a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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Give new players a sense of purpose. Teach them to farm in the tutorial. It can be hard to provide new players with the time and attention they need when you've got BB's popping out. I've ignored the new player message so many times because I have other newborns to care for. The tutorial should cover berry bush care and how to make deep tilled rows and plant a seed. Whenever I can teach a new player this they will do it their whole lives.
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...
I remember when i was 12 and always wanted to be right even when i was wrong...
Oh btw if i follow your logic the first updates before steam release where bad too since there where spikes and a drop right?
Anyway i guess some people will just see what they want to see
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Spoonwood I still think we should focus on why new players dropping rather than old players - new players don't quit because of any updates, they don't know the game yet. New players keep coming, I see these notifications all the time, but seems like they don't stay, otherwise there would be much more players playing.
Once I heard that Jason doesn't want people to be pro. We have bad tutorial, small sight range... But people don't want to be noobs, I think that may be the case of people quitting.
Last edited by Coconut Fruit (2019-10-12 18:37:11)
Making own private server (Very easy! You can play on it even if you haven't bought the game)
Zoom mod
Mini guide for beginners
website with all recipies
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Are you guys really comparing OHOL, which had 590 players during its all-time peak, to games that had 20,000+ players in their all-time peak?
https://steamcharts.com/app/595690#All
Vs:
https://steamcharts.com/app/457140#All
https://steamcharts.com/app/294100#All
https://steamcharts.com/app/427520#All
Or 64,000 all time peak:
https://steamcharts.com/app/413150#All
These games are obviously "better" and more appealing than OHOL, but they are also way bigger hits. Each of these games has made $50M or more.
My goal, of course, is to make a game that will eventually be better than all of these games. That is hard, because OHOL is also more innovative than all of these games put together.
Stardew is a throwback for Harvest Moon fans.
OHOL is like nothing else, and it has its own unique design problems. Also, all of those games are primarily single player, which make solving design problems much easier. In the context of OHOL, it can take weeks to see how even a small change shakes out.
Eco is a much better comparison. A semi-hit that is full of difficult design problems:
https://steamcharts.com/app/382310#All
Do you recognize that graph shape?
But even there, Eco is 10x as popular as OHOL.
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Spoonwood wrote:...
I remember when i was 12 and always wanted to be right even when i was wrong...
Oh btw if i follow your logic the first updates before steam release where bad too since there where spikes and a drop right?
Nope, you're not following my logic. Again, there weren't spikes and drops after the updates I mentioned. Just a continuous drop for a while.
Anyway i guess some people will just see what they want to see
I'm sure Jason will do that. He doesn't work well with others. He doesn't listen to his playerbase. And he believes he can manipulate people.
Oh, and this post really should be clear. He doesn't care about this game anymore, because... what did he say:
The reality is that for a game that's 19 months old, this gradual decline just happens.
See, NO acknowledgment of failure or bad choices on his part. No taking of responsibility.
Oh look, he even doesn't want his game compared to other bigger games.
Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.
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My goal, of course, is to make a game that will eventually be better than all of these games. That is hard, because OHOL is also more innovative than all of these games put together.
*laughs* Why would you bother? You already declared that impossible in your first post. No, I don't believe you for a second about what you say here. Additionally, you have no idea as to how hard it would be as you never had a good process from the start. The first mistake in your process? Not hiring help. And that's a doozy. It shows you think yourself more competent than you are and can't handle working with other people well. And no doubt with how you've repeatedly insulted your playerbase, that's true.
OHOL is like nothing else, and it has its own unique design problems.
Just another excuse that you've made so that you can avoid taking responsibility for your game or having your game compared to others. Look, you pushed this 'greatest game of all time' nonsense. You need to deal with the consequences of what that means, and that means calling you on your nonsense.
Also, all of those games are primarily single player, which make solving design problems much easier.
So what if that's true? Greatest game of all time doesn't have a category. Seriously, start taking responsibility for your product and stop trying to shirk off serious evaluation of it.
In the context of OHOL, it can take weeks to see how even a small change shakes out.
Eco is a much better comparison. A semi-hit that is full of difficult design problems:
https://steamcharts.com/app/382310#All
Do you recognize that graph shape?
But even there, Eco is 10x as popular as OHOL.
Plenty of green in Echo. Upticks for a month exist. No, your graph doesn't look like that. NO uptick for a month in OHOL's graph. Also, OHOL's steam chart is this: https://steamcharts.com/app/595690#All
Again, start taking responsibility for your game as it stands and realize that the responsibility for the success or failure of your game starts and ends with you. Hire help or get into a position where you can do so.
Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.
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I've been looking at a bunch of steam charts today and the one bit of positive inspiration that I'm taking away from this ... there are a LOT of people playing games on Steam. Way more than 590 people. Like .. a LOT of people, guys. So so many.
It wouldn't take that many of those people sticking around a little bit longer to push OHOL's numbers into the green. If a game like Survivalist ( https://steamcharts.com/app/340050 ) can manage to get some green on its chart after four years, then there's still hope that this game can pull out of its slump and retain enough players to start growing eventually. There are many steam charts out there that start off rocky and eventually climb up to much higher numbers. Not every game has a steady downward trend for its entire life. Many games rise and fall over time and most still have trickle of new players joining even after many years, especially during steam sales or other promotions that draw people in and encourage them to try the game.
...
Speaking of which ... Ghost Master deserves more love! Sure, it is so old it almost pre-dates Steam itself, but it is really quite a good game. Unique theme, entertaining voice-acting, and well-designed puzzles.
https://steamcharts.com/app/6200
Why are only five people playing this hidden gem? It's almost Halloween. AND it's on sale for $0.99 right now - more people should be playing it!
Who wouldn't want to be a terrifying Ghost Master, controlling a wild group of spooks and spirits to frighten silly mortals until they literally go crazy with fear? Muhahahaha!
Last edited by DestinyCall (2019-10-13 03:33:20)
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I guess spopnwood is back
Recent favorite lives:
Favio Pheonix,Les Nana,Cloud Charles, Rosa Colo [fed my little bro] Lucas Dawn [husband of magnolia] Jasmine Yu,Chogiwa, Tae (Jazz meister)Gillian Yellow (adoptive husband),Jason Dua, Arya Stark, Sophie Cucci, Cerenity Ergo ,Owner of Boris The Goose,Being Maria's mom, Santa's helper.
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The game is just too hard for many new players. There need to be more tutorials (Cooking, Farming, Animals).
I'm an expert for: Sharp Stones
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Or just a 'newbie village' where the other tutorial players live together till they all have eaten a turkey - combines iron, baking and the community experience
Recent favorite lives:
Favio Pheonix,Les Nana,Cloud Charles, Rosa Colo [fed my little bro] Lucas Dawn [husband of magnolia] Jasmine Yu,Chogiwa, Tae (Jazz meister)Gillian Yellow (adoptive husband),Jason Dua, Arya Stark, Sophie Cucci, Cerenity Ergo ,Owner of Boris The Goose,Being Maria's mom, Santa's helper.
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Yes, Eco had upticks.... FROM SALES.
OHOL hasn't been put on sale yet. It has been out for less than a year on Steam.
I am taking responsibility. OHOL sucks compared to how great it could be. That's why I'm working week after week to make it better and better.
Please, step in the time machine and see what it was like 18 months ago. Then tell me that you honestly think it is way worse today than it used to be, OR that it is a worse new player experience today than it was 18 months ago. There was no tutorial 18 months ago.
https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6250
Making the greatest game of all time takes.... duh... time!
If you had a few more years of game design experience, Spoonhood, you would understand this. Bow before my glory. Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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My experience comes only from day 1 on steam release. Yes I died a lot, but it was a lot easier to survive back then.
https://youtu.be/LjVKlexuFRE?t=2027
Here is a clip from probably the first twisted video I watched. Plenty of people just standing. Twisted can just go into the desert without instantly dying. No speedy dying on no clothing in cold biomes either.
Yes people just standing around is not ideal but there was a better opportunity for development. I think somewhere along the line the game turned from a "parenting game" to a "hardcore group survival mmo". And while that might keep things fresh for existing experienced players not sure if it does for new people.
We have a lot less time to talk, interact, plan, discuss. Everything needs to be done on a timer and you are always in a rush. I don't think that was a positive direction the game took.
Last edited by Thaulos (2019-10-13 16:02:43)
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I remember when the temperature update rolled out, one of the major concerns was how it would change the game for new players.
It used to be possible to build your village along a biome margin and have most of your village exist in a "safe zone" where hunger didn't drain very fast at all. Wandering away from the relative safety of the village was quite dangerous and you might not necessarily understand why one tile was better than another tile for idling, but it didn't really matter. Experienced players would arrange the village so the berry patch was sitting in a perfect temp spot and the majority of brand new players would eventually end up there, because everywhere else was a starvation death zone. Once they figured out the basics - how to get clothing, how to use a backpack, how to eat a pie - they could start to explore and move away from the berry safe zones.
But after the temp update .... goodbye safe zones. We were all pushed out into the frozen wasteland we now call home. Eventually we adapted our approach and found a new meta that involved wearing a lot more clothes and eating a lot more food. But new players got the short end of the stick, because now the game is even harder to learn and you die even faster if you don't know anything about the game's complex mechanics.
The scary thing is I keep reading Jason posting about how village survival is still "too easy" and how we don't run out of everything fast enough. From what I've read, he doesn't feel like it is sufficiently challenging to keep a town alive, even though the vast majority of families don't make it even a few hours beyond the Eve window. It baffles me ... he wants to attract new players to the game, but he also wants the base game to be impossibly difficult for everyone.
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New players dont leave because of the difficulty
They leave because the game is unpractical, tedious and unintuitive
Which makes it difficult but not in a good way, in a frustrating unfun way
They get annoyed and leave.
If you died but gradually progressed and learned each time it wouldn't be an issue
But right now the learning curve is not only too steep but also too messy and confusing
It's basically too much effort to invest in the game and unless you are really into it you leave
New players should be able to jump in the game and play right away without going trough a bunch of text (tool tip or tutorial)
Ideally the tutorial wouldn't even be needed.
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I was just replaying the game "Ghost Master" last night and it got me thinking about how different games approach tutorials. Ghost Master came out back in 2006. It's been so long since I've played the game, I couldn't really remember much about how to play it but I did have a basic idea of how the game works. You are given control over a team of haunters (ghosts) and you need to scare away all the living inhabitants from a particular area to complete each level.
I was really impressed with the way the game handles its tutorial. The game mechanics aren't that tricky, but it is a rather unique game and the player needs to understand game-specific concepts like how to bind ghosts to different "fetters" and how different people will react to scary/spooky/paranormal events depending on their current belief or personal fears and the way that your available power grows or shrinks as you spread terror.
Rather than dumping all of this on you at once or forcing you to learn it by trial and error, the game starts you out with a small house in need of haunting and advises you that if you want to play through the tutorial, you need to select a particular team of ghosts. If you do that, the game will assume you want to do the tutorial and it will give you a bunch of feedback about different controls and how to play.
But the cool thing is that it is all very context sensitive. Click on one of your ghosts and an audio file plays that tells you more about your ghosts and what you can do with them. Select the camera controls and the tutorial talks to you about other ways to control your view, like using the mouse or keyboard. The tutorial itself walks you through the basics of the game, explains how to set-up your ghosts ... then lets you do your own thing for a bit. You learn by doing and can either listen to the tutorial hints or skip through it quite easily.
After letting you play around with your ghosts for a while, it also warns you about certain dangers ... like running out of energy and how to deal with people who don't get scared easily. The tutorial level is short but it is a fully functional level - you can play it with or without the tutorial and it serves as a useful (and easy) introduction to the game's unique style and mechanics. Difficulty ramps up quickly on future maps, but you should have a basic idea of how to play and what to do with your ghosts after playing through the tutorial.
I'm not sure how to translate that to a multi-player game like OHOL. I don't think it would be possible to make a functional "tutorial village" without making it very annoying or fake. The game's current tutorial is okay ... but honestly, it could use more work. It somehow manages to be too long AND too short at the same time. I think it needs to explain a lot more about basic survival but I also thing it needs to be easier to skip if you find yourself in the tutorial as an experienced player.
Last edited by DestinyCall (2019-10-13 17:08:00)
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I still think an underlying problem with player retention is the effects of viewing players as expendable and the callous belief that their departure (and replacement by new blood) is inevitable:
The way it works is I keep making an amazing game, and keep making money, and the ones who want to get angry leave, and the rest stay, and new players come in every day, and .... well, the world keeps turning!
Last edited by RedComb (2019-10-13 17:28:52)
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The answer is easy, you're not adding any content, and wasting time with wars and family updates. The game is not progressing, it's just an endless bug fixes and more ways to fight and kill each others.
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The answer is easy, you're not adding any content, and wasting time with wars and family updates. The game is not progressing, it's just an endless bug fixes and more ways to fight and kill each others.
The most recent updates are kinda ok, i think the game has progressed a lot on a technical level but actual content to develop the tech tree further or creating new branches for it is damaging the playerbase a little (or at leas tmaking it so players start to lose interest on a slow rate)
It would be nice to have something every now and then in these times of polishing to keep things interesting.
make bread, no war
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Please, step in the time machine and see what it was like 18 months ago. Then tell me that you honestly think it is way worse today than it used to be, OR that it is a worse new player experience today than it was 18 months ago. There was no tutorial 18 months ago.
This is a very weird argument - of course OHOL is a better game today than it was 18 months ago. No one is saying that it was better 18 months ago. Three months ago, sure, I and probably quite a few others think that OHOL was a more enjoyable game three months ago, but 18 months ago? I don't see anyone saying that.
What I, and assume others, are frustrated with is the fact that the past three months of updates have been exclusively about the Rift & the Arc, a mechanic that is widely disliked, and that he past six months were largely about introducing player conflict in a game which most players came into expecting a co-op experience. There were so many drastic changes this year, most of them (in my opinion) very good changes. But a large amount of players were introduced to the game through Steam, where OHOL is implied to be a mostly finished game mechanics-wise due to not having the Early Access tag.
Many people bought the game expecting what was shown in the trailer, a game with weekly content updates that add a dozen+ items each week, but core mechanics of OHOL are currently developed enough for us to be there yet. That's OK, making a perfect game takes time, but when most updates are mechanics improvements and bug tweaks (both of which are extremely important for the health and quality of the game) people just lose interest. The average player doesn't think "Oh hey nice the last three months had a lot of good tweaks," they think "Hey, I bought this game expecting weekly updates, but everything has been exactly the same for the past three months!" The last content update that added several items was the camera update on April 28th, almost six months ago (or the High Society update three weeks prior to that if you don't count camera ingredients as separate items). The Rift is on everyone's mind because it's been just Rift Rift Rift for the mast three months. Halloween is coming up, and I bet everyone would be thrilled to see pumpkins added, and it being thematic it might draw in some extra traffic from Steam - they often feature games with content or updates that are relevant to real life events.
TL;DR most updates are amazing/great, but a lot of the recent ones haven't been very interesting.
New players dont leave because of the difficulty
They leave because the game is unpractical, tedious and unintuitive
Which makes it difficult but not in a good way, in a frustrating unfun way
They get annoyed and leave.
If you died but gradually progressed and learned each time it wouldn't be an issue
But right now the learning curve is not only too steep but also too messy and confusing
It's basically too much effort to invest in the game and unless you are really into it you leave
This 100%. OHOL is brilliant, but it has a very high learning curve. Hopefully the newest update helps with that, we'll see. I think a quick and dirty improvement would be to add more variety to the tutorial, make the end area kind of a playground, even moreso than it is now. Tease the player with cool stuff. Replace most Berry Bushes with Banana Trees, Tomato Plants, Corn, Sliced Bread, and Stew - let the player experiment and learn how to pick Bread from a plate or grab Stew in a safe area, and teach them that berries are not the main food. Add a Fence that needs to be 'unlocked' with a Short Shaft and put a Cow in there. Drop some seed bowls in an area that has different stages of soil/tilled row. Tell them they can play through the tutorial whenever they want if they want to explore it. Make it kind of a single player interactive experience (at the same time giving people a higher chance of encountering other players breaking out, making for cool moments).
Here is a clip from probably the first twisted video I watched. Plenty of people just standing. Twisted can just go into the desert without instantly dying. No speedy dying on no clothing in cold biomes either.
I think the current temperature system makes a lot more sense. Back then new players were still dying rapidly and having a hard time because a person't first instinct is to find some clothes and get dressed, and that used to be deadly which was a bit nonsensical. Grasslands and prairies also look a lot more friendly than scorching deserts, when it fact it was the opposite. It also meant that two aspects of the game, buildings and clothing, were completely detrimental - which makes zero sense in a game that wants to emulate human development. You used to be able to tell apart new players and pros just by looking if they were wearing a full set of clothing. The game is much easier these days (IMO) if you know what you're doing - as long as you're wearing good clothing and keeping up a Yum chain you will never be close to starvation, even if you run into a jungle/desert. And honestly clothing SHOULD be crucial in a game such as OHOL. Buildings should as well, and hopefully one day they will be.
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I'm a new player to this game. Indi or "underground" mmos with small player populations have been my main thing for about 20 years. I've been lurking these forums for a while, and I want to say nothing I've seen here seems to be unusual.
In my experience, there is usually tension between developers and the more experienced player base. So, in that way, the interactions between Jason Rohrer and experienced OHOL players don't seem unusual to me. I've played many games (long-term) where developers and the majority of the most vocal player base did not appear have a good relationship. I've been one of those frustrated players in other games. Imo the frustration came from me being overly attached to the game as I imagined it was, or how the game could potentially be. I've come to accept that it's more peaceful for me to just allow developers to take the game where they want and not insist on any specific game design. Now, I just play the game and let the developers take me on a journey over time. That being said, I suspect that a vocal player base can be a helpful part of the development process especially when the developers have good boundaries.
I relate to a lot of the challenges mentioned by other community members in this thread. I have yet to successfully crack the more advanced technology, such as that requires oil or newcomen engines. It is very hard for me to figure out, but now that I have the knowledge to overcome basic survival challenges I'm slowly able to devote my attention to experimenting with these higher technologies. So, in that way I'm not sure if the learning curve is a problem. Either way it will be interesting to see how things evolve.
More rarely, I've played games where there is less conflict between developers and the vocal player base. That's interesting, but it's just one of the types of relationships that can emerge. In the end, I've played very fun games with either type of relationship.
I guess I'm just saying I don't see anything wrong here, and want to commend everyone (players and developers) for their good work here. Game on.
Last edited by HippoScope (2019-10-13 21:44:26)
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I guess spopnwood is back
I haven't played OHOL since sometime in June I think, or maybe July, definitely not in August or after. I know it was a bit before The Rift.
Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.
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Yes, Eco had upticks.... FROM SALES.
OHOL hasn't been put on sale yet. It has been out for less than a year on Steam.
I am taking responsibility. OHOL sucks compared to how great it could be. That's why I'm working week after week to make it better and better.
Please, step in the time machine and see what it was like 18 months ago. Then tell me that you honestly think it is way worse today than it used to be, OR that it is a worse new player experience today than it was 18 months ago. There was no tutorial 18 months ago.
https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6250
Making the greatest game of all time takes.... duh... time!
If you had a few more years of game design experience, Spoonhood, you would understand this. Bow before my glory. Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
I have no idea why you picked 18 months ago as a date, and it seems arbitrary. Your continual talking of 'a few more years of game design experience' falls into a fallacy of irrelevance, which *attempts* to disqualify a statement by referring to the person who utters this. And why would you assume that I would 'understand' anything about the quality of your game? You don't have glory or mighty works. Falling numbers and constant criticism from plenty of sources.
Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.
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My experience comes only from day 1 on steam release. Yes I died a lot, but it was a lot easier to survive back then.
https://youtu.be/LjVKlexuFRE?t=2027
Here is a clip from probably the first twisted video I watched. Plenty of people just standing. Twisted can just go into the desert without instantly dying. No speedy dying on no clothing in cold biomes either.
Yes people just standing around is not ideal but there was a better opportunity for development. I think somewhere along the line the game turned from a "parenting game" to a "hardcore group survival mmo". And while that might keep things fresh for existing experienced players not sure if it does for new people.
We have a lot less time to talk, interact, plan, discuss. Everything needs to be done on a timer and you are always in a rush. I don't think that was a positive direction the game took.
This sounds like a reference to the temperature overhaul. Standing around a fire for fertility reasons sounds less interesting than dancing along a desert edge or just staying inside of a jungle. Also, being an Eve and having different possibilities with jungles vs. desert edges also was more complex than just setting up anywhere in a neutral biome.
Last edited by Spoonwood (2019-10-13 22:37:47)
Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.
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I think the current temperature system makes a lot more sense. Back then new players were still dying rapidly and having a hard time because a person't first instinct is to find some clothes and get dressed, and that used to be deadly which was a bit nonsensical. Grasslands and prairies also look a lot more friendly than scorching deserts, when it fact it was the opposite. It also meant that two aspects of the game, buildings and clothing, were completely detrimental - which makes zero sense in a game that wants to emulate human development. You used to be able to tell apart new players and pros just by looking if they were wearing a full set of clothing. The game is much easier these days (IMO) if you know what you're doing - as long as you're wearing good clothing and keeping up a Yum chain you will never be close to starvation, even if you run into a jungle/desert. And honestly clothing SHOULD be crucial in a game such as OHOL. Buildings should as well, and hopefully one day they will be.
Personally, I hated cameras. Why not just take a screenshot? But I loved forging gold! Why search for a gold mine when you can just forge it instead? So, the camera update made for a mixed back for me.
It's not true that clothing was completely detrimental. Some clothing in a jungle could be alright, since jungles were slightly less than mid temperature. Also, in the middle of a neutral biome or tundra biome, clothing made sense. If someone were searching in the badlands for iron, for example, they could use clothing then. The problem was that there wasn't any feasible way to take off one's clothes in town and have a reliable way to get them before going out of town (it seemed likely that someone would pick them up and wear them in town... people wearing clothes in a desert did make for a serious issue of players). Fire was also different in that finding a good fire spot, wasn't as easy as it has been since then.
Never close to starvation these days? But there's hungry work now when cutting useful trees, so I'm not so sure about that. Then again, maybe there exist enough pines close, so cutting swamp trees isn't needed.
Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.
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Spoonwood, I've made 19 games, and had the first solo show in a museum ever dedicated to a single game designer, and a book was written about that show. It was published by MIT Press, the world's most prestigious publisher of timeless tomes. It was an entire book just about my work and career, called "The Game Worlds of Jason Roar." And I didn't write the book. University professors who are Experts in Artistic Game Design 101 wrote the book about me. I didn't even ask them to write it. They said, "Yes, we will write this book, because he has 12 years of experience, and therefore, he is the very best around." Back then, I only had 12 years of experience. Now I have three years more, and that's why they call me Jason Rore.
Please send me your address, and I will mail you a free copy of this book. You will turn the pages with great interest. It is the ONLY book ever written entirely about the career of a single game designer. That is why I am the greatest ever. It's more than just 15 years of experience! This book has more than 15 pages. There are at least two pages for each game that I made. And the book doesn't even talk about OHOL, because it was before OHOL. So the next book they write about me will have even more pages. I get more experienced by the minute.
I offered you this book several months ago, but you never gave me your address. You are afraid of what you will see in there, I know it! It would fill you with despair to see so many glorious works in one book.
And maybe you, mighty Spoonwad, will be the one to write the book about OHOL. Since you have spent so much time writing in the forums, some greatness has certainly rubbed off on you. You may be Just The Guy I'm Looking Four. And that's why they call me Jason Rour.
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