[Christian IV]

Actually FunCom got a grant from the Norwegian Govt. to help with Dreamfall, but they have done a LOT on their own.

This is a very interesting thread, just checked in......after all is considered I am coming to come back to the basic questions of why we play games,
and what it is that tickles our hearts and the hearts of those who buy
or help create our games....for if we find that Gold at the end of the rainbow, no one will think twice about terms of success or funding...the creations of the heart that speak to the real needs of us all will sail on through all the shoals and narrows .....

Life is frankly a daily adventure, a risk, a danger, and full of gifts. All the adventure games we mention and think of have all of these. Some more
easily and beautifully accessible. Maybe the new high tech 3D, and engines
and high speed make new in game horizons closer, but still what will hold us and bring the millions who now do not play CGI to the keyboard and screen?
I feel that CGI is truly the newest literature, media, what have you, and
the wave is growing of users daily.....the quality spoken of so well in this thread is right here before us, if we can find it. I am feeling that this can be a way for many to achieve what some of the great successes in game creation have done, though each time it will be different. The marketing
mavens who set a dollar figure and goals of unit sales are the same devils who are trying to pull down book publishing and many other creative fields....
and the perseverance and craftyness and acumen to step past them is challenging but posible, i feel, after surveying and studying the history of games development now for some years.......

How?

A story. Told beautifully. Told with chances for the player to particpate.
To learn. To learn about themselves AND the story. To be able to identify, resonate with SOMETHING in the story. To come away better or happier, or
sadder but more alive, than when they began the game. And for the game to be gentle, or smooth or sweet for the fingers as well as the eyes, and the challenges to be new or inviting.......to ask us in, rather than to pull us in,
to bring us along, and convey meaning, rather than force results.....

The gaming communtiy and gamers are smart and creative people, and the game creators are even smarter and even more creative. but the fears of
what if, and no way, and how to seem to grow into titans ....and pulll us back. I feel there is a revolution happeing, but a quiet one, one of potential, and possiblity and we have passed through a narrow place that almost did
kill off adventure graphic gaming literature, but it didnt.....and now we have
a new horizon, a new chance....

I will go back and re real all the posts here tomorrow night, but wanted to
speak to hope for now. thanks for such a great thread.!