I still think the preference for pictures over text is totally arbitrary in that context.  Or either context, really -- why would it matter if you use text or pictures to convey the scene?  They're just different means to the same end.

They might be different means to the same end, but if you look at it that way then there is no difference between music, novels, plays, movies, games, paintings, sculptures, or anything really.

IMO the problem with text is the language barrier. Someone who can't speak english playing Aether would be able to pick up on the mood of the game, and some of the emotions, but they wouldn't get the story cause we need the text for that.

I appreciate the concept behind it and the work that went into it but staring at SQL databases gives me a headache...

Holy shit, Glaiel. I've been playing your flash games, since like, forever.

And responses like this (random people knowing who I am) make it all worthwhile.

I make games (in a few years it'll officially be my career... got to finish college... I definitely plan to go indie cause there's a lot more freedom that way) because I loved to play games as a kid.

I thought stuff like sonic and mario was neat and when I was little I spent some of my time drawing out imaginary levels for games I liked or drawing out levels and ideas for imaginary games on a very large roll of paper (we had a lot of these rolls of paper cause the Yankee Candle company gave them away for free if you went to their warehouse to pick them up). Anyway I really liked making up ideas for games even though I didn't have the skills to actually make them, nor did I realize what programming was and I didn't have any idea how they worked in the first place.

Come 7th grade I decided to learn how to make games for real (armed with a copy of Flash 4). Since then I've just loved being able to take my ideas and put them into a form that everyone can enjoy. Programming is an art that everyone can appreciate, but only a few know how to do it. Plus I love math and I love physics and I love making and playing music and I love computers and I love games. Put them all together and you get a game. (Well you need art and animation... which personally I don't like making... but that's what artists are for).

Then once I've made my creation, I love seeing what other people think about it. Especially other game developers. It's a nice group of people to be a part of, because I've noticed developers are always willing to help each other out (most are at least).

Anyway it is also a very practical art form. It takes a while to learn how to make games well but the payoff is good cause it can easily be made into a career. Luckily for me, I am learning how to make games in school, and taught myself how to make games all throughout high school, so I really had a lot of free time to teach myself how to make games because I didn't have to worry about making money.

It's just fun to do and one of the few hobbies that can be turned into a career, and really, everyone would love to be able to turn their hobbies into careers if they could.

*sits down for story time*
 

Wonderful. *lol* Maybe the story time should come some time after the full version has been out for a while. I'm really enjoy post-modern and deconstructionist approaches to understanding the creations of others, and adding the creators explanations doesn't ruin anything for me: it enhances my understand and gives me additional viewpoints from which to peer.

I don't think telling the full meaning of the story after the full version is necessarily a good idea, cause I think part of the power in this games story is that on the surface, it's a pretty simple story (the ending makes this really clear), and there's one level of symbols that directly related to the plot of the story, which are pretty easy to understand (the earth shrinking, for instance). But then there's the other meanings for the symbolism in the game, which is shrouded from the player unless they really feel like digging deep to find something, and what is found isn't necessarily the same thing that another person will find. In fact, I don't even think that I see the same thing in the story as Edmund does, just because we have different memories and pasts. That, and he didn't really tell me what he had planned for the deeper meanings until we had to come up with names for the planets (which was after I had them mostly programmed).

Edmund made it really clear that this game is about childhood (he alludes that it's about his childhood in all the press releases). But like, it really could be about anyone's childhood, and what everything means to a specific person is really what he wants to interpret it as. Just because it deviates from what we had "planned" doesn't mean that that interpretation is necessarily wrong, just a different way of looking at things.

Anyway have you ever read a book, got really into it and loved the whole thing, then a movie of it comes out. The movie most likely presents the characters as different than you interpreted them as and imagined them to be. It's happened to me, it's happened to everyone. That's why movies are generally worse than their book forms (except for a few very rare cases). The books leave a lot to the imagination, so people generate their own mental picture of how things are supposed to be, and become disappointed when the director says "no your idea is wrong, this is what the main character is like..." It would be the same thing with this game if we revealed the true meanings of everything after the full game. People that cared would already have their own idea of what everything means, and it would be really weird to suddenly have your ideas changed when the actual symbolic layer is explained. It's like having an english teacher tell you what something means, when you think it actually means something else. Too bad, this is the real meaning.

I don't want people to feel that way. You got enough of that in high school english class. Just interpret it how you think, read what other people think, come to your own conclusion, and convince yourself that that is what we actually intended from the start. The story is much more powerful that way.

Here's something we have planned for the sequel, because it seems oh so popular with games recently to do this, we thought we'd cash in on the trend. The main character will become... a warewolf (just like in the recent zelda game and the new sonic game). We are also supporting local bands by letting the local high school band Metal Amputee Zombie Razor do the music for the new one, it will be hard-freaking-core.

Oh ya, and we're going to have the aliens fight back with guns and make it first person too. But don't be alarmed, these changes won't kill the game, in fact we think these kinds of 'innovative' features will widen our target audience.

Pre-Order the collector's edition now (only 12 payments of $179.99) and you'll get a "the making of" DvD and a bonus sticky tongue squirt gun to make all you're friends jealous.

We're still open to suggestions though.

P.S. Hi Edmund (i finally made an account here)