This version should work on desktops/laptops as well as phones and tablets, and it should play well with most browsers, but I haven’t tested it on a very wide range of devices. If you have any troubles with your device, please let me know. You can send me a DM here, or email (a_dibianca at yahoo).
For those who just love typing, the “toggle prompt” button will enable that. (Not recommended for touchscreen devices.)
The “switch sides” button is untested, so with my limited understanding of CSS, I won’t be surprised if it causes things to disappear or turn upside-down or who knows. Give it a try though. Right-handed people might prefer the panel on the right side.
Note, this version is likely to get updated, which may invalidate existing save files.
HA! I think it’s a no-brainer that your games (nearly all of them) would be excellent candidates for touch-based app games. Have you thought about adapting them to be paid games on the app store? I’d love to see someone make some money off of IF, because that would be sweet, and because everyone says you can’t (Except you can! People have done it!) and I have some oppositional-defiant disorder about this.
I like the idea of making something like this into a phone app, but I’d have no idea how to go about it.
I probably would only want to charge for a game if I thought it would increase the number of players. Seems unlikely, but maybe it could happen? I wonder if anyone has ever experienced that phenomenon. (Might be hard to tell.)
It looks good. I think there are ways to automatically force or switch to landscape mode if that’s what you want. Also, I wouldn’t grey out the “other” button since that’s the color for inactive elements.
I don’t know if it would, but it seems like an experiment worth trying if someone with the coding chops wanted to give it a whirl. There have been a few paid IF games that have made unexpected amounts of money-- like A Dark Room, which was an adaptation of a parser game and went viral. Device 6 won an Apple Design Award. Abigail Corfman’s games are paid, and I paid for them. Able Black by Scott Leach is free on the App store, and it has over 3,000 reviews. I’d say that’s a lot more players than we get from IFDB.
People don’t play parser games because they don’t like typing, not because they don’t like reading. I’ve been trying to get people to play parser games for over 30 years, and this is what they tell me about why they won’t do it. They want to read cool stories and solve puzzles, but they want to push buttons to do it.
Keep the parser version free and heavily advertised as a free parser version in the app, and more people might play it. Or maybe you’d make a few bucks off the paid touchscreen version. Or maybe nothing would happen. But everybody just says it can’t be done, even though it has been done and written off as a fluke. It would require adapting the game to the format, and of course I might just be dead wrong about this. But not many people have tried it, and that bugs me.
Just spitballing here 'cause I think your games would be perfect for this. Not trying to run your life.
It’s great stuff! I stopped after visiting Director. I think what got me was the fact that there are 7 tickets, but I don’t know which I have gotten. Of course, that’s my fault. I should’ve written them down. Overall, though, it’s a very enjoyable game. Thumbs up!