Is there any real market for text only games?

[NandabaCanti]

Are there any text only games that make any money? I know there are a fair few general audience text adventure games on Steam that do well enough for them to keep pumping out more. But I'm sorta having my doubts about erotic text adventures doing so well.

I mainly bring this up because I've been having some serious issues with my system lately and I could really do with finding a way to make some money sooner, rather than later, to replace it. My system's been loving to randomly reboot for several years now, but it's gotten to the point where it's happening over smaller and smaller system loads. I just had a reboot for a 3rd time today, this time after loading up a sketchfab model viewer page in my browser. Though it's also happened with most recent 3D games (anywhere from instantly to upwards of a half hour or so after starting), even with Google Maps in 3D mode, and sometimes just having too many tabs open at once while trying to run a few things in the background.

Worse of all it started to happen with Blender as well. I used to be able to work on sculpts with up around 8-12 million tris without issue, as long as I tweaked some settings for better sculpt performance. But now if I even reach just around 2 million my system will end up rebooting pretty much every time I go and try to save, losing hours of work. Also sometimes when doing viewport rendering with Cycles it will reboot.

Because of this I'm starting to doubt whether my system will last long enough to even get my first working demo out there with my current game project, since I don't even know if I'll be able to test my own game without reboots. This got me thinking perhaps if I could ignore graphics all together and focus on a purely text based game, I could probably get something of decently high quality done in a month or two. But if there isn't much interest in such things among those willing to pay, it would be a bit of a waste.

 

[Eoin]

Honestly, I'd say that it's a fairly niche market. But in saying that, I feel that a lot of people within that market like to see new games pop-up every now and then (good ones, anyway).

If you want to make a purely text-based game, be sure to be able to write a good story.

If it's any good (and I mean actually good (storyline/the flow/etc.)), I'd be willing to pay 5 to 10 quid for it (fixed fee, none of that patreon shit), but that being said, it'll probably end up here eventually.

 

[xןʞ]

Yes as far as money making.

Newlife makes a couple grand a month and that dev is a worthless scammer who milks as much as possible.

Aika makes about 4 grand a month and his games are TRAPS and DIAPERS.

Thaumx makes quite a bit and that game is sitll proof of concept.

Westane makes more per month than all but the highest level porn game devs.(although to be fair that game has realporn but it is mostly a text based game)

If anything people should probably try to make more text-based/realporn based games I'd say, because the money is definitely there if you have the writing chops and are able to set up actual plot choices and such(and make the occasional game that isn't pure sissification)

 

[NandabaCanti]

That's really good to hear. I'd probably shoot to have something done in its final form within 1-3 months and I'd probably toss it on something like itch.io for a few bucks. I can easily work at a rate of 1-2k words a day when I'm in the mood and I already have a story in mind. Something I was going to write as a novel, but it has a lot of potential for branching plot lines. It's something of a supernatural tragic love story with some surreal fantasy elements and a fair bit of room for some suspense/horror, especially now that I'm thinking of it in terms of various good and bad story endings, heh.

 

[redknight00]

Certainly, if you're good and can make an interesting story.

Though some visuals would be cool to help make the game look more professional.

 

[NandabaCanti]

@redknight00 - Well, I'll almost certainly be painting a cover/title screen image for it. I'm debating if I'd want to add other images in there. I suppose it will depend a lot on how I'm feeling about it once it's underway. Though really I'd rather put my art time into my other game, which still has a ton of work to go. I have no plans to abandon that.

There is a lot I can still do with that other game, even with my system gimped, particularly when it comes to working on props and environmental objects that don't need any serious/heavy sculpting work. It is mostly the characters where I run into issues with Blender. As a full character at a proper detail level would need to reach a tri count that is about 3-4 times higher than my system can handle atm (6-8 million tris). So far I've been having to chop the models up into parts that I stick in different files just to avoid the reboots.

 

[NandabaCanti]

I found myself thinking about a related question. Anyone have an opinion on Twine vs Ren'Py in regard to text games? I've used Twine a fair bit already and I really appreciate it's simplicity, but it seems like it can be a bit tedious to work on even the most basic of game logic with it, not least because of how little I like JavaScript and how notoriously terrible it is to debug. I'm also not the biggest fan of it not having an easy way to publish standalone desktop builds. Running games through browsers is fine for game jam entries and sharing quick demos, but far less desirable for commercial games that aren't focused on freemium nonsense.

With Ren'Py it would obviously be a lot easier to integrate things like save games and what have you. Though I am tempted to forgo saves in place of a page with quick links back to choices you've previously unlocked, perhaps in the form of a flow map where you click on the node for the choice you want to go back to and it would have the route to your current location highlighted. Ren'Py also has the clear advantage of dead simple cross-platform desktop builds.

I'm currently leaning towards mapping out the game's empty template scenes in Twine to get a quick overview of the game layout, but ultimately making the finished game in Ren'Py. So I'm interested in hearing from others with experience on these engines and perhaps any worthwhile alternatives I've missed.

 

[Eye-switcher]

Yes, if its choice of games type of style. Pick your kink and go with it

 

[Nightcrawler]

If you are rebooting under load i would 1st off check temps if they are to high clean all fans case ,cpu,gfx and all vents .If that not the problem next thing i would look at is ram run checks on it do you have a faulty module .Causing system to fall over under load

As for text games if they are well written no reason they cant be succesful

 

[NandabaCanti]

@Nightcrawler - System wise, I've tried everything at this point. Most parts have been replaced 1-3 times by now, all my mem sticks have been tested individually over night more than once and never got a single error. I blow out the case and all of the components at least once per season. I recently picked up a new hdd, spent the hours to do a full check format before installing a fresh system on it and leaving all my other drives out while testing and still ran into the same issues. At this point the case is about the only thing that remains from the original build, lol.

Back around 2000-01 I went to a trade school to get several certificates related to network administration, including the A+ computer technician one and I've built/fixed/upgraded dozens of systems since. I've checked just about everything imaginable that doesn't require special equipment. This is the first time I've ever been truly stumped by a chronic system problem, which is a big reason why I just want to wipe my hands of it and start over fresh.

This system has been a money pit for years now; every time I get some extra cash to spend I'd go and grab a new part to fruitlessly replace something in it. It's pretty dated tech at this point too: 8 GB DDR3 mem, AM3+ socket board (got a 3.2 GHz quad core Phenom II in there atm) and a GTX 750 Ti (2 GB). It's far from the worst system out there, spec wise, but it's been overdo for replacement with a newer gen system for a while now even without the phantom reboot issue.

 

[Gomly1980]

Text based games have a larger market than some people think.

You have some that earn a few thousand month to the likes of Fenexo that makes 36k.

Granted Corruption of Champions and TiTS have a far larger audience than most text based games but it shows that can build up.

 

[NandabaCanti]

@Gomly1980 - Ya, it was a bit surprising, and encouraging, to hear how well some of them have done. I'm already pretty well sold on the prospect at this point and actually already started to build up a design doc for my text game idea. If I could just make enough to build a half decent current gen system with plenty of room for future upgrades within the first few months of putting it up for sale I'd be content and consider it a successful game project, heh.

It's going to be set in a castle in a surreal land with an assortment of supernatural inhabitants. There's a seemingly normal, and vaguely familiar, girl you meet there who's being haunted by her ghost father who drifts in and out of sanity, a group of futa demons who attempt to ensnare you with their illusions several times throughout the story, and a few different monster girls with their own agendas trying to lure you in to their side.

On one hand it's a suspense/thriller where the MC attempts to unravel the mysteries surrounding the castle and it's inhabitants. On the other it's a tale of star crossed lovers and their attempts at connecting in this strange new world. Then there will also be some horror elements that mainly come into play when you let curiosity and temptations get the better of you.