jfrisby

Did Neil Ross retire? I'd be okay with a sound alike, or someone different :P

Well, this is sad more than anything.. Josh did a really great job of repairing the image of Replay for awhile with his updates and by hiding Paul, I didn't know that he'd left Replay (but that explains Paul being off-the-leash). I can only imagine that LSL:R sales are poor to middling, and that's something all adventure game designers are probably going to have to face. Not that surprising Paul is imploding, given that he's probably alone, surrounded by bills and hate, and he's that sort of asshole. Looking forward to hearing stories from Josh in 5-10 years -- and many thanks to the fellow Replay forum folks for the good times, it was fun while it lasted :D

Yeah, I didn't mean to say bad things about Deponia or Curse (although I've been complaining about the visual style change from MI2 for over a decade)... Deponia does sort of all melt together. It really seems like a Sam & Max (Devil's Playhouse) style "film grain" filter over the screen would give it that slightly faded rougher, comic/SQ4 vibe.. I usually hate that kind of thing, but it seems like it could be done well.. hmmmmmmmm

I'm loving how things are looking, though it has taken awhile to adjust to the new high-res thing... I guess the thing I'd like to see is some nice darker areas :) -- I guess that's what we haven't necessarily seen in the new style. I definitely think it's looking nicer (to me) than other more cartooney-styled games, like Deponia, or Curse of Monkey Island.

I still check the news, but yeah -- summer.... and four very intense adventure-game related months at the start of the year. The sources for Spaceventure news are a little diffuse too, with the forum, svbacker site, and Andromedan Post.. Substantial news on the dev process could go into a Kickstarter update, to ping all the backers, and remind them of the various sites and pushing the paypal campaign.

Codemasters owns and is the one licensing out the rights to Leisure Suit Larry, so that situation wouldn't change with this. Well, there's likely methods of getting attention on an issue if a number of actual shareholders are involved in an effort -- I'm sort of surprised the WoW/Diablo folks haven't gone this way through the years... If they do end up going public with that 61% stake, it'd be encouraging to see these Kickstarter energies directed at actually "investing" in something [pending a rather lot of research].

Seems like almost anyone new controlling that 61% stake in Activision could bring a reassessment of the IP, or policies concerning them. But it's probably unlikely that anyone other than another Vivendi-like super-conglomerate is going to jump at the $many-billions pricetag. It probably wouldn't hurt if a few hundred people bought stock and wrote a group letter, though -- I don't know whether gamers have attempted campaigns of that kind before.

I think one of the only things the Tex paypal page has going for it is the white background -- I think there was a study done at some point implying that lighter backgrounds generally inspired more trust & purchases from web consumers. Who knows if that means anything, but it might look more organized by default.

Oh, and definitely get some kind of real-time $ total counter on screen somewhere.... so we can continue to enjoy the game-ification of spending all our money, Kickstarter style.

I like all the stretch goals, and can see why they come at the costs/levels that they're at --- but I do worry it's a bit ambitious to try to structure the campaign for these new goals in the same way as the Kickstarter.... I'm just not sure the momentum works the same way to get there. I think it'd be wise to bolster the visibility of things like the $150 level chat access (and maybe define what that is), and any other tier items that are "watch the process now" type things -- that may push a little urgency into the "why now" question for some people. Other than that... my first thought was that it might work better to have two larger, bulkier, stretch goals -- maybe 600k & 700k that combine all the stuff into two. Since EGA mode & female protagonist seem to be the easier to sell people on, it might drive momentum to put one of them a little lower (600k). Those are rather intimidating numbers to get to either way, especially with the lower profile that this 2nd round campaign will get (even if we have 6 months/a year to raise it). Would they allow another Kickstarter for additional game content? If you did something like confirm Felicia Day for the female character and launched a supplemental campaign in 8 months for it, it would probably go smoothly. Or, you could just do all the stuff in the stretch goals, since it will make the game even more awesome, marketable and memorable... and put the eggs in the "future sales" basket (if there's any way you can afford to do it -- I guess that's probably not a real option.. oh well).

I remember not knowing to get the green slime in SQ4 -- so that got me stuck for quite awhile. Think I restarted -- was there a way to revisit the sewers to prevent that? Pretty sure on my first playthru, that I didn't know I'd missed the slime until after the mall.

I think probably one more? To wrap it up? That's just a guess.

Awesome!

Man, that's a weird development. The writing style seems pretty exactly-the-same to me... and pretty distinct. Seems like a pretty big non-Sierra story for Mojo to "break." Guess the speculation is out there.

I think we've made a leap in the last couple days towards this actually succeeding -- it seems like $60-80k would be pretty doable in the last 24 hours, which leaves a reasonable amount of time to get to that point. The closeness of the "will-it-make-it" horse race will probably attract some attention. Doesn't seem like any real overhauls of the page or big surprises are in store... but who knows... Might not matter! Ha! I can't wait for this Kickstarter business to be over! $168k to never have to type "kickstarter" again is a deal! --- And I actually think Paul's done fine by the Two Guys since his public tussle with this board (a few weeks ago) and apology... His efforts on behalf of this project have been handled with the same slightly-weird "Paul-Trowe-tone" as the Larry Kickstarter.... So I can't really say he was trying to do anything business-like, seems like that's just the way he phrases stuff [poorly, very open to misinterpretation]. So, I'm leaning towards thinking that tweet was just about "supporting the kickstarter" rather than something nefarious. (Paul's ongoing everyday struggles to do-the-right-thing are a pretty interesting twitter-show though). [Alright, due to the Mixnmojo post, I'm crossing out the Paul stuff... ]

Loving that we're applying some high end irrational/Edward Bernaysmarketing thinking to more efficiently evangelize about a project that we've got an irrational love for ourselves. The letter I usually write begins "Dear Friends," and I think Scott could write a great witty and emotional letter... I'd probably target the adventure game fans, and gaming fans that aren't supporting every old school adventure out of solidarity and nostalgia... Since they're probably the easiest to go after, and I think there's enough of them. Going after the other segments would be harder..

Well, I think it's the easiest to sell the fans on a new project.. And this project has tons of great stuff aimed at fans -- "red meat" if you will.. Similar to Obama rallying the liberals around gay marriage, or Romney rallying people against taxes, or what have you. We're all pretty sold, the base is well-covered. Sure there's a lot of fans of the series that aren't aware of the project yet, but there's a large group of gaming fans, kickstarter addicts, and sci-fi and parody/comedy fans that are the real target audience to be convinced by the materials on the project site. And I do think shifting around the page would do little to perturb any of us fans, but possibly help with that audience.. So I stand by that stuff above -- we're not the target audience, we're easy.. If we fans had enough money, it'd be different..

I'll chime in here.. Also, love the project, so my apologies... I've been defending everything on the Kickstarter page, to the best of my abilities, in multiple forums.... I think it's pretty much our duty to hold our tongues, for the most part, on the various issues which may trouble us about the campaign... But I'll write something here.. oh well. ... And I will say I rather like a lot of the unwieldy things about this project, just because they remind me of a Space Quest or Sierra game. That's probably not working for everyone, but it's endearing. Here's a few thoughts, anyway: - I don't believe tiers can be deleted or edited, once created.. So there's not much to be done there -- but I would hide that spreadsheet.. Or just put a text link, under the FAQ. The tiers are complicated, but I wouldn't point it out with a big graphic. - Might be worth re-editing, or replacing the main pitch video... as that's probably the main sales-driver. Couldn't hurt, at this point. - Think the main page copy is fine. It's not a big negative, even if it is long. Maybe emphasize the "our message" bit with a proper header like the other sections.. - Add additional wallpaper resolutions (modern ones), or just eliminate them. (makes things a bit dated, or so many people seem to say). - Podcasts aren't working to sell the project to anyone new. Videos, concept art, polls on what to parody, "details of gameplay style and interface" post, that kind of stuff... might appeal to the uninitiated better. - Like the webcomics. This reminded me of the absurdity of the whole Kickstarter thing, and was nicely self-deprecating. Making fun of Kickstarter works. (Spaceventure might ought to just go full-on sarcastic and mean and hilarious with their fundraising if things don't pick up by the last week..) Raising money can be an embarrassing, painful affair... I work in non-profit fundraising (small, local stuff). It can suck -- I'd say the campaign has been pretty dignified up to this point,.. Double Fine sort of lucked into making it look easy... But I'd say go full-on telethon-NPR-pledge-drive, make us cry.. One perfect heart-wrenching letter or video could still swing this completely. Shift the stupid focus away from facts, that people don't read anyway, towards emotions.

Think it's probably worth noting, for posterity, that Felicia Day re-tweeted a link yesterday, 5/25/12... Probably a more substantial press moment then some of these articles.

Don't really think the comments thread campaigns are very effective -- They certainly help the moral of some key more attentive backers, but the upselling will really happen automatically with updates, or near the end.. It's a pretty small minority of backers that are engaged regularly in the comments/forums,

Saw somewhere that the Tex Murphy folks were making up fliers and posters and stuff for gaming stores, comic shops... So I thought I'd make a little thing to throw up in random places. Don't know that it'll do anything, but I'll just enjoy confusing people. If anyone feels like making something more counter-friendly for shops... That might work too. So here's a poster that requires a Monolith Burger decoder ring. Link to a PDF below with 6-per sheet, ideal for sticker paper. Sheet of 6 x 8.5x11 - http://www.aultenavr.../tgakick-6x.pdf .PSD - http://www.aultenavry.com/tgakick.psd

That's really cool pcj! What network is the IRC channel on? If people ever want to chat with adventure game people.. there's also the Double Fine adventure channel I made -- and generally has a couple dozen people idling in it.. *shameless plug* -- pretty busy on Saturdays, when we do playthru's with Greg Rice (producer at Double Fine). browser: http://mibbit.com/?channel=%23DFAdventure&server=irc.foonetic.net IRC Server: irc.foonetic.net Channel: #DFAdventure

Yeah, I'm not much for iOS devices myself... but the idea of a voice parser is really cool -- sounds like a possibly crazy difficult to implement kind of tech thing, but maybe one that could actually finally "save" and bring back the old parser thing... Especially if there's a way for both Gary Owens and GlaDOS to ridiculous us at the same time while using it. Might be one revolution too far, this time around. Thanks to the Two Guys and Chris for stopping by, it was fun!

I think that might help... It's be interesting to see more videos that work on more than the kickstarter and nostalgia front, or try to appeal from different angles. I tried sneaking a plug for the Kickstarter on to Boing Boing, with that youtube video of the SQ3 art timelapse -- Submission here (yes, some exaggeration in the writing on my part): http://submit.boingb...-timelapse.html (not the strongest submission, but it seemed like something they might actually post.. those blogs love retro graphics!) I dont know exactly what other things in this category might look like, or if there's any good ideas.. Maybe a well edited video of every death sequence (fast with a good soundtrack)? Some sort of video with the voice actors might get traction.. Don't know if there's any crazy-good-at-video-editing fans, or what might come out of it... But it'd be nice to see more fan videos of stuff :)