button. Your alarm clock randomly fails in the morning. There's a name for people like that. We're called Bodgers. I'm one, and you might be one too.”

Eric soon learns that Bodgers are a group of people through whom magic flows into the world. Some Bodgers aren’t aware of this ability, and they come to regard themselves as accident-prone, jinxes, or jonahs. But Bodgers who realize their identity can learn to channel this mischievous magic. The aim of a Bodger is to make a small thing go wrong in order to make big things go right.

Is Eric himself a Bodger? Through the course of the game he tries to find out. But first there is an imminent danger that must be dealt with. Another inventor has created a thaumeter – a device that measures magical energy. Its unveiling is planned for the end of day, and if that happens then the existence of the Bodgers will be exposed, and mass persecution will follow.

950950de6dd0264a71793758f9f340ff_original.png



cd26be6b86bbf4f9d226a503246da5bd_original.jpg


Years ago, I wrote text adventure games for Infocom. And then I wrote text-and-graphic adventures, like TIMEQUEST and Eric The Unready, for Legend Entertainment.

83b7ac4ef2beb63183fc19e1b586dd92_original.jpg


And then, sadly, the genre lost its commercial potential and I had to move on to making different kinds of games for a living. But I was always looking back over my shoulder to the games that used only words to fire players’ imaginations, games where the person playing the game felt an intimate connection to the person who designed it.

I believe something was lost when our industry moved away from parser-driven games. Players lost the feeling that we could try anything we could think of. Games became more claustrophobic. And we especially lost the feeling that we were playing with the person who wrote the game.

So eleven years ago, I decided to return to the genre I love best. The task was daunting – to design, write, and code a game all by myself. I had to select and learn a development engine. I could only work nights and weekends. I had to battle orcs and balrogs… no, wait. That was a WoW raid last weekend.

Years passed, but now the game is coming to life. With it, I hope to restore that intimate connection. I hope that each player feels they are playing with me. That we can have a conversation. That we can have fun together.

Last May, I held a closed alpha test. Twenty players sent me their transcripts, and by the end of the month I knew for sure that the game will be up to the standards of a classic adventure game. It is a full-size, comedic, puzzle-driven, text adventure of the sort we would have been proud to publish at either Infocom or Legend.

So, having self-funded the game for so long, why am I now coming to Kickstarter and asking for your help in getting the game out the door? The answer is time, technical help, ports, and music. At the rate I’ve been going, it will take several more years to complete the game. But with a successful Kickstarter, I can devote more time to the game now and get it out the door within months, rather than years. And with stretch goal funding, I can hire technical help to port the game to more devices, and potentially even get music into the game.

950950de6dd0264a71793758f9f340ff_original.png

Pardon Me While I Have a Strange Interlude
"Strange how the wind blows tonight. It has a thin eerie voice. It reminds me of poor old Marsden."

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Here are some excerpts from early in the game when Jack lets you try some experimental spells they are working on.


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Thaumistry Screenshot 1


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Thaumistry Screenshot 2


b9bc7abe9871d17d251efd2cdb6167dd_original.png
 

Tramboi

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With Chris Huelsbeck !
This I trust. Inexpensive focused kickstarter, brilliant designer.

"The other obvious risk in a single-author project is that the author might get hit by a bus or contract a fatal disease. I always look both ways before crossing the street and have been certified fatal-disease-free by the US Department of Fatal Diseasery."
So no risk.
 
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Infinitron

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Awesome, backed. Looks the timing of the Antiquarian's article wasn't a coincidence: http://www.filfre.net/2017/01/thaumistry-in-charms-way/

Thaumistry: In Charm’s Way



I’d like to bring some exciting news to your attention today. Bob Bates, author of classic games for Infocom and Legend Entertainment and a great friend of this blog, is Kickstarting a new text adventure.

I played the game last year in its alpha state. Bob is very much aware of the ways which text adventures have evolved since the days of Infocom and Legend, and has come up with a great blending of modern and classic here. It’s funny, fun, and occasionally challenging, but always in the right ways. And it’s written with TADS 3, so it’s as technically sophisticated as one could ask for.

I hope some of you will want to join me in helping him to get it polished up and out the door for a variety of platforms. You can learn more on the game’s Kickstarter page or on its home page. Welcome back, Bob!
 

Infinitron

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https://www.kickstarter.com/project...s-way-a-new-comedy-text-adventu/posts/1792166

UPDATE #1: WOW!

Wow! You people are amazing!

I know I'm not supposed to do an update as early as Day Two, but C'mon - we are already more than halfway to our initial goal, and it's only the second day. So I just had to say...Thank You!

I wrote on the main page that I wanted to re-establish the personal connection between me and the people who play my games. I'm delighted to see this already begin to happen in the Comments section, and especially in the emails between me and the people who have backed the game. Lots of old friends, and lots of new ones. Very cool!

OK. Back to work. I need to write the FAQ. I'll try to post it tomorrow.

--Bob
 

Tramboi

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Yep, it was nice to have a personal message from Bob. We backers are not that many, in fact. I hope the niche is big enough for this kind of games to be sustainable.
 

ghostdog

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Shit man, what's with all these kickstarters coming out simultaneously?

Oh well. Insta-peldge for me. I wanted to give moneyz just to say thanks for all of his legendary stuff I have abandonwared.

Not to mention that this has great chances to be awesome since it doesn't rely on graphics, and other shit that can bog down development and it has clear-cut ideas of gameplay.

Also, Chris Huelsbeck?
:bounce:
 

Infinitron

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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/1793641

UPDATE #2: FAQ & Personal Notes

I have posted the FAQ, which I hope covers the topics that people most want to hear about.

I have also written a personal note to every single backer, which has started some interesting and fun personal exchanges. If you have backed the game (as of 6:00 Eastern on January 27) and have not received a note from me, please let me know.

It’s great that we are already almost three quarters of the way to our initial goal, but as Chris pointed out in the Comments section, we’ve got a long way to go to get funded, and even further to reach our stretch goals. So any posts and tweets you guys can make will be greatly appreciated!

--Bob

FAQ

Will there be any graphics in the game?
Nope. This is a straight up text adventure. The main reason is scope. Adding art to a project makes it take longer and cost more. This way, it's just you, me, and the words.

Why no foreign language versions?
One reason is that I don't have any experience with parsing foreign language inputs (a problem that doesn't arise with point-and-click games).

Another is that programming reasonable outputs (responses) in other languages is beyond my skill level, and I don't want the game to sound as if it is coming to you through Google Translate.

Will there by physical feelies?
Boy would I LOVE to do this. But no.

I used to be in the business of putting games in boxes with feelies, and I loved doing that. But I know *exactly* the level of effort and the number of employees or subcontractors or fulfillment companies that it takes to deliver that experience, and it's way beyond the scope of what I can do for this project.

Maybe someday, maybe for some other game. But I simply can't do it for this game.

Okay, how about digital feelies?
I do have a tier that offers digital copies of the game development materials. But it’s behind-the-scenes stuff and it’s pretty expensive, and obviously what people are looking is something less expensive that enhances the gameplay itself.

It's an interesting idea, and so I will think about it.

Will you give the game a modern look?
Yes! The TADS engine is quite flexible in letting developers control visual presentation. We haven’t designed the interface yet, but we hope it won’t look as if you’re playing in Windows 95.

The game also lets you use any custom fonts you have access to, so you can adjust the size, shape, and color of the text, and the background color to create a look that is pleasing to you.

How often will you do developer updates after the Kickstarter closes?
Once a week sounds like “too much information.” Once a month sounds like not enough. So maybe every two or three weeks? I’ll take a survey to see what people want.

The trick will be inviting people in to see the process, while making sure that the updates themselves don’t interfere with getting the game done.
 

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