2nd January 2024, 11:57 PM
(This post was last modified: 2nd January 2024, 11:58 PM by Delphinoid_. Edited 1 time in total.)
(2nd January 2024, 11:05 PM)Different Wrote: Who is Simpleflips? I've never heard of him, before 🤔 But yes, I agree that this game needs the right amount of marketing to elevate Pr2 to the next level. Even if we had influential YouTubers aid in marketing this game, it would be sort of challenging to get people to remain playing because it's a 2D platform that's pretty stagnant in terms of the roster, and its abilities.
He's a relatively popular streamer / speedrunner. He's most well-known for his Super Mario 64 and Mario Maker stuff but he dabbles in a variety of games. Bringing in the Mario Maker audience could be a strategy for a new PR game.
(2nd January 2024, 11:05 PM)Different Wrote: You've just proved my point that I made in my thread. A small, vocal minority of people would rather preserve the game for its nostalgia and keep reporting bug issues, rather than being concerned with more "modern standards".
I don't know if what I said really addresses that concern, but I do think game preservation is pretty important. If PR2 is updated significantly, I at least think the original version should be preserved as a separate version as you suggested (I believe this is what happened with Old School Runescape). It's also probably true that most people from outside the community will only immediately be interested in playing the game again for a brief bit of nostalgia, but this alone doesn't support or oppose significant updates to the game.
The biggest issue I have with updating PR2 is that it's extremely cost-inefficient and most likely a waste of time. At this point making a new game would be a lot easier than trying to update PR2, and it also wouldn't suffer from the various issues that come with PR2 (which mostly stem from it being a completely dead, almost 20-year-old flash game). Believe it or not, we actually have a case study to consult on this: TDP4, which was a very popular multiplayer flash game way back, actually released on Steam not too long ago. The Steam release didn't attract any new players, and any updates it may have gotten have pretty much been a complete waste of time. If an active Platform Racing game is what people want, I think a new game is realistically the most achievable solution.
(2nd January 2024, 11:05 PM)Different Wrote: This sounds really interesting. I like the idea of creating a new game from scratch with enhanced ideas and features. Good luck getting it on Steam because we'd have to seek Jiggmin's approval. He still owns the IP, so unless somebody who actually cares about promoting this game on steam, buys the IP from him, we're basically at the mercy of Jiggmin because he refuses to sell it.
What do you think of AI BOTS being added into the game because you mentioned things like having a "competitive mode", and "levels saving world records"? Maybe the AI BOTS can display record times that you have to beat for rewards.
Again I think it would be pointless without Jiggmin being involved in some way anyway. I can theorycraft all day, but at the end of it all I think it's kind of useless. I strongly believe that Jiggmin's creative vision (and not just for the PR series but for games in general) is irreplaceable. It wouldn't be Platform Racing without him.
As for bots, I think there was a thread discussing the technicalities of this a while ago. I think it would be challenging to the point of being totally infeasible given the diversity of user-created levels, unless you allowed level creators to set up a sophisticated checkpoint system. Lua plus custom entities would allow ambitious players to add these kinds of things to their levels if they wanted though. As far as displaying record times go, I think a ghost / replay system would probably be a good idea.
Bots aren't super necessary for competitive races either, since it's not too bad if players leave mid-race. I think Mario Maker does this kind of thing well.
