be seeing you :-)

Great to hear that you’re getting positive feedback from a younger market; it wouldn’t be the first time that my take on something differs from others. ;-)

Have you thought about building ads into the game, so that you make revenue without needing to charge players?

You didn’t really play SUPPLE. Of course very few males over 30 like the game but pretty much EVERY 13 year old girl on the planet loves it. Do you have a daughter? Show it to her — sure she will have a far more positive reaction and will show you how to play.

We have offers from everywhere but are selling so many from our site using nothing but google adwords that we are probably going to remain independent.

Play First, the publisher of the all time best-selling downloadable game Diner Dash, has been chasing us like you wouldn’t believe. They playtested the game and it came out the highest rated they ever tested — including diner dash.

But anyway you, like many adults, especially those over thirty and especially male, missed the whole thing.

It is a strategy game, different than any other. It fits together. It seduces you. The dialog (of which there is tons and tons) makes coherent sense and, unlike any other game, is an integral part of the game. There are few choices in the beginning, but as the game progresses more and more choices become available.

We cannot figure out how to make the game obvious to grown-ups — it is our biggest failing and our biggest headache — having every thirteen year old girl on the planet love your game is great, but majority lack credit cards. We get, literally, a thousand emails a day from young ladies telling us how much they love the game but they can’t buy it cause they don’t have a credit card.

Anyway, give it another try — perhaps you will see what is really there.

Best,

Glenn

I’m not sure how much of a chat is allowed in the comments section, so forgive me if it’s not appropriate. Still, Javier managed to find a moment to answer, and apparently, there is a deeper problem (I’m constantly on-line) that more people seem to have, yet can’t be solved. One way or another, I’m anxiously awaiting your article – this is a subject I’d love to discuss.

I would be hard pressed to find a situation in which the choice I want to make is not presented

I wouldn’t; three or four choices of what to say feels very limited, to me. In the near future, I’ll be starting a thread about language interfaces for interactive stories (Part 3 of a series), and will say more.

The dial interface is in fact a dial, the kind of thing you see on light dimmers. However, it feels and responds to very slight movements, so while it’s only a one-dimensional input, it has a great deal of analog sensitivity along the axis. It is similar in feel to a trackball in both heft and accuracy.

I’ll describe interaction with the humorous seduction scene, which is the first scene in The Act. Your character is on the left side of the screen, sitting down. The sexy gal is on the right side of the screen, at the bar. You start by moving the dial clockwise, conventionally speaking “toward” the gal. As you move the dial toward her, you move both physically closer and become more aggressive in hitting on her. If you move to far, you start to do humorous things like hump your crotch in the air–the skill involved is mostly in reading the expression on the gal’s face as it turns from interest/amusement to horror, and literally “dialing back” your approach.

It sounds simple, but it’s really amusing and engaging.

From the visuals, it looks pretty slick — ex-Disney 2D animators, old school. I was working in Boston at Zoesis while The Act was in early production, I know a few people who worked on it. I’m very curious exactly what the dial-interface is. It’s currently planned to be released as an arcade-style title; I don’t know if or when it will be ported to PC’s or consoles.

It was one of the most satisfying experiences I’ve ever had in an arcade, from the point of view of feeling like I was doing something WITH my friends, even though they weren’t playing. And I laughed more than I have at any video game since Psychonauts, or maybe even Monkey Island 3. But again, it was intensely SOCIAL play, even though it was single-player. Truly worth trying out!