The Day the Laughter Stopped

As you may or may not know, I have participated in the recent Ludum Dare #28. Under the theme, You Only Get One, I have created an interactive fiction game, a Choose Your Own Adventure if you will. The topic I chose was quite a serious one, and I think it would be good to discuss why I wanted to do this, what I tried to achieve, and, basically, what it all means.

If you haven’t played the game yet, it would be advisable to do so first, as I will completely spoil the whole thing in a minute. You can find the game here, but please be aware that the game comes with a ginormous trigger warning. Please read the notes in the game’s menu if you think there might be topics that could cause you significant emotional distress.

I’d also ask you not to play it if you are a minor. The game is not featured in our library on purpose, as our cute design and our other, much more child-friendly titles suggest safe, pleasant games, but this is not one of those. I understand the appeal such a statement has, but even some of my friends, adults, have had very strong reactions to it, so please skip this one. Or, if you are really curious, talk to your parents, have them play it first or play it together. Just don’t take this lightly, it is a very serious topic.

Now, if you have played the game and you are certain that a discussion of the same won’t cause you distress, let’s talk about it.

Again, TRIGGER WARNING AND MAJOR SPOILERS after the jump.

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On Monetizing Let’s Plays

Do it.

Play it, record yourself playing it, share it in any way you like, monetize to your heart’s content. We love seeing people enjoy our work. Plus, Let’s Plays are free advertising. It would be more than silly if we punished you for it. Indeed, if you make a few bucks off it, that’s more than fair.

And I think the line is pretty clear: If someone were to take assets or a piece of music or something out of our games and sold it, that of course wouldn’t be cool. But if you do a commentary or share your gaming experience with others, that couldn’t be more fine. Monetize. It’s a form of journalism after all, and journalists get paid for showing games to a wider audience, why shouldn’t you?

There are no conditions either. Of course a link to our website would be appreciated, but it’s not mandatory. Do whatever feels right for you.

So to sum up: Don’t resell our stuff. Do sell your commentary. Any and all footage is fair game. Use it. Show it. Share it. And most of all, have fun!

Crabman out.

Lorem Ipsum

All right, I need a post to finish up the page design, but since we’re already here, why not take this opportunity to give you a bit of a heads up regarding all the wonderful things to come?

So as you may or may not know (if you don’t, Games should be ready by the time you’re reading this), we’ve chosen to work on a classic top-down RPG with flying pirates and turn-based combat as our very first project as Hypnotic Owl, and while we both have quite a bit of experience with game development—both recreationally and professionally—running our own business is completely new territory for us. It’s very exciting and very. very. terrifying.

But good news! We wanna share this little adventure of ours with you! In excruciating detail! Meaning, we’re gonna do a wee bit of blogging about all the stuff we’ve done and the things we’ll do. Hopefully it’ll be of use to some of you, or at least interesting for those who are curious how we do things here at the Owl.

Anyway, as Chief President of Business & Game Design™ Jan’s gonna focus on the design aspects of our games and what it takes to found and run a company in Germany. Not an easy subject, lemme tell ya; I still haven’t figured out what exactly happend there, so I sure am looking forward to his explanation. Maybe third time’s the charm.

I, meanwhile, will write a bit about the game itself, its inception, how we go about making it, the technology we use, plans, hopes and dreams and stuff like that. I’m still writing this post as a (hopefully) more interesting Lorem Ipsum, so I haven’t really figured out what it will be exactly, but something about why I love HTML5 so much or how we got from “We need something quick ‘n easy!” to this seems appropriate.

Stay tuned, folks! Crabman out.