BOH, brand-new game launched

[saimo]

@motorollin

I fully see your point, that distributing the full version of the game engine with a demo data file may not be an attractive prospect. However, look how well it worked for Doom. In fact, Id Software even released the source code for the engine. This has been so successful that Id are even still selling the original Doom games on their web site for people who want to pay for the full version of the data files. So distributing the full engine for free and charging for data files can work well. I believe in Doom that you needed the full WAD file in order to use 3rd party expansion WADs, so users of the shareware WAD could only play the shareware levels. If they wanted to play the full game or 3rd party episodes, they had to register. In my opinion, it is no more difficult to pirate the data files with the engine than just the data file by itself. But of course, it is your decision. I do not intend to criticise - I'm just making a suggestion.

I believe that one of the reasons why that worked for ID Sodtware is that Doom was a groundbreaking milestone of gaming - which BOH is not. I do not think that the interest in BOH would be so high to live just on expansions.
But I do understand you.

You could even distribute a demo version of the engine which is crippled in only one way - that it only works with the demo data files and nothing more.

I will take this into consideration. As soon as I have time, I will see what I can do. No promises, though.

Sounds brilliant! This is *exactly* what I loved (and still love) about Doom. It sounds like BOH will be a really atmospheric game.

Yeah, that was one of my goals. That's why the default theme does not even have graphics for walls ;-) I understand that it is not the kind of game for everybody. I had a few friends cursing me for driving them crazy or stealing too much of their time :-D

Lots of missions too means that even once completed players can keep coming back again and again.

As a re-play factor, I added the saving of the best records for each phase of each mission - eventually, sometimes I ended up competing again myself to break my previous records :crazy:

saimo

[saimo]

@motorollin

Excellent :-D Will registered users get a free upgrade to the Mac version? If it will help to ensure success of the game and encourage further development, I would like to buy the Windows version and play in Parallels on my Mac, to encourage you to port it to the Mac ;-)

The version on sale already includes both the AmigaOS 4 and the Windows versions on the same CD. I would have like to include also the MacOS and the Linux versions, but at some point I had to draw a line. Yet, I have not abandoned this idea of the "universal" CD: if I ever manage to sell all the copies produced (it will be hard, but never say never...), the next production run will include at least the MacOS port.
According to this philosophy, yes, customers of the current version would get the MacOS version for free ;-)

BTW: also the upcoming update and additional themes will come for free.

saimo

[motorollin]

Saimo wrote:
I believe that one of the reasons why that worked for ID Sodtware is that Doom was a groundbreaking milestone of gaming - which BOH is not. I do not think that the interest in BOH would be so high to live just on expansions.
But I do understand you.

Yes, you're right. When Doom was released, *everybody* wanted (needed!) to play it. I see your point that this method of releasing a less mainstream game which is not so anticipated would probably not work as well.

Saimo wrote:
As soon as I have time, I will see what I can do. No promises, though

Fair enough! To be honest, the trailer gives such a good impression of the atmosphere and gameplay that while a demo would be nice, I don't think it will be necessary for me to make a decision to buy the game ;-) I would rather your time and effort went in to a Mac port :-D Oh, and will a level editor be released at some point? I can see Aminet filling up with user-created levels!

[motorollin]

Saimo wrote:
The version on sale already includes both the AmigaOS 4 and the Windows versions on the same CD. I would have like to include also the MacOS and the Linux versions, but at some point I had to draw a line. Yet, I have not abandoned this idea of the "universal" CD: if I ever manage to sell all the copies produced (it will be hard, but never say never...), the next production run will include at least the MacOS port.
According to this philosophy, yes, customers of the current version would get the MacOS version for free

BTW: also the upcoming update and additional themes will come for free

Excellent! With that in mind, I have just ordered :-D

[saimo]

@motorollin

Oh, and will a level editor be released at some point? I can see Aminet filling up with user-created levels!

Eh eh... as mentioned in the user's manual (see TRIVIA paragraph), the engine has been designed so that creating missions and themes would not require any special tool: all that is needed to create missions is... an ASCII text editor ;-)
At the end of 2008, I started writing the developer documentation, but unfortunately right now I am way too busy with all the rest to work on it. But some day also that documentation will see the light (and will be distributed free of charge, of course).

saimo

[saimo]

@motorollin

Excellent! With that in mind, I have just ordered :-D

Wonderful, thank you so much :cheers:

saimo

[motorollin]

Saimo wrote:
Eh eh... as mentioned in the user's manual (see TRIVIA paragraph), the engine has been designed so that creating missions and themes would not require any special tool: all that is needed to create missions is... an ASCII text editor

Ahh, RTFM ;-) I can't remember the last time I edited a game's levels with a text editor... I love it! :-D

[saimo]

@motorollin

Ahh, RTFM I can't remember the last time I edited a game's levels with a text editor... I love it! :-D

I'm glad you like also this aspect :-) I look forward to see missions from you once the developer documentation gets released :-D (honestly, I must say that I can't wait to play missions made by others... for me, having developed the current missions myself, it's a totally different feeling altogether... I was blessed only once until now, when a friend of mine developed the inital version of a mission while the game was still in development).

saimo

[motorollin]

Saimo wrote:
I look forward to see missions from you once the developer documentation gets released

I'm already thinking of porting some of the Doom levels to BOH maps ;-) I'm not actually very good at designing game maps myself. I find it too hard to get the difficulty curve right, so I tend to end up creating novelty maps which are fun to look at and run around in, but are either far too hard or pose no challenge at all. So I'll just plagiarise Doom's levels :lol: It will be interesting to see how they translate in to 2D. I know this has been done before with an ASCII version of Doom in 2D, so maybe it will work well!

[saimo]

@motorollin

Funny idea :-D

saimo

[motorollin]

BTW, when I get my copy of BOH I'll give it a try under Crossover Mac. Since the BOH manual says that the Windows version runs under Ubuntu using Wine, I'm hoping it will run ok on a Mac using Crossover.

Do you mind if I ask what that game is built on? Hopefully you used SDL as that should make porting to other platforms fairly trivial :-D

Edit - I see in the manual that libSDL is credited... nice!

[saimo]

@motorollin

BTW, when I get my copy of BOH I'll give it a try under Crossover Mac. Since the BOH manual says that the Windows version runs under Ubuntu using Wine, I'm hoping it will run ok on a Mac using Crossover.

I'm confident it will work just fine: I have tried BOH with Wine (Crossover Mac's "parent", if I'm not mistaken) on three different Linux machines and it always worked flawlessly. Only you will need to install the game manually: either copy the directory as installed on your Windows machine or follow the manual installation instructions found in the revised user's manual (it is a very easy process).

Do you mind if I ask what that game is built on? Hopefully you used SDL as that should make porting to other platforms fairly trivial

Edit - I see in the manual that libSDL is credited... nice!

Yes, I used SDL precisely for portability. The only other dependency is libSDL_mixer (with all the libraries it requires).

saimo

[CodePoet]

Saimo,

I'll be dead honest. When I first saw your news item I thought, man, this game's going to be absolute crap...Then I watched your videos and in short, I freakin' love you. :-D

That's EXACTLY the kind of game I've longed for since I watched my older brother play his c64 20 years ago! It's got that warm, retro feel that draws you in and reminds you of better days.

I don't suppose you'd offer a downloadable version for the same price? I live in Sydney, Australia, shipping here is pricey (and takes a hellovalong time!)

Keep up the great work!

[saimo]

@CodePoet

I'll be dead honest. When I first saw your news item I thought, man, this game's going to be absolute crap...Then I watched your videos and in short, I freakin' love you. :-D

:roflmao:

That's EXACTLY the kind of game I've longed for since I watched my older brother play his c64 20 years ago! It's got that warm, retro feel that draws you in and reminds you of better days.

You cannot even imagine how happy these words make me, because it means I succeeded to transmit my feelings towards games. :love: :banana:

I don't suppose you'd offer a downloadable version for the same price? I live in Sydney, Australia, shipping here is pricey (and takes a hellovalong time!)

As regards the price, it is not so bad (I know because I've shipped a few items to your land already ;-)): register mail is EUR 7.50 and VAT does not apply to it (because you are outside EU).
As regards the delivery time, well, yes, it may take long (registered mail is said to take up to 2 weeks).
But the worst problem is that - I guess - that accounting would change  and the company would not know how to handle the case (they are a small firm and never commercialized any software before) - believe me, the accounting issues have been a hell and delayed the release by 2 months :madashell: Moreover, that is a decision I cannot take: I developed the game, doing the PR and handling orders, but commercial decisions are up to the company. Edit: forgot to mention another important factor: anyways, now we have a stock of physical copies that need to be handed out, first ;-)

saimo

[saimo]

Hi all,

I'd like to inform you that I have added a FAQ page to BOH's website where I collected all the questions, observations and answers scattered in the various threads here and elsewhere. The page turned out to contain plenty of interesting information about the present and also the future.
Thanks to all those who contributed!

saimo

[AmigoSteve]

Just wanted to let you know that I recieved my copy of BOH today. I played it on my laptop but bought it because I hope to get a SAM and play it on the Amiga.

First impressions are very good, I have completed some of the very easy levels and am really enjoying it. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR GIVING THE AMIGA COMMUNITY A NEW PRODUCT, ESPECIALLY ONE THAT YOU CAN BUY ON CD!!! I am fed up of seeing small games that you download we need physical products like BOH.

I hope you sell loads and the amiga community gets more games like this in the future.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! :-P