Demos on the Main Site

[David Whyld]

The demos section on the main site is meant, funnily enough, for demos - i.e. demonstrations of how to do certain things with ADRIFT, whether it's interacting with NPCs, opening and closing doors, etc. It's not meant, as far as I'm aware, as a place for people to upload works in progress, unfinished games and pieces of test code. That sort of thing can be uploaded to the forum if people really want. So...

Unless someone has a very strong objection to this - and by 'very strong' I mean you're planning to cut your throat and/or go on a killing spree - I'm planning to delete all the non-demos from the demos section over the next few days. So if anyone has anything in the demos section right now that isn't a demo and they want to save it, now's the time to download and make a copy of it.

[NickyDude]

Although I don't want to cut my throat or poke pointy things in soft places, wouldn't they be called Examples?

[ElliotM]

I think renaming the section to examples would be a good idea. The word demo may mean demonstration, but software companies called small sections of their games demos, back in the day when they would actually release demos for free.

[Hensman Int'l]

Demo is a potentially misinterpreted file header. Right as of now the list is: Complete, Competitions, Modules, and Demos. Maybe change the last two options to Modules/Examples and Demo/Introduction/Incomplete.

[Po. Prune]

Go ahead and delete them David...
The entire section could do with a thorough clean-up.
I might encourage others to visit the game site more often when they don't have to go through a lot of half finished games.

As for an "Example" section? I'm not directly opposed to it, I just don't see the need for it. It's now possible to add a file to your post in the forum so why not use that instead of filling up the adventure section?

[David Whyld]

Hensman Int’l:

Demo is a potentially misinterpreted file header. Right as of now the list is: Complete, Competitions, Modules, and Demos. Maybe change the last two options to Modules/Examples and Demo/Introduction/Incomplete

To be honest, I've never been sure why we have as many headings as we do. Why is there a separate heading for complete games and competition games? Aren't competition games complete anyway (unless they're written for an introductory comp)? Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to delete and/or change headings on the main site (only to delete individual games), which I'm guessing is something only Campbell and KFAdrift can do. Hopefully they’ll weigh in with their opinion on this soon.

Po. Prune:

Go ahead and delete them David...
The entire section could do with a thorough clean-up.
I might encourage others to visit the game site more often when they don't have to go through a lot of half finished games.

That's pretty much what I think. The usefulness of the site as a whole is a lot less than it should be due to the sheer amount of junk on there. We have unfinished games that have been there for years, some from authors I've never heard of and which are very unlikely to be finished after all this time.

The demos section itself would benefit from a clean-up of things that aren't demos. If someone wants to find a demo, they have to wade through screen after screen of non-demos, which can be pretty disheartening. Right now, the first three entries on the demos section are all non-demos and I'm sure this sort of thing will only encourage more people to upload non-demos in the future. Unfinished games can always be uploaded as attachments to the forum if need be; they don't need to take up room on the main site, which has been chockfull for years now.

[Duncan_B]

I'm not sure why the InsideADRIFT issues are published as demos. They should be moved to... somewhere.

[David Whyld]

As it's possible to attach files to the forum, might it be a good idea to put the newsletter issues on the forum? Maybe make a thread in the Announcements section and attach each of them there?

Anyway, I've now started deleting a number of the non-demos from the demos section. One thing I've noticed is just how many there are, and how many are old. Really old. Over half of them pre-date 2005 and are probably of limited value; do they even work with the latest version of ADRIFT 4, let alone ADRIFT 5?

[David Whyld]

Yes, as it happens you can attach copies of the newsletter on the forum:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7922

Certainly better than having them on the main site in the demos section.