What is Twelve Sands? | New Player Guide | Gameplay Questions | Who's behind it?
How can I support the project?
Just play! The game is free to play, and will always have a free component. In addition, the game will never have advertisements in it. There will never be a required monthly fee in order to sign in. This is a game that I'm writing for enjoyment, and for the challenge of it. If it becomes something greater down the road, you can be assured that you will never be forced into a situation where you have to decide to pay or to quit. That's not fun.
If you do want to support the project financially, there is a donation option that you can find after you've logged in to the game itself. Running the game isn't free for me, and I am covering the monthly server cost through the support of the players. Every donation makes a difference, and helping me to cover some of the monthly fees means you get an in-game artifact reward.
If you're a webmaster and are looking for a good host, another really great way to lend a hand would be to sign up through Dreamhost and to let them know you came through Twelve Sands. This is NOT required, by any means! However, they've been hosting sites of mine for almost four years now, and it's been great. If you do sign up this way, please let me know, so that I can say thank you!
Who are you?
A Canadian guy who likes this sort of thing. :)
Seriously though, my name is Scott, and I'm a graduate student at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Thanks for checking out the game!
Why do this?
There are a lot of really fun games out there, and sometimes it's more fun to take a few minutes out of your day to play a browser-based game than it is to download a multi-gig operating-system-specific client, while paying $15 a month for the joy of a graphical adventure. Kingdom of Loathing is a great example of this, and it's been a huge inspiration for me. If you haven't played it, please go!
The selfish reason that I do this is because I'm writing the type of game that I want to play. I am a player here, I always intend to be, and I'm interested in playing something fun. It's a great way to learn gaming mechanics, and to hone my coding abilities in this kind of environment. In addition, someone actually told me that they were a bit envious because it looked like running Twelve Sands seemed like a lot of fun. They're right (hey killotron - thanks for that, it meant a lot!), and I'm having a blast so far. I do it because it's fun, not to turn a profit, or for any other insidious reason. :)