The first game I wrote, start to end, has just been released (RedBlue Classics, on nbsd.de). It's a seven classic games collection, including Othello and Go-Moku. Naturally I have a lot of questions.

What do you think of the game?

How are games like these best marketed?

Would such a game be considered for a silver deal on Dexterity? (I guess not since it's not inovative in any way).

What should I improve first? Add more games to the collection or increase the feature set for all games (a scoring system, statistics evaluating the player's performance, win-chances estimates &c.) I plan to add more games, I fear all the features will damage the simplicity of this product.

Thanks.

Wow, so good ole ye Jester meister has started his publishing venture. :)

Congrats on finishing your game! I will have look at it.

Hmm, judging by the response I got after posting on three forums (one answer - thanks bernie :)) I shouldn't be too optimistic?

I've received complaints about the registering system I use (Armadillo based). The registration code wasn't approved, even if it worked perfectly on another computer of the same person.

Can anyone test this for me? I'm particularly interested in a computer with Win2k. Post here, I'll mail you a registration code. Thanks.

Ok, I have tested all type of games. I must say they are very nice and polished. So, all around a nice game!

My first suggestion though you should immediately restrict the difficulty level just to easy in the shareware version. And add a very few random stupid moves for the CPU while playing. IMHO you give too much away in the shareware version. :)

The game works in every aspects. I have played a few matches from begin to end on a win2k and win98 machines, too.

Don't get disappointed the registrations will fly in!

Thanks for your report!

I do give a lot in the demo version, but the program has limited uses. After the first ten starts, the game only allows the easy difficulty level like you said. And after the first 3 uses, nag screens start to appear every seven minutes.

I don't think I have much choice though. The main thing I'm selling is the artificial intelligence. So I have to prove that it is very strong.

I'll have to dumb down the AI of some games on the easy level, it's very frustrating to not be able to beat the computer even on easy. I did this once, but it probably wasn't enough.

Did you register the game on the Win2000 box (I've sent you a mail through these forums)?

Yes, and it worked like charm! :)