Will there be any playable demos?

Hi again

I just downloaded all of the game demos from this site today, but when I got them home I was a little dissappointed to find that they weren’t playable demos, only rolling demos. I was just wondering if there will be any playable demos of the games here?

Anyways, could you please make it be a little clearer if a game demo is not a playable (interactive) demo? I was kinda expecting playable demos for all four that I downloaded.

Thanks

Sorry, it’s just that I’m used to ‘demos’ meaning ‘playable demos’ unless specified, not the other way round. Well, no big deal I guess.

quote:
Originally posted by Slayer:
[QB]Oh and BTW I asume your user name is that of the age old (1985-89) classic platform shooter? I used to love that game…[/QB]
Yeah, that is right. I loved Turrican II on the C64 and the Amiga, I still play them now occasionally using emulators (and Chris Hulesbecks soundtracks were just awsome. )

Well some japanese companies have a games with an occational demo. The company Brownie has one for its game Dawn Slave 2. It is about a 25 meg download BUT it is a true working demo. Mink is another company as well as Illusion, also have working demos. So good luck finding them as they are out there…

quote:
Originally posted by Kumiko Kamiyama:
Will has a demo for Critical Point... however, as we said, it's a visual novel adventure, so there's no point in spending time converting it rather than converting the actual game - it could be done, but it would only delay the game, and everyone knows what to expect from the game itself. It wouldn't help sales, and there's no need to demonstrate gameplay for a visual novel adventure, so we can't see where there'd be any "gain".

Brave Soul is different, but the Japanese demo does work under English Windows, evidently. Again, the market is not big enough to see any sales increase to justify doing a genuine conversion, but people can certainly download their demo. Again, the movie gives the idea of the gameplay for an action-RPG (which many people know from Ys and other such games, of course) - the movie is smaller and easier, too.

Generally speaking, you don't see playable demos for any Japanese imported games - not even mainstream general market releases. It takes too long to make one - the game conversion itself is time-consuming. The reason that you see some playable demos for domestic action / violence titles is because the most common method of approaching a publisher to interest them in investing in your game development company is to have a demo. If the game begins development, you can easily embelish that a bit as a playable demo once a few stages or levels or whatever are completed or beta-stage. Games developed in Japan have a different set of standards.

On the other hand, bishoujo magazines have plenty of CDs with CG, vocal clips, movie demos, and (occasionally) playable demos (RPGs, puzzle games, etc are good for such a thing... or adventure games where you have some type of 3D environment or something, or shooters, or perhaps fighting games.)

Generally, people buy games based on art and visuals - you can't really get much of a story in a playable demo (assuming the game has a story... not a strong point for domestic titles, anyway [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img] ) Anime and movies work the same way - you have trailers, and that's why you go to see a film or buy an anime. Bishoujo games use the same premise - that is, it isn't complex gameplay or hardware specs that sell these games, but rather the story, music, voice acting, and specific fetishism content and such. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

Of course, who knows how the market will change in the future? Perhaps adult gaming will finally be accepted as it should be, right?

[This message has been edited by Kumiko Kamiyama (edited 11-23-2001).]


The recent order I received from Himeya had some nice bonus material with it. It included a CD with a Demo Movie of EVE : TFA and a playable demo of Mikan.
They also included a Luv-Wave mouse pad. The point is there are playable demos out there, just not for every game. Some Games (like Brave Soul) have playable demos so you can get an idea of the gameplay, and the creators can get feedback so they can either change some elements in the current game, or correct the problem in a sequel or a similar game.

Thanks for your reply again!

I believe that you’re right in the way that people already know what type of gameplay to expect, but I do think that in some cases, a playable demo is still a good idea. Last year, I downloaded a playable demo of a (non-adult) bishoujo visual novel game named “EVE: Burst Error”, and without that demo, I would have never have realised how good the game actually was. However, on the other hand, I would not have Fatal Relations now if I had played a demo of it before I got it. I don’t believe that the point in a playable demo of a visual novel game is to demonstrate the gameplay, but more to demostrate the quality of the game. There are some really good games that would not be recognised. People may have had bad experiences with poor games as I have like Fatal Relations, Three Sisters Story (which was a very hyped game from what I heard) and others, and I believe that playing a demo before buying a game can confirm the quality of the title.

Also, if there is a playable demo available for games like Brave Soul, even if they are in Japanese, wouldn’t it be a good idea to provide a link to those demos on the download page for the games? Even a Japanese game demo would give an excellent idea of how good a game is.

Last thing, are those anime clips that show after the gameplay from the Brave Soul demo movie actually in the game? They look really cool.

Thanks again.