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Porting Old Flash Games... For Real This Time!?! AFC, CBC, etc
2 years ago1,898 words
I've written about porting my old Flash games several times in the past, but nothing ever comes of it. Will the intention actually bear fruit this time?? I've just got a port of AFC working, so...!

It's embarrassing looking through my old blog posts and seeing how often I declare intentions then fail to deliver. They're never meant as lies, but I disappoint myself by failing to achieve what I'd like to, and would be capable of if not for mental illness. I suppose that's the story of my entire life though.

I was probably talking about porting MARDEK for months or years without doing so, though, and then I did, and it's on Steam now! It continues to earn hundreds of pounds a month, too, to my continued surprise.

I've talked recently about doing a port of AFC, and I've actually spent the past two or three days working on that in earnest. Or at least working on some kind of wrapper app like I made for MARDEK; I've barely touched the game itself.

And I've made good progress with it! Got past the major barriers I thought were in the way of porting my old games! Like:



Apparently I ∞ wrote a post 8 months ago ∞ about porting these old games, but felt like I'd run into a wall when my new computer didn't have some 'COM Component' thing or whatever on it, and as such I couldn't include Flash games in Windows Forms like I thought I had with the MARDEK port. Looks like I was in a poor mood at the time (unusual, I know), and apparently interpreted that as a sign I should just give up and get back to plodding away at Atonal Dreams. I kept it at the back of my mind as the reason porting might not even be possible, or at least the effort to do so was greater than it was worth.

Now that I've looked into it again, though, that's not even how I went about it with the MARDEK port! Or at least I think I tried that at first, but eventually I just ended up using an exe published from the Flash development program (first Macromedia Flash, then Adobe Flash, now Adobe Animate). No need for the COM Component thing at all.

Another snag though was that I had to dig up old versions of Flash (CS3 and CS4, for example), but they wouldn't open the old projects for reasons unknown. They gave a 'filetype not recognised' error, as if the files had been edited in a later version and as such wouldn't work in earlier ones.

I knew I'd have to get Animate, the program that Flash has become, but frustratingly you have to give your payment details to sign up for a subscription before you can even download a free trial... So I was reluctant.

I bit the bullet this morning though and signed up for the damn subscription. Hopefully the ticking timer will encourage me to do what I need to with it quickly so then I can cancel before the first month or two are up.



So that was all good and fine... though I still had to bugger around with this Windows Forms thing. Basically it's a way of creating simple Windows apps which I imagine is mostly used in non-entertainment sectors, and I'm not even sure whether it's what I should be using at all.

I used it for MARDEK though because Flash games were made using fixed resolutions, and I was able to use it to load in the MARDEK exe and display a centred version at sizes that'd work with the pixel art without creating distortions.

Having a basic 'fullscreen' option wouldn't be feasible, and having a purely windowed version with a taskbar and everything felt very amateurish!

I tried just copying over the exact Windows Forms code I used for the MARDEK port... but it didn't work, for reasons I've already forgotten. I tried remaking it from scratch, but kept running into issues - one of which was the basic code I'd just written being interpreted as a virus, not just by my antivirus software but by Visual Studio (the code editor) itself - and I had to keep restarting from scratch, figuring everything out along the way since it's something I have next to no experience with. Very frustrating.

Fiiiinally, though, I got it all working, and now I have an exe which launches this:


The NOTE FROM THE DEVELOPER bit - which I also had for MARDEK - isn't finished here.


So essentially the same as the MARDEK one, though I took the time to style the buttons and things this time so it doesn't look like a basic Windows popup (though I can imagine having to revert this due to functionality issues on different PCs or something).

It's not ideal, as for example you can either play the game in a tiny window that leaves a ton of empty space around it, or a 1088-pixel-tall one which is 8 pixels more than the usual 1080 resolution height, and I can't do anything about that because everything in the game is fixed to the 800 x 544 dimensions, ugh...

But it works, at least. It's been interesting playing around with the game with what feels like a more 'proper game experience' presentation! (As opposed to in a tiny Windows window or on some website surrounded by sleazy adverts.)



So what next? What I have here could potentially be released as-is, though I know there are some (minor?) things that I should fix or tweak. I'm interested in specific feedback about that from those of you who've played AFC; a list I can work through, ideally.

I also think that I can use this to port at least some of my games without too much difficulty. I probably could have done that when I ported MARDEK, actually, and it's annoying that I didn't just do it back then. Oh well; better late than never.

What I'm thinking is something like this:



Clarence's Big Chance


I talked about porting this a while ago, but... obviously didn't. But maybe I should, as a standalone thing? I did actually release it back in the day, so there's more of a chance that people other than the few who follow me might actually have heard of it.

It's quite different to anything else that I've made, and I worry that the humour in it is inappropriate, but I'll be Clarence's age myself in a couple of weeks so I like the idea of the port lining up roughly with that. Plus I replayed it not-too-long ago and I think the gameplay holds up as much as any old emulated platformer.

I'd also be curious to try 'promoting' it on Reddit, though not to the degree I'd want to for Atonal Dreams. Good practice, though, potentially, and maybe the less serious subject matter would mean it'd hurt less if it wasn't well-received than it would for something I'm more personally invested in.


Alora Fane: Creation


Unlike CBC, this one will require a bit more fiddling around with to get it to a releasable state, so it makes sense to delay it a bit, maybe. It also feels like it'd deserve a release by itself.



I'm not sure what to do with my other games, though.

None of them are finished, though some have a lot more gameplay made than others.

I personally divide them into two distinct phases: the pre-MARDEK Fig Hunter period, when I was still figuring things out and my output was fairly derivative, and post-MARDEK, where I came up with the Alora Fane world and started exploring more spiritual and idiosyncratic themes.

I suspect other people are far more interested in the former than the latter, though the reverse is true for me. The latter games were also made in AS3, which means fewer technical hurdles than the earlier ones which were made in AS2.

Two games from the post-MARDEK period stand out to me in particular as worthy of some kind of putting-out-there:


Taming Dreams,


and Miasmon.

Neither are worth their own release though because they're not finished, and I have no intention of finishing them. But what I did finish of them is relatively polished; there are probably a few hours of gameplay in each one.

I considered an 'Alora Fane Collection' which would include those together with:


Yden,


and Chamaeleon,

but I know that nobody cares about those. Even I usually forget they exist! They're probably the sorts of things I'm very content to just leave in the past.


Other games that I could potentially port are:


Fig Hunter, my earliest and most amateurish game which inspired later efforts like MARDEK;


Deliverance, which I suppose was a successor to Fig Hunter and predecessor to MARDEK;


Beast Signer, a Pokemon clone;


Fig Hunter Online, a not-actually-online tactical thing with some inspirations from D&D, with little content;


Raider, a sci-fi Metroidvania (hmm, from before every indie was doing those) which I mostly finished, but not quite;


a pixelated remake of Raider which I usually forget I ever made, but which I actually released two levels of (there's also a third level fully made except for its cutscenes and boss);


Super Mega Extreme Cyber Ortek Flier 2005 X, an absurdly-named... whatever this genre is called (side-scrolling on-rails shooter or something?) which I regard as barely even a game but which a couple of people have expressed interest in recently for some baffling reason.


I could see all of those being released as something like a 'Fig Hunter Games Collection', maybe? Though I wonder whether people would actually want to pay for things that were unfinished.

I know some other Flash devs released collections of their old games like this, but I never played any; did they include finished games only, or unfinished projects like these?

I don't know if there's any precedent for anything like this. It feels wrong to me putting out unfinished work with no intention of completing it. But I'd hope the whole point would be to spark nostalgia, and even these unfinished essentially-demos would be enough.

(Hmm, recently I looked into some old DOS games I played as a child, which had a free first episode and two paid ones, though I'd never played the paid ones as a child so just experiencing the free one was enough of a nostalgia fix even if I wasn't able to see the entire work as intended by the creators.)



All this is something I'll need to sort out over the following days/weeks/blog posts/whatever, but any thoughts at this point about how you'd want to see these? What you'd be willing to pay for, etc, and how much you'd be willing to pay, too.

I hate the thought of trying to milk money out of things, but I'm earning so little right now that the thought of releasing them for free absolutely wouldn't be worth the effort I'll need to put in to port them.

19 COMMENTS

Comment awaiting approval
Maniafig222~2Y
Hooray, AFC!!

There's various things that need tweaking, and some actual bugs that definitely need fixing. I'll make a list!

-Architecture: A frequent thing I ran into with people I collaborated with when making a quest is how some tilesets have a very sporadic set of architecture. For example, you can't put skeletons in temple rooms, indoors or forest areas. There's a lot of good architecture that's limited to specific rooms.

-Mhandisi Men & Women have functional sprites, but unfinished customization

-Varnyn Men& Women have customization, but no functional sprites and aren't implemented

-No Poshgoblins, humbug!

-Dragons don't have functional battle animations, otherwise functional

-There's a battle bug where casting a status spell against an entire party fails if one of the targets isn't an applicable target, like if you cast Dragonblade on a party where one person had Dragonblade but two don't, it just fails on them all.

-The Sensibly AI doesn't function well with AoE abilities

-A missing Action in Conversations that makes an NPC "Face [North/South/East/West]" would be useful

-There's probably a metric ton of problems with Become Player and Transform! I know that Transform has an issue where the character's name changes, but the dialogue portrait doesn't.

-An action to play a VFX and a soundbank for VFX would be nice to have for cutscenes. Spellflashes can only do so much! [Spellflash Lionblade is useful for suggesting BLOOD, to my frequent and bemused use.]

-I mentioned this in the previous blog, but there's an issue where you talk with an NPC with split dialogue in a plot state, then talk to them in a later plot state again and if they have a new dialogue in this other plot state, it's buggy and doesn't play the dialogue correctly.

-Saving and loading resets all splits in general, which can easily break quests or make them unwinnable.

-It'd be nice if you put in some of the Music you have on your Bandcamp that's not in the game.

-There's one really annoying and gamebreaking bug where if you don't properly drag an entity like an NPC into a conversation, it completely bricks the quest, and if you save over it, the quest's basically permanently broken and untestable, editable or playable! Meaning someone has to constantly test a quest to see if it's not broken and save, and never save before testing...

-We got one bug in our collaborative quest where the player character isn't the player character. I don't know how or why that happened, I only know that it happened, somehow.

-Sometimes cutscenes kinda get stuck or hang on a black screen if too many actions are queued up sequentially, I think.

-Did you know you can equip someone with an item, then change that item manually and they'd be equipped with impossible things?! You can equip armor in the sword slot. Or a key! Or a Consumable in the Spells slot! That last one actually works, too!!

You can see a lot of these bugs in the Go North quest I sent you! That quest also in general just has a lot of content and editor trickery and doing things in ways you probably didn't intend.

Clarence: Yes
AFC: Yes
Taming Dreams: Yes
Chamaeleon: Yes
Raider: Yes
Raider Zero: Yes
3
Tobias 1115~2Y
Thanks for the specific things I can look into... though there are more than I thought, so that's quite disheartening. I don't really want to get back into developing AFC again, since it's been so long since I worked on it - and with Flash code in general - and it'd take too long to figure things out and then to actually fix them. Kind of like the thought of having to do an exam tomorrow for a uni course from 5 years ago where I've forgotten most of the content and my mind's in a completely different place, or something.

I'd much rather tidy it up to a point where any overt issues are fixed (one you didn't mention is that a couple of equipment items I made for Caoimhe don't exist for men, which are broken in a way you can see easily if they're randomly assigned to characters on the title screen), get it out of the way, then work on the 3D Dreamons thing, which I could maybe convert into (or at least treat as) some kind of 'AFC 2' or something.

I also wonder how many of these issues arise from straying too far from the tool's intended functionality. I suspect that any game or tool that allows player customisation breaks if pushed way beyond what the developers intended (kind of like how in Skyrim you can forge equipment that boosts damage by 154245636% or whatever while only using valid mechanics) because it's just not feasible to accommodate every wild idea players might have... unless you're making something like Dwarf Fortress which is all about having something for every possible eventuality, though things like that take years to make, and I don't personally have any interest in making such a thing anyway.

Regarding some of the specific things you mentioned:

- If I were to make the game again, architecture wouldn't be tileset-dependent; I've been thinking a lot with Dreamons about going about this in a much better way from the start, since it's pretty much impossible to change once things are made with the current system. At most I could copy some existing architecture pieces (eg skeletons) into some other tilesets where they might be needed most, but even then I'm not sure whether that's actually possible since I've not worked with the code in so long.

- Re Mhandisi and Varnyn/Sindrels, I don't know which version you have, but in the one I've been working with, the latter two races are already removed and I haven't noticed any obvious issues with the Mhandisi. Is it just a lack of options, or are they actually broken in some way?

- I don't want to add any other creatures at this point. I can't even remember how to draw vector art in Flash! I'm concerned about the two broken equipment pieces for this reason, and will likely just remove one (Travel Coat?) and... try to figure out something for the other (which is necessary to include for the Caoimhe quest).

- I also can't remember how to animate in Flash, so I don't know what to do about dragons.

- I could at the very least look into how I might add a Face [direction] action, but with the Transform and Become Player ones, if they're that badly broken I'd rather just remove them.

- I definitely won't be adding a VFX action at this point for this. Things of that magnitude would have to wait for Dreamons/AFC 2/whatever.

- I'm not looking forward to investigating the split issue, but it seems like an important one so I'll at least try.

- I listened to the soundtrack - including extra music - while working on this the other day and wondered whether some pieces were finished enough to include in the game. I'll have to see if I can figure out how, though; I will only if it's not too difficult.

- You said:

"There's one really annoying and gamebreaking bug where if you don't properly drag an entity like an NPC into a conversation, it completely bricks the quest, and if you save over it, the quest's basically permanently broken and untestable, editable or playable!"

This one's concerning, but I also don't know exactly what you mean! What specifically would I have to do to reproduce it? Do you mean if you let go in the wrong place or something? Is there something you have to be hovering over for the issue to happen?

- Under what circumstances would you even want a long chain of conversation actions? That's the sort of thing I'm considering 'pushing the engine beyond intended limits' though and won't be looking into.

- Does that item issue specifically apply to custom items, so for example you'd create one with a base item of a weapon, equip it, then change the base item? That should have a fairly straightforward fix... if I were familiar with the code, but I'm not, so I'm wondering whether I can do anything about it at this point. I suppose with things like that, though, it's not as if they disturb 'normal play' in an annoying way; if you break something by doing that, it was basically your own fault!

Now hopefull I'll remember to check back on this when it comes time to fixing things...
1
Maniafig222~2Y
How silly, I forgot about those two broken pieces of equipment! Despite them constantly appearing on the literal main menu like you said! In the worst case you could maybe just copy over the black robe look if a man equips the Sorcerous Robes. Maybe the same for the Travel Coat and Painter Smock, replaced with the Brown Tunic and Green Tunic respectively, since I think those are also broken for Men.

Mhandisi are functional, but IIRC things like hair colour changing don't work properly on their sprites, and in my version the Mhandisi Man afro and bald hairdos have their associated sprites inverted. Varnyn also aren't in my version, but I am aware of their general existence! They have funny facial customization options.

Become Player and Transform still mostly work if someone's not trying anything too complex, so I don't think they need to be deleted, I think they're just easy to mess things up with if someone was making a complex quest. I know someone actually tried making a quest where you can choose your protagonist using those actions!

I'm having a hard time reproducing the bug, I'll need to get back to you about it later when I figure it out. It's the biggest hurdle in the game right now, I'd say!

Our quest is full of parts where there's just a chunk of actions! That's because we liked adding ~cinematic flair~ to our quests, which is how we got stuff like using the dialogue system for:
-Dance battles
-Anime morph sequences
-Card game trials
-Platforming
-Gratuitous dice rolling
-Just a whole lot of characters walking around and facing each other in general

Here's an example of a scene where two characters fuse into one: [LINK]

Or just some of these cutscenes in art quest [I still like this whole sequence!]:
[LINK]

The 'bug' [it's more of an exploit] only works with custom items, and it doesn't exactly break anything. Something similar that's possible is putting invisible signs on something and then changing the sign to a door, or a waypoint, letting you put doors in objects like trees [treehollows!!] or warp people into architecture.

There's a whole other bunch of tricks like that which don't break anything but aren't intended either. Someone else figured out they could use the quest state to add branching and unbranching paths into a quest, for example! I think it's not how robust the system actually is, despite the simple uses you probably had in mind for them. That's half the fun of the engine for me!
1
MontyCallay101~2Y
It would be great (and possibly just on the edge of what you could still implement) if you added Steam Workshop integration to AFC. Otherwise, you just have the creator without access to a lot of shared maps, or the means to easily share yours. If that was there, you could justify a small price tag, I think. Maybe that could even be a launching pad of some sort - a demo - for your current project.

You've asked this question regarding the modalities of re-releasing your older projects a few times now, so I don't really have that many additional thoughts to add anymore!

I'd almost be inclined to say you should release the old, entirely unfinished group of games as a bundle for free - giving you publicity and perhaps driving more traffic to your newer projects in the process. Then again, the fact that they aren't representative of your current content and most likely will be most interesting to nostalgic fans makes me think that you could perhaps try to build a more cohesive collection for a higher price tag, perhaps in the 5-10$ range, oriented towards those who are specifically interested in your creative history, maybe providing extra content in the form of some of the games/drawings you still had in your "My Story" posts. I would actually include the Miasmon remake there, for all it's worth, perhaps as an example of how your writing style etc. changed. Out of all of these, doing this one right might require the most effort. I feel like just putting these out there as a bundle with a low price tag so people can get to them would almost be a wasted opportunity!

I have trouble categorising Taming Dreams, since it's both really good AND unfinished, so while it might not feel suitable for a separate release, it would really stand out if mixed in with the rest! So I have no idea here. Similarly with the Raider games, which are finished but might be the least interesting out of all of these for fans (though I have no idea if that is true).

I don't think releasing something like CBC would clash with your other projects stylistically - I would absolutely buy that for $3, and it's a great game! While it may have been released at a different stage of your artistic and personal development (as MARDEK was) I think it certainly is able to stand on its own, which I think people will be able to appreciate, considering that it was released a fairly long time ago. And I can't imagine a Steam release of that would require much effort!
1
Tobias 1115~2Y
The ports will take a non-trivial amount of time and effort, and even more if I include extras, so I'm unwilling to put in that time and effort for 'exposure'.

I'm definitely concerned about the 'lost opportunity' aspect; probably the main reason I've been so indecisive for so long. It's why I considered doing two collections (Fig Hunter Games and Alora Fane Games), with things like soundtracks bundled in, but it's so hard to decide because it's a lot of stuff, years of work, but it's also not finished stuff so... ehh.

It's not a nice feeling, looking back over years of your life, trying to determine how much it's actually worth, and concluding 'probably not much'.

Since I feel so conflicted about CBC, I wasn't expecting to charge much, but when written down, $3 just seems so... paltry, considering how big of a chunk of that is taken away by various fees (I'd get like $1) and how few copies it's likely to sell anyway. MARDEK is $9.99, which I thought might be way too much considering it's been out for free for so long, but it's sold many more copies than I expected, and continues to do so. I think the price for things like this is different than for buying most games because it's a show of support and appreciation for something with nostalgic value, maybe?

I'm thinking of posting about CBC on r/gamedev or something, not so much as an advert, but the story behind it and questions about how - or even if - I should port it. I'd be curious to hear what people beyond this website would be willing to pay for such a thing.

Oh, there's also the fact that Steam charges $100 for the privilege of adding a game to sell at all.
0
MontyCallay101~2Y
I personally wouldn't expect to make all too much out of these re-releases financially - especially not to the degree that the MARDEK re-releases were successful. I'm really unsure whether the Fig Hunter brand is anywhere near as strong as the MARDEK brand was. I would consider veering more in the direction of focusing on personal brand-building, if that doesn't sound too insincere. I may be too pessimistic here though.

AFC and CBC have the virtues of being complete experiences. CBC has some kind of nostalgia factor associated with it (though nowhere near MARDEK levels, sadly) and AFC doesn't really. Maybe it's unsurprising that there's still quite a few people here who remember it - anyone who did was invariably in the small number of beta testers and has stuck with you until this day. This makes onboarding people to AFC somewhat difficult unless you can really sell them on it, though. It might make sense to do these re-releases at the same time (or at least kind of) so that people getting back into CBC can also look at some of your other stuff. I don't know of any collections of unfinished games, unfortunately.

Being worried about just doing things "for exposure" is a good idea to some extent - business relationships shouldn't pay "in exposure" - and yet working for exposure is precisely what you're doing when you're thinking about things like marketing yourself. Sometimes exposure unfortunately is the point.

Let me say, however, that CBC absolutely stands on its own merits in terms of its content - we can wonder all day about whether it's 3$ or 5$ or 59.99$, but it's still a wonderful experience in its own right. Personally, when I play CBC, the game just radiates joy. From the irreverent humour to the radiant music, it is quite evident that you made this during a time in your life when things really seemed to be lining up for you.

Thinking about it again - I wrote the thing about 3$ two years ago in my last comment - given inflation, it might as well be 5$ for all it's worth! These things sadly aren't objective "appraisals of value", but just my estimations about how you might sell the most copies. I personally would be more inclined to pick it up mindlessly at 3$ rather than 5$, since I already have the game saved and can play it any time I want - if I want to donate to your Patreon I can just do that! To be fair, demand for CBC re-releases is probably somewhat price inelastic.

At this point, worrying about how exactly to go about things due to the 'lost opportunity aspect' feels secondary from a financial standpoint - if you make 1000£ more or less from re-selling your other old games seems less important to me than the question of whether you can attract attention to your current projects or can find a different source of stable income, if you're worried about that sort of thing. Anxiety about appraising your past gets you no further in the present, alas.

What are your worries about how you should port CBC? To be honest, it should be even more straightforward than MARDEK - the save transfer between games isn't a factor, you could probably just put the game in a container and sell that even without any kind of Windows Forms menu.
1
Passingby1231~2Y
I quite liked the Raider games, I didn't know you nearly finished the third chapter.
I'm curious, do you have a rough idea of what your plans were for the story in the unreleased chapters?
If you don't mind sharing.
1
Tobias 1115~2Y
Annoyingly, a lot of plans I made around the time I made Raider were in physical notepads that I've long since lost, and all I can really remember is some vague mental image of some Indiana Jones lookalike guy who'd play a role in the third level... but I don't remember what that role was, or anything.

I could look into my old files at some point and include any related plans with any collections that I released, like I did with MARDEK. If I even have digital versions, that is.
1
astralwolf92~2Y
Is AFC the one where you get to design your own quests?
0
Tobias 1115~2Y
I've written several recent blog posts that answer this.
0
astralwolf92~2Y
Well, I can’t remember. If it is, that and CBC would be what I’d be looking forward to purchase. In Malaysia, games on Steam usually sell for half their US counterpart (lower purchasing power), so RM 15.
0
PierceWickstorm29~2Y
I've played almost all of these (except for Yden, Chameleon, Fighunter and Fighunter Online), but I can tell you I do want to play them. If there is one thing I know about your work: It's that I will enjoy it regardless of whether or not it is finished. Whatever you bring out once more, I will play no matter what.

As for tweaks for Alora Fane: Creation, there's only 3 I can think of. The Dragons are super glitchy when they attack, the targeting system is kind of awkward since it only seems to target the enemies, and the fact that you can't see HP when it's past 1000. Other than those, I don't really have any problems with it.
1
Tobias 1115~2Y
I appreciate your interest!

Re AFC, I know about the dragon animations, and the HP greater than 999 showing as ??? was intentional, but I'm not sure what you mean about the targeting system since I had no issues selecting the targets I wanted while testing recently. Could you give me a specific scenario for reproducing the issue?
0
Comment awaiting approval
360K11~2Y
I'd certainly be interested in pretty much all of the stuff you've mentioned here, though I would say that Taming Dreams, AFC and Clarence's Big Chance are the three I'd most like to see, partially because those are all games I heard about when they were in development but never got around to playing for various reasons. Also, all three of them just sound like a lot of fun.

It might be worth putting together some sort of "History of Mardek" pack with Fig Hunter, Deliverance and Taming Dreams. MARDEK is definitely your best-known game, after all, and while I can't speak for anyone else I would definitely be interested in seeing the various "versions" of it that came before and after and how they (hopefully!) led from Mardek to your upcoming games.

Clarence and AFC could definitely each be sold on their own, at least once they're fixed up a bit. As for the rest, it would probably make sense to put them together as some sort of bundle and just make it clear that they aren't finished and that it's more of a nostalgic/historic thing for people who played them as Flash games (or who just like those sorts of older browser games).

I'd probably be willing to pay about $10 for each of those things, same as Mardek, though I suspect I'm in the minority. $5-$7 for most stuff would probably be reasonable, although AFC and the collection of various pre- and post-MARDEK games might sell reasonably well at $10.

Anyway, I hope all this stuff does end up going on Steam sooner or later!
1
RedHalo30007~2Y
Deliverance and Beast Signer : )
0
ZeroFarad3~2Y
Although I did enjoy Deliverance back in its day, I'm personally much more interested in the post-Mardek games. I really liked Taming Dreams, and I would be willing to pay up to around $10 (USD) for more permanent access to it. (Obviously I'd pay more if we could have new chapters, but then that's just Atonal Dreams, which I'm already planning to buy as soon as you release it.)

Clarence's Big Chance never appealed to me and I'd skip buying it. I'm less sure about the other projects – probably it'd come down to whether they felt cheap enough for an impulse buy.

On Steam, you can also have bundles of several games at a slight discount; that could be a way to encourage people to pick up all of your ports rather than just one, without giving up the sales of the individual cheap games.
1
Rubydoobie1~2Y
I absolutely adored Beast Signer, I never saw it as just a Pokémon clone, it definitely had a few unique and really enticing hooks. The breeding/merging mechanic was great and I loved the post apocalyptic/virtual world setting.

The game series I've fantasised about making is a trilogy where the first game is a more traditional turn based RPG in a modern setting where you play as a group of special forces members in the months preceding a global war followed by another game with a more Fire Emblem/X-com combat system during the war itself followed by the last game which would've post nuclear holocaust, mostly set in a virtual world with virtual monster companions but with sections taking place outside of it using traditional combat.

I also loved Deliverance but that's probably because I love Star Ocean 2. I don't know how much you could monetise unfinished games but if you're releasing new games on Steam in the future you could tack them on as additional content?

Personally I'd have loved to have seen Beast Signer (and Deliverance for that matter) be continued, especially with Pokémon being so filled with fluff these days, of every Pokémon-like game I've played it showed the most potential but I get that it was incredibly ambitious as far as the number of beasts in the game and maybe you didn't feel particularly inspired. Loved being able to buy Mardek on Steam, great burst of nostalgia and I'm glad to see that there's been a slow burn since the release rather than just a burst of sales at the start from people in the know, hopefully people who never played it back in the day are discovering it for the first time.
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