I’m bad at incentivizing Patreon Goals, and TWDB Epsilon Ideas :P

John Munroe over in the Facebook ATC group asked how many Patreon pledges would I need to make the mobile version of the TWDB into one where you can log in and do Typewriter Hunter stuff like upload galleries and etc. I replied that it was already happening, specifically that the upcoming TWDB Version Epsilon would have these features.

This brought to mind a couple of things:

1) The experiment of actually doing the Goal before the Goal is fully funded seems to be unsuccessful, yet here I’m doing it again with Version Epsilon. Ahh well, like the Blessed Saint George said: “Ya gotta have Faith, ya gotta have Faith!” I still have Faith. (:

2) There are other Goals for later. One interesting example:

Adding a Typewriter Ephemera gallery uploader so that people who collect vintage and antique typewriter ads and other ephemera could upload scans of thier ephemera collections, classified by the same Brand, Model and Year attributes that we sort the Typewriter Galleries by. The research possibilities alone would make it worthwhile, but there’s a tie-in with yet another much older idea – one from the very beginning of TWDB as I envisioned it: making it an actual on-line game.

You see, I already have written such a game. If you are a long time reader of this blog, you’ll know something about Secret Society Wars, an online browser-based SciFi game that I built back in 2006. What you might not know is that I originally envisioned TWDB to morph into a retro-futuristic game where Typewriter Hunters could actually hunt cyber-typewriters on dozens of planets in a large solar system, and dodging sneaky attacks from other Typewriter Hunters in the wild west of interplanetary space.

You’ll notice that Typewriter Hunters currently have “points” and earn them based on things like uploading typewriter galleries and photos, or posting links. The mechanic of “points” for Typewriter Hunters currently only serves to get them rank on the Hunter list, but in truth, it’s a Currency, and it’s one that will have a use in this future game. It also serves to encourage Hunters to upload lots of interesting machines. We now have nearly 10,000 typewriters in the database, which serve as the pool of potential Typewriters to Hunt in-game. That was Step 1.

Even now, I could start building out the mechanics of a Galaxy full of planets where you could visit, find typewriters in trash piles, buy them from store vendors and trade them with other Hunters, or even fight other Hunters in lawless space, with the winner randomly picking a machine from the loser’s inventory. It would work, but it needs more, I think. It needs Quests.

Perhaps quests where the quest-giver would show you an advertisement for a 1928 Royal Model P, and task you with bringing him one. With this, we would add some pretty efficient educational value, making it fun to learn about the machines and when they were made. Turning it into a game. Perhaps if the Ephemera Galleries are a hit, and we start getting upwards of a few thousand ads in there, it could happen. You see, I have a Dream…