Campbell & the future of ADRIFT

[David Whyld]

On what evidence do you base the statement I have highlighted, David?

The evidence is there for everyone to see, Lazzah. Ever since v5 came out, usage of ADRIFT has waned. From dozens of games every year with v4 to a handful a year with v5. You can dispute that v5 is the cause of this, but there's no denying the fact that it's used a lot less than v4 ever was. Even v3.9 was used a lot more in its day than v5 ever has been.

If you are, or were a newcomer to ADRIFT since v5 was released, you would have only used v5 as I did when I was a newcomer back in 2011. I found it amazingly easy to use and took to it straight away.

Complaints about rocket science aside, I guess.

The main reason that ADRIFT (it doesn't matter which version!) "doesn't appeal to newcomers" is that there is no support from the developer whatsoever at the moment.

That's true to some degree, but it's worth bearing in mind that in the early years Campbell supported v5 a great deal. There have been 35 releases of v5 after all so it's not like he sat on his laurels and did nothing, and yet still it never took off the way v4 did.

We all know your opinions of v5, David, but to say that "v5 doesn't appeal to newcomers full stop" is completely wrong.

Okay, let me rephrase that as "v5 appeals to some newcomers but the great majority find it too confusing and / or long-winded so never bother using it. I suspect if most of the newcomers tried v4, they'd find it much better and might actually stick around to write games with it".

I'm actually surprised you don't use v4 yourself, Lazzah. You're one of the few people still regularly writing ADRIFT games and yet you've never even tried out the more popular version.

[Lumin]

Speaking of donations. How many have donated money since registing Adrift became free?
We all came up with a lot of bug reports and enhancement suggestions but I doubt that many of us donated.
I'm not saying that it would have solved everything, but maybe it would have given Campbell incentive to continue working on V.5.

I admit I never have donated, but at the time of release I'd purchased v4 at what today would probably be quite a bit more than I'd pay for indie anything (blame Steam for that) and suppose figured I was due a free upgrade. I'm not a huge fan of Kickstarter and the like, but I'd be open to it, and there are possibly better options now like Patreon that might be ideal if Campbell ever decides to go full time back into work on ADRIFT. If it's possible to literally make over $1000 a month writing porn games with ADRIFT, I definitely do think the guy making the program should be able to earn at least a modest amount.

[P/o Prune]

No, no, no! Lazzah & David, please...
Let's stop it right here. This is not a discussion whether Adrift 4 or V.5 is better than the other.
I will agree with David so far that Adrift was/is easier to get into for a new comer. No doubt about that. Having said that V.5 is not as bad as people want to make it (Imo).
Let's keep this discussion on track about the future of Adrift, and Campbell.

[David Whyld]

If it's possible to literally make over $1000 a month writing porn games with ADRIFT, I definitely do think the guy making the program should be able to earn at least a modest amount.

Goddamn. I knew I was writing the wrong kind of games

[Lumin]

If it's possible to literally make over $1000 a month writing porn games with ADRIFT, I definitely do think the guy making the program should be able to earn at least a modest amount.

Goddamn. I knew I was writing the wrong kind of games

Pfft that's nothing. If I could live my life all over again, I'd learn a little web design, a little Inform, then throw out my dignity and spend my life creating poorly written furry fetish games. That's where the real money is. (I'd be counting it all in Hell, but... )

[Stardog]

These are the main things Adrift needs right now to get more users.

• HTML5 export/runner.
• Open format so other runners can support Adrift games if they want.
• Updated website and different domain, e.g. Quest uses textadventures.co.uk)

Other things I'd like to see:

• Multiple choice conversation system (like Monkey Island, etc)
• Web-based editor (not a small feature and probably impossible)

Adrift's latest update was pretty good with realtime-based events.

For me, Adrift is the tool with the best interface for making text adventures. Lists of your objects/rooms/characters. Lists of commands with their fallbacks, each one with a bunch of conditions. It's very easy to use, but it needs a bit of nip and tuck.

Also, I am hopeful when it comes to Saabie's alternative Runner and the Unity-version of ADRIFT.

It's just a unity-text-adventure-maker-thing that uses the same concepts as adrift, not really adrift itself, for the record.

[ralphmerridew]

I'd donate cash money even now to see some real focus put on that. Maybe someone who knows about programming could correct me if I'm wrong, but how hard would it be really to have the v5 runner include a 'v4 mode', that simply ran these very simple games without breaking them?

Depends on what exactly you want. If you just want moderate compatibility, that could be done fairly quickly (the bulk of jAsea work was done over 2 weeks); if you want full compatibility, it'll take an awful lot of work. ADRIFT was not written with multiple interpreters in mind.

[Palmer]

People can't even play my game anymore. When you launch the .exe none of the window options are available (e.g edit etc.). Guessing it's a .NET issue. Any suggestions?

[Campbell]

Can you post a screenshot?