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All right then, thanks for the reply :)

How do you respond to the criticisms about this game on the FreeGamePlanet page for it, and the ones by GoopyApple? Would you consider making an enhanced version, given the opportunity?

All right then, thanks for the reply.

I haven't played the game, but I have seen a video of someone who has played both 1 and 2, and they complained about the second game taking you back to the beginning when you die, and also the unskippable dialogue. I think a checkpoint system and the ability to skip dialogue would go a long way, don't you?

Here's the video: 

Hello. I downloaded a community copy, and while I myself am unable to play it, lacking some of the tools needed (a working printer, for one), I must say it's really something. If anyone wishes to play the game, go for it.

Interesting idea, thanks for sharing.

What would your ideal game with the premise of "playing an abandoned online game" be?

Or alternatively, I could have it so that you wouldn't have to fight the avatar at all, just encounter her in increasing glitchy/freaky ways while playing CTF.

As you got locked out of each server, the next one would be glitchier, and the one after that glitchier, and so on. You can't kill the AI, because the dev didn't program that in on purpose, because he couldn't bear the thought of losing her again. He hopes that the gradual glitchyness of each new server would turn you off the idea of playing CTF on the servers.

If, however, you persevered and went into the last server (one with killing implemented), you'd be given a choice: kill the "AI" (and, it's implied, have the ghost of the wife rest in peace), or play the last game of CTF and leave the developer and his wife-avatar in peace.

You're welcome, thanks for replying!

I just played this game. It did have an interesting conceit (an abandoned online FPS haunted by a ghost), but the worn-out horror tropes (the RPS review spelled it out better than I could) kind of soured it for me.

Personally, I would have taken out the “VHS tape” aspect altogether and just presented it as an abandoned 1990’s multiplayer shooter, in which only the AI servers were working, and in each one, you had to kill an AI opponent with a female skin. Each time you did, you’d be locked out of a server by someone (who would later make himself known as the game developer), and then you’d go to the other servers on the list one by one, each buggier than the last, and your opponent would be harder to kill.

Bit by bit, the story would be revealed: the developer’s wife had died, and the developer put an avatar based on her (which would also be implied to be possessed by her ghost) in the game to honor her memory. He’d be displeased on how you kept on killing her in-game, and hoped that, as soon as you saw her get tougher in each new server, you’d get the message and leave her alone.

Eventually, however, you’d reach the next-to-last (and most buggy) server, in which the “wife” avatar AI was almost impossible. Beat her, however, and you’d go on the the last server, in which you didn’t have to kill her at all, just make a decision: spare the avatar (thus preserving the developer’s memory of his wife) or kill the avatar (and, it’s implied, free the wife’s soul)?

I think that would have made for a more interesting conceit than “spooky VHS of an anachronistic FPS”.