Silver Sphinx Studios - Game release!
Moderators: adeyke, VampD3, eriqchang, Angelus3K
Ok guys, here's my version of how this prank came about.
Back then, when I was a visitor, I've always wanted to see the Hero6 team play some sort of April Fools prank on the community. AGDI and Blizzard came up with pretty good April Fools jokes, but Hero6 never did come up with any. The closest thing we had to a prank was done by a guest visitor, who posted that Hero6 was cancelled a few years back. No prizes for guessing if anyone believed it. So, when I joined the team at the end of last year, I finally had the chance to give the community what I never had as a visitor.
After discussing possible April Fools pranks with Pwincess via MSN on 28 Feb, I made my humble suggestion in the members forum. I wanted a simple, yet silly prank for the Hero6 visitor community (think Blizzard pranks), but when Gron suggested having all the sister projects organize one huge yet serious prank, we knew that we just had to do it. It was just too good an idea to pass up.
I contacted a number of adventure game project representatives, while Gron asked AGDI if they were interested in participating (AGDI declined, btw). It was during this time that we found out that IA was also interested in doing an April Fools joke as well, so we joined forces.
Coco set up a private forum for us to brainstorm on ideas as we still hadn't decided on a prank. Radiant suggested that we make an announcement about the participating teams merging our games to form an even bigger game and the idea just evolved from there. Gron came up with the idea of having a playable demo to make the ‘announcement' look authentic.
While Gron and Scott worked on the game art, and Coco worked on the scripting, the teams were also discussing on how we were going to promote the ‘game'. At first we thought of just dropping hints of something big coming up in a number of forums, but Cain later came up with this wicked idea of him going on IA bashing in the forums for ‘being kicked out of the team' and dropping hints that way without people suspecting it. It sounded pretty cool, so we all agreed to it. Cain was supposed to hint about a merger, my role was to ‘calm' him down, and Bromios was to handle damage control, especially when Cain drops the ‘big bomb'. Meanwhile, we dropped hints in a number of topics. Do any of these look familiar to you?
http://www.hero6.net/visitors/forums/in ... #entry6275
http://www.agdiforums.com/forum/viewtop ... 483#161483
http://www.agdiforums.com/forum/viewtop ... 8&start=37
http://www.hero6.net/visitors/forums/in ... #entry6636
http://www.agdiforums.com/forum/viewtop ... 48&start=5
By mid-March, the spam in the Hero6 forums was becoming a serious problem and so I discussed with Gron about what we should do about it. Gron suggested closing down the forums temporarily and have them re-opened on 2 April, since we were all too busy at that time to deal with the spam, and then later suggested inviting Cain over to spam our forums as soon as his banishment took place as part of the prank. This was to give us an excuse to shut down the forums temporarily.
Plot work for the game itself hadn't really started yet as nobody had volunteered to do it. The only thing that was done was an introduction, written by Radiant, and a quest idea by Brassfire. Scott decided to work on both plot and art, but I feared that it might be too much for her to handle, and so offered to help out in that area. Klytos also volunteered, and both of us worked on the first outline. The next day, Striker, Scott and I discussed the plot and quests in the ex-hero6 chat room. (If any of you tried to enter that chat room during that time but couldn't, it was because I had changed the password to prevent anyone from accidentally listening to our prank discussions. The password's been changed back, btw). After that, Striker and Brass got to work on finalizing the plot and quests.
On the first night of the ‘spam attacks', I was asleep, and all hell broke loose, as witnessed by Jafar and Corsair. What we didn't expect was for PHattiE to suddenly turn up and deal with Cain. PHattiE didn't know about the prank, and had no idea that he wasn't dealing with a real spammer. As soon as Coco got wind of what was happening, he contacted PHattiE to stop him. By then, Cain's IP address was revealed and Corsair had verified with Navynuke that it was Cain's. Cain didn't want to be revealed as the spammer so soon, and so we had to come up with a cover-up. That's how the idea of claiming that the spammer spoofed IP addresses came about, and Corsair was dragged into it. For the other nights of ‘spam attacks', I had to stay up to 3-4am in order to supervise everything. Cain dropped even more hints about the merger.
Yuri later came to learn of the spam plan, and surprised me later on with its Star Wars ‘handiwork'. Yes folks,Yuri was the Star Wars Spammer. As soon as it had its fun with the spamming, I asked it to help out with the game dialogues.
Work on the voice acting started once Brassfire and Striker finished most of the dialogues. By then, we had about a week before 1 April. We practically rushed with everything to get the game done, and had very little time to test the game properly.
Eventually, Cain dropped the bomb in the AGDI forums, only to have it backfired... AGD 2 deleted that post and had him banned for it. Fortunately, Erpy helped us to inform the other admins that it was part of the prank, and so Cain was un-banned and allowed to post it again.
You pretty much know the rest of the story.
I'd like to thank everyone who was involved in the SSS project. It has been fun working with all of you.
Back then, when I was a visitor, I've always wanted to see the Hero6 team play some sort of April Fools prank on the community. AGDI and Blizzard came up with pretty good April Fools jokes, but Hero6 never did come up with any. The closest thing we had to a prank was done by a guest visitor, who posted that Hero6 was cancelled a few years back. No prizes for guessing if anyone believed it. So, when I joined the team at the end of last year, I finally had the chance to give the community what I never had as a visitor.
After discussing possible April Fools pranks with Pwincess via MSN on 28 Feb, I made my humble suggestion in the members forum. I wanted a simple, yet silly prank for the Hero6 visitor community (think Blizzard pranks), but when Gron suggested having all the sister projects organize one huge yet serious prank, we knew that we just had to do it. It was just too good an idea to pass up.
I contacted a number of adventure game project representatives, while Gron asked AGDI if they were interested in participating (AGDI declined, btw). It was during this time that we found out that IA was also interested in doing an April Fools joke as well, so we joined forces.
Coco set up a private forum for us to brainstorm on ideas as we still hadn't decided on a prank. Radiant suggested that we make an announcement about the participating teams merging our games to form an even bigger game and the idea just evolved from there. Gron came up with the idea of having a playable demo to make the ‘announcement' look authentic.
While Gron and Scott worked on the game art, and Coco worked on the scripting, the teams were also discussing on how we were going to promote the ‘game'. At first we thought of just dropping hints of something big coming up in a number of forums, but Cain later came up with this wicked idea of him going on IA bashing in the forums for ‘being kicked out of the team' and dropping hints that way without people suspecting it. It sounded pretty cool, so we all agreed to it. Cain was supposed to hint about a merger, my role was to ‘calm' him down, and Bromios was to handle damage control, especially when Cain drops the ‘big bomb'. Meanwhile, we dropped hints in a number of topics. Do any of these look familiar to you?
http://www.hero6.net/visitors/forums/in ... #entry6275
http://www.agdiforums.com/forum/viewtop ... 483#161483
http://www.agdiforums.com/forum/viewtop ... 8&start=37
http://www.hero6.net/visitors/forums/in ... #entry6636
http://www.agdiforums.com/forum/viewtop ... 48&start=5
By mid-March, the spam in the Hero6 forums was becoming a serious problem and so I discussed with Gron about what we should do about it. Gron suggested closing down the forums temporarily and have them re-opened on 2 April, since we were all too busy at that time to deal with the spam, and then later suggested inviting Cain over to spam our forums as soon as his banishment took place as part of the prank. This was to give us an excuse to shut down the forums temporarily.
Plot work for the game itself hadn't really started yet as nobody had volunteered to do it. The only thing that was done was an introduction, written by Radiant, and a quest idea by Brassfire. Scott decided to work on both plot and art, but I feared that it might be too much for her to handle, and so offered to help out in that area. Klytos also volunteered, and both of us worked on the first outline. The next day, Striker, Scott and I discussed the plot and quests in the ex-hero6 chat room. (If any of you tried to enter that chat room during that time but couldn't, it was because I had changed the password to prevent anyone from accidentally listening to our prank discussions. The password's been changed back, btw). After that, Striker and Brass got to work on finalizing the plot and quests.
On the first night of the ‘spam attacks', I was asleep, and all hell broke loose, as witnessed by Jafar and Corsair. What we didn't expect was for PHattiE to suddenly turn up and deal with Cain. PHattiE didn't know about the prank, and had no idea that he wasn't dealing with a real spammer. As soon as Coco got wind of what was happening, he contacted PHattiE to stop him. By then, Cain's IP address was revealed and Corsair had verified with Navynuke that it was Cain's. Cain didn't want to be revealed as the spammer so soon, and so we had to come up with a cover-up. That's how the idea of claiming that the spammer spoofed IP addresses came about, and Corsair was dragged into it. For the other nights of ‘spam attacks', I had to stay up to 3-4am in order to supervise everything. Cain dropped even more hints about the merger.
Yuri later came to learn of the spam plan, and surprised me later on with its Star Wars ‘handiwork'. Yes folks,Yuri was the Star Wars Spammer. As soon as it had its fun with the spamming, I asked it to help out with the game dialogues.
Work on the voice acting started once Brassfire and Striker finished most of the dialogues. By then, we had about a week before 1 April. We practically rushed with everything to get the game done, and had very little time to test the game properly.
Eventually, Cain dropped the bomb in the AGDI forums, only to have it backfired... AGD 2 deleted that post and had him banned for it. Fortunately, Erpy helped us to inform the other admins that it was part of the prank, and so Cain was un-banned and allowed to post it again.
You pretty much know the rest of the story.
I'd like to thank everyone who was involved in the SSS project. It has been fun working with all of you.
-
Gronagor
- Saurus Salesman
- Posts: 3881
- Joined: Tue Sep 03, 2002 3:18 pm
- Location: South Africa (Bloemfontein)
*phew* That IS a long story. A lot happened in March. 
And yes, all projects 'sacrificed' a few screens, dialogue pics and inventory items. Some screens had to be resized because of the different games' screen resolutions.
I can't speak for the other projects, but the Hero6-screens were all 'filler' screens. No real importance to the Hero6 plot. For the dialogue pics, if you liked the pixie, she'll be full screen in Hero6!
Obviously Kat came from Project Katrina, and the Old Man (TheTurban) was created by Bt.
Scott quickly made the Harem and Inn screens and Bt and myself added the old man and the girls.
That's it from me.
And yes, all projects 'sacrificed' a few screens, dialogue pics and inventory items. Some screens had to be resized because of the different games' screen resolutions.
I can't speak for the other projects, but the Hero6-screens were all 'filler' screens. No real importance to the Hero6 plot. For the dialogue pics, if you liked the pixie, she'll be full screen in Hero6!
Obviously Kat came from Project Katrina, and the Old Man (TheTurban) was created by Bt.Scott quickly made the Harem and Inn screens and Bt and myself added the old man and the girls.
That's it from me.
Hero of Infamous Kingdoms won the Game of the Week. Wow.
http://www.create-games.com/newspage.asp?id=2071
Thanks to Gron for the update in the SSS forums.
http://www.create-games.com/newspage.asp?id=2071
Thanks to Gron for the update in the SSS forums.
-
Senor Matt
- Knight Status
- Posts: 280
- Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 7:58 am
Yes - but I have no say in that!
I don't always mind if it's a big, full game that's going to take me a while to play... but AFAIK HOIK is shorter than that. I like to be able to just quickly unzip something and play it instead of install it every time. I'll install it once I guess, then make my own zip.
I don't always mind if it's a big, full game that's going to take me a while to play... but AFAIK HOIK is shorter than that. I like to be able to just quickly unzip something and play it instead of install it every time. I'll install it once I guess, then make my own zip.
-
navynuke04
- Honorary AGD
- Posts: 5378
- Joined: Fri Sep 13, 2002 1:19 am
- Location: US of A
- Contact:
Relight - The purpose of this game was to make it look really professional when installing it, the whole install program and everything, yet to open it up to find a year's work wasn't exactly what they would have expected. (When it was one month's work, excluding already made backgrounds)
Do you use Clickteam's Install Program for AGDI's project? Would you say it's the best one? I get a free copy of Install Creator Pro if I goto the Click Convention in September, which happens to be in my hometown! Woo!
Do you use Clickteam's Install Program for AGDI's project? Would you say it's the best one? I get a free copy of Install Creator Pro if I goto the Click Convention in September, which happens to be in my hometown! Woo!
-
Cain Aleksandrovich
- Knight Status
- Posts: 176
- Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2004 8:29 am
- Location: US