Thoughts on price

[Michael]

I totally dig the idea of interactive fiction, loved Zork, can't see myself paying $12 for this game. The reasons in no particular order.

There are quite frankly a TON of interactive fiction available for free.

There are a ton of indie games available for cheaper than $12 new although these frequently require several times the effort required of IF.

There are also a ton of graphical games, although these often start in an arc at $50-60 and decrease into the $10 range these games usually require 100x more labor/investment to produce than text adventures.

In short when compared to IF, indie games, professional games it would seem that there is less reason to charge a higher fee and yet a higher price than is warranted. Indeed $10 is somewhat of a psychological barrier. Obviously steam/ios/play stores gets a cut but I fail to see why it couldn't be offered at a lower rate off steam.

Can anyone provide a compelling reason why this game ought to be worth more than $5? Quality wise or philosophical?

Came here to spend $5-$7 leaving disinterested.

[veni vidi veachi]

In my opinion, it's definitely-definitely-definitely worth the money. It's head-and-shoulders above all the other IF content out there. I love IF games - loved the old Infocoms - and want to love the IF games that exist today but the cold, hard truth is that the vast majority of it is pretty middling if not downright bad.

This is an exception by a huge leap. The quality shines through in so many different ways but the it all comes down to polish an lots of obvious deep thinking about the genre.

The genre is unique and fresh. It does a great job of evoking a feeling of growing in power (as you learn more and more alchemical formulas). He's really thought about the medium and introduced some novel ideas that make IF gaming so much more enjoyable: for example, once you've done something, you can do it again automatically without having to go through the steps.

So, if a puzzle to get through a door involved 19 steps then the next time you have to go through that door, you just type N and it redoes all the puzzle steps for you. This is more important than usual because he's also introduced a reset mechanism that restores the game world but leaves your character with their memories (it works as part of the in-game narrative). But this very neatly solves the problem with many IF games of getting yourself stuck in some dead end. I'm not doing a great job of describing the mechanism but it's smart.

Honestly, it's one o the best games I've played in years and that includes AAA titles. I was more than a little impressed. The only downside is that I can't stomach all of those medium-quality IF games anymore. Hopefully more people will make games of this quality.

[Mara Huldra]

It's a matter of simple economics: this is a niche game, not one that sells millions of copies. Lowering the price will not likely result in proportionally more sales (it just doesn't have that mass appeal). So prices have to be high to sustain development.

And I'd say the game is absolutely worth its price (yes I bought it, just not through steam). It's much more complex and involved than any IF game I've played including the infocoms. Well apart from Graham Nelson's "Curses!". That game is outrageous.

[Kikinaak]

Considering it is asking twice the price of any other IF out on steam, I too am skeptical here. Intrigued by the premise, but still skeptical. Its on my wishlist, if it goes to 50% or more off, I'll consider grabbing it. But $12 for a text adventure is too much.

[grueslayer]

Well, I have no problem with a 12$ price tag, for two reasons. 1.) I personally always compare costs to those of going to the movies. Or, to a restaurant. Two hours fun for predictable costs, nice memories included. A game provides fun as well, though usually not shareable with others, so it must provide a few hours of fun extra. Which this game does. 2.) I personally expect a text adventure to be never final, for there's always e.g. bugs to fix, talk topics to add and commands and ideas to be implemented. Start a transcriopt when playing, send it to the author, and get an updated, better version somewhen later. That's some kind of direct feedback and product improvement that's also worth money.

[redoubler_2000]

I have it on my Wishlist. If it ever goes on sale I will probably grab it. If it does not, then when I am ready to play it I will buy it. The only comparison I know is Thaumaturgy which costs more.

[malkav11]

Yes, you can get other text adventures for free, a few of them are even of comparable size or larger than Hadean Lands. But then, there are a bunch of really good games you can get for free in other genres, and most people don't extrapolate from this that no other games in the genre are worth money. $12 is not a large ask for a game, and Hadean Lands will provide more gaming time than plenty of games at higher price points, all of it of excellent quality in both writing and design.

Furthermore, Hadean Lands is a stupendous feat of IF engineering, the likes of which you absolutely will not see anywhere else. The sheer scope of the automation and convenience functionality on offer makes it one of the most user-friendly parser IFs ever made and that took a -lot- of work, on a scale which is unprecedented hitherto, and extremely unlikely to be replicated in future.

[redoubler_2000]

On sale now on Steam and Itch