Artistry, Animations, & YouTube

[Melarec]

The brilliance of a text based game is its lack of arbitrary graphics. A snow white bunny is whatever you picture in your mind when you read "snow white bunny." A game with graphics gets judged on "how purdy dat wabbit is." Or not, if the graphics are bad..

Still, it would be neat if we could actually see some of the stuff that happens in game.
That's where the thread title becomes relevant.

Way back in the tutorial, whilst slaughtering bunnies, someone asked me. "What you doin'?" To which I replied, "Slaying rabbits." They said, "I don't see any rabbits.." I said, "I do. Right there," and I pointed to "a fluffy white rabbit" on screen. They were very confused and just sort of walked away. The point was, I could see the rabbit, but they could not.
A while after that, I got the great idea that it would be cool to see an animation of the text on the screen. Some of the things written would be very funny draw out visually. (And, just a few minutes ago, I got the great idea to share my idea here on the forum.)

If someone (or someones) who's artistically inclined is interested, we could give this a sort of "trial run.." Take the adventures of someone and animate them. Just a simple gif. If it works out and looks good, a YouTube channel could be started up. Of course, music and sound effects would be needed and perhaps even voice actors, but that could be arranged.
Everyone could send in particularly funny bits from their adventures and they could be like adventure highlights. Others could do weekly updates and if you have seven characters giving one video's material a week, that's a video every day. It could turn Genesis characters into stars.
(This would also be a good incentive for players to up their RP game.. Just saying..)
And that brings us to why I posted in the "Promoting Genesis" board. A popular YouTube channel will draw in more players.
Of course, that all depends on the channel being able to get off the ground, but, with the right advertising, it can be done.

I just thought (I know, scary..) that this would be really cool. I'd do it, but my artistry skill could use a few more platinum coins.. Okay, maybe more than a few, but you get the picture..
If anyone is interested, I would love to collaborate..

[Draugor]

So... you want to make GIF pics to promote genesis? If so sure

You want them in the game? We'd need to largely modify the client for that, put down a fuckton of work from wizards whom are swamped as it is.
And this is a text game, and it should be a pure text game, no pictures in game that would ruin the entire game tbh. There are plently of free MMORPG's that can cater to the need of pictures.

Mebbe we should have a disclaimer on the website "Got imagination? Like reading? This might be the game for you. Need graphics? Wrong place."

[Melarec]

No, don't change anything in-game.. I mean posting things on sites like YouTube in order to draw more attention to the game.

Take a log from in game like:

Code: Select all

You attack the fluffy baby bunny.
The fluffy baby bunny strikes at your body with his front teeth, but you easily dodge his attack.
You brutally pummel the fluffy baby bunny's left side with your right fist.
The fluffy baby bunny died.
You killed the fluffy baby bunny.
You attack the fluffy baby bunny.
You brutally pummel the fluffy baby bunny's back with your left fist.
The fluffy baby bunny died.
You killed the fluffy baby bunny.
You attack the white jackrabbit.
The white jackrabbit strikes at your body with his front teeth, but you easily dodge his attack.
You hammer the white jackrabbit's left side with your left fist.
You seriously beat the white jackrabbit's left side with your right foot.
The white jackrabbit died.
You killed the white jackrabbit.

And animate it.

I dunno. Maybe it's goofy. Just thought it;d be interesting for someone to do.

[Draugor]

Well that would kinda defeat the text based game kinda thing

I have no problem in picturing that infront of me, nor does most of the people that actually stick around. Adding gifs and pics would make this into some other game, I'm betting the graphics would be horrible, and people would start going off on that too "L2 anime nub!" etc considering how some of the newbies are sounding these days. So to me... this is a horrible idea

[Cherek]

Well, a presence on social media is of course helpful. Be that, instagram, Twitter, youtube channel, or anything. We do have a few accounts but we've never really gotten anywhere with this type of advertising. Why? Well, the answer is simple, nobody has really been interested / had time to take charge of if. To get any social media stuff off the ground it takes A LOT of time an energy, and to have any shot of it being meaningful we'd probably need a wizard (or player) that focuses on that, and that alone.

I'd personally focus on FB, Twitter, Instagram, or other more simple ways first though. I've worked a long time in the film and TV industry as an editor and/or graphics designer, and creating animations that's not horribly amateurish and poor is very time consuming and requires a lot of knowledge and experience. I could theoretically pull off what you're asking, but I simply do not have that much to time to spend on it. And then you'll need to spend a lot of work getting people to actually watch it.

Social media is hard, and unless you really get it going the amount of players we have to gain from it are very small compared to the exposure we get on for example Chrome Store, and if we're looking for clicks, a paid Adwords or FB-campaign is probably a lot less time-consuming. But that also requires someone to volunteer to handle it of course.

If you, or anyone else, wanna take charge of a social media campaign, or AD-campaign, just let me know and I am sure we can work something out.

[Cherek]

Something that would be fun on youtube though is filming people trying to learn how to play a text game for the first time. That might actually be fun to watch and get some viewers. Maybe we can convince Pewdiepie to do it for instant 1 million new players.

[gorboth]

For Pewdiepie we'd need to introduce some jumpscares into the tutorial.

Code: Select all

These are the lands of Silverdell. You are standing on a beautiful green
hilltop. Cold air blows across your face as you stand gazing at the expansive
view to the north. A sense of excitement rises in your blood, and you get the
feeling that many adventures are in store for you in this strange new land.
Your eyes trace a dirt road which begins directly at your feet, runs a ways
down to the base of the hill, and then travels north toward a small town that
is visible in the distance. Right beside the road stands a shimmering blue
portal. If you haven't already done so, you might wish to read the sign here.

There is one obvious exit: north.
A tutorial sign (The Expanded Tutorial and Lars' Gift) and a shimmering blue
portal.
> read sign
The sign screams in your face:
DEATH!!! DEATH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DEAAAAAAAATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*Pewdiepie howls and falls backwards out of his chair.*

[Mersereau]

Totalbiscuit doing a "WTF is... Genesis," would be much funnier. No FOV slider alone would drive him mad.

[Cherek]

For Pewdiepie we'd need to introduce some jumpscares into the tutorial.

Code: Select all

These are the lands of Silverdell. You are standing on a beautiful green
hilltop. Cold air blows across your face as you stand gazing at the expansive
view to the north. A sense of excitement rises in your blood, and you get the
feeling that many adventures are in store for you in this strange new land.
Your eyes trace a dirt road which begins directly at your feet, runs a ways
down to the base of the hill, and then travels north toward a small town that
is visible in the distance. Right beside the road stands a shimmering blue
portal. If you haven't already done so, you might wish to read the sign here.

There is one obvious exit: north.
A tutorial sign (The Expanded Tutorial and Lars' Gift) and a shimmering blue
portal.
> read sign
The sign screams in your face:
DEATH!!! DEATH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DEAAAAAAAATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*Pewdiepie howls and falls backwards out of his chair.*

That's an excellent idea! I'll have one of my minions make the change tomorrow.

[Kalvin Banesword]

You see how Draugor took what you said completely out of context and nearly attacked you for insighting about increasing popularity? Go check my most recent post to contradict that level of lonesomeness.