Sales Pitch

Enphetamy

What's the sales pitch for this game? I cant think of a serious way id ever introduce anyone to this game today. So if the players (I guess speaking for myself here), can't recruit by word of mouth, how do devs get more players?

Lord Thane

It's hard because Thardferr isn't novel anymore. In the 90s, it was something new and interesting, part of the golden age of text based browser games, of which there were many flavors.

Part of the way I explain it is it's like clash of clans, but 90s version. That usually gives a pretty good set of expectations, beyond the horror of no graphics.

Some people I've talked to about it were interested just to experience how such an ancient game worked back in the day - just for the experience. I tried that angle a bit in marketing too.

There's hundreds of millions of millennials and genx and beyond that took part in those kind of games that would be interested in the nostalgia. When I think about marketing to younger generations I don't think there's possibility of appeal until graphics get implemented via themes, themes will be initially focused on features to entice the zoomers. Idk how else the newer gens could be marketed to, their brains just aren't wired to accept a text based world lol

Cora

Lord Thane I agree, unfortunately. I was explaining the game to my niece when she asked what it was and when I mentioned that it was a text based game with no graphics she looked at me like she couldn’t understand what language I was speaking. 😅

@Vesuvan Great points!! Spot on!

Vesuvan

Two thoughts and a side note:

1) if you really want to grow the player base I think you need an app. Younger generations might be interested in the retro gaming aspect, but I don’t think a browser based game will ever entice them…but an app speaks their language. It could also generate a little revenue with a small download fee! Obviously the game should also still be fully playable through browser as well.

2) marketing should lean into the fact that this game is so addicting and fun that nearly 20 years after its original end, it was still successfully relaunched to a fervent player base that has been waiting this whole time just to get another taste of Thardferr.

Side note: the biggest problem you are likely to run into with attracting new players is how to teach them the game. Most modern games literally hold your hand through the beginning to help you get your footing…Thardferr is absolutely not friendly to new player 😂 At a minimum a much more thorough and well thought out guide should be provided, with examples of what different decisions may do when implemented. A short guide video might also be necessary because people have short attention spans and don’t like to read!! I’d also love to see a “test” version of the game available to anyone who wants to play around with things without having to use their actual KD.

xiAo-Shin Star

Vesuvan

Yey!! An app version!!

Enphetamy

An app is a fantastic idea. I've seen worse games in app form. It makes it far more accessible. I think that might be the only real, viable way to get more players. Good call! Perhaps at some point down the line when the game needs less developing and maintenance, this will be something to look at again.

Vesuvan

Enphetamy Just imagine, it’s 2025 and your playing Thardfer resurrected from the grave in a new app format, suddenly your phone screen lights up….it’s a push notification, you’ve been attacked but you successfully defended!! Your people need your guidance now before another attack is launched…

Enphetamy

Vesuvan yeah that sounds like any modern day game to me man. Think clash of clans, but more depth and less.....real time stuff.

Vesuvan

Enphetamy That’s kind of what I am suggesting if you want moderns players, make it more accessible and interactive like any modern day game.

Sayjins

Just go to utopia forums and flood Thardferr....I remember they seemed to steal most of what we did

Lord Thane

I thought about an app version a few times. The options aren't great though.

The most obvious option is a PWA, progressive web app. This is basically just like saving a webpage on your phone home screen. It would be like a regular browser window, but no address bar or other usual browser features. It would just be the plain mobile version of the website plopped in a window. This would be really easy to implement, just really lame too, less features than a regular browser window.

The next easiest to do would be a native app wrapped around the website. This is similar to the PWA, but with slightly more possible features since it's an app - just with the actual browser-game loading "inside the app". It would kind of be like a "thardferr browser" where it can do a bunch of things like a normal app, and like a normal browser (chrome, etc), but the only website it can load is thardferr, and the only features we could add wouldn't be connected to the game in any way. This is probably the best option since it's kind of a middle of the road approach, but the quality wouldn't be any better than the existing mobile version, and it would probably feel pretty clunky going between the game and other app features.

The other option is a full native app. This would be totally rebuilding the game from scratch, but specifically for phones. The nice part about it is everything would look and feel perfect on phone, and we could build unlimited kinds of features for it and they'd all flow together really nicely. The only downside to this is cost, just to start would be around 500 dev hours, plus maybe another 100-200 on top of that for debugging to get to where we are now with the existing game. Any changes we did in the regular game would be an extra 3-4X multiplication of dev time to also update the apps (assuming we did android and also iphone).

I would much prefer doing the native apps, if we had the time or funding, we could do some really fun stuff with native apps. Time to make a GoFundMe I guess lol

Lord Thane

I thought of another option that could be appealing as another middle of the road type option... We could build an API into the existing game, then hook the app up to that. This option would share much of the same logic the existing game uses, cutting down some dev since the API buildout would be pretty easy. Then the app itself would just be a user interface/design - everything you did in the app would get sent through the API to the unified game we currently have which would be the brains for everything. We could still do some neat things with this option as far as app features go. Stability could be a bit of an issue since changes to the game might need updating in the API layer, and then also on the apps - more moving parts that can break. The plus side to this option is lower dev time, but it would still be significant. It would be miles better than a PWA or mobile wrapper though.