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6D7F736D757B726A71701E0 wrote: I'm terribly sorry to hear that, Vern. I just wonder if- Maybe after raising a little extra money- if you might consider investing in advertisement for the games you've made. They're all fantastic- Well programmed, very aesthetic, and fun to play. I think if you just got it out there, you'd start to really see some good income. Granted, I'm not sure how you'd get it out there, but I'd really love to see your games flourish as I think they should be. Porting MM to an ipod/ipad is an excellent move, I think. I'll certainly pass the word next time someone asks me for advice on what to buy for their iPod.
Personally, I don't think MM (in its current form) is a good fit for iPod/iPhone but perhaps for iPad. The talk of making the game available for iPod/iPhone makes me think a little bit about this thread: Midnight Mansion 3 - your opinion wanted!, and that maybe Vern's ideas would have been better suited for those smaller platforms. It just seems like some of the more successful games for those platforms tend to be smaller, or at least broken down into smaller sections, more puzzle-oriented, and generally something that you might play for shorter periods of time.
6D7F736D757B726A71701E0 wrote:
I'm not sure how this works, exactly, but is there any way you could get your game on that Steam program? That has all those video games you can buy? I think that would be another way to help get it noticed, I've noticed that becoming very popular with people who play video games on their computer.
Good idea, and he tried after he did the Windows port. MM HD was rejected as being unsuitable without feedback as to why. They did encourage him to submit other games there, though.
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Hey Amplified, thanks for the kind words.
465458465E5059415A5B350 wrote: I'm terribly sorry to hear that, Vern. I just wonder if- Maybe after raising a little extra money- if you might consider investing in advertisement for the games you've made. They're all fantastic- Well programmed, very aesthetic, and fun to play. I think if you just got it out there, you'd start to really see some good income. Granted, I'm not sure how you'd get it out there, but I'd really love to see your games flourish as I think they should be.
I tried that in the past years ago. I always broke even or lost money. Advertising is quite expensive, and while it was hard to guage just how many additional sales an advertising campaign brought in, it never seemed to bring in much, and breaking even was the best it ever did (i.e. if I spent $300 on banner ads at Inside Mac Games, I'd get, tops, $300 additional sales.) That means $0 profit, and yet more customers to support. Not good.
I'd tried advertising at download.com (pay-per-click), Google, and Tidbits in addition to InsideMacGames. Other game developers will tell you a similar story. Only if a game is *really* good, and would get tons of sales anyway, does advertising pay off. (i.e. Angry Birds, or Brian Greenstone's games, etc.)
465458465E5059415A5B350 wrote: I'm not sure how this works, exactly, but is there any way you could get your game on that Steam program? That has all those video games you can buy? I think that would be another way to help get it noticed, I've noticed that becoming very popular with people who play video games on their computer.
That was my intent when I ported Midnight Mansion HD to Windows. Because they won't accept any games that are Mac-only. So I ported it. And then submitted it. It was flatly rejected, along with Our policy is to not explain why a product was rejected.
As you can imagine, I was disappointed. I've sold probably less than 100 copies of Midnight Mansion HD for Windows. With Steam distribution, I'm sure I would've done much better. So it was quite disappointing that they rejected it, despite the fact that they carry lots of indy titles. Very odd and frustrating. Yet it was mounting frustrations like this that helped me realize I need to get a day job. You just can't sustain a business when the doors keep getting closed in you face. (BigFishGames also rejected the game several years ago.)
The odd thing is Steam *did* accept Insectoid a few years ago. But it sold so badly in the first place that I never went through the additional work to get it onto Steam.
-Vern
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714C4170464644464F230 wrote: Personally, I don't think MM (in its current form) is a good fit for iPod/iPhone but perhaps for iPad. The talk of making the game available for iPod/iPhone makes me think a little bit about this thread: Midnight Mansion 3 - your opinion wanted!, and that maybe Vern's ideas would have been better suited for those smaller platforms. It just seems like some of the more successful games for those platforms tend to be smaller, or at least broken down into smaller sections, more puzzle-oriented, and generally something that you might play for shorter periods of time.
Yes, I agree completely. I don't expect Midnight Mansion HD to do very well on iPad / iPhone for this very reason. The top games have a number of things in common:
1) Controls that take advantage of the ability to touch the screen or tilt to control (i.e. NOT overlaid controls)
2) Designed specifically for iPhone / iPad, with new features that wouldn't be possible on a normal desktop computer
3) Gameplay that you can get into immediately, play for 1-3 minutes and have fun, and then stop. Great for while you're waiting for the Mac to start up, or for the elevator to arrive.
4) Memorable characters, very easy to play, yet still fun / challenging.
Midnight Mansion fails on almost all counts. It's not positioned well to be a top-seller on iPad / iPhone. Yet Rob, I can tell you that the iPhone version actually DOES work pretty darn well -- better than you'd expect, and is actually more fun (imo) than the iPad version, because holding the iPad in a way that lets you control it with D-pad style controls is more awkward.
Part of this is that I added a lot to the iPhone version to make it work well on that device. The screen actually scrolls so that Jack is never under a D-pad button. It's pretty smooth and intuitive, so you almost don't even notice it.
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7F4C5B47634C475A4C47290 wrote:
Midnight Mansion fails on almost all counts. It's not positioned well to be a top-seller on iPad / iPhone. Yet Rob, I can tell you that the iPhone version actually DOES work pretty darn well -- better than you'd expect, and is actually more fun (imo) than the iPad version, because holding the iPad in a way that lets you control it with D-pad style controls is more awkward.
Part of this is that I added a lot to the iPhone version to make it work well on that device. The screen actually scrolls so that Jack is never under a D-pad button. It's pretty smooth and intuitive, so you almost don't even notice it.
Huh.. well, I'll take your word for it, and I'll be very interested to try it out then. I have both iPhone and iPad, so I look forward to comparing and contrasting the versions. You're actually playing it on the iPhone and not the simulator? I don't think we ever talked about this before, but I did wonder how someone might approach a game for the iPhone and iPad. I mean, in some respects they're different platforms. It's almost as though you'd have to tailor an experience to each. Kind of a bummer to the independent developer who is trying to get as much mileage from portability as he can.
As for the iPhone, I was thinking you'd have to go one of two ways with it: shrink the rooms down, losing many details and making it hard to avoid some obstacles, or keep the viewable area large, but limit the viewport. This would turn the handheld version into a sort of scrolling game where you might only view the part of the room that Jack happens to be standing in. I can see how that might actually ramp up the difficulty of some mansions, and make them seem even larger than they are.
I was wondering if the iPhone version would be something of an adaption rather than a straight port. Thanks for the info! Looking forward to continuing to support an independent game developer, even if it's only a sideline for you at present.
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Wow, Vern - I was looking around this afternoon to see what other free games/demos were out there (a few days until my payday...), and decided to see if there were any new custom mansions here.
Then I found the latest post, this topic. :'(
Sorry (on the one hand) to hear that your Actionsoft dream hasn't worked out as planned/hoped - I throughly enjoyed MM (1, 2, HD) and about all of the custom mansions. (Still need to work on Luris...)
On the other hand, I rejoice at your getting a decent paying job where your skills will be more suitably rewarded, and with possibility of better increases down the road. May you be blessed with good and frequent raises there, Vern!
Hmm, maybe MM (in all its various editions) will turn into a 'cult classic' game of sorts - after all, I still enjoy text adventures (Zork, Infocom, others)... 
In the meantime, I will hope and wait for the iOS version (of course, I may wind up needing a newer iPod Touch than my 2nd gen. to run it, but that's okay).
I have thoroughly enjoyed Jack and all his adventures in the mansions (think my PowerBook 2000 is on its 3rd keyboard - kinda wore a bit on the arrow keys(!) Thank you, Vern (and all the mansion builders and beta testers) for my favorite side-scroller game of all time! (Mario has nothing on Jack, IMHO!)
Jim in Cape G.
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764B46774141434148240 wrote: Huh.. well, I'll take your word for it, and I'll be very interested to try it out then. I have both iPhone and iPad, so I look forward to comparing and contrasting the versions. You're actually playing it on the iPhone and not the simulator? I don't think we ever talked about this before, but I did wonder how someone might approach a game for the iPhone and iPad. I mean, in some respects they're different platforms. It's almost as though you'd have to tailor an experience to each. Kind of a bummer to the independent developer who is trying to get as much mileage from portability as he can.
Yes, I'm testing it on the actual iPhone, not the simulator. The simulator is pretty limited when it comes to many things, such as testing true OpenGL-based game performance, texture memory limitations, etc.
764B46774141434148240 wrote:
As for the iPhone, I was thinking you'd have to go one of two ways with it: shrink the rooms down, losing many details and making it hard to avoid some obstacles, or keep the viewable area large, but limit the viewport. This would turn the handheld version into a sort of scrolling game where you might only view the part of the room that Jack happens to be standing in. I can see how that might actually ramp up the difficulty of some mansions, and make them seem even larger than they are.
I tried both approaches. I did a lot of work to put scrolling support into Midnight Mansion, so you could scroll around a single room. Part of it was nice... seeing everything nice and big. But the BIG drawback was that there would be things you'd need to do in the same room that you couldn't see until you got close. Like a lever in the upper-left corner, that you wouldn't see when you were in the lower or right side of the room.
If I remember correctly I took this out and went with you see almost the whole room at once, but it scrolls slightly. The very minor scrolling that is done is used to keep the gameplay that is under your thumbs visible. If it didn't scroll, and Jack went down a ladder that led to the room below on the left side of the screen, you'd not be able to see him while he climbed this ladder, as it'd be under your left thumb (where the left/right controls are). My current system has almost unnoticeable scrolling -- it feels very natural and you barely notice it. It's quite subtle, but keeps it so the gameplay is always in view. It's pretty slick, and I'm much happier with it than the you can't see stuff in other parts of the room solution.
I also spent a lot of time re-optimizing the in-game map for iPhone. Initially it was slow as molasses. But by reworking some things to be optimize on iOS, it's now pretty smooth.
-Vern
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Jim --- thanks for the kind words! :-)
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I'm happy that we are no longer in the dark, it is saddening that the Builder may not be ported but it's just so good to see you online after so long 
Thanks for all of your time working on MM, MM2 and Insectoid and I will be waiting patiently for the ports of MM and MM2 to Intel/iPhone/iPad, don't rush, your job, church etc. take higher priority than us
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BTW, if you do get the iOS ports out there, I could always cover it on a blog I'm working on with some professional writers, it's done quite well for a blog just starting off
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