[insane_cobra]

I think Fahrenheit is the only one with a potential to make broader audience take notice just beacause it's the only mainstream game out of those four (okay, so is In Memoriam, but it came and went and most nobody cared). Will they turn out to be influential games some time from now? Who knows. There are many wonderful new concepts introduced every day, but some stick and some don't.

As for including Internet searches in games, I doubt it's a good idea. It's a fun novelty, but not much more than that. I don't see how that could introduce anything meaningful to the experience of playing a game. Like Fop already said, when I want to play a game, I play a game, when I want to browse the web, I browse the web. I don't want to mix the two, except if it's all done in a game's version of the Web, but even then I would be wary of it. I don't think searching the Web is fun or gratifying in any other way. Not to mention the technical problems it would introduce. Don't you think some time after the game's release Google search results would be flooded with walkthroughs as they would all contain those or similar keywords? And if the game was popular, I bet spammers would use the same keywords to lure the players to their websites.

It's not that I think it should never be done, I just don't see it becoming a trend.

[Fop]

Don't get me wrong, Trep, I'm a big fan of progression. It's good that developers try new things. Stagnation is death. However, unless someone can come up with a radically different way of incorporating the Internet in a game than in In Memoriam, I don't see why that should ever be used again. It was tried and it didn't really work, we know better now.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Fop

...unless someone can come up with a radically different way of incorporating the Internet in a game than in In Memoriam, I don't see why that should ever be used again.

Well, that's all I'm proposing.

[After a brisk nap]

So, any ideas for "radically different" ways to use the internet?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Hmmmmm, I wouldn't do any 'radically different' ideas just to be radically different. It's more a matter of exploring and playing with what's possible, no matter how outlandish it may sound.

[crabapple]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Crab:
"I also didn't like how you need to create an email account for the game in order to play it. My email provider thought the messages from the game were viruses (they use Norton to filter viruses) and I had to turn off the virus filter at my ISP's site. (The emails were simple text messages, but I assume my ISP's virus detector looks for certain strings of characters and decides on that basis if something is a virus) In the future, my ISP may not allow you to turn off the filter, and there are probably some email providers that already do not allow this."

Trep:
You seem to think that your problem is a universal one. I played the demo and at least there I had no problems whatsoever with the emailing with my yahoo account. There are other possible ways of doing it, one of which is by officially registering the game online and giving them a valid email address and the gameplay specific email will be funneled through their system and re-sent to yours so that your account doesn't block them.

It certainly was not an isolated problem. Anyone who used Earthlink for email would have the same problem. I didn't figure out why I wasn't getting emails on my own. I found out after seeing other people with the same problem in Help forums. I even remember a post by one of the developers giving a list of email addresses that the game used which you should add to your address books to keep them from being blocked by your spam filter. And someone else posted that it wasn't enough - that you had to turn off your ISP's antivirus. They didn't use Earthlink either. So there are at least two ISP's that blocked the game's emails by default.

Another way is to set up a new email account specifically for this game, Yahoo or Hotmail or whatever else, that won't necessarily block the game's email.

You mean the kind that puts an ad at the end of every email?

BTW, I think you're quite inaccurate in comparing Facade with The Sims and similar games. Facade, for one thing, is very heavily story driven.

I read the site at http://www.quvu.net/interactivestory.net/
I must have missed the part that told about a story.
It looked to me like a simulated cocktail party where you learn about some characters' marriage problems - sort of a diversion that people might play over their lunch breaks.

You should check out the games' sites and previews to get an idea.

I've already done that. I still can't tell how these games are going to play or how successful they'll be.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by crabapple

It certainly was not an isolated problem. Anyone who used Earthlink for email would have the same problem. I didn't figure out why I wasn't getting emails on my own. I found out after seeing other people with the same problem in Help forums. I even remember a post by one of the developers giving a list of email addresses that the game used which you should add to your address books to keep them from being blocked by your spam filter. And someone else posted that it wasn't enough - that you had to turn off your ISP's antivirus. They didn't use Earthlink either. So there are at least two ISP's that blocked the game's emails by default.

But there are also those many who didn't have a problem with it. Thing is, the problem was there and it's not like any developer has superpsychic abilities and can foresee every single potential flaw. These flaws are regrettable, but certainly shouldn't be seen as a failure for the idea across the board forever and ever.

You mean the kind that puts an ad at the end of every email?

No one's saying you should use that account permanently afterwards. I did mention that it can be set up just for the game.

I read the site at http://www.quvu.net/interactivestory.net/
I must have missed the part that told about a story.
It looked to me like a simulated cocktail party where you learn about some characters' marriage problems - sort of a diversion that people might play over their lunch breaks.

Which is in itself is a pretty cool idea, imo. Why not? An intensive, heavily story driven adventure game 'quickie'.

I've already done that. I still can't tell how these games are going to play or how successful they'll be.

No one can!! We'll just have to wait.

Unsurprisingly, Tales of Tales is currently having some problems trying to get funding for 8, though they are very determined to.

Their game, 8, can be described as an adventure game with a focus on discovery instead of solving puzzles. It's an esoteric fairy tale game where the story is told not through words but through the game itself, perhaps taking a similar approach as a game like ICO. The projects shows signs of potential, but it got stranded somewhere in the pre-production phase due to lack of financial backing.

-- Marek's feature article, Games Beyond Games, at Idle Thumbs,