The State of Adventure Gaming
By Randy Sluganski
December
1999
M.I.A.
Have
you seen this woman?
Missing: Katie Scarlett
Race: Caucasian
Age:
25-35
Height: 5’5″-6’5″
Weight: 100-150 lbs.
Sightings:
Reported writing in a UK domain. Reported editing RPG materials for Just Adventure
but this cannot be substantiated. A spokesperson for JA disclosed that he had
never received any materials from K.S.
Warning: Do not approach or attempt
to apprehend. K.S. holds a black belt in the ancient Oriental art of the poison
pen. Please contact the appropriate authorities immediately.
Mother of
All Adventure Trivia Quizzes
No, we did not forget the trivia quiz we
promised for this month. But December is so busy that we have pushed it back to
January–a more relaxed month. We want you to be able to escape from the hustle
and bustle of the holidays; from the bone-chilling cold and the ice blizzards
that will inevitably arrive. We want you to pour yourself a nice cup of steaming
hot chocolate (with marshmallows), curl up and relax in your favorite easy chair
in front of your computer–and then scream and pull your hair in frustration as
you attempt to conquer our (drum roll please) Mother of All Adventure Trivia Quizzes!
Sanitarium
2?
No, not really, but I made you look huh! Actually, I just paid a
visit to Dreamforge Studios, the creators of Sanitarium. What a thrill
it was not only to meet these talented people, but also to find out that the head
writer for Sanitarium is a friend from my past! Dreamforge and ASC are
currently hard at work on Werewolf the Apocalypse and granted me a sneak
peak and some exclusive information. Come January, when the moon is full, we will
be showcasing Dreamforge and giving you the inside skinny on how a game is produced
from start to finish.
Newsletter, Get Yer Newsletter Here!
That’s
right, over 600 of you have already signed up to receive our newsletter that begins
next year. What will be in it? I don’t know. Will it be weekly or monthly? I don’t
know that, either. Will it have new information on adventure games or just rehash
what is on the site? Geez, why are you asking all these questions? Now that I’ve
made the newsletter sound so interesting, if you have not yet subscribed, then
just send an email to [email protected]
and put “subscribe” in the header. Then you too can be as informed as
I am.
GameBoomers–Up All Night!
Well, at least until 9:00
p.m. Then the future Boomers come out to play. Tired of all your friends whispering
behind your back and calling you “adventure game geek?” Do you have
a spouse who stares a hole through you whenever you start talking about the newest
adventure game you’re playing? Then it’s time to visit GameBoomers
and discover a world full of people who share your interests! Open 24 hours a
day, lurkers welcome. Take your shoes off and sit for a spell.
Viva La
Revolution!
Finally, adventure gamers have begun to speak out as one
voice united against the adventure genre backlash. Adrenaline Vault and Gamespot
are but two of the recent miscreants to receive hundreds of emails from angry
adventure gamers. Dreamcatcher, SouthPeak, and Cryo all have new adventure games
in production thanks to the support of adventure gamers. But the battle has just
begun … and next month we will take it one step further. How? Be here as Just
Adventure lays the cornerstone in the most important step we shall ever take to
revitalize the adventure genre. It will be controversial, it will not be easy,
but as always–it will be exciting!
Walkthroughs
What’s that?
You say you didn’t know we now had walkthroughs on the site? Well, neither
did I! I knew we planned on adding walkthroughs, but until I started to receive
emails from readers, I wasn’t aware that they were already on the site because
my co-editor Jen did not tell me! That’s okay, though, I will find some
way to repay her. In the meantime, enjoy the walkthroughs.
Over 20,000
Served
That’s right, last month almost 20,000 unique readers visited
Just Adventure, making us the largest genre-specific site on the Internet, and
we have you (and you and especially you) to thank for our phenomenal success.
How does our readership compare to other “big” sites on the World Wide
Web? Well, according to the sites I contacted, that is “privileged”
information. But a magazine like Next Generation has, according to their
most recent Statement of Ownership, a paid circulation of 183,000 copies per issue.
And that is our goal for next year at this time: to have a monthly readership
as large as a magazine like NG or PC Gamer. If adventure publishers
and advertisers are now starting to listen to our collective voice (and they are!),
then imagine the influence our pocketbooks will have when we increase our visitors
tenfold! Oh, by the way, Jen will be sending each and every one of last month’s
visitors a personal thank-you card in the mail. [Note from Jen: Bite me, Randy.]
Happy
Holidays!
We at Just Adventure would like to wish all of our readers
Happy Holidays regardless of your religious denomination. May you all receive
lots of new adventure games as gifts and have visions of Gabriel Knight running
through your head. Now please put your hands together for the wonderful people
who make Just Adventure possible:
- Audrey Wells of Kentucky does an
excellent job maintaining the Links page; - Harriet Gurganus of North Carolina
is masterful with the Upcoming Releases page; - Cindy KM of Georgia scours
the ‘Net for the popular Eye on Adventure column; - Adam Rodman of North
Carolina, whose introspective reviews and articles show wisdom beyond his age; - Tom
Houston, the thinking man’s game player, of Connecticut; - Darcy Danielson
of California, our bubbly resident Mac expert; - The Adventure Coalition,
the only web ring on the Internet to share articles between sites; - Our
guest reviewers from Italy, Poland, Russia and all corners of the globe; - And
finally, Jen Guenther of Washington state, my co-editor and partner in crime.
Jen does not get to be in the spotlight as much as I do, but believe me there
would be no Just Adventure without her talents.
If Just Adventure
has proved anything at all this year, it is that the adventure genre is not dead.
Adventure gamers from around the world have rallied around us in a show of support
and our numbers grow larger by the day. God willing, we will be here for another
millennium with lots of new adventure games to share.
As for me, I’m Randy
Sluganski from Pittsburgh, and I’m outta here until next year.
