Difference between revisions of "More Love For Longer-Lasting Adventures"

Revision as of 15:26, 11 February 2012

A company called Double Fine has raised more than $1.5-million (so far) on Kickstarter - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-adventure - so that they can create a point-and-click graphical adventure game.

First, let me say that I expect that that a new adventure from the people that brought us Psychonauts and Day of the Tentacle will be fantastic. However, what these games have in common is: They're limited. You play through them, you finish them, and then you put them away. Maybe there'll be downloadable add-on content later. Maybe!

But how does that even begin to compare to what a MUSH like OtherSpace can do?

No, we don't have pretty pictures or a point-and-click interface. But in a climate in which a lot of people seem to be clamoring for player-affected or even player-created content, OtherSpace offers much more than what's likely to come from Double Fine.

On OtherSpace, you're the art director. How the universe looks depends on how you translate the text in your imagination. You can be a quest designer, creating adventures for your fellow players to enjoy in real-time. You're a shareholder, with a communication pipeline direct to the project's lead developers pretty much every day of the week. We're directly answerable to the people who play. There's no army of customer service reps making a barrier between us.

There's no box to buy. You don't need a Steam account. It's free to play. The MUSH doesn't care whether you're on a PC, Mac, or iPhone. It's online around the clock, all year. And it's a little bit retro, a throwback to an era when you didn't need a high-speed CPU or a fancy graphics card to enjoy yourself.

And it doesn't end. Sure, you can log out, but the story keeps evolving based on the give and take, the actions and consequences of players who call OtherSpace home. It's been chugging along for almost 14 years. That's longer than most multi-million dollar TV shows last.

We were building virtual sandboxes years before the mega-MMOs ever saw the light of day. Our players were telling collaborative stories a decade before City of Heroes unveiled the Architect system.

On OtherSpace, you have the opportunity to make a lasting impact - for good or ill - that can change the face of the game universe for years to come.

So, all that said, I don't begrudge Double Fine the huge success that they've enjoyed through Kickstarter. We didn't do so badly with our own campaign last summer when we raised about $1,000 in two weeks to underwrite the "Down to Earth" story arc, which ends this weekend. As always, all our OtherSpace sponsors deserve a huge thank you.

It would be nice to see more broad-based support for innovative and long-lasting projects like OtherSpace, though. Know someone who might want to help fund server and marketing costs for a perpetual collaborative story that evolves online in real time? Send them our way. We'll make 'em feel welcome!