Heya folks. I signed up here specifically to try to reach one person, but there's no reason to limit my search to just him. I am here on behalf of Amaranth Games, www.amaranthia.com; We're an established PC Game developer, been around since 2006, and I assure you, well in the black.

Our company doctrine and philosophy is that a strong story sells. As we enter the world of publishing and co-operative development projects (as opposed to in-house development only) in 2010 we have determined there are only 3 genres of games we want to be involved in. Roleplaying Games, Adventure Games, and a new genre we are working on revamping: Interactive Fiction.

We won't call it that on launch day, but its a term you probably recognize; So here's the pitch. We have, in near complete form, an engine designed to play out an interactive fiction. We have a team of talented artists, sound effect, and musicians, we have programmers, and maybe most importantly we have contacts and contracts with the various publishers. What we need is a talented writer... or two.

There are several potential ways to implement the engine we have designed. The most interesting one to this group is to create a series of short who-dunnit mysteries that play out as an interactive fictional work with multiple difficulty levels. Imagine being Holmes, seeing the crime scene, hearing the witness reports (in text only at first, voice acting may come someday), and finding clues as you navigate a small interactive map. At the end of the story comes the thrilling conclusion: Who did it, means and motive style. Difficulty would be in the form of how much hand holding is done, ranging from none at all where you enter your own clue information in your journal, hints being given at what to write (The glass was shattered inward, interesting...), the journal automatically being filled in based on what is going on, or pure story mode where it is just a story.

The goal would be that each story is playable for about 20-30 minutes and to package 3 - 4 stories into a single product with the same main character ect. I do not have a feel for how many words per story that would be, a guess would be 20,000. Small "puzzles" could be included to help extend the length of the game.

Now here's the part some of you care most about: Money & IP.

Most important: You get to keep the IP. We only want the rights to publish on electronic media including PC, Console, and portable electronics (Iphone and probably Kindle primarily). The characters, sequel rights, or right to publish the short stories into novel form are retained by you.

Second most important: Money. This is a royalty project primarily. This platform is unproven but growing. The % is up for debate, frankly. The writing is important, but the art, programming, sound, music, and distribution is equally so. We won't withhold a dime against the cost we pay to make the game. When we get the first dollar you'll get your cut. Meaningless as it is: my hopeful and mildly realistic estimate for this infant genre is $50,000/game IF we can get some of our publishers behind it. If not, 10-15,000. The upper estimate I place at about 150,000-200,000 if we surprise everyone and the game actually sells across a broader publisher network. These guesstimates (partially based on our own data and the sales of other similar genre games) do not include anything other than the PC version. The potential is very real, but don't get your hopes too high. I'd be unsurprised if the total income from the game was only $5,000 net (Which would mean we'd be taking a loss in addition to time spent; so our risk is higher than yours at least).

I'm sure you'll have questions. Send me a friend request if you're interested. After I accept, send me a private message asking for more details & send me a link to some of your work. Pass this on to anyone you know who may be interested. We are interested in experienced writers only. Small advances paid against royalties are possible for someone with enough experience. The real value comes from being able to pump out sequels at a fast speed. Who knows, if the genre takes off as I hope it will, we may need several writers producing these games at breakneck speed.