New demo push - we need your help!

[Chris]

It's that time of the year again...Introversion needs your help.

The new Darwinia Demo is finished, and we're confident it does a wonderful job of selling the game, certainly far better than our original Mine level demo. However it won't make any difference if nobody knows about it. Because Darwinia is old news, the launch hasn't picked up the kind of publicity we received for free when Darwinia was first announced. We've had a few news stories here and there (PC Gamer UK once again came through with a full page article in this months issue) but not enough to get large numbers of people playing our new demo, and that's really what we need. You can help us here.

Firstly, have you played the new demo yourself? The new demo is designed to be two things at once - on the one hand its a blazing introduction to Darwinia for new players who've never seen it before, complete with scene-setting introduction and tutorial, but on the other hand it's also the next chapter in the story of the Darwinians. The action takes place AFTER the full game has concluded, meaning the new demo serves as both an introduction (to new players) and an epilogue (to old players). So even if you're a Darwinian veteren we'd still like to encourage you to play the new demo through to completion - there's stuff in there for you, and we're sure you'll have a good time.

So assuming you're up to speed on the new demo, we'd like to ask your help in pushing it onto new players. The quickest and easiest way you can help us here is to post about the new demo in the forums you hang out in. We know you Darwinia/Introversion chaps are all members of numerous other online communities, and you can help us by telling those communities about the new demo. You can use any of the in-game screenshots or any of the demo2 screenshots, or any of the artwork from this website if you like. Try to get a buzz going about this new demo, make it clear we've resolved a lot of the things that put people off originally (the gestures, the absence of help, the absence of context or clear goals) and encourage people to give the new one a try. If you're a student at a College or University you can help us by pushing the new demo onto your network. Tell all your mates about the game, make the demo easily available to anyone who wants it.

This sort of underground grass rootes push is hard to accomplish, but we've done it before and we can do it again. We've outlined the easiest things you can do to get people playing our demo - but we think you can come up with even better ideas for how to push this game. We've heard some crazy ideas for ways to push Darwinia - like inflating a six foot tall Darwinian and trying to get him on TV by displaying him prominently for the cameras in front of the white-house. Or waving a massive Officer FOLLOW flag, right in the middle of a rock festivel crowd for all the cameras to see. You're a creative bunch - suprise us with your ideas, and post your evidence of your exploits here.

We'll even offer an incentive - we'll give away one of those lovely new Ipod Nano's to anyone who really impresses us with their advertising stunt.

The last time we asked our fan community for help, we strolled into first place and picked up 15 times more votes than the other 9 entries put together. (We'll let you figure out what we're talking about here : ) We know you've never let us down, and we know you're not about to start now.


Chris, Mark and Tom
Introversion Software

[micks]

yet I've got to wait until the Linux demo is out. Until then, go Windows gamers!

[edd8990]

Free ipod nano? Nice touch...

Well, I'll spread the word to the few people I know who would be interested in this. And probably to all my friends who aren't!

[shinygerbil]

yet I've got to wait until the Linux demo is out. Until then, go Windows gamers!

Ditto although most of my friends are on Windows..

[martin]

OK, guys. use your influence but I'm going to give you a bit more leverage... I have 25 gmail invites to give away so if you can persuade someone to buy the game you can say I'll give them an invite (just send me the address).

[NeoThermic]

I was talking to Icepick about this not too long ago.

I see things this way:

What got GTA into everyones mind? the controversy surrounding it!
Whats on everyone's mind? Terrorisim!
So, I came up with the idea of 'Introversion Terrorists'...
(If you're worried, the real idea was called 'Random acts of hate', and it involved going into public places and shouting out I HATE YOU as loud as you can...)


On second thoughts, let me think of something *slightly* less controversial..

NeoThermic

[edd8990]

How about a "Hot Coffee" patch for Darwinia

[xander]

Someone submit a /. story! It is possible to mod Darwinia to see hidden pornographic images! By simply installing the Dave2/moid mod, it is possible to use the Darwinia engine to view photographs and other images that contain sexually explicit scenes! The horror! The horror!

xander

[xMs]

How about, we all dress up as little darwinians!
And then run around our local highstreet, telling everyone where they can buy the game! ?

[Sobek]

We could all dress up as business men(And women... there has to be some here! ), make business cards with a Darwinian on the front and Darwinia's address on the back, then we just give a very, "Hey, call me!" look and slip them the card... Well, that's my idea for now.

[elDiablo]

Well, as half my department burnt down this weekend, there are LOTS of cameras and news people about. I'm tempted to get a big old Darwinian or something...

[Sobek]

As rather morbid as that sounds, it's a good way to utilize a bad situation... something about lemons into lemonade or some crap like that...

Sorry to hear that half your work burned down, elDiablo

[prophile]

Ipod Nano's

The apostrophe has three uses:

1) to form possessives of nouns
2) to show the omission of letters
3) to indicate certain plurals of lowercase letters.

Apostrophes are NOT used for possessive pronouns or for noun plurals, including acronyms.

iPod

Hate to be nitpicky...

[micks]

Ipod Nano (April 3, 1755 - October 22, 1843) was a classical German philosopher and scientist, a close friend (and former secretary) of Immanuel Kant. Famous for his highly original tracts on the formation of the universe and a theory of virtual theme parks, professor Nano disappeared under highly suspicious circumstances from his home in Heidelberg while working on a top secret project concerning miniaturization methods.

[xander]

Ipod Nano (April 3, 1755 - October 22, 1843) was a classical German philosopher and scientist, a close friend (and former secretary) of Immanuel Kant. Famous for his highly original tracts on the formation of the universe and a theory of virtual theme parks, professor Nano disappeared under highly suspicious circumstances from his home in Heidelberg while working on a top secret project concerning miniaturization methods.

You forgot the umlaut -- his name was spelt Ipod Näno.

xander