For those of you who don’t know me: Hello, my name is Patrick, and I’m pretty much the one-man-band behind Midnight Synergy.
As I’m sure you’ve been aware, I have kept very quiet around these parts lately. In the last Midnight Post, I indicated that there would be some new announcements soon, both regarding games and the forum. Some of you noticed that not much of anything has been announced since then.
I want to apologize for that. Truth is, I am suffering from a bit of Wonderland burn out. WA:MOFI, in particular, took a lot out of me (I have found the “Adventures” series far more difficult and involved to produce, compared to the classic trilogy), and I just haven’t had the energy to get back into another game. There have also been some personal reasons, which I won’t get into, that have led to a severe lack of time to devote to games development.
When I wrote the update for the last Midnight Post, I had a spurt of activity, and things seemed to be back on track. I suppose I extrapolated too far and wrote the news update too soon. Almost as soon as the Post went out, things changed again, and development came to a complete stand-still.
So things have been very quiet at Midnight Synergy lately. There will be a new Midnight Post coming in July, but it will be more of a “retro” theme, without any new game announcement.
To at least partly make up for that, I thought I would take a few minutes to talk about three of the projects that are rumbling around in my skull. Very little of this has made it beyond the thought experiment, so take these idea sketches with a huge grain of salt... I still do not know if and when I will begin work on any of these.
But at least you know what I’m thinking about doing next.
Project #1 - Wonderland Adventures 3
I’m very much on the fence regarding this one. WA:MOFI was a lengthy and costly undertaking, and while I’m very proud of the end result, I’m not sure if I’m ready to get into another one.
My original plan for WA3 was to make the game primarily about exploration. You would have a huge world (in fact, several worlds) to discover, each with their own subset of adventures and independent storylines, all leading to a truly grand finale. Throw in a full-featured level-editor and a host of new goodies, and WA3 was (originally) planned to be “the biggest and the best” Wonderland Adventures game.
Every once in a while I get a spark of excitement (e.g. when I think of a new idea to add to a storyline), but at this time I just don’t see myself completing such a game anytime soon.
Instead, I am currently considering one of two routes. Either
a) have a lot of community involvement in the development of the game (even more than in WAMOFI)
or
b) release smaller games (at lower prices), i.e. more frequent releases with smaller (self-contained) adventure storylines, rather than the multi-world sprawling huge adventures that only get released every other year.
A few other independent developers are playing around with option (b) as well. Many game websites have started slashing prices, and are selling games for a fraction of the original $20 price-tag. This has forced developers of larger and more complex games (such as myself) to consider other options. For example, the developer of Aveyond (an indie RPG) is splitting the third game into a series of chapters, and releasing them a few months apart.
Either way my first step would be to flesh out the editor to include new puzzle elements and new options (such as a Hub system). I will keep you posted if/when things start to materialize.
Project #2 - Return to Return To Wonderland
No, that’s not the real title. But I am toying with a return to the original game series. Here are a few of the ideas that I had in mind:
* integrate a new level upload/download/comment system that could be linked to from within the game. Potentially a complete re-vamp of the player community.
* adding new puzzle elements (obviously), including some fairly drastic ones. I’d love to include the idea of multi-level puzzles (with stairs, elevators, etc) connecting multiple levels. This, however, would lead to a number of design problems that would need to be dealt with.
* updating the graphics - allow for visuals closer to Wonderland Adventures. I have a few ideas to do this without the necessity to make the editor any more complicated.
* keeping everything backwards compatible to the original games. In fact, allow the “import” of levels from WSW and TOW, for people who own the full versions, so that you could replay the “advanced” versions of all of those levels from one single program.
I must stress that not a single line of code has been written for this (and may never be). But I certainly keep getting back to this idea in my mind.
Project #3 - A 2D Wonderland Game
There are two concepts for a Wonderland game that is quite unlike the existing games. The first would be a side-view puzzle/action game. Think Super Mario crossed with Wonderland. I have some very nice ideas and designs for this one, with a neat way to get existing Wonderland elements to work in a side-view puzzle environment.
The second is a “Wonderland Olympia” game. This would be a complete departure from the existing mould.. It would consist of a large number of loosely connected mini-puzzles that I have had on paper (and in my head) for years. The closest comparison I could make would be a Mario Party or Wario Ware game. This would be a very casual, very fun, very light game.
So, these are three (four, actually) projects that I am thinking about. While I cannot promise that any of these will ever see the light of day, I thought it would be at least interesting for some of you to see what lies on the distant horizon of potential possibilities.
Until then!
CAN'T WAIT!!!!! 
)
, but I am a huge WSW fan, and