No Time To Play

I finally took a break from game development this week, mostly due to my brain refusing to focus on anything resembling code. So instead I’ve been following news more closely than usual, and making plans.

On the news side, the 2011 Interactive Fiction Competition is in full swing, and looking good. There’s a good handful of CYOA titles, mostly browser-based, and at least two experimental works. A refreshing variety of authoring systems are represented, including Alan and the reborn Quest, and the comp enjoys mainstream coverage. As a minus, not only there are still untested games being entered, but I caught one author openly advertising that!

Let’s make one thing clear: a game that hasn’t been beta-tested is half-finished at best. I don’t care if it’s as simple as Hamurabi, it will have issues. Don’t open it up to the public in that state.

In the way of plans, I’ve decided to pause the development of Dungeon Romp for now, and start a more streamlined, graphical roguelike instead. It will be based on a novel concept, and make a better browser game, in addition to being portable. When I resume work on Dungeon Romp, it will be running in the natural environment of traditional roguelikes: a Unix terminal. That way I hope to satisfy both casual and hardcore players without too many compromises.

But first I have some other things to get out of the way.