speaking about that I wander how easy it would be to emulate it as if the games were like a nes with say all the sounds and music things, not sure if thats possible but. At 01:41 p.m. 14/10/2008, you wrote: >Hi, >Yeah, taking over Raceway and Montezuma's Revenge has resulted in a lot of >personal grief and misery for me. I've had my reputation marred, I've been >verbally insulted, I've been called a thief, I've stayed up late trying to get >this or that done, and it has just been one bad thing after another. To ice >the cake, so to speak, my apartment management had us out of our apartment for >four months, and unfortunately I didn't have everything with me to work on the >games. As a result I've gotten the blame for that too, because people want to >know why the game wasn't finished asap. >However, on the bright side of this I really think I can pull a couple of good >games out of the hat. No MOTA won't exactly be Montezuma's Revenge, but it >still will be a side scroller, will be a treasure hunting adventure, have fire >pits to jump over, avoid spike traps, lots of baddies to fight, and should at >least give the person the feeling of a NES or Atari game. > > > >Michael Feir wrote: >>In my judgement, Tom has found the most fair approach in this tricky >>situation. It all started out because he wanted to save those of us who had >>waited ages for James North to finish Raceway and Montezuma's Revenge from >>the crushing disappointment we faced when he decided to pack it in. That >>attempted good deed has brought him no end of grief since. Everyone has had >>to compromise somewhat. We, the customers, won't be getting precisely what we >>originally paid for. However, Tom is going to give us a new and improved >>platformer so we'll at long last end up with a good one of those which is >>fully accessible. I've long felt that this genre would be spectacularly >>suited to blind people and be helpful to people just getting used to computer >>games as opposed to a fully 3d adventure. I'm profoundly grateful to Tom for >>deciding to do this. It wasn't an easy decision for him to reach and I know >>he has his own dreams he'd rather be working on. Although he has a lot of >>creative latitude now, I believe he would rather work on fully 3d games. Ultimately, I believe we'll end up with a spectacular platformer as long as we give Tom the patience and good will that he needs and deserves. >> >>Due to this whole episode, I don't believe we'll see any developer put a game >>up for pre-ordering again. Too much distrust and damage was done to the whole >>concept for it to work in this gaming community. It can work for the sighted >>gaming world because the companies producing their games have the financial >>backing to handle things if projects go bad on them. For us, we're just too >>much at the mercy of the personal life circumstances of our developers. >>That's a sad thing because it could have helped established developers >>finance better assets such as sound effects and music to put in to their >>final products. I've just begun working on an accessible game which I believe >>will take me something like four years to create. I'm engaged to be married >>in around a year's time to a wonderful woman I've had the good fortune to >>find. Anticipating tougher economics after we're married, I decided to >>purchase royalty-free music while I still have my own source of income. That >>way, she's not g oing to have to sink any of her income into what is essentially my dream. In total, I've spent a little under $400 on the music. During my last attempt to create a game, I spent around the same on the SFX kit from Sound Ideas. That has around 20000 sounds I can legally use. Altogether then, I've spent around $800 on my dream of creating an accessible game. It helps a lot that I'm currently single and don't have other financial responsabilities. Most developers aren't in my somewhat unique circumstances. Unless I ultimately succeed in creating the game, I'll never see a dime of that investment. >> >>What happened to Tom was a stroke of tremendous bad fortune which has had >>repercussions for everyone connected with accessible games. I believe that it >>has lowered the sense of trust and solidarity in the community as a whole. It >>has put everyone more on a business footing but somewhat reduced the overall >>feeling of community developers could once have enjoyed. This is ultimately a >>good thing as we'll see a lot less hopes being dashed due to developer >>burn-out in the future. However, new developers may find enthusiasm for their >>ideas somewhat more lacking. Less attempts at creation mean less successes as >>well as less failures. This community can't afford to lose any more game >>developers for any reason. Games take too long to create and we don't have >>that many who are known to be working on new games. That's also a sad part of >>the fallout from this whole episode. Developers are likely to be a lot more >>careful about what information they release than they were before all this >>happ ened. This means less information for Audyssey issues and less community discussion of fresh ideas that are actually being worked on. Dry spells will seem a whole lot longer due to this. >> >>As members of this community, we likely don't have the ability to financially >>support new game developers other than to purchase their games once created. >>However, there's a whole lot that we can do to support developers who we >>already know about and encourage new people to take a crack at making >>accessible games. We can be patient and offer moral support while a developer >>works on a project. An encouraging email can count for a whole lot when >>you're slogging through the long dull aspects of creating your masterpiece. >>It makes such a nice change from "When's the game going to be ready?" When we >>see evidence that people are pirating games, we should take that evidence to >>the developer so they can take countermeasures. We can also be ambassadors to >>people about accessible games and help spread word about the games which are >>out there. Over the past while, I believe I've noticed a number of new >>members. That's a good indication that we're at last moving forward as a >>community. We a lso have at least one new developer working on a project that I know I'm going to love. A sound-based rpg is certainly going to go down my gullet nicely. It's Thanksgiving Day here in Canada. A very appropriate time to say a public "thank you" to Tom and all other developers who are working away. Games are a very powerful art form and you bring that splendidly to a group of people who otherwise would once again be stuck on the sidelines. I salute you all and hope one day to add my contribution to your own. >> >>Michael Feir >>Author of Personal Power: >>How Accessible Computers Can Enhance Personal Life For Blind People >>2006-2008 >>www.blind-planet.com/content/personal-power >> >>A Life of Word and Sound >>2003-2007 >>http://www.blind-planet.com/content/life-word-and-sound >> >>Creator and former editor of Audyssey Magazine >>1996-2004 >>Check out my blog at: >>www.michaelfeir.blogspot.com > > >--- >Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] >If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] >You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at >http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. >All messages are archived and can be searched and read at >http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] >If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, >please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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