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Venter, Game Dev Story

WILL: I swear I remember covering this for a RotW competition, but I can't seem to find it. Anyway, AS I RECALL SAYING LAST TIME this is a quirky and lighthearted review of a quirky and lighthearted game. You've desrcibed the process of game-making (meta-gaming?) well enough that I have a really good mental picture of how this plays, but, while I'm sure you enjoyed the game the review doesn't really sell me on it. You might have found yourself rooting for the digital dev team, but I have difficulty seeing why I'd be inclined to do that. Not that I'm a stranger to emotional attachments to video game characters, but you haven't done enough to convince me that they're there.

SCORE: 69
ADJUSTMENT: Indie enough that Wikipedia doesn't have an entry. +7
TOTAL: 76

CD: A very upbeat, well written, review that touches on the fun parts of the game but not really on any of the drawbacks of the game. You can tell from the review that there will be frustration when you develop a game you think is a sure winner but it actually bombs. So is this game really a 10? This review certainly makes it sound like that. I would like to have seen a bit more detail on game play. There is mention of training team members but not what you can train. Does the 20 hours spent playing the game (as mentioned in the review) let you access all the material the game has to offer and then you tweak it or are there hidden things to find, i.e. super programmer?

I am not so sure this is an indie game because Kairosoft Co. LTD has been developing simulation games for the Japanese PC and cellular phone market since 1996. They are not well known here I’ll give you that so no bonus score at all but I also will not subtract anything because I cannot find anything about the company. If you have any information I will adjust my score accordingly.

Review score: 80/100 – Indie score: +0

ZIG:This is not an indie game, but mainstream sites seem to think it is, so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you were misled. So you only lose half points. -10

This review would have been a lot more interesting if it had connected the mechanics to real life. Who do those four critics represent? You say that a shooter/dating-sim combo would do poorly -- is there a real-life example of this? These questions may not seem important at initial glance -- the game is fun, after all! -- but the whole point of Game Dev Story is to simulate game development in a charming way. When we're talking about a 10 score game, it had better mimic or parody the actual game development scene. It does, but your review doesn't make that point (the review talks about game development, but it doesn't talk about the scene). That connection to the development scene is what distinguishes this from other bring-up games like Graduation.

In place of that piece, you connect Game Dev Story's theme to your personal life and ambitions, and you do so effectively. I come away believing that you prefer this to teaching sims because you are more interested in game development. You provide enough support to explain Game Dev Story, but you don't provide enough support to make me believe that this is better than other bring-up sims.

You also don't address whether or not you get to actually play the games you develop (or more likely, cutesy retro representations of the games). A lot of bring-up sims include an application for the training. Monster Rancher has exploration and fights, and Idolm@ster contains animated concerts that represent how well you've developed your popstar. In 2010, I would expect that a 10-score title has something extra like that, even if it's low-scale due to budgetary reasons. A game could be good without that kind of thing, but we're talking 10 here!

75 - 10 = 65

OD, Breath of Death

WILL: Damnit, OD, stop it with your nostalgic twinges of longing.

This piece is great for description and explaination without resorting to dry lists and play-by-plays. But although I enjoyed this review, I found myself losing interest about halfway down the page and wanting to skim through the rest quickly. It's very thorough and descriptive, but wordy.

SCORE: 70
ADJUSTMENT: A $1 XBLA title? Sounds pretty indie to me. +8
TOTAL: 78

CD: There is no doubt this game was well thought out in such a way as to alleviate some of the pitfalls that plagued some of the games this one strives to emulate. Though briefly mentioned in the review there are lots of jokes and parody of other great RPGs scattered throughout the game. Though well done with plenty of information about the game I don’t know that this review gives us the full picture of what this game has to offer an RPG fan or someone interested in an RPG that is minus some of the pacing ordeals other RPGs might have.

Breath of Death VII: The Beginning mostly developed by single person, one Robert Boyd, is most assuredly an Indie game.

Review Score: 78/100 – Indie score: +10

Zig: This is definitely an indie game, so you won't lose any points. But it's a well-known indie game that has already been reviewed here, so you won't earn any bonus points, either.

The review spends too much time fawning over the concept of parody and eliminating oldschool annoyance, and not enough time describing BODVII's wit or aesthetics or why the battle mechanics are actually good (as opposed to merely "not annoying"). You mention that some monsters can be destroyed with normal attacks, and others must be assailed with powerful spells from the start. Does the game provide any warning as to which is which, or is it trial-and-error with lots of Game Overs? For that matter, is death an annoyance or has that been streamlined too? If the dungeons are lackluster, did you keep playing because you wanted to see what else the game had to offer, or were just "in the zone" and compelled to finish due to the nerdcore OCD we all suffer from?

You convincingly established that the game eliminates oldschool annoyance, but all that other stuff is important if you're going to convince me that this game deserves a 9 and my time. Money is no object, but time is valuable.

75 + 0 = 75

Joe, Light's End

WILL: Ah, another nostalgic-y game. The concept Light's End pitches sounds pretty need, but I don't think you've done enough to convince the reader of it. The mantra of "Show, don't tell", while it might be out of place for a 2D RPG, is very much a big deal in writing a review, and there's far more Tell than Show in this piece. I'm not convinced that jumping into NPCs to have them perform actions to benefit the protagonist that they'd otherwise not do entails logical or believable behaviour, nor does Crystal's snippet of suicidal angst sell me on the complex character-driven story.

SCORE: 65
ADJUSTMENT: Other than it exists, I found next to no information about this game apart from the official website. +8
TOTAL: 74

CD: Joe does a really good job here of telling a lot about the game and the story without spoiling too much of that story. We are told just enough about the story to keep the review flowing but not so much as to feel we already played the game. Not much more to say except I always thought it was “nothing ventured, nothing gained”.

Light’s End being primarily written entirely by Ryan Thorlakson is a fine example of today’s Indie games.

Review score: 88/100 – Indie score: +10

ZIG: Similar to BODVII, this is an indie game that has already been reviewed. But it's less known than BODVII, so you'll get a few points. +3

You're at a disadvantage here because Light's End sucks, but you gave it an 8. An eight!

In terms of writing, this review doesn't exhibit the word economy of the two I harshly critiqued above. I didn't praise Venter or OD's polish, but that's because I expect that from them. As an example, your first sentence is pretty wordy. I'd recommend splitting it... something along the lines of "In an isolated mining town dwells a bitter and young soul, a girl named Crystal who is grieving the death of her mother. Her boyfriend has been drafted into the army to fight rebel forces, and her overbearing father has imposed a restrictive curfew."

Something like that is a bit easier to swallow (long first sentences are rought!), splits Crystal's "grief" away from her other problems, and also attributes her name to the word 'girl' instead of to 'soul'. The girl's name is Crystal... the soul's name is not, although people who haven't played the game won't understand ;)

"As they say, though: nothing risked, nothing venture."

For us. For them. For you.

Congratulations to Josh on the win.

Thanks to EmP for running the contest.

And a big thanks to everyone else who gave us some very good reviews to read.

Age is a condition not a state of mind.

I like how the results are printed worst to first. It makes me think I placed pretty highly in this one!

I'm not afraid to die because I am invincible
Viva la muerte, that's my goddamn principle

The pics I thought to put in because I thought they'd add more to the nothing bit of text I'd had written for the game to begin with. I thought they'd help supplement what I was talking about, rather than just be pointless throw ins. As far as I'm concerned, they do exactly what I intended them to do, really, because each one I put in was a very conscious decision.

And before you say "you should've just wrote more then", haha, the game's so short that doing so would practically involve me telling you the whole brunt of the story / level design, and that would be rather pointless. =P The game only lasts an hour or two and as such, there's really nothing to it. I know this sounds damning - and maybe it is - but even so, I can't bring myself to mark it too harshly (well, maybe I could've given it a 6; I dunno), but the uniqueness of the idea were compelling enough to make me rate it higher. *shrug* I'm not going to go into semantics about how to score here, frankly, as that debate has long since been discussed.

Truth is, this review was really a challenge in its own way. I know it's not perfect by any means, but I feel I did the best I could with it. Since writing it, I've been given some ideas for how to improve it, and I'll definitely consider those in the future.

Anyway, thanks to the judges for taking the time to do this as always. Congrats to the winners and other participants, as this would have been nothing without you.

[Eating EmP's brain] probably isn't a good idea. I mean... He's British, which means his brain's wired for PAL and your eyes are NTSC. - Will

WQ: I would suggest floating the images, rather than wrapping the text next time. That'll solve the problem of weird-looking paragraphs.

Here, let me see if I can show you what I mean...

EDIT: No, uh, guess not. Nevermind. Wrapping is fine.

"Either, sir, you're an ass or masquerading as one."
- Nero Wolfe

WQ: I liked the screenshots in your review. I thought it was a little lacking in flow in some places. One paragraph Bob is crawling through air vents and next thing you know we are reading a comic then we get this "But however difficult dealing with it is, warping reality is often necessary." I lost what you were after there, the bees, the book or Bob or the whole thing. You had some good sections so don't think the whole thing was a bad read it was not. It was interesting I just had trouble following you a couple of times.

Age is a condition not a state of mind.

Heh, am I in retirement, Will? I like to think I'm just lazy.

This would be better without that lame first paragraph.

Assuming that's the paragraph complaining about the guy stealing my topic title (and he really did, the little scamp), it actually did start out like that originally. Then I saw my title was stolen and for some reason decided to gripe. Maybe it cost me the election, but I had to vent! C'est la vie.

Also losing points when the point-stealer acknowledges it was made by indies is bad form! Boooo-urns.

"My father, the Emperor, had many powers of the Dark Side. But without three eyes he could never achieve perfection." - Trioculus

Very entertaining judging results to read. I feel like I got to benefit from this competition without putting in actual work! Congrats to DOI on his win.

On a side note, Coarse Dragon, are you a sales rep for any of the publishers of the games that were chosen for this competition?

I don't have to boost my review resume because I have a real resume.

On a different side note: Who's doing the next contest, if anyone?

If I Offended You, You Needed It.

Thanks to the judges, especially Zigfried!

Losing by two points is sort of like winning. Well, actually it's not but oh well.

"fuck yeah oblivion" - Jihad

turducken here is why I gave you a low score. This game was made on a shareware game making program. That to me means not "developed" but rather created using an existing software tool. Yes all game makers use tools to make games but just like "The Ball" I don't feel these games are true indie games unlike Breath of Death VII and others that were entirely created from scratch. Here are my sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barkley,_Shut_Up_and_Jam:_Gaiden

"The game was first developed on the RPG Maker 2003 game engine, but was later ported to Game Maker 6.1."

While it does say "Independent" that does not mean it is an "Indie" game.

Age is a condition not a state of mind.

Haha! Move successful, intarwebs back.

Thank you everyone for your comments. I was in bad need of a deep critique, especially on this one.

"As they say, though: nothing risked, nothing venture."

The only thing my milkshake brings to the yard is a subpoena.

While I appreciate the explanation I was REALLY complaining, just light-hearted joshing or somesuch. I got third-place for a game I haven't played in like two years and wrote the review for a few hours before the submission deadline (hence mucho typos/grammar flubs). I can live with third. SOMEHOW...

"My father, the Emperor, had many powers of the Dark Side. But without three eyes he could never achieve perfection." - Trioculus

This game was made on a shareware game making program. That to me means not "developed" but rather created using an existing software tool.

That's an amusingly arbitrary distinction.

"Either, sir, you're an ass or masquerading as one."
- Nero Wolfe

Not as arbitrary as you might think. I put a lot of thought into what I thought was an Indie game. I gave EmP the same deduction for the same reason. Judges have to make these fundamental abstractions and be ready to back them up.

Age is a condition not a state of mind.

Truth be told, not only did EmP enter for me, but also introduced the spelling errors.

v0v

No.

Haha. Blah; that makes it sound like EmP wrote your review for you. =/

[Eating EmP's brain] probably isn't a good idea. I mean... He's British, which means his brain's wired for PAL and your eyes are NTSC. - Will

I'm actually an EmP alt.

Your mind, it is blown.

No.