We are looking for content on our site (MyAdventureGame.com) and
figured, who better than the talented writers and researches at GA to
help us with this task!
Answering this question should be fun and challenging. Before you
begin, please make sure that you are up for the task ... this question
certainly is not for everyone. If making a game on our website sounds
is something you’d WOULDN'T do in your spare time, then this question
may NOT be for you.
The Question:
Go to our website (http://MyAdventureGame.com), create an account (or
use your existing account), and make an entertaining, fictional game.
The game needs to take place in the fantasy genre (i.e. Dungeons,
Dragons, Medieval, Knights, etc) or Science Fiction (i.e. space ships,
laser guns, teleporters, etc). This game also must have at least 40
pages with at least 10 different pictures spread throughout the game.
These pictures should have some relevance to the page they are on and
can be photographs, illustrations, or animated GIFs -- whatever you
deem appropriate. Remember, the system allows only one picture per
page.
Most good games have most pages with 100-150 words, but that’s just a
rule of thumb. Pages too short don't get the player into the story,
pages too long remove interactivity.
The content is completely up to you, as long as it fits in the fantasy
or sci-fi genre. You could use ideas from a favorite short story or
movie, but do NOT base the game off of something else. We are NOT
interested in seeing "The Lord of the Rings Game" or "The Star Wars
Game." Please do not make a game based off of another work.
There is a lot of freedom in to answer this question.
Also note, it is important to have a good idea of the Start and End of
your game before creating it on the website. Planning before hand
will not only save time but will create a much better end product.
I apologize for the novella of a question here, but I wanted to make
things clear. Please do not hesitate to ask for clarification or to
email me. I can be reached by emailing info(at)MyAdventureGame.com.
I really look forward to experiencing your game.
Don't forget, the game will be eligible for the $100 contest (see the
website) and I tip (fairly well) for a job well done.
Again thanks in advance. |
Request for Question Clarification by
morningstar2000-ga
on
11 Nov 2002 09:33 PST
Dear Adventurer -
I am confused as to the question. How would one really answer this
question? I have been to your site and the games that I have seen are
all in a text content. Famaliar to the earlier adventure games such
as Zork or Oregon trail.
Thank You,
Morningstar
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Clarification of Question by
myadventuregame-ga
on
11 Nov 2002 10:58 PST
Hello Morningstar, thank you for your interest.
To answer this question, one would simply create a text-based
adventure game
on the MyAdventureGame.com website. It would be similar to the Zork
style games, except that you would have to provide the choices. Try
to think of it as more of a Choose-your-Own-Adventure gamebook, if you
are familiar with those.
If not, you may want to familiarize yourself with the style of the
games on the website. Please check out a few of them
Thanks Again,
The MyAdventureGame.com Crew
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Request for Question Clarification by
morningstar2000-ga
on
11 Nov 2002 13:07 PST
Dear Adventurer -
Okay I'll bite. Now If I create this text based game. Should I
both post it here and there. There hoping to win the 100 prize for
the game and here to answer your question? I see also that you have
this same question posted twice. Once as a 25 dollar question and
once as a 30 dollar question. They looked identical to me. I am
assuming the same answer twice is not what you want though? If I am
mistake let me know. Otherwise I am going off to think of a game for
you..
Happy gaming,
Morningstar
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Clarification of Question by
myadventuregame-ga
on
11 Nov 2002 13:34 PST
Hello Morningstar:
Please use the game editor on MyAdventureGame.com to create the game.
You can provide a link to the game as your answer.
The difference between the $25 and $30 question is that the latter is
an educational game which must have an accurate historical,
mythological, or paranormal/supernatural basis. That is why it has a
$5 value higher.
You would not be able to use the same game as an answer to both
questions, as the $25 question (this question) requires a fictional
fantasy or sci-fi game, whereas the $30 question requires an accurate
educational-based game.
I hope this clarifies it.
Thanks,
The MyAdventureGame.com Crew
|
Tonight I worked on creating an adventure for your website for about 6
hours. I am about 80% done creating it. Normally I would not post an
answer until I was 100% complete, but it is currently 4 in the
morning, and I have to be at a class in 5 hours. I didn't want to lose
my lock on the question and the 6 hours of effort I put in, and not
complete the answer. Rest assured the adventure game will be finished
by tommorow. As a matter of fact, I would be surprised if you view the
adventure before I complete creating it.
Getting to the point, here is the url of the adventure game I have
created:
http://myadventuregame.com/preview.asp?g=328 |
Request for Answer Clarification by
myadventuregame-ga
on
12 Nov 2002 09:00 PST
Hello Funkywizard:
We have checked out your game and think you definately are on the
right track. It isn't exactly what we were looking for, but we feel
it's suitable and look forward to its completion.
The pictures really add to the game. The game would be okay without
pictures ... but it would be just okay, i.e., average. The pictures
you took are hysterical, and really give it a nice twist. It feels as
if the player is one of those Real-Life D&D players or even a fantasy
character plucked straight from the past thrown into a strange version
of the present.
In anycase, we understand how classes go and tight schedules and that.
Would you be able to wrap this up in 48 hours or so? If not, please
say how much more time you'll need. We don't want to rush, as quality
game is really the goal here, but I have games which I've been working
on for almost a year now which are still unfinished ... plus, we're
real excited to see how you wrap this one up. Make it good :-)
Best Regards,
Alex and the MyADventureGame.com crew
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Clarification of Answer by
funkywizard-ga
on
12 Nov 2002 10:30 PST
I plan to have the game done by the end of the day, so 48 hours would
definitly be the upper end of the possible amount of time it would
take. After I've got everything "complete" I'll go back to add in
details and such to improve the text of the game. Thanks for the
understanding, and I'll get right to finishing it.
|
Clarification of Answer by
funkywizard-ga
on
12 Nov 2002 18:02 PST
I've gotten back to working on the story and have made some progress.
One thing I thought I should inform you of is a little glitch I have
encountered in the story making process when using my girlfriends
laptop. Unlike the other computer I was using to make the story, her
laptop runs IE 5.0, and this causes a few glitches in the story making
process it seems. Firstly, in edit mode, the pictures don't show up.
Secondly, I cannot edit the links between pages. Therefore, I will
have to go back to using someone elses computer to fully finish making
the game.
I have a good idea for how I want the various paths in the story to
end, and feel I should still have the game completed by the end of the
day.
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Request for Answer Clarification by
myadventuregame-ga
on
12 Nov 2002 19:12 PST
Thanks for the update.
That is really, really bizzare (and dissapointing) to learn about
those problems. Does the laptop have Javascript and all that turned
on?
We have extensively tested the Editor with IE4, IE5.5, IE6, but just
assumed it would work fine under IE5. Very odd indeed.
Please forgive this errors, we'll get right it!
If you are unable to get it completed tonite feel fee to take some
more time on it if you need it!!
Again, we really look forward to playing this one. Thanks again!
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Clarification of Answer by
funkywizard-ga
on
12 Nov 2002 19:44 PST
I'm pretty sure that javascript was enabled, but to make sure i took a
look at my security prefs. I've had a couple problems with some other
sites, so it might be a misconfiguration of my browser, but I can't be
sure.
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Clarification of Answer by
funkywizard-ga
on
12 Nov 2002 23:51 PST
I put all the parts into the game and spell checked all the pages. I
believe the adventure game is now complete, however, if you believe
any of the sections need work or that I left something out, I'm very
open to suggestions on how to improve the adventure or any finishing
touches I could add.
Although it took quite a bit of time to complete the task at hand, I
found it to be an enjoyable process. I look forward to your response.
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Clarification of Answer by
funkywizard-ga
on
12 Nov 2002 23:58 PST
One thing that I was not sure of was what exactly an advanced game is
as opposed to what you can make in the simple editor. I tried reading
the help pages, but only the faq appears to have anything in it, and
does not deal with this issue.
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Clarification of Answer by
funkywizard-ga
on
12 Nov 2002 23:59 PST
Nevermind. I clicked the link (reluctantly, as I wasn't sure what to
expect) and it explained to me what an advanced game was all about. I
decided not to convert my game to an advanced game. I might suggest
that before someone converts their game to an advanced game, perhaps
they should be able to make a copy of it first, so that they may have
an advanced and simple version.
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Request for Answer Clarification by
myadventuregame-ga
on
15 Nov 2002 22:19 PST
Hello FunkyWizard:
We have played your game and were certainly entertained by it. Thank
you very much for putting all that time into it. It was really worth
it. We went ahead and Category Featured it, so it will show up on the
Select-A-Game page. Good job, seriously. We can only hope to see a
sequel!
Only complaint we have is that when you answered it early, a few other
researchers working on a game gave up. But, it's not a huge deal.
In any case, you have already earned a 5-star rating. But reason for
this clarification ... for a $5.00 tip, could you rate the Game
Editor? More specifically ...
-------
GAME EDITOR (EZ-EDIT)
Was it completely self-explanatory? What areas or aspects of it were
completely easy to understand? What areas or aspects were confusing?
If you didn't find anything confusing, could you think of something
that could potentially be confusing?
ACCOUNT CREATION
did you have Any concerns about this process? Did you like the
artwork?
PUBLISHING
Did the concept of publishing seem to make sense? Was it explained
clearly? We use humorous descriptors (in our opinion) to describe
difficulty level (eg. Walk in the Park, Mosie Through a Minefield,
etc) and maturity level (eg. must be at least this tall to play, etc).
Did you find these descriptions tacky, annoying, or appropriate and
flowing with the rest of the site?
YOUR GAME
What made you pick the topic? Did you plan the plot/story from
beginning to end? What tips could you offer to people who want to
make a game but only have a vauge idea of a topic?
MISC
Can you think of any other improvements to the site? Our goal is to
make it as easy as possible for people to make games and encourage
them to make entertaining and quality stories. Much like yours. We
have quite a few things on the ToDo list, most importantly finishing
the help section, and also things like Writing a New Game Tutorial.
Can you think of any other things that could help us achieve the goal?
----------
Again thanks for your help. If we made money on this site, or had any
idea how we could make money on it, we'd totally fork over some more
money. But this is a hobby ... and we all have these awful things
called bills to pay, etc. We hope that our sincere appreciation for
your work helps to assuage our inability to financially compensate you
for what we truly think your work is valued at!
Best Regards,
Alex and the rest of the MyAdventureGame.com Crew
|
Clarification of Answer by
funkywizard-ga
on
15 Nov 2002 23:43 PST
I'm sorry that my actions caused other people to give up on making
games, since your site is very nice and would benefit from a greater
variety of games.
To answer your further questions:
Was the editor self explanatory?
Yes completely, except for the "convert to advanced game" function. I
was able to find out what this was, but it was not as clear as
everything else.
ACCOUNT CREATION
did you have Any concerns about this process? Did you like the
artwork?
The only concerns I had were with privacy. You would be advised to
inform your users that date of birth is optional, and I would advise
replacing "real name" with simply "name", so that you don't imply that
this information is important or will be later verified for some
reason. Perhaps it would help to quote the answer to the faq question
"I'm not so sure about leaving my birth date and zip code... could you
track me?" on the same page as when you register.
Otherwise account creation was fast and painless, a trait that should
encourage viewers to create an account.
As for artwork, I thought the artwork throughout the site was well
placed and eye pleasing, much better than your average website in
these regards. I especially liked the retro big pixel look, very nice.
PUBLISHING
Did the concept of publishing seem to make sense? Was it explained
clearly? We use humorous descriptors (in our opinion) to describe
difficulty level (eg. Walk in the Park, Mosie Through a Minefield,
etc) and maturity level (eg. must be at least this tall to play, etc).
Did you find these descriptions tacky, annoying, or appropriate and
flowing with the rest of the site?
The main concept of publishing was easily understood and well
presented I think. I found the maturity level descriptions to be very
good, although the last two seem redundant "i need to see some id" to
me implies over 18 and "anything goes" pretty much means the same
thing to me. Other than that, I feel this part of your site is
excellent as well.
For the difficulty ratings, I like the ones you have available, but
perhaps you should have some text available that gives a short example
of what kinds of games are more or less difficult. I've noticed some
games that feel "loaded" as though they are forcing me to pick one
path and all others lead to death, yet they rate difficulty a 3 (trek
in the forest). This is not a major issue, but is worth consideration.
YOUR GAME
What made you pick the topic? Did you plan the plot/story from
beginning to end? What tips could you offer to people who want to
make a game but only have a vauge idea of a topic?
For my game, I had actually created a short story / mini choose your
own adventure game with the same name in the past. Since I don't know
where I have it written down and I wrote it over a year ago, basically
I just copied the concept "you are bob and you did something stupid to
get into jail" and made everything else new. As for the plot, I really
didn't have a firm idea of what I wanted to do. I took my inspiration
for the story mostly from the pictures I was able to take around my
dorm. In the case of some things, I just picked out some name or
object at random (the rusty spoon, the triangle room) and created
meaning and relevance for it once I was inspired by something else.
At any given time, I feel I had a good idea for what might happen
about 2-3 choices ahead, but no definitive idea of exactly what was
going to occur.
I had a hard time coming up with a real topic, which is why the game
focused more on humor than on a predefined idea of story. For people
having a hard time picking a topic, perhaps you could suggest they
pick something from their daily lives, and give it an interesting
twist or distortion. Or they could look to their favorite book or
movie and not take the plot, but use it for inspiration. Perhaps they
could ask themselves "what new aspect of this movie intrigued me? What
type of conflict in the story did i find interesting?" and then take
parts of the conflict of your favorite story and use it for your own
story. Then you ask yourself "what situations lend themselves to the
kind of conflict I am trying to re-create" and if you can answer that
you have a topic.
As for misc, there are a couple things I can think of that would help
the site. It would be useful in my opinion to have some flexibility in
the placement of images. I had to downsize some of my images in order
to make room for text to the left of them. It might help to have a
"dont flow text around picture option" for large pictures so that they
may have the space to themselves. Alternatively, you could make the
width of the story area not a fixed size, since many people have
monitors that could make good use of more space. One more thing that
would help is to make sure the site runs well on IE5.0, since I
couldn't get certain things to work right in that browser. Since you
said you will be working on this and since few people use that exact
version, this is probably not a big issue.
The last thing I can think of to make the site better would be to have
a better preview in the editor. When I first started making my game, I
assumed that what I saw in the editor was what I would get in the main
game browser, which is not precisely the case. It may be helpful to
have a "preview page" button, so you can more easily see how the text
flows around the images while you are still working on the game. This
is a minor detail, but I thought I should mention it.
As for your last comments, I had actually thought about that recently.
Although I love your site, for the life of me I cannot think of a way
you can make money off it, at least not without making your site
offensive to the average internet user (with popups or affiliate
links, which don't even make much money anyway) as so many other
websites have done, which would detract from the excellent quality and
ease of use that your website has.
Thanks for asking this wonderful question. Although the pay in $/hour
was not exceedingly high, it was more than made up for by the
enjoyment I had when creating the game and by what a joy it was to
work with you.
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