Comments on: Idea #13: Assassinate!

By: admin@winesonline.biz

admin@winesonline.biz — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 19:33:43 +0000

I came across your blog while I did a search on Google for free fun game killing online and your article on Idea #13: Assassinate! was informative.

By: Magla

Magla — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 16:14:43 +0000

maby you should check http://www.kingdomofloathing.com

I had a year of fun, great fun, and it is almost text based…
it is free but you can buy stuff, now it has accounts with ID over a milion I guess Jick is making money just OK…

By: benji

benji — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 12:51:19 +0000

Yeah, Bill, I think that’s where part of my idea for the game came from. I never played that game as a kid, but I remember hearing about it, and I always thought it sounded like fun.

By: Bill Keller

Bill Keller — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 18:35:54 +0000

When I was in high school, we played a game called Killer, from Steve Jackson Games. http://www.sjgames.com/killer/

The basic idea was similar: you had a weapon, and a target among the group playing. You had to catch that other person alone, show them your weapon (no cheesy puns please) and they were dead. At that point you would take their target and go on. Of course, that was back in the days when you could carry a squirt gun to class and no one would care.

Your idea reminds me of that, and, is the first MMORPG that I find interesting enough to pay for.

I wonder if you could layer this on top of something like Second Life.

By: Tom H.

Tom H. — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 14:47:48 +0000

The usenet group rec.arts.int-fiction has spun off huge amounts of discussion on modern approaches to writing these kinds of games. The focus is pretty single-player, but if you wanted to see the current state of complex-input text games do some searches on “interactive fiction”.

By: benji

benji — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 00:35:03 +0000

Cool ideas, thornad. Definitely food for thought.

By: thornad

thornad — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 21:15:06 +0000

Good idea,
I would add that there has to be some way for people to interact with each other more directly:
i.e.:
-A chat room if more than one person is in a certain room/area (or for phone conversations)
-An interactive body to body system for fighting and other more interesting activities :)
-Noises that people make and others can hear and therefore be alerted of their presence (or not)

As well as intuitive experiences:
-Dreams and body symptoms (i.e. gut feelings) that people have based on things they are not consciously aware of (i.e when another is looking to kill them or when friends are in danger)
- Subjective perception (attraction, repulsion, curiosity, fear) based on the other character’s attributes

By: Francesc

Francesc — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 19:15:01 +0000

I agree with anon, I believe that there are a lot of more-than-30-years-old guys that feel very bored playing with any 3D shoter but they will enjoy a clasical conversational game, even more a network one.

By: anon

anon — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 12:59:06 +0000

Your audience might not be the “typical gamer” as these people would not read to save their lives! :)

However, you might be able to get the attention of the old-enough people who happen to remember the type of game you are talking about. This type of game might appeal to the Tom Clancy-reading book crowd.

By: Dimitris Giannitsaros

Dimitris Giannitsaros — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 07:31:23 +0000

I love this idea! You made it sound really exciting ;-)

As for whether people would play text based, no graphics games, check out Urban Dead:

http://urbandead.com/

More than 400,000 people have created an account (about 40,000 active players). Check the current stats:
http://urbandead.com/stats.html