I have extracted the parts of the magazine relevant to Anacreon here. To see the whole issue, go to http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/9111/aud12.txt
Audyssey;
Computer Games Accessible to the Blind
Edited by Michael Feir
Issue 12: May/June, 1998
From Chris Demwell:
I actually tracked down the author, and yes it is on the web now. Here is the message I got from him.
Thanks for your help.
Chris
From: "George Moramisato"
Actually, I have bad news and good news. Although you can no longer
register the program, the full version is available on the web. Look at:
www.neurohack.com/anacreon
to download version 1.30 and the manual.
Good luck.
-- George
+
Yes, folks! Thanks to the detective work of Chris, we now have
access to Anacreon Reconstruction. This is one of the few highly
detailed strategy games accessible to the blind. While it is far
from perfect in terms of accessibility, I have no doubt that you'll
find the game to be absolutely captivating.
Questions and Answers with Anacreon's Creator
by Michael Feir
Several issues back, I reviewed anacreon Reconstruction. This game
is one of the most complex strategy games accessible to the blind.
At the time, I was somewhat annoyed that the author of this game
left it to fade away into obscurity, leaving only the crippled
shareware version to be enjoyed. I was also uncertain as to whether
he was still among the land of the living. At long last, this
mysterious man has emerged once more. This emergence is due to
Chris Demwell's efforts at tracking him down. His initiative has
made it possible for everyone with web access to retrieve the full
version of this game, along with artwork and manual. I should
caution here that the manual is in MS-Word 4.0 format. This is
accessible to Windows users. for the rest of us, you'll need to
find a program like X-ray which will strip out everything but the
text characters. If anyone finds other solutions to the manual
problem, please send them my way so I can inform everyone else. The
manual is extremely well-written, and well worth the effort
required to access it. Mr. Moramisato has graciously answered the
questions I've put to him on behalf of myself and all of you, and
has agreed to answer any further questions the rest of you have.
Simply send them to me, and I'll forward them to him. At the
present time, he doesn't want his e-mail address to be generally
known. Most of the text below is taken directly from his reply to
my message.
Michael,
Thanks for writing; I'm flattered by the attention and I'm very
happy that you and your readers have enjoyed playing Anacreon. I do
wish that I had been able to support the game a bit better, but
lacking a large-enough user base, I could not support myself on the
sales of Anacreon alone. Nevertheless, I am
proud of the game and I would be glad to answer your questions and
to field some questions from your readers.
Here are the answers to your questions about the game:
1. Can you give us an account of the history of the game in terms
of its popularity. How many registrations did you ultimately
receive?
I received about 200 or so registrations over a period of three
years. In my opinion, this low response was due to a couple of
mistakes that I made: First of all, I think that I charged too much
for the registered version; had I originally set the price at $20
or $25, I'm sure that I would have gotten more than double the
number of registrations. Second of all, I did not spend enough
money advertising and otherwise marketing the game; while I relied
on word-of-mouth and the BBS network that existed at the time, I
should have also tried to advertise in some mainstream gaming
magazines.
2. The version released on the Internet was made several years ago.
Are there later versions?
Unfortunately, there are no later versions. The version at my site
(www.neurohack.com/anacreon) is the latest version.
3. Why did you ultimately stop taking registrations for your game?
By that time, registrations had dwindled to a few a year and I
simply could not invest the emotional energy in supporting the
game. By then I had already moved on and started a career in more
mainstream software development.
4. Did you anticipate that your game would be playable by the
blind, or was this a completely accidental occurrence? In either
case, what are your thoughts on this?
I never did anticipate that Anacreon would be playable by the
blind, but having found out, I am obviously very happy about it. I
have always enjoyed games that are challenging to the mind, and not
just to the senses and reflexes. Certainly, when it comes to games
of pure strategy, blind people are as capable as anyone else. I'm
glad that Anacreon can demonstrate that.
5. Assuming you're still developing software, what products have
you come up with other than Anacreon? Are there any which are not
graphically dependant which you think readers of Audyssey might be
particularly interested in?
Unfortunately, no. Other products that I have created have relied
on graphical user interfaces. There is hope for the future,
however. Microsoft has included special subroutines in the Windows
development tools that can be used to read-out the text of a
graphical user interface. In the future I plan on
making sure that my programs are compatible with that system.
6. Do you have any advice to give people thinking of developing
strategy games?
I think that the most important thing is to ask yourself the
question "what's the fun part?". Every successful game has a core
payoff that makes it fun to play. In Anacreon, for example, I think
that the fun part is successfully executing a complex plan that
eventually causes your opponent to suffer. Thus, in Anacreon, there
is a lot of room for creating devious plans that hopefully
your opponent will not discover. Too often, I think that game
designers make the mistake of concentrating on peripheral issues,
such as how pretty the game looks or how complex the simulation is.
No amount of 3D graphics will help if the game is not fun.
And there you have it. The mystery behind the game's disappearance
is at last solved, and the game is now available to all. Quite a
happy ending indeed. Or, is it merely the beginning of a new
chapter in game complexity? I hope that the excellent advice of
this thoughtful man will spark new interest in strategy games, and
guide their wood-be authors to excellence. Wherever Mr.
Moramisato's future leads him, I wish him the very best of luck on
his odyssey. In closing, I thank him once more for contributing so
much to our own.