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The Art Guy Company proudly presents: The original, the first Sassy Robotstm The Sassy Robots Project enables game designers* to:
Design, Create, Publish and Test Market DBG's The Five Dollar Game
Remember what it was like, hunting through dozens of boxes covered in bad art, looking for a winner? Some games were animated some had poorly drawn 'static' art work in an effort to help with the suspension of your disbelief. We will help you relive that feeling by allowing a select few of the great unwashed to test various segments of our games. Then, after all the tech jobs have returned and just before the 2nd dot com bubble is about burst, the game will be released--in the spirit of Leisure suit Larry, Zelda, The Leather Goddesses of Phoebus--maybe.
| DBG's Defined 
What are ˜discourse based" games? DBG's are games where the player can converse with the game characters by typing or speaking. These games vary in their ability to pass the 'Turing test' (read: the extent to which they ease a player's suspension of disbelief). The games don't necessarily need sophisticated A.I. (artificial intelligence) components--but as DBG's become more common, the lack of A.I. will become noticeable to the point where the games no longer qualify as "discourse" based.
So, the level and quality of discourse can vary from text based games (also known as I.F., Interactive Fiction) where the player rarely converses directly with the game characters, to 2D games where the player (sometimes) has access to some characters, to '3D' DBG's (what we call discourse based Virtual Realities' DBVR's). Typically a DBVR is an RPG (Role Playing Game), where the player is also a game character interacting verbally with other game characters.
There is however, one type of game that does not qualify as being discourse based, and that is a game where the player's dialog is selected from a menu. Yes, the menus make playing easier, and yes, the games are fun to play. However, rule #1 in defining a DBG is that its format allows it to at least qualify to be a candidate in a Turing test (although the game doesn't have to win the test). There are some who argue that a text based game's limited 'command set' makes it the same as a menu driven game. Which brings us to rule #2: DBG's must be able process spontaneous but cogent, spoken or written 'natural' languages.
Want to play?  Become a registered game tester. Want to learn? Read our white paper on creating DBG's.
*Not just for game designers: animators (cartoon & comic book artists)
| Step #1 Learn to work with others Working with your friends is great. However, your odds of success increase when you select your team based on their talents. I'm not talking about diversity just for the sake of diversity. I'm saying that your friends may lose interest in the project, show up late, or not at all.
Project Managers
Select someone that shares your passion for the project. They may not be someone you want to hang around with; they may be older or younger but as long as they are civil, honest and show up to work and follow the project plan they may be the best choice for your project. You need to get experience as a team leader working with different personalities. If you can only work with your friends, you're not a very good leader. Last, you need to learn about running a business. You may not want to call it a business--but don't make things more difficult by lying to yourself. It is what it is, keep the fantasy in the game. Team Members
If you're the person being hired, you need to understand that everyone working on the project is of equal importance. The odds are you probably won't get rich, but if you don't finish the project, you won't make any money at all. Some artists and writers tend to have antisocial or reclusive personalities. Those personality types can be "overcome" unless there is a great deal of ego or paranoia involved. Some people think that every opportunity is an opportunity to be ripped off. Or perhaps they feel that their talents are so great that they should never be asked to take an equal share of the risk. A good example, if you look at all the failed games and comic books over the last 27 years, the vast majority of them had really good artwork & writing. So, if you're working at a Star Bucks, and not as a professional writer, artist etc., then you shouldn't ask or expect special treatment from the other team members. In fact, most amateur teams consist of an amateur artist, an amateur writer/designer and a professional programmer. Yet, the programmer almost never gets paid up front or gets a larger share of the pie. Bottom line: restrain your ego until you actually complete a project. More |
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