High quality game

[Judge Sam]

I think Spies 8 deserves a second look. It was coming off the two best games in the series: Spies 7 and Spies 6, and in comparison, it didn't look as fantastic. I think it got like 66% of the pageviews of Spies 7, which was the only time the series went down in pageviews in consecutive games. At the time I thought it was a mediocre entry, but now looking back, I would rate it as top quality. There were TONS of amazing characters (even if more got eliminated earlier than usual), lots of stunning dramatic moments, some really hilarious funny times, and lots of catch phrases and drama. And probably one of the most dramatic live twists of all time (The Bribe moment), second only to Spies 2 The Lottery. =) An amazing end to an amazing series. =)

[axman]

I'm sure a Spies 9 follow up would be killer.

[Judge Sam]

Some rambling here. You can find more coherent posts on each of the other 7 boards that I recently posted stuff at! Sorry this one doesn't have much character-focused thoughts, the others do.

Sometimes I think about what if I did this with actual money, and not $75 lol, now that I have a job. Would have been cool.

I wonder if it would be easier to advertise and find a cast if I offered a prize of say, $1,500.

I've thought of offering prizes for Spies before. However, there is a problem. If the Citizens are about to win, and there are 8 Citizens left, they would split the pot 8 ways. Whereas if you vote out a Citizen, then you get to split the pot 6 ways, which is better. That could lead to intentional backstabbing your own team to win more money. That's not ideal.

I mean, people may not do that because they themselves could be imprisoned next time and lose it all. Or they may not do it because it may cause them to get Exiled under suspicion of being a Spy. Or because they aren't 100% sure on the final Spy and don't want to risk it. So maybe it wouldn't happen.

With Spies it might be worse though. If the prize was $1,500, and 3 Spies remained. 2 of the Spies could bus the third easy - I mean they know who it is. This would get them $750 if they bussed instead of $500. That's not good. It would make the game more intense and close at the end. But I'm not sure I want that kind of 'strategy' to influence the game.

A different way to do it would be a flat winner's reward. Maybe $300 per winner. That might be better. Is that impressive-sounding enough for advertising purposes however? It doesn't really quite have the draw as "you could win $1,500!", maybe. It also does leave me at a risk of a massive Citizen victory... I could have to pay out 8 x $300 if 8 citizens win in a blowout. That's a risk. But except for the first game, the maximum winners was 5 Spies in Spies 3. So maybe the risk is low.

Not even sure if a cash prize would be helpful to bring in people. Hmm.. would people get a friend and work together to win the money? Spoil their alias to their friend and share info? Maybe. It's doubtful I'd do aliases again anyway. AIM is dead, the alternative would probably be Facebook, as Facebook messenger is already in use by everyone on their phones (most of this game would be done on phones now I'd assume). Facebook isn't anonymous. People text or facebook nowadays, not AIM. Or maybe something like WhatsApp? hmmm.

I've thought about the cash prize, as advertising / finding a cast is by far the biggest roadblock in terms of game production.

The second roadblock is now that I have a job. It takes about 2.5 months of preparation before the game. Including the whole design, graphics, advertising plan, interviews, writing up Imprisonments, etc etc. I would say I worked 3-4 hours a day during the game, more on Exile and challenge days. Of course not all of that was work, a lot of that time was enjoyable reading confessionals too. Let's estimate it at 140 + 220 = 360 hours.

360 hours of work, at least some of that I could instead be spending at actual work, making money. So I'm forgoing extra days of work, to an extent. Even if you cut that 360 down in half, and cut my rate by half (this is a labor of love, after all). That's still ~5 times the prize money above I suggested. That's a lot!

With 7+8 I tried seriously to reduce the task load in any way I could to make it more manageable. I'm quite the perfectionist so that's a big problem. Despite that fact, 7+8 took almost as much time as the others. My time-reduction plan was unsuccessful. I've thought about it more. I'd probably get rid of Imprisonment stories. I'd reduce time spent on graphics - making those portrait photos takes forever. I'd have people set up their own messaging accounts. Maybe the $$$ would mean I wouldn't have to advertise as much - that takes forever. I'd resist any desire to make 7-in-1 challenges like I did in this game. And seem to do everytime. The flavor posts are nice but they'd probably have to go. Not sure if this would be enough reduction, who knows.

I love doing this, always will, but just finding a cast is a roadblock I can't seem to overcome. I think the solution is to find an already established group of people and do something for them. But that's all networking / socializing, and that's a ton of time too. Never seems to pan out. But if anyone knows somebody....

[Judge Sam]

In each game I had a forum with my own confessional. Here's what I called them:


1: Thought Vault
Sam posts his thoughts and opinions here.

2: Sam's Mental Sputtery
Where the thoughts go to escape.

3: Sam's Idea Aether
Where the myraid feelings Sam has about the game coalesce.

4: Sam's Factory of Feelings
Where the myraid feelings Sam has about the game assemble.

5: Sam's Speculation Symposium
Where the multitudinous voices congregate.

6: Sam's Conceptual Congress
Where constructs are constructed.

7: Sam's Construct Congregation
Where inklings are envisioned.

8: Sam's Notion Nascency
Where vernal views germinate.