One of the feedback we picked from the Driftmoon preview was that some players (me) didn't like the way the plot of the game started. I'm looking for a way to improve the beginning, and while we're at it, we could make the player character more interesting. If you have an idea for the plot, don't read any further before posting it to the comments, or you might forget your unspoiled idea.
So now that you either don't have an idea or you've posted it already, I can tell you my ideas. Looking at the current setup, the player is just a general chap who's father was the baron of Driftmoon, and the player didn't know this. Someone said he'd preferred playing Paul the Librarian, and I would have preferred playing Bobby the Skeleton. Often RPG characters are weak nobodies who just happen to be at the right place, such as in all Fallouts and Oblivion. The argument there is that it's easier for the player to feel sympathy for characters similar to themselves. Also that allows character development, the player can mold the character as they will. Call me crazy, but I'd like a my character to be a little more interesting, perhaps even have a background of their own that I could learn while playing.
My favourite example of RPG player characters is The Nameless One from Planescape: Torment. The protagonist was handed an ugly tattooed character with an unknown background, only the knowledge that he lived forever and had lived many different lives in the past now forgotten. You could develop him while playing by getting him to remember some of his past lives, and you learned quite a bit of his past. He was an interesting character from the start, it was cool playing him and you wanted to learn about him, but since he had no memory of his past the character itself didn't force your choices. Unfortunately the forgotten past is one of the most used game elements today, but this was ten years ago when it was still nearly new.
So here's my initial ideas for the player character. I don't want to completely redo the starting levels, but I could for example start the player in Driftmoon and turn Samuel (the professor with the teleport) into some sort of a wizard or sage, and move his house there.
- The player is the baron himself, come to the past to stop himself.
- The player is a golem created by the wizard.
- The player is a dwarf trying to escape from the mines, mistakenly tunneled into the wizards house.
- The player is the king of Driftmoon from a thousand years ago, woken from his grave by the wizard to stop the Curse.
This is the final vote, so if you like Driftmoon, vote now and ask your friends to vote for us as well. If we win, it means I will have a chance to focus more on Driftmoon - and finish it sooner. (The poll closes 30.11 at 11:59 PM EST.)
For those of you not familiar with Driftmoon yet, the preview version is available here. And for those who don't yet even know about the contest yet, here's a link to 2beegames.com. The contest organizers would appreciate it if you also registered there, though it is not obligatory at the moment.
It was tight, but we made it to the final round of voting at 2BeeGames. The next voting will start tomorrow, so check back to vote for Driftmoon. Thanks for all of your votes this far!
The competition is really tough! If you like Driftmoon, please vote and ask your friends to vote for us at http://www.2beegames.com/.
UPDATE: This is the most critical moment this week, if you haven't voted yet, please vote!
Edit: New preview version is here. If you haven't tried the game yet, that's a good place to start.
First of all, if you haven't voted for Driftmoon yet, please vote! The last vote next week is the most important, that determines the winner!
I actually came here to talk about download statistics. Those are often well kept secrets, you wouldn't want your competitors to know you're doing bad! The reason I wanted to reveal my statistics is that one of my games is keeping me up at night. It's weird.
A bit of background. Most of my games are from way back. I actually started making games in 1998, and the oldest one available here is The Forge released in 2000. The newest actual release, if you don't count Driftmoon, would be Notrium from 2003. Now six or more years is a lot of time to get downloads. Too bad I've only got statistics from 2004 upwards, so we can only guess at what numbers these games have started with. And I'm only talking about downloads directly from monkkonen.net. I honestly have no idea what the numbers would be from other sites that offer my games. Should I double these or what?
I said I didn't have statistics from before 2004. Well I lied there. I tracked Notrium in 2003. To a young man just starting game development it was a huge success, with well over 300 000 downloads in the first couple of months alone. After that the downloads settled into about 5000 per month, gradually declining to 2000 per month that I now see. So that's in the range of 600 000 - 700 000 total downloads up until now.
Before Notrium there was Magebane 2, and after a rough start it soon settled into 5000, declining to current 2000 per month. The total numbers for Magebane are pretty similar to Notrium. The difference between the games is that Notrium took two years to build, and Magebane about half a year. Wazzal and The Forge have always been pretty regular with 500-1500 downloads per month. I think they're both at about 100 000 total for their lifetime.
So what was the fuss about? It's about the fact that Bikez II has netted well over 2,5 million downloads! I think about 80 percent of the downloads are from Brazil. If you're reading this from São Paulo, here's hello to you. If I got a dollar from each of you, I'd get a decent income. The download numbers for Bikez II are actually continually increasing due to more people getting an Internet connection in Brazil. The counter at one of the bigger sites Baixaki is going at 1.2 million.
So what do you make of it? My statistics software claims it doesn't count robots and download accelerators, so the number cannot be that far off. Did the game just get lucky in Brazil, such that it has nothing to do with the actual game? Maybe there's potential for making money out of these growing economies? Is there a huge demand for games like Bikez II, enough to warrant an eight year old game to continue succeeding? Is it riding on the success of Grand Theft Auto, with the difference that it works on really old computers? Or is it just the girl in the menu? I'm at a loss with this one, I really am.
Who wants to see Bikez 3? If one million comment, I'm going to start right now. 
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