January Update

This month I've been working on tools for my next project. I've put together a pretty good system for displaying text inside of Unity. The system outputs a blob of text and lists links at the end visually just like Twine. It even imports Twine files because I had hoped that I could just import old projects into the system, but it won't be so simple. The issue is that my Twine files are riddled with macros for all sorts of things. In the long term a parser for all the macros is a good idea, but in the short term I have enough to work with to build a game already.

Since it is Unity, I could also do a lot more than what I've been doing in Twine but I don't plan on adding lots of features at first. I'm going to put the system through it's paces with a small test game and see where I go from there.

Why

I've been thinking about what the point of all of this is. There are lots of useful ways to spend time, but making text based games is a strange thing to do. Adult text based games are a niche in a niche and it seems like the audience for them is super small. Why should I work on these projects anyway? The only reason I can think of is that I want to expand the boundaries of what games are. More specifically, I believe games can be much more than what they are perceived to be right now.


One of the estimations of computing in the future is that it will mostly be done via mobile devices. People are using phones and tablets over desktop computers at a rising rate. So this means mobile devices are becoming increasingly important places to discover and consume content via default marketplaces like Google play or Apple's App Store. It's important that these marketplaces create an environment where consumers can discover content, but also that content creators can deliver their products to these stores.

Trojan Horse on Hiatus!

After much thought, I've decided to put Midnight Room on hiatus for now. For those who were interested in the story/game I do apologize, but please know that this is a tough choice to make. My reasons are many and all over the place, but at the end of the day if I were going to work on the game I would be working on it right now and not thinking about working on it. Midnight Room has crossed the line from 'fun to work on' to 'work to work on’. Working without fun or pay is kind of volunteering, but in this case it's volunteering without the satisfaction of helping anyone.