Textfyre Meets iTwixie

Once upon a time there was a tween girls social networking site called iTwixie. One day, a start-up Interactive Fiction software publisher named Textfyre called upon iTwixie to see if they would like to be friends. iTwixie, represented by its owner, Rebecca Gaynier, checked out Textfyre’s demo game Shadow in the Cathedral and thought Textfyre had great potential as a friend to iTwixie and vice versa.

Anyway, Rebecca and I have chatted and she’s very interested in ways we can bring IF to her audience of tween girls. Obviously this is an important portion of our target market and I believe we can tell stories in ways that will be greatly appreciated by iTwixie’s users.

I look forward to continued conversations with iTwixie, bringing their ideas into our stories and having thier users review and play our games.

It could be a very beneficial partnership for both companies.

Register For More

We just implemented the registration process at Textfyre.Com. If you’re an existing customer, you will be able to access the latest downloads by clicking on the Download link. If you own The Shadow in the Cathedral, you can play online.

We’ve also added a new product called the Online Edition and the Shadow version is available immediately. All online play requires Silverlight and works with Intel Macs and Windows PC’s.

We’re still working through changes to Secret Letter and looking to have 2.0 out soon.

Could I have Glulx with my change?

Textfyre is still in the process of business development. This means that the business plan is fluid. We have to adapt to new ideas, new market pressures, and of course, we need to generate revenue, even if it’s small.

Secret Letter’s sales have been slow and that’s probably because we need to get it into the target market’s hands. Getting a text game in the hands of a middle-school student is very difficult, but we’re inching closer to seeing that happen. In the meantime, we need to diversify our plans and try to market to the indy/casual/hobbyist gaming communities. So we’ve made some dramatic changes…

All future releases of Textfyre games will have a Hobbyist Edition, which will come with the same End User License Agreement, an Introduction, Hints, and the raw Glulx file that can be played on any existing Glulx interpreter. The raw Glulx file will also be included in all other editions, except for the Classroom Edition, which is a different delivery model anyway.

We still expect to get the games into classrooms on a per-student seat licensing basis, but we need to build the business however it comes to us. We’re going to try to market to casual gamers interested in IF and see where that leads. It looks like The Shadow in the Cathedral is going to do well in this area where Secret Letter has not. I believe the next game, The Empath’s Gift, will also do well in this manner.

I’ve also realized that aiming a little higher with game content is probably a wise move. Secret Letter may be a little too simple in its story-telling. Blame me. I have four daughters and was really basing my instincts on their interests. My two eldest daughters are now reading tween books that are well beyond Secret Letter’s story-telling.

The pricing has come down and we’re okay with that. The gaming market is competitive and online prices aren’t the same as brick and mortar prices. If we ever box up the games and get a chance to sell them in Borders or BN, the price will most likely increase.

The price of the Deluxe version of Secret Letter is likely to come down too. I’m weighing what price point makes sense.

There will be a Deluxe version of Shadow, but probably not until next year.

Version 2 of Secret Letter is due out any day.

I’m glad to see the reviews by Emily Short at IFDB and PlayThisThing. It’s gratifying to see we’re doing good works.

Released! The Shadow in the Cathedral

Our second published game, The Shadow in the Cathedral, is available now in Standard Edition form for Windows XP/Vista/7.

We’re also working on version 2.0 of Jack Toresal and The Secret Letter, which should be released within a few days.

Please visit textfyre.com for more information.

New Releases Coming Soon

We’re wrapping up Secret Letter 2.0 and Shadow 1.0 over the next few days. Secret Letter has significant changes to the middle and ending, plus there are new images and some UI changes in the Deluxe Edition. Shadow has gone through exhaustive testing, although I’m still having a few people run through it to get those last second issues.

Jennifer Montes is once again doing a set of maps for Shadow (she did the map for Secret Letter that every has loved) and I’m hoping we can get her work into the final product by the 6th. If not, it will be e-mailed to all customers or a link will be provided in the new customer section of the website.

Speaking of the customer section of the website…we’re diligently working on it and although you can register and login, there’s really nothing to see quite yet. We’re going through some business model tweakings and this section may be handled in several different ways. We’re trying to nail down the Classroom Editions of each game before we complete the customer section.

The Classroom Editions will be based partially on SilverFyre, the vanilla Silverlight interpreter that Chris Cavanagh developed a few months ago. This edition will have a slightly different interface since the audience will be middle-school students and their teachers.

We’ve also gotten help from Giles Boutel from the IF community to help out on the website design.

Meanwhile, coding continues on Giant Leaps (Empath’s Gift) and we’re actively seeking a fourth design/writing team.

ACG Reviews Secret Letter

Adventure Classic Gaming has published their review of Jack Toresal and The Secret Letter.

Secret Letter on Silverlight.Net

Secret Letter is now one of the sample applications listed at Silverlight.Net.

Shadow Release Pushed to November

Ian, Jon, and I huddled up on the release of Shadow in the Cathedral and we decided to push it out to November 6th. We didn’t want to have the game come out during the competition or even within a week or two of its end. We also need more time to complete the beta testing and packaging. We should be able to have versions for all platforms in November as well.

Those people that pre-ordered Shadow will be offered a beta copy in Standard form on Friday.

Since Launching Secret Letter…

We’ve had an almost exact number of expected hits to the website since launching our first game “to the hobbyist community”. I thought we’d get a few more conversions from the IF community, but I think the game itself doesn’t resonate enough there. I do believe the next game, Shadow in the Cathedral, will resonate much more strongly within the IF community, but that’s just a guess.

We also had a number of technical issues and most of these were expected as well. Or at least, we expected problems, but felt confident that whatever came up, we could resolve them easily and quickly. Last night we pushed version 1.06 of Jack Toresal and The Secret Letter to the customer download areas and anyone that needs an upgrade is strongly urged to grab the latest installer.

We resolved the Save problems, the Keyboard Lag problem, and removed the Goudy Font. We also added a Settings page that allows the user to set the font, size, color, and background color.

We’re currently working on a Windows (non-Silverlight) version that should work on PC/Mac/Linux via Mono. We’re also working on a console version that is directed to text-reader-using customers, or blind computer users.

The next game is in the process of design testing and should go into major play-testing soon. That process will take a few weeks and then we can start the final production packaging tasks like artwork and such. The target is to get it out by the end of August, but I think we’re looking at September now. A publish date is in the works.

We’re thankful for all of the support from the hobbyist community. They’re initial purchases were helpful in resolving a few bugs and we appreciate the effort.

Now we need to get the word out to teachers, librarians, and schools.

Published! – Jack Toresal and The Secret Letter

We completed the initial publishing process last night and added the Intel Mac installation this morning (it’s 5am by me).

You can purchase Secret Letter, for $24.95, from the Textfyre.Com website.

Thanks goes out to Justine de Vesine for building the Mac installation package and to Thomas Lynge of Tenteo for all of his hard work and their partnership respectively.

We still have a lot of work to do. We’re just getting started.