Hi John,
Thanks for writing. You bring up a good point that I knew I’d have to address. Let me first start by saying that by making this complaint you’re someone who has supported me thus far and I completely understand your frustration. It was a very tough decision to restrict play in the game, and even harder to impede on the visual appeal of the game with *shudder* banner ads. You do deserve an explanation.
I’ve got to say that without this move, it would be almost impossible for me to sustain work on the game. To continue creating games like this I need to reach a wider audience to make the project profitable (which it isn’t). To do that I need to make the game free and get it in the hands of countless new users. While I recognize that you may feel cheated, I will still make the plea for you to upgrade, continue to help me out, and enjoy the beautiful color art in the game. In the past the game has been cheaper than a cup of coffee. I’ve added a lot to the game since you purchased it as well. While I love you as an early adopter, and I appreciate the principle, please keep in mind how cheap the game was. It’s just another cup of coffee for the upgrade, and the color version is so fantastic. I hand-picked the colourist from like 100 entries to make sure it was perfect! :) Robbing players is certainly not my intention.
If you or any other players feel that you’ve lost trust in me as a developer as I try and roll this thing over into freemium, I invite you to write to me and chat. I’d love to hear your input on story ideas and collaborate with you on this story, or the next one.
Thanks for playing,
Jon
Robot Monster
jon@robotmonster.ca
robotmonster5000
Jon joined
Jon Richardson is a former high school English teacher, educational activity developer for Desire2Learn, and now the founder of Robot Monster Productions. He is currently on leave from his post as Senior Multimedia Dev at D2L to publish interactive digital fiction for iOS and he's having a blast doing it!