What are you working on in 2013?

[Lazzah]

Seeing as there has been very little activity on the forum recently, I thought I would start June off with another "what are you working on?" threads.

OK, I am working on the re-write of my first-ever fantasy adventure "The Axe of Kolt" (AoK), the first version of which was written using "The Quill" on a 32k Acorn Electron in around 1987-88. A couple of years after this I switched to a 48k Sinclair Spectrum and started again using "The Professional Adventure Writer" (PAW), which was basically an upgraded version of "The Quill". I upgraded to a 128k Spectrum + 3, which boasted a 3" disc drive, and released AoK in both 48k and 128k versions.

AoK was a 4-part game and I have closely followed the gameplay in the original version, although everything has been expanded and improved, and I am at the moment programming the end of "part 3" of the adventure. I have had several ideas for improving the gameplay and puzzles in "part 4", making full use of ADRIFT's capabilities.

What are YOU working on at the moment?

[David Whyld]

I always find the most interesting thing about threads like this is how many of the games listed don't get released, and wondering to myself what the reasons for that are. Too ambitious in scope? Got bored of writing it? Too much going on the real world? Didn't think anyone would be interested in it? But, anyway, a few of my works in progress that may (or may not) see the light of day at some point:

Unfinished Business - which is actually finished now. It's a mystery / ghost story about a young woman who dies, returns as a ghost and then tries to discover what has happened to her.

A Stranger in Bizan'Toll - a sci-fi game I'm writing, the introductory part of which will be entered in the Intro Comp (which will hopefully give me incentive to write the rest of it).

Monty Thwick / The Treasure Hunter - a comedy game (that I can't decide on a title for) about a treasure hunter exploring a vast castle which isn't quite as abandoned as he had originally thought. This is 99% finished now (save for some pretty rigorous testing), but I'll probably hold it back and release it in the Spring Thing next year.

Twist of Fate - a fantasy about a teenage girl who gets sucked into a strange world when trying to track down her (believed to be) deceased uncle. I'm currently stalled on this one because I'm not sure how the game is going to progress after a certain stage, and also because it bears a remarkable similarity to a game I wrote years ago and I don't really want to write the same game twice.

And... lots of other ones. I generally have a couple of dozen games on the go at any given time, with certain ones being pushed to one side when I get bored of them and others ones being actively worked on instead. It's probably a bad way to write games, as I often return to a game after an absence of many months and can't remember where I was up to with it. (In Monty Thwick, I actually wrote a lengthy end game sequence for it, and then halfway through remembered I'd already written one before.)

[Driftwood]

You have an exceptional talent for writing IF David. I've recently had a spell of writing half a dozen sci-fi ebooks and had them published successfully with Smashwords, but when I open up Adrift I get a very bad case of writers block. The idea for the game presents itself clearly enough but after the initial enthusiasm I run out of ideas and it grinds to a halt.
I just started writing a game called 'Lost in Paradise' but now I'm lost for ideas. The general thinking was being shipwrecked on a desert island and eventually finding a means of making it home. Too many distractions are my main cause of failed projects.

[pinosante]

I am working on an adult themed game. What I find difficult is to keep things simple. My ideas are ambitious, but I know that is a general pitfall for writing games. So I use KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) which helps me. But even when using KISS, I still dwell on details too much.

Anyway, I'm still having fun and still making small steps of progress. I am also learning the ADRIFT software now, it's my first game .

[Lazzah]

I've recently had a spell of writing half a dozen sci-fi ebooks and had them published successfully with Smashwords, but when I open up Adrift I get a very bad case of writers block.

Which titles are those, Driftwood, I'd like to read them? Are none of them suitable for "The Game of the Book"? The first two adventures I wrote ("Magnetic Moon and "Starship Quest") were both inspired by the sci-fi books that I had read over the years.

I use KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)

I like that! It should be incorporated in the ADRIFT 5 Help Pages as the "Golden Rule of IF"!

[rotter]

I’ve got three games underway at the moment on ADRIFT5 and a couple of I7's. I did have a mad idea about entering something in this years IFComp, but I don’t think I will be ready in time. Real life again.

Blankwall, V5 game. This is full game of my winning Intro comp entry and is very nearly ready for beta testing. You continue your quest to track down Charles Bendell, the mass murderer.

Again and Again, I7 game. Playing a failure in life who is hanging onto a cleaner’s job in some sort of scientific institute. Everything is about to get very confusing. Hero or fool?

Word of the Day, I7 game. From one of the Outer planets your life on the Inner worlds has never been easy. As the 2nd Engineer on a rundown space freighter you have just survived an explosion on board. You regain consciousness and discover all the crew dead or missing.

Like David I have dozens of others in various states of unfinishedness.

[pinosante]

I see that many of you have different games on which you work at the same time. My fear would be that I'd not finish any of the games . I feel tempted myself, to start new stuff and new ideas, and I see a lot of developers who start stuff and then start something new, but do you guys finish one game at some time?

[David Whyld]

I used to have a better than average ratio of finishing games that I started; at one time, when I first started writing games, I finished them no matter what (even if I'd grown tired of the game halfway through) just because I figured that if I put in the time and effort to get the game mostly done, I might as well finish it off. Then later, when I'd been hanging around the ADRIFT scene for a few years, I got a little pickier and started abandoning games that I didn't like or didn't feel were going to be any good. Later still, I began abandoning more and more games for one reason or another until I've reached the stage I'm at now, where the majority of the ideas I come up with go nowhere and only a few actually get finished. Some of them were pretty big games when I gave up on them, others only the vaguest outline in a Word document. (They're all still lurking on my hard drive somewhere with the idea that I'll finish them 'one day', but I realise a lot of them are never going to be finished now.)

But I guess in a way it's better if I only release the games I feel most confident about, as we really don't need me releasing a game every three weeks and the main site filling up with half-finished, badly-written efforts.

[vladmirangel]

im fairly new, i'm making the game Art Gallery of Time. A girl in her late teens got stuck inside an art museum filled with....art? by art i mean the types that would probably talk, make sounds, move on certain events, etc.

[P/o Prune]

I'm currently working on 3 games

"The Inheritance" which is giong to be my entry for the Annual Adrift Comptetition.
The game is set in your uncle's old mansion you inherited, but maybe, just maybe the mansion isn't all you inherited.

"D-Day" Which I hope to relase June 6 next year.
This baby I've been working on and off for a couple of years now. It started off as a V.4 game but when the V.5 became "reliable" I decided to change developer. The game is set during the American landing at Omaha Beach and if you make it across the beach alive your actions wil determine whether your fellow soldiers will be able to break out from the beach or not.

"We'll meet again" A ghost story I've been sort of playing around with. I'm not even sure this one will ever get finished. I have the plot all set, but am still strugling with gluing it all together.

[Lumin]

Unfinished Business - which is actually finished now. It's a mystery / ghost story about a young woman who dies, returns as a ghost and then tries to discover what has happened to her.

So this was finished back at the beginning of June? Is it for a comp or are you just holding out on us to be mean? I kind of miss how things were back in the day when you were cranking out a new game like every month...forum was way more active then too.

But anyway, to contribute, I don't usually talk about projects on the forums because I'm terrible at following through with them, but these last few months I feel like I've really found my way into the zone and I'm in a good place as far as writing goes...it's amazing what crappy unreliable internet interspersed with long periods of no internet at all* does for one's productivity.

*please kill me

My active WIPs right now are:

Open World - My Big Huge Main Project, I'll probably eventually make a thread explaining more details tracking my progress on it because I'm egotistical like that. I've worked on this on and off now for quite awhile now and I've juuuust about gotten to the point where a (very, very rough) rough draft and partial map can be put together in a vaguely playable form. Most of my time has been spent experimenting with the more advanced stuff in separate files, and I've got a huge text file I add a couple descriptions to every night after work. I'm either going to have an awesome game or a shambling Frankenstein monstrosity when it comes time to staple it all together.

Ye Olde Potion Shoppe - Medium sized game I'm working on for the end of the year comp. Not going to elaborate further but I'm sure you can make some guesses from the title.

Aegis: Undertow A remake of Aegis in v5 that should actually be playable without keeping a walkthrough in one hand in a can of Raid in the other, with a little more to do and a few bits foreshadowing the main conflict of the sequel that will probably never be written. I also have a short story featuring Havasa (the pirate girl) I intend to include as an unlockable reward for finishing with all points. (Oh right and there is now a score system.)

June Starr: The Marlin Affair - This one keeps getting pushed to the backburner but I'd still love to finish it someday. The concept actually goes way, waaaay back, like almost ten years now I believe, to one of my very first (failed) attempts at an IF game. I released the 'prologue' a couple years back but the intention there was always to expand the setting in a huge way. The plan was that the player would get to run around a big space station that was a training school for interstellar mercenaries and spies, uncover a conspiracy, solve a big puzzle in an automated factory, and play dumb minigames in a continent-spanning space mall. I still have all my notes and have made a little bit of headway in porting the parts that are already done to v5, but time will tell if I ever actually finish this one.

The Curse of Chir'Razel - Another one going way back, I actually started this for an old comp...can't remember what it was called but it was whichever one rotter's Pathway to Destruction came from. You play an archaeologist whose unhealthy obsession with a really screwed up ancient culture exposes her to a curse while exploring some newly discovered ruins. It's been sitting around at like, 70% completion for a couple years now after I accidentally broke it 'cause I'm dumb, I know how to solve the problem now and it is something I'd like to see released one day, I'm just trying to muster up the energy to port this one to v5 as well, though I may just settle for finishing it in v4 just so I can finally push it out the door.

Corayel - And now for something much newer, a surreal fantasy game based on a dream I had years ago that I always wanted to write a story about. You play a human dropped unceremoniously onto a waterworld populated by merfolk and other strange creatures. A thin ring of mountains that break the ocean's surface form a wall of sorts within which the water of their kingdom is pure and protected, but outside a powerful force of corruption ceaselessly searches the caverns beneath the mountains for a way in. Naturally you get dragged into all this and have to help save the kingdom despite, you know, lacking basic necessities like fins and gills and the ability to sleep underwater and live on raw fish. (the merfolk are good people though and very understanding about your disabilities)

Various Smaller Projects - I'm doing a new thing now where Sunday is my day to take a break from my main WIPs and just goof around with whatever. Sometimes I fool around trying to learn the more advanced features, sometimes I write tiny 'games' focusing on just one puzzle. Today I toyed around with a combat system for a tiny proof-of-concept RPG inspired by that thread posted by that one annoying guy that kept posting threads about Dragonballs or whatever on the v5 board. It came out waaay less stupid than I expected. Once I have a handful of the little mini projects in a state I'm happy with I might release them in a package, though the idea is really that their puzzles will be incorporated into a real game someday.

[David Whyld]

Unfinished Business - which is actually finished now. It's a mystery / ghost story about a young woman who dies, returns as a ghost and then tries to discover what has happened to her.

So this was finished back at the beginning of June? Is it for a comp or are you just holding out on us to be mean? I kind of miss how things were back in the day when you were cranking out a new game like every month...forum was way more active then too.

It is finished, but I'm going to rewrite it in Inform at some point.

[Lumin]

It is finished, but I'm going to rewrite it in Inform at some point.

Uh, guys...I think David doesn't love us anymore.

[David Whyld]

I still intend to hang around the forum, I just won't be using ADRIFT.

[rogueSnail]

I am working on my first ever IF, Just Another Christmas Day. It sounds dumb, but it is supposed to be like the movie "A Christmas Story." It is not long, but I really only began creating it to get myself familiar with the program I am using (ADRIFT). It is in v1.0 and is fully complete able, but I am still working on some technical things. It turned out better than I thought it would, and when I finish it, I will be posting it on IFDB.