It's true; it's a free game!

* After Hours
https://store.steampowered.com/app/989040/After_Hours/
Of course, it's a free game that's always been free, and
it isn't newly free either. It's been free for a while. But
it showed up in the news recently for a reason so amusing
that I decided to list it here just so I could talk about
the reason.

The game itself is one of those Indie logic puzzle games
mixed in with mini-games; I'll be honest, I'm not quite
sure what it's really about; I haven't played it. It's
'hook' is that for many of the answers to the puzzles
you need to search the for-real Internet (the game calls
itself an 'augmented reality' game for that reason). I've
no idea if it's good or not. It's free, though.

But what caught my attention is the developer's claim that the reason*
for the game's dropping user-review score is a set of puzzles
involving e-mail, where you have to send (in-game) an e-mail to
request information from an NPC. This requires you to type in an email
address, a subject line, and write some text in the body. The latter
is parsed by the game looking for keywords, and if you put in enough
of those, you get a canned e-mail back, allowing you to continue the
game.

But --according to the developer-- this 'puzzle' is too difficult for
the younger set, who 'don't know how to write emails anymore', and
instead are putting all the text into the subject line and ignoring
the body entirely... because that's how you do it when you text. Or
something along those lines.

I don't really buy into this excuse, and I certainly don't want to
start a 'young people can't figure out the simplest thing' diatribe. I
don't really believe that (or rather, I think that the number of
stupid youngsters more or less remains constant between generations).
Also, there are a lot of old folk who also have real problems with
writing long-form text too. I think if more reviewers are
thumb-downing this game, it's because more people don't find it fun
anymore. All products have limited lifespan to their popularity.

Still, as a fan of /the/ old-school text-only grandpappy of all
Internet forums, I'm a fan of anyone griping about how this old-school
method of communication is dying out, whether its delivered via SMTP
or NNTP or whatever. Obviously I have a preference for long-form
communication over 140-character long tweets and chat. I'm just not
limiting my disdain for the youngsters who use it; old farts who try
to text-message me get the same glare of disapproval.

Honestly, I'm not really interested in this game; rants about the
superiority of email aside, it just doesn't look that interesting to
me. But I'm gonna get it anyway, just because anything that promotes
email over texting is alright in my book.

Maybe next we'll get a game that features a Usenet-analogue. Wouldn't
that be a blast? ;-)




----
* the developer's reasoning https://www.gamesradar.com/games/puzzle/the-reviews-got-lower-and-lower-dev-says-his-puzzle-game-is-suffering-on-steam-because-young-people-dont-know-how-to-write-emails-anymore/




--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 00:46 this Monday (GMT):

It's true; it's a free game!

* After Hours
https://store.steampowered.com/app/989040/After_Hours/
Of course, it's a free game that's always been free, and
it isn't newly free either. It's been free for a while. But
it showed up in the news recently for a reason so amusing
that I decided to list it here just so I could talk about
the reason.

The game itself is one of those Indie logic puzzle games
mixed in with mini-games; I'll be honest, I'm not quite
sure what it's really about; I haven't played it. It's
'hook' is that for many of the answers to the puzzles
you need to search the for-real Internet (the game calls
itself an 'augmented reality' game for that reason). I've
no idea if it's good or not. It's free, though.

But what caught my attention is the developer's claim that the reason*
for the game's dropping user-review score is a set of puzzles
involving e-mail, where you have to send (in-game) an e-mail to
request information from an NPC. This requires you to type in an email address, a subject line, and write some text in the body. The latter
is parsed by the game looking for keywords, and if you put in enough
of those, you get a canned e-mail back, allowing you to continue the
game.

But --according to the developer-- this 'puzzle' is too difficult for
the younger set, who 'don't know how to write emails anymore', and
instead are putting all the text into the subject line and ignoring
the body entirely... because that's how you do it when you text. Or
something along those lines.

I don't really buy into this excuse, and I certainly don't want to
start a 'young people can't figure out the simplest thing' diatribe. I
don't really believe that (or rather, I think that the number of
stupid youngsters more or less remains constant between generations).
Also, there are a lot of old folk who also have real problems with
writing long-form text too. I think if more reviewers are
thumb-downing this game, it's because more people don't find it fun
anymore. All products have limited lifespan to their popularity.

Still, as a fan of /the/ old-school text-only grandpappy of all
Internet forums, I'm a fan of anyone griping about how this old-school
method of communication is dying out, whether its delivered via SMTP
or NNTP or whatever. Obviously I have a preference for long-form communication over 140-character long tweets and chat. I'm just not
limiting my disdain for the youngsters who use it; old farts who try
to text-message me get the same glare of disapproval.

Honestly, I'm not really interested in this game; rants about the
superiority of email aside, it just doesn't look that interesting to
me. But I'm gonna get it anyway, just because anything that promotes
email over texting is alright in my book.

Maybe next we'll get a game that features a Usenet-analogue. Wouldn't
that be a blast? ;-)

----
* the developer's reasoning https://www.gamesradar.com/games/puzzle/the-reviews-got-lower-and-lower-dev-says-his-puzzle-game-is-suffering-on-steam-because-young-people-dont-know-how-to-write-emails-anymore/

On one hand, I do get that "young people" are hesitant to send an email
since nobody does anymore unless its for business or a scam, but on the
other, 99% of the time when a dev makes an excuse for why their ratings
are low its just because they made a bad game.

As for the puzzle itself, it's a cool idea, but HORRIBLE for game
longevity. There is no way that the dev is going to leave the email
server on for years, and unless they patch something in, the game just
becomes impossible (or impossible without an external guide to provide
the solution). IMO, the only reason a puzzle should involve email and/or external contact like this is if its something like an ARG or similar
community project, since those are inherently limited time-wise and the
entire point is about finding the end product.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)