how big is the community? where do you post and get games?

[zork2]

Hi everybody

I remember the original game Adventure Construction Set way back when I had a commodore 64 and I have looked through many different RPG creation software platforms but I still have a fondness for ACS and have found nothing that has the scope and ease of game creation that matched ACS and now ACK.

Back in the day they had the ACS club where you could submit a game and get 2 back or something like that. Sadly I researched this to no end and found that the clubs and libraries of user created games do not appear to be around or archived for emulator play. I downloaded ACK a couple of years ago while working on another game creation system Megazeux. I never got back to it until now and I am wondering is there a demand for games created with this software? I would love to write some games with it and have some good ideas I would be ready to code / create but do not want to do if there is no one to play them.

Just wondering how big is the community how many users?

EDIT BY FORUM MODERATOR: Sticky: ACK Community (Now with Member Directory!)

Where can you get and post games created by members?

EDIT BY FORUM MODERATOR: Sticky: ACK Adventures & Where to upload your own!

[rld]

Activity has been slow lately. There are various people working on games in progress, but other than Chris's epic Ultima 4 part II, not many completed games are available.

To the list mods - is there a way to post files anywhere on Jolt Country? It would be nice to have a central location to keep stuff/games for ACK - right now it is scattered across multiple different web sites and file shares.

[Garth's Equipment Shop]

Yeah thats a good idea rld. I'm sure Rob [icecream jonesy] would be more than happy to set something like that up for us if its doable with his old phpbb2 forum software without too much fuss. Of course there's the rub ;).

As for the demand. Well it is admittedly small compared to most other kinds of Indie game development these days, which is to be expected as it is afterall very retro. But there is definitely an interest in retro stuff as you can see from many youtube lets play channels and many very popular game review sites which often mix in reviews of very old game classics along with their usual reviews of more recent stuff. And ACK creator Chris Hopkins proved that you can get a game made with ACK noticed by some pretty important game reviewers when his Ultima IV parody got reviewed by The CRPG Addict as well as established Ultima fan sites.

And of course its also a matter of how much we as a community put into this. Thats how much we get back. Just by completing a game and having it advertised here among other places you decide to reveal it, you are increasing the potential growth of this community and the chances of ACK becoming more of an online presence.

Just look at the popularity of the major abandonware sites and old arcade, console and computer game emulators out there. Taken altogether the world of retro gaming is actually pretty big. It is just a matter of tapping into that. Produce something with that target audience in mind, something they will relate to as Chris did, and you should have no problems.

[Mr Goofy]

Hi everybody

I registered and I am the same one who posted the original thread.

I don't care that the community is small just want to know that there is one, LOL I just want to be sure there are some people out there to play what ever I would attempt to create even if it were only a couple. Megazeux was kind of the same situation. Old DOS software but there was a small following of loyal programmers, players that loved playing the games created on it. I like ACK and loved ACS back in the day on my good old Commodore 64 (still have pack rat that I am). If I were going to create a role playing game ACK has all the tools built in to it that and it's a lot easier to create with that tool then some of the others I have worked with or scene. I believe I could get an adventure created start to finish (production time) in less time with ACK then other tools / programs out there. True, other tools do have more bells and whistles but everything with that also takes a heck of a lot more time to create and test. The sad part of it is most of the user created games that take advantage of those systems really don't seem to be any better then what could be created on a system like ACK primarily because they lack good stories or plotlines. I think sometimes more is less and should be more about telling a good story or having a good plot line then fancy animated graphics and super sound effects. I also enjoy working on a system with certain restrictions … makes it a bit of a challenge to create something where resources are limited …. akin to the 80's and a 4k Atari cartridge. I expect the community to be small, that's ok, everyone else can go play Diablo 3 I like the old school stuff myself.

The only thing I think would be cool would be a central repository for the games users create on the ACK system as stated above. I have scene other sites and systems do this of course Megazeux (www.digitalmzx.net) and I know BOE (Blades Of Exile) by spiderweb software was another one I looked into a long time ago, even bought the game series and they did have an editor. I believe they have a nice site that all the user games are stored in for download not with the parent company but a user created site if I am correct. I also have scene this done to some extent with FRUA (Forgotten Realms Unlimitted Adventures). These upload / download sites are also nice because I know with Megazuex they had user created utilities and examples that would help and show what you could do with the system. Very similar to the tutorial given with the ACK download. It's great to have someone tell you how to do something but even better if they can get a working example of it that they can open and play around with.

Well, that’s my 2 cents for now got to get back to the real world and work.

I think I will begin looking into ACK development a little more and attempt to write something for this system should be fun.

[QuickyGarth]

All very good points indeed. And Welcome to Jolt Country and the Adventure Creation Kit community! Yes there are people here who have stuck around over the years. We all come and go and though there seems to be quite a few threads and posts in this subforum if you check the dates it took years for them to accumulate. But we do keep tabs on ACK and this subforum when time permits. Most of us have an unfinished game or two that has been i the works for some time. Some with their own Work In Progress threads.

Overall though I would say this community is much slower but more patient as well than most game making communities out there. Everyone here understands that like themselves everyone is busy with work and family for most of their lives and have very little time to spend on game development. But one thing I think everyone has time for is to play your game if you can complete one! :D

The upload/download repository accessible to the public is a great idea and I am familiar with the old Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures community and their FRUA modules archive. I write an article for the UANewsletter many years ago before I discovered ASK and chose this as my platform of choice for basically the same reasons you've laid in your post.

Anyway I like how they have their archive set up and we could do a lot worse than emulate it, adding a slightly more retro ACK style to it naturally. ;) Theres also BAF's Guide to Interactive Fiction which is a similar public file sharing site for IF games. I have an upload on there from many years ago when TADS3 was my platform of choice.

[QuickyGarth]

Ugh sorry for the aweful typos in last post was kind of in a hurry. Still am actually! :o Bye!

[rld]

Of course there are any number of free file hosting facilities around - Dropbox being one - but if possible it would be good to have hosted files that were actually tied to the Jolt Country site, instead of being run by a user that might drop off the grid later.

Does Jolt Country have an FTP server facility? I tried going to ftp.joltcountry.com, but I just got a default page.

[Tdarcos]

Of course there are any number of free file hosting facilities around - Dropbox being one - but if possible it would be good to have hosted files that were actually tied to the Jolt Country site, instead of being run by a user that might drop off the grid later.

Does Jolt Country have an FTP server facility? I tried going to ftp.joltcountry.com, but I just got a default page.

Jonsey probably needs to set up some sort of file page tie-in. With http being usable to support delivery of files, ftp has kind of fallen off the radar scope as far as for use by users. A lot of places that offer hosting don't even support anonymous ftp anymore. Mostly ftp has been reverted back into a support tool for the site manager such as uploading files, creating directories, and so on. Use of ftp for anonymous file downloads has more-or-less gone the way of 28000 baud modems.

I would have said "9600 baud modems" except they are alive and well, still going strong, in fax machines.

[Garth's Equipment Shop]

Could have said 14.4 Tdarcos ;) Ah the memories of my upgrade to 14.4. What a great feeling it was back then to jump from one speed to the next double in speed. 600 to 1200, to 2400, to 4800, to 9600, to 14.4 to 56k... You just dont experience that kind of jump in speed anymore. Seems like it has come to a plateau with broadband. I havent experienced a speed boost like those old days since my upgrade from Windows 98se to XP I think. And Im still on XP. So over a decade of the same speed. :/

[rld]

Of course there are any number of free file hosting facilities around - Dropbox being one - but if possible it would be good to have hosted files that were actually tied to the Jolt Country site, instead of being run by a user that might drop off the grid later.

Does Jolt Country have an FTP server facility? I tried going to ftp.joltcountry.com, but I just got a default page.

Jonsey probably needs to set up some sort of file page tie-in.

So has anyone figured out whether or not this would be possible? Since this is pretty much the main site* dedicated to ACK as far as I know, it would be great to be able to post ACK-related files and games here somewhere, especially if it was in such a way that we could embed links to the files in posts on this board.

Is there a way to make this happen? Mods? Jonsey?

(*Of course Chris's site at http://www.80sgaming.org/ack/default.htm has the definitive ACK file set posted, but none of the rest of us have access to it, so we can't post games, patches, etc. there.)

[Garth's Equipment Shop]

Hi rld. I posted your question in full to Chris Hopkins on facebook since he cannot visit the forum as often as he would like to but can access fb anytime anywhere via mobile. Which reminds me, wouldn't it be great if all us long time ACK enthusiasts were socially networked? Then we could set up an ACK page and group on there and perhaps get some exposure to people who wouldn't normally hear of it otherwise. And seeing an active group associated with it would further encourage them to participate. I actually set up a facebook account primarily for this purpose under the name Garth Rakhir. http://www.facebook.com/GarthsEquipmentShop

Of course there are any number of free file hosting facilities around - Dropbox being one - but if possible it would be good to have hosted files that were actually tied to the Jolt Country site, instead of being run by a user that might drop off the grid later.

Does Jolt Country have an FTP server facility? I tried going to ftp.joltcountry.com, but I just got a default page.

Jonsey probably needs to set up some sort of file page tie-in.

So has anyone figured out whether or not this would be possible? Since this is pretty much the main site* dedicated to ACK as far as I know, it would be great to be able to post ACK-related files and games here somewhere, especially if it was in such a way that we could embed links to the files in posts on this board.

Is there a way to make this happen? Mods? Jonsey?

(*Of course Chris's site at http://www.80sgaming.org/ack/default.htm has the definitive ACK file set posted, but none of the rest of us have access to it, so we can't post games, patches, etc. there.)

[Garth's Equipment Shop]

Chris Hopkins
I'll have to see if I can create additional accounts on the 80sgaming site... That would be a logical place.

I volunteered to set up some html there to make a nice ACK archive similar to the one Dan made for ACS games.

Including the following suggested elements:

A Documents Section: View ACK manual online, other pdf's or text files authors write for their games, tutorials we might want to make, and a newsletter if we decide to make one. ;)

Downloads section for the games. Complete with author's name and contact info if desired, game descriptions, file sizes, important notes, screenshots, etc.

Upload section for uploading new games [which would require one or more of us to keep an eye on so we can update the downloads list to include them.

Could have a multimedia library with shared resources for use in games. tilesets primarily I think. Perhaps some preconverted ogg sounds too, and hard to find midi tunes. or just links to good places online to find them.

Any other ideas?

[rld]

Chris Hopkins
I'll have to see if I can create additional accounts on the 80sgaming site... That would be a logical place.

I volunteered to set up some html there to make a nice ACK archive similar to the one Dan made for ACS games.

Including the following suggested elements:

A Documents Section: View ACK manual online, other pdf's or text files authors write for their games, tutorials we might want to make, and a newsletter if we decide to make one. ;)

Downloads section for the games. Complete with author's name and contact info if desired, game descriptions, file sizes, important notes, screenshots, etc.

Upload section for uploading new games [which would require one or more of us to keep an eye on so we can update the downloads list to include them.

Could have a multimedia library with shared resources for use in games. tilesets primarily I think. Perhaps some preconverted ogg sounds too, and hard to find midi tunes. or just links to good places online to find them.

This sounds like a good idea to me. Let me know if you need any help managing / updating files (handling uploaded submissions, etc.) once you get everything set up on the website.

[rld]

Chris Hopkins
I'll have to see if I can create additional accounts on the 80sgaming site... That would be a logical place.

I volunteered to set up some html there to make a nice ACK archive similar to the one Dan made for ACS games.

Including the following suggested elements:

A Documents Section: View ACK manual online, other pdf's or text files authors write for their games, tutorials we might want to make, and a newsletter if we decide to make one. ;)

Downloads section for the games. Complete with author's name and contact info if desired, game descriptions, file sizes, important notes, screenshots, etc.

Upload section for uploading new games [which would require one or more of us to keep an eye on so we can update the downloads list to include them.

Any progress on this? Let me know if you need any help setting this up.