Alora Fane

I'm devoting this week to setting up the old MARDEK games for Steam, though there are some frustrating hurdles. Here's me rambling about what I've got after doing several hours of research today, for catharsis as much as anything!

Update - Wed 8 April:
I wrote an email to Matt Roszak - the Epic Battle Fantasy guy - asking him how he'd figured out the issues when porting AS2 games to Steam, but while putting my specific concerns into words, I had some ideas about how I can hopefully do it myself. So I'm going to attempt that before pestering anyone directly about it.

It requires buying Adobe Animate though, which I'm not exactly thrilled about since I'll have no use for it other than this. I'll have to just get a Â£30 one-month subscription, and set a reminder for myself to cancel it before it renews.

Essentially I'll be building a wrapper in AS3/AIR, which will embed the original AS2 swf of the game, and it'll communicate with it using something called LocalConnection. I'll need to change how saved date is structured entirely, which will mean delving deeply into MARDEK's ancient, amateurish code. Hopefully I can figure something out!

I actually set up MARDEK successfully as a standalone executable back at the start of December, which I talked about in this post: [LINK]

Since then, I've been putting off actually releasing it because I wanted to do that alongside a Kickstarter, but I've got several people expressing interest, plus there's the whole quarantine thing, so now seems like a good time to do it.

Technically I could just upload that version to Steam today and be done with it, it'd work fine, I think, but there's a snag: MARDEK was coded with Flash's ActionScript 2, and exists as a swf file, so to turn it into an exe file that Steam can run, I had to write a wrapper for it in C#. However, I'm not able to implement the Steam API - which controls achievements and cloud saves - into this, and I can't get the swf to communicate with the exe anyway so there'd be no way of knowing when achievements or save data should be recorded.

I remember someone mentioning that the Epic Battle Fantasy guy (whose name I can never remember how to spell!) was able to export his old AS2 games to Steam with achievements, and it seems that was done with an "Adobe AIR" wrapper rather than a C sharp one. Adobe AIR is what Flash moved towards exporting as when swf was becoming obsolete, and apps in that format can run as standalone executables. I have experience with it already; Taming Dreams was an AIR app.

(I'd ask him directly how he did it, but I feel weird about it since I've never played his games.)

The easiest way I know of to make an AIR app would be to use Adobe Animate, the program that Flash has now become. Back in December, I downloaded a month-long free trial of that... but it's now run out, and I'd have to buy it. It's got a subscription model for Â£20 a month if I commit to a year (but why would I?), or Â£30 a month if I choose just one month (and it'd surely be one of those quietly-automatically-renewing-unless-you-unsubscribe things...). Either way, not exactly peanuts.

Alternatively, I could pay for a subscription to Adobe's "Creative Cloud", which would also allow me to use programs like Photoshop, Premiere, and Illustrator. I used to use Photoshop in the past, but - like the majority of young, poor artists - I pirated it, and stopped using it when I grew up and grew more uncomfortable about that. Or rather, I'd been feeling bad about it for ages, but finally gave it up when Adobe updated its piracy detection methods and I couldn't even access the program anymore. That was relieving, in a way, as I never felt comfortable pirating, but rationalised it as 'everyone else does it!' and 'Adobe expects people to pirate!'. I've been using a free alternative called Krita since then, which leaves my conscience clearer, though Photoshop's definitely superior, and I do miss it.

A subscription to Creative Cloud would be Â£50 a month. That's not really something I can casually afford, what with my almost total lack of income. I could rationalise it to myself as spending money to earn money, since I'll be using the programs in my creative work and hopefully profiting from that, but I've no idea how likely it is that I'll earn much at all.

One of the things I want to sort out this week - once I get the more important MARDEK stuff out of the way - is dusting off my old Patreon account, though I still don't know what I could offer people in return for supporting me. Whatever people did offer would help me continue doing this whole creative thing, but I wouldn't want it to not feel worthwhile. Even if Patreon wouldn't generate enough to pay the bills, it might at least cover the costs of things like software?

In my research, I came across ∞ this post ∞ by a creator who spent a decade making something called Submachine, which I can't say I've ever heard of, though I get the impression that he is - or was - in a similar(ish?) position to me, and to other creators who had their taste of success back in the day but end up forced to face the fickleness of the Zeitgeist and the obsolescence of the skills they'd built their world around. It's a four-year-old post, and it doesn't seem like there's much going on with his site since then. I wonder how he's doing.

He has a Patreon though, and I see that he's getting almost $1000 a month, despite his posts seemingly getting little attention, and the work he makes seems very... niche, maybe?

I don't know; I feel like I should have been keeping up with more of my contemporaries like this over the years, watching how they chart these changing tides, but I've always had these stupid demons holding me back, so I don't have much to directly compare to. I've said all this before.

It does motivate me to finally get around to resurrecting my Patreon though, which I've been meaning to do this week anyway. I'll be surprised if it gets much interest at all, but it's worth a try.

From asking about it on Twitter and doing some more reading and thinking myself, it seems the biggest thing people would want from the Steam integration is the persistence of saved files.

The only way to handle saved games in AS2-era Flash was to save what were essentially cookies, which were fragile, easily lost whenever the user cleared their cache after every secret session of their most exquisitely deviant pleasures. It'd make sense to store something more solidly than that.

I'm not sure how, though. AS2 Flash had all these security measures to make sure random Flash files in your browser couldn't save to or read from your file system (imagine the abuse!), so I can't simply tell the game to output an XML file in its local directory or anything. Nor is it possible to listen to and intercept the Flash file's inner workings, for the same security reasons.

I think there might be ways to embed the AS2 file in an AS3/AIR file and have them communicate... I hope. In which case I could have the AS2 file generate and interpret data it'd pass to or from the AS3 wrapper, which can save to the directory... Maybe. I'll need to look into it.

Like I wrote in the other post a few months ago (linked to earlier in this one), digging into all this stuff feels like archaeology. Everything's from a decade ago, or more. Nobody talks about Flash development anymore. It's sad, in many ways, and difficult, too, finding anything that's remotely relevant here in the future.

I'd love to get this re-release out ASAP, but the biggest issue is that I really don't know what I'm doing here, so I'm having to figure a lot out. And some potential paths just aren't possible. It feels like trying to figure out how to run your old Pokemon Red cartridge on your iPhone, or something. It'd be great if you could! But how??

It's mentally taxing, though writing it out like this helps. I might call it a day for now, see what I can figure out with a refreshed mind tomorrow...

(Also, I've been wanting to write a personal post about other stuff for the past few days, but I've not had the time! I've not had time for long comment replies yet either; sorry!)

22 COMMENTS

Dingding32167~5Y

Just a quick comment on my two cents-- I think it's worth asking the EBF guy how he did it anyway, even if you haven't played his games, since it makes a lot more sense since you know he's definitely done it before, so there's not much point in spending effort and time trying to figure it all out when it's already been done. Obviously social anxiety and things affect how "easy" one thing is compared to another, but it doesn't cost him anything to share with you, and people feel better after doing others favours and makes them like you more [LINK] . Either way, good luck!

Tobias 1115~5Y

I remember learning about that while studying Psychology, and it's definitely relevant here! I'm also concerned that he's just going to be too busy to reply anyway; I mean, I'm often too busy to reply, and that's with surely fewer people to get around to (though with more mental issues, probably).

Do you know how I could contact him?

Natry3~5Y

Matt Roszak's email is kupo707@hotmail.com.
I also found two of his blog posts where he talked about Flash problems:

kupogames.com/2018/10/29/epic-battle-fantasy-4-postmortem-2/

kupogames.com/2017/01/12/mid-project-crisis/

Tobias 1115~5Y

Those are quite valuable, and the first one actually addresses some of the things that I was going to ask him anyway. I should probably ask directly anyway though. Thanks for linking!

Astreon152~5Y

Submachine was like THE major point and click adventure/investigation game series out there. In depth plot, basic yet immersive graphics, smart puzzles...one of the best really.

So if you don't like the genre, it's normal that you don't know it, but i wouldn't call it a niche at all ?

Though it's interesting that he makes so much on his patreon even now, yet with no new game of the sort. Wonder what he publishes that earns him this kind of money.

Tobias 1115~5Y

Interesting; when was it around, and was it made in Flash, or something else? Maybe I came across it, but it didn't stick with me because the genre's not interesting to me.

I was basing the 'niche' comment just on the look of the graphics and number of comments/likes, I suppose! Though these days, it seems that whole genre is fairly niche?

I assumed it must have been quite successful though if he was still getting that much money. I'm assuming it's a good faith sort of thing, from people who appreciate the years of good experiences he's already given them? Like how the Homestar Runner guys ran a kickstarter for a boardgame that earned them over a million dollars, which I assumed wasn't so much because people wanted a boardgame, but because they wanted to express appreciation for all they'd given them in the past. Or at least that's my maybe-wrong interpretation.

Astreon152~5Y

I can't tell when, but i played it on Kongregate around the same time as, well, your games i guess.

Maybe that's an obvious reference to me because point'n clicks was by far my main category of choice for games on Kongregate.

I do agree with your analysis though: the money invested now might just be thanks for all those years of playing free of charge.

All the more reason for Mardek to earn you some pretty penny should you upload it on Steam ?

EDIT: it was sponsored by armor games too ^^
Also, i've just been on Kongregate, and there are still some fairly recent comments on nÂ°10.
And btw, apparently, the platform isn't down and it can still be played ? What was all that about Flash being dead and Kongregate closing ?
I'm gonna replay original Mardek since i can't play it on Mac os otherwise :)

Verdusk21~5Y

Even though you may not be earning a lot, I doubt you're actually behind your contemporaries game dev career-wise; a lot of the devs just seemed to stop game development never to be heard of again, and eventually forgotten. It's easy to disproportionately think there are a lot of successful ones, because they're the only ones you can see, the rest just disappeared.

Flagstaff was a pretty good series and well-received on Newgrounds and Kongregate, but the last game the dev released was on 2012 and there's been no activity since.

MezzanineStairs is 2 guys creating the World's End series, one of my favorite Flash game series which they're still making, but they only get $199 per month (for 2 people, so you might as well halve it for a per capita!) in Patreon, which isn't exactly a huge success.

Jiggmin is the creator of the extremely popular Platform Racing 2, which was on the front page of Kongregate under the Racing and Platformer tags for years and years. He also created its sequal and a few of other games. He had a thriving community in a forum too. Now he's never heard of, presumably doing some job other than game dev.

The creator of Sonny (which had a reference in MARDEK!) did make a mobile game version of Sonny, but his last activity was on 2017. According to some folks in Reddit, he's just busy with life, implying he doesn't have game dev as his full time job.

The creator of Warlords series, which were very popular strategy games, also ceased all activity since 2017, even though his last game has 3 million plays on Kongregate. (MARDEK 3 has 3.5 million)

There were many, many people who made very popular games but then just stopped making games, presumably because life got in the way and they weren't able to have game dev as a full time job. A few still continue, but don't do it full time, like (presumably) Mezzanine Stairs above.

Very few of the old Flash game devs went on to make games full time. The fact that you've been keeping on making games all this time, means you're already better than most of your contemporaries, in that 1) you're still making games and 2) you have a lot more experience, as many of the others didn't or couldn't have had so much time to spend on making games.

So... I think you're actually doing very well! Most people would probably have given up, but you never stopped trying and improving.

On the other hand, I think it would be worth a try to contact the Epic Battle Fantasy guy and ask about the Adobe AIR thing. He seems like a cool guy, I think it'd be quite likely that he'll help you out.

(Since you've asked in another comment)
You can contact him through email, Discord, or other means as seen here: [LINK]

Flagstaff was a pretty good series and well-received on Newgrounds and Kongregate, but the last game the dev released was on 2012 and there's been no activity since.

MezzanineStairs is 2 guys creating the World's End series, one of my favorite Flash game series which they're still making, but they only get $199 per month (for 2 people, so you might as well halve it for a per capita!) in Patreon, which isn't exactly a huge success.

Jiggmin is the creator of the extremely popular Platform Racing 2, which was on the front page of Kongregate under the Racing and Platformer tags for years and years. He also created its sequal and a few of other games. He had a thriving community in a forum too. Now he's never heard of, presumably doing some job other than game dev.

The creator of Sonny (which had a reference in MARDEK!) did make a mobile game version of Sonny, but his last activity was on 2017. According to some folks in Reddit, he's just busy with life, implying he doesn't have game dev as his full time job.

The creator of Warlords series, which were very popular strategy games, also ceased all activity since 2017, even though his last game has 3 million plays on Kongregate. (MARDEK 3 has 3.5 million)

There were many, many people who made very popular games but then just stopped making games, presumably because life got in the way and they weren't able to have game dev as a full time job. A few still continue, but don't do it full time, like (presumably) Mezzanine Stairs above.

Very few of the old Flash game devs went on to make games full time. The fact that you've been keeping on making games all this time, means you're already better than most of your contemporaries, in that 1) you're still making games and 2) you have a lot more experience, as many of the others didn't or couldn't have had so much time to spend on making games.

So... I think you're actually doing very well! Most people would probably have given up, but you never stopped trying and improving.

On the other hand, I think it would be worth a try to contact the Epic Battle Fantasy guy and ask about the Adobe AIR thing. He seems like a cool guy, I think it'd be quite likely that he'll help you out.

(Since you've asked in another comment)
You can contact him through email, Discord, or other means as seen here: http://kupogames.com/about/

Tobias 1115~5Y

This is really valuable to hear, since I've never really kept up with anyone, and of course it's easy to just compare myself to the ones at the top of the mountain because I can't help seeing them.

It's sad, though... I wonder how many of them gave it up just because there was no money in it. All this bright-tailed, bushy-eyed enthusiasm, creativity, and hope we all poured out, which was never sustainable because nobody was willing to pay for any of it. I wonder how things might have gone had Patreon come a decade sooner, so creators could have actually benefitted from it during their brief moment in the sun rather than scrounging for scraps during their descent.

I already gave up games development largely because it wasn't profitable! I went to study Psychology, and only got back into it because of literal brain cancer. So I suppose that's not a common story! It feels like none of the others made the jump to new technology, though? I'm using Unity and 3D now, but it seems like everyone else just rode the Flash train, and got off when it stopped.

It'd be interesting to connect with someone who's still at it, if so few of us are.

This is really valuable to hear, since I've never really kept up with anyone, and of course it's easy to just compare myself to the ones at the top of the mountain because I can't help seeing them.

It's sad, though... I wonder how many of them gave it up just because there was no money in it. All this bright-tailed, bushy-eyed enthusiasm, creativity, and hope we all poured out, which was never sustainable because nobody was willing to pay for any of it. I wonder how things might have gone had Patreon come a decade sooner, so creators could have actually benefitted from it during their brief moment in the sun rather than scrounging for scraps during their descent.

I already gave up games development largely because it wasn't profitable! I went to study Psychology, and only got back into it because of literal brain cancer. So I suppose that's not a common story! It feels like none of the others made the jump to new technology, though? I'm using Unity and 3D now, but it seems like everyone else just rode the Flash train, and got off when it stopped.

It'd be interesting to connect with someone who's still at it, if so few of us are.

Elfangor8~5Y

Well, some (if not most) of them made their first, most popular games, while they were teens... And then life came and they just didn't pursue Game Dev as their main goal in life, I suppose? Mainly because Patreon and other platforms that could have helped came too late (though, in 2017, they existed. But mostly, the golden age of Flash Games was long gone).

As for what you can give to Patreon pledgers: I'd say most of them (and I for one) love to have some behind the scene stuff. Sketches, things you never happened to make because you though it didn't have much of an interest... Things you don't share here because you don't think it's worth it? The main appeal is to see how your project(s) come to life. Well, that's just my input.

I'm already backing you up on Patreon (and I hope you still gain something from it!), so really, anything would be fine by me.

PS: sorry if my english is a little... Rusty. I don't speak (nor write!) english anymore since... Too much time. Truth be told, the most I ever wrote and spoke it was when I was still going to FigHunter!!

PS2: that last bit wasn't here to make you feel bad about shutting FigHunter. If it did, I'm really sorry!

Edit: Also, you could maybe add the names of those who back you up on Patreon somewhere in the credits. Though I wouldn't want it, some people do. Well!

As for what you can give to Patreon pledgers: I'd say most of them (and I for one) love to have some behind the scene stuff. Sketches, things you never happened to make because you though it didn't have much of an interest... Things you don't share here because you don't think it's worth it? The main appeal is to see how your project(s) come to life. Well, that's just my input.

I'm already backing you up on Patreon (and I hope you still gain something from it!), so really, anything would be fine by me.

PS: sorry if my english is a little... Rusty. I don't speak (nor write!) english anymore since... Too much time. Truth be told, the most I ever wrote and spoke it was when I was still going to FigHunter!!

PS2: that last bit wasn't here to make you feel bad about shutting FigHunter. If it did, I'm really sorry!

Edit: Also, you could maybe add the names of those who back you up on Patreon somewhere in the credits. Though I wouldn't want it, some people do. Well!

Tobias 1115~5Y

Interesting; I'll be sure to post that sort of stuff on Patreon if people would be interested (though honestly I don't actually have much of it, since most of what I make is actual game assets). I'm assuming I'll be putting patron names somewhere, though if you don't want it, I'll keep that in mind too!

I consider my Patreon sort of inactive at the moment (I haven't checked on it in ages), but if you're still supporting me regardless, I appreciate that a lot! I'm hoping to do some tidying up in the coming week, after which I'll start posting links to it again and stuff.

The reason I've not checked it in a while is because I'm assuming there are some unpleasant comments there I won't really want to read. Is that true?

Elfangor8~5Y

Sorry, had some problems with my computer. Hard drive is dead. Whatever.

I think you can check without worrying, there's no unpleasant comments at all! But I think many backers have gone over the years. I don't think we have a way to know how many are still backing you, though you should avec access to it.

Have a nice day, I hope it'll be better than the last few I could read on Twitter!

Tobias 1115~5Y

Sorry to hear about your hard drive! I hope you had backups of your important files...

I'm surprised to hear there are no unpleasant comments on my Patreon; someone else mentioned 'toxic comments' on there, so I've been reluctant to check it. If that's not the case, it should be easier for me to see to... when I've got through this wave of depression, at least.

purplerabbits148~5Y

I'm only guessing for the Submachine guy, Mateusz Skutnik, but I think he sells his comic which is amazingly watercoloured, so I think that's where his income may be coming from. It's only a guess, but that's what's been showing up over the years on his blog.

And it seems to be several books that he has made too.

About the fame thing, his case was interesting, because he chose to close off the comments because it was only just positive. Here's the post: [LINK]
I think he's the type of creative that is able to utilize uncertainty into his work and that feeling translates into works that resonates with people.

The EBF guy has a blog kupogames.com. In the about/faq section there is an email address here: [LINK]
I read that you may be worried that he is too busy, from what I can tell from the discord, he's a pretty chill dude and seeing that some days he spends the day playing games at times.

For the achievement thing I think you can put that in later. I remember in an entirely different game, "I can't believe this isn't Gambling," had issues with achievements registering. It was much later that the devs were able to fix it.

Furthermore, I think the EBF guy had also added more achievements to EBF 5 when V2 rolled out.

Don't worry about not replying to everyone, most of us get that you are really busy. With the way how comments are here with the verification, we know for sure that that you do read them.

And it seems to be several books that he has made too.

About the fame thing, his case was interesting, because he chose to close off the comments because it was only just positive. Here's the post: https://www.mateuszskutnik.com/archive/man-vs-comments/
I think he's the type of creative that is able to utilize uncertainty into his work and that feeling translates into works that resonates with people.

The EBF guy has a blog kupogames.com. In the about/faq section there is an email address here: http://kupogames.com/about/
I read that you may be worried that he is too busy, from what I can tell from the discord, he's a pretty chill dude and seeing that some days he spends the day playing games at times.

For the achievement thing I think you can put that in later. I remember in an entirely different game, "I can't believe this isn't Gambling," had issues with achievements registering. It was much later that the devs were able to fix it.

Furthermore, I think the EBF guy had also added more achievements to EBF 5 when V2 rolled out.

Don't worry about not replying to everyone, most of us get that you are really busy. With the way how comments are here with the verification, we know for sure that that you do read them.

Tobias 1115~5Y

Oh wow, that post about receiving too much positive feedback is certainly different to my experiences. It also gives me a clearer idea of how well-known he was, and why that wasn't clear to me just from checking how much feedback he got (he'd been actively shutting it off).

My experience was largely the opposite, where I got so much negative feedback, not so much about my work but about the more social aspects of Fig Hunter etc, which I still cringe about since I ran everything in such a weird way due to my own laundry list of mental issues. The whole negative feedback thing has been on my mind a lot recently, and I've been just assuming it's part of the territory for anyone who finds themselves in the spotlight, dreading having to deal with that again if all this does play out. Maybe some people are just lucky though and end up universally beloved? Or maybe we're not seeing the whole story there, and he just privately shrugs off the seriously mentally ill people who stalk him and threaten him and encroach more than they should into his personal business? Maybe my own candidness and sensitivity about it all is just unusual. I don't know!

Interesting, though; thanks for linking to that. Puts some things into perspective.

From what I can tell, it's not so much that people would want achievements, but that they want the cloud saves thing, or rather they hope that this version of MARDEK will have a more solid save system than the cookies-based version in the original. I might be able to get away with just omitting achievements entirely - I imagine few people would care - but I do need to figure out a way to handle save states better, and it seems to be quite a tricky issue!

My experience was largely the opposite, where I got so much /negative/ feedback, not so much about my work but about the more social aspects of Fig Hunter etc, which I still cringe about since I ran everything in such a weird way due to my own laundry list of mental issues. The whole negative feedback thing has been on my mind a lot recently, and I've been just assuming it's part of the territory for anyone who finds themselves in the spotlight, dreading having to deal with that again if all this does play out. Maybe some people are just lucky though and end up universally beloved? Or maybe we're not seeing the whole story there, and he just privately shrugs off the seriously mentally ill people who stalk him and threaten him and encroach more than they should into his personal business? Maybe my own candidness and sensitivity about it all is just unusual. I don't know!

Interesting, though; thanks for linking to that. Puts some things into perspective.

From what I can tell, it's not so much that people would want achievements, but that they want the cloud saves thing, or rather they hope that this version of MARDEK will have a more solid save system than the cookies-based version in the original. I might be able to get away with just omitting achievements entirely - I imagine few people would care - but I do need to figure out a way to handle save states better, and it seems to be quite a tricky issue!

vladandrei199647~5Y

I'm happy to hear you're still making progress on the re-release, MARDEK would be a beast of a game to play in the quarantine.

I hope you'll reach out for help and find a way to implement achievements and cloud saves, that would be the big advantage over the free versions on kongregate and fighunter.

If - and I say IF - you can overcome this obstacle and implement steam achievements, I hope you'll take the time to add some new ones over the ones on kongregate, those were few and not very intriguing to aim for.

Just a suggestion, you could add various achievements for unlocking new playable characters (Legion was an achievement in itself), for finding/unlocking some end-game item (Champion Sword, Drackal Crescent and so on) and completing sidequests. I'd like to see a hidden achievement for beating the Security Demon, I beat it once and it felt pretty rewarding.

That being said, I'm looking forward to buy MARDEK and play it again. Wish you health and luck, Tobias!

Astreon152~5Y

Yes, true that the way saves worked was a bit frustrating.

Apparently, the saves don't work at all on Kongregate now.

They do work on crazymonkey (maybe because the site asks you to allow saves beforehand), but you can't carry them over from one game to the next (though the site identifies it as a "save from another game").

And Mardek 3 isn't on there :(

Ah, well, i won't be able to play neither the reimagining nor the reupload on steam anyway, so i'll just 100% complete chapter 2. Was my fav anyways :)

Elfangor8~5Y

Well, I just 100% Mardek 3 in late March, so I can tell you saves do work on Kongregate. If you're playing with Chrome, you should find them in :

C:-Users-User_Name-AppData-Local-Google-Chrome-User Data-Default-Pepper Data-Shockwave Flash-WritableRoot-#SharedObjects-randomstring-chat.kongregate.com

Where User_Name is the Name you gave to your session on your computer and randomstring is a... Well, randomstring of 8 characters. The "-" are slashes, but they don't appear in comments?

You'll have .sol files in there, namely MARDEKv3_master, _options and sg_x, the later being your save(s).

If you use any other browser, I don't really know. Sorry!

Hope it helps!

Astreon152~5Y

Thanks for the tip !

I only tried 1 and 2 on Kongregate, and switched to crazymonkey when the saves didn't work.

I'll probably go back to Kongregate for nÂ°3 then, since the other site doesn't host it anyways.

Though not carrying over saves from a game to another is a bit painful, considering the time it takes to learn skills.

Elfangor8~5Y

You should be able to get your crazymonkey saves in the same way if you're using Chrome. it's jsut the last part (chat.kongregate.com) which should be crazymonkey-something. I've never played there, but it should be the same. All flash games save in these folders!

Maniafig222~5Y

Seems I'm a bit late to this one.

Good to hear you've made some progress on porting MARDEK over! I'm quite sure the costs of getting the game to Steam will be refunded with the sales you can make once you've got things settled. It'll be nice to be able to play MARDEK without the save data hiccups.

I'm also guessing the in-game medals in chapter 3 will be good achievement fodder, as well as other stuff from MARDEK 1 & 2 like Meraeador's chapter 1 sidequest and the Zombie Dragon and Cambrian arena in chapter 2.

I've seen Submachine a lot on Kongregate's front pages, it seems to have many episodes, at least over a dozen or so, and they always rated well. I've never been fond of most point-and-click adventure games on Kong though, most had a lot of pixel hunting and trial-and-error puzzles that require reading the dev's mind. Maybe the Submachine games are different though? Sometimes I still go to Kong to check out what's on there, but it's a whole lot of idle games and sponsored online games these days. Alas.

Like others have pointed out, many of your past contemporaries have given up on the scene entirely it appears, so in a way you've actually outlasted most of the competition!

Seems I'm a bit late to this one.

Good to hear you've made some progress on porting MARDEK over! I'm quite sure the costs of getting the game to Steam will be refunded with the sales you can make once you've got things settled. It'll be nice to be able to play MARDEK without the save data hiccups.

I'm also guessing the in-game medals in chapter 3 will be good achievement fodder, as well as other stuff from MARDEK 1 & 2 like Meraeador's chapter 1 sidequest and the Zombie Dragon and Cambrian arena in chapter 2.

I've seen Submachine a lot on Kongregate's front pages, it seems to have many episodes, at least over a dozen or so, and they always rated well. I've never been fond of most point-and-click adventure games on Kong though, most had a lot of pixel hunting and trial-and-error puzzles that require reading the dev's mind. Maybe the Submachine games are different though? Sometimes I still go to Kong to check out what's on there, but it's a whole lot of idle games and sponsored online games these days. Alas.

Like others have pointed out, many of your past contemporaries have given up on the scene entirely it appears, so in a way you've actually outlasted most of the competition!

purplerabbits148~5Y

I personally like the Submachine games because it starts out with a relatively simple point and click puzzle. But as the iterations go on, an entire world comes into existance and becomes more of an exploration that has puzzles. I believe that the series is complete with 10 main game entries and 3 short side games.