Game Tunnel
Posted by Tim Sat, 23 Sep 2006 00:59:00 GMT
Every month we struggle to come up with a proper description for this post, and always end up falling flat on our faces (well, just me).
It’s difficult to fill up an entire paragraph with anything witty unless my first name’s Derek. If only my next shareware game is Aquaria, and I’m planning to release it in Spring 2007.. then I could have mustered something funny to say in this sentence.
Oh, right. Back to the topic at hand. Game Tunnel’s Review Round-Up for the month of September is out. Mighty interesting read as usual.
This month’s pick is Gumboy Crazy Adventures, a game which I wasn’t too impressed with either. But that’s just my humble opinion..
The Commonplace Book Compo is over!
Hey! Someone there. You gotte review this long waited sequel to one of the most legendary Finnish game ever!
Triplane Turmoil II: http://webshop.draconus.com/game.php?game=37
Thanks guys, I love your site!
You know, the round-up would approximately triple in quality if the numerical ratings and the “awards” were simply thrown away.
Maybe, but some people don’t like to read.
or they made any sense :D
“Though somewhat similar to Gish (in the way that LocoRoco is similar to Gish)”
Ah, so what they’re trying to say is its somewhat similar to Space Invaders (in the way that Space Invaders is similar to Gish), as in… not at all.
And why does Goth Puzzle Bobble just sound *so* unappealing… ? There’s not even any Joy Division to be seen…
I demand epileptic dead lead singers in more games please! (and oven gloves) C’mon people, make it happen…
wanders back off into the wilderness sobbing
wow, i got surprisingly excited about triplane turmoil 2… until i saw that it was in 3D. ARHGH!! WHY!?!?!?!?!?
It get the high score because one of the reviewer didn’t review it and it crashed for one other, so the score is an average of a mediocre score and a perfect one. All the other games are an average of 4 reviews though.
That is a stupid way to determine a “game of the month” IMHO.
A buggy game gets game of the month award… ??? And what the fuck does conflict of interest mean? Brian’s reviews are worse than Hamumu’s!
You know what would be even BETTER than a Game of the Month award? A Game of the Week award. No! No, forget that.
A Game of the Day award. Yes. Each and every day, the best game of the day will be chosen. The reviewers will have until the end of the day to decide on that which is worthy. The GotD award itself will be a giant golden-alloy statue seventy feet high and, being partially composed of a white dwarf star, weighing five hundred thousand tons. Lovingly hand-crafted with intricate images of cherubs and angels, it will be presented in a grand week-long ceremony.
No “gold” or “silver” awards, though, I don’t want to get carried away with this concept.
Why doesn’t TIGSource pick a game of the month and post it here. It’s not like GT has exclusive rights to picking a GOTM ;)
Why bother with the bang up job you guys are doing over there? ;) Start a video review segment so I have something else to enjoy along with GameLife.
chuckle
Like, to actually be serious for a moment, if I were running things I’d kill the awards entirely, leave the single-paragraph quickie reviews intact, and replace the (largely meaningless) numbers with one-or-two-sentence “here’s how I personally felt about this game overall” summaries. The summaries would be in bold type so that rushed people, lazy people, and stupid semi-literate people could find them easy.
Uh, since I’m fantasizing here: I’d then wait and see how this format worked out, and if it went poorly, I’d deny all responsibility, blaming it my idiot assistant Fred who I was forced to hire and forced to listen to. And vice versa.
“Dan MacDonald said about 14 hours later:
Why doesn’t TIGSource pick a game of the month and post it here. It’s not like GT has exclusive rights to picking a GOTM”
I’d gladly volunteer myself for the panel if such a thing ever emerged ;)
I guess what we’re all after is something consistant and transparant from the GT reviews. When a game that two revieweres sat out from, one because it crashed and the other for being involved in the project in some way pulls in the Game Of The Month award despite only receiving two scores out of four, with all the best intentions in the world its very difficult to take it seriously.
If anything it doesn’t do the indie scene any favours because to an awful degree, it makes the awards worthless.
I think Prio might be onto something, taking away the scores - or at the very least making the scores fair to all the games…possibly by a total rather than an average would go a long way to lending more credibility to the results each month…and then, if the awards were kept in place they’d actually mean something when the final tally or overall opinions are out there.
And yes, if that didn’t work - its definitely Freds fault. He’s forever making stupid idiotic decisions…
Re: Gumboy
“Crashed after clicking play.”
So… Hommel gives it 6 Russel gives it 10 Seth says it crashes on start-up
…and it gets game of the month.
Do these people ever coordinate their efforts? If two can play it, why can’t the other? Is it the machine’s fault, or the game’s? Someone interested in buying this game would be very confused by reading these reviews.
Also, in another review, Hommel states: “This is what indie games do well. Take a not-so-indie thing - turn-based fantasy strategy battles in this case - and pare it down to a simple core, and then make a rather short game of it.”
I find myself despising reading reviews, because usually they tend to be so boring to read. Although I find my mind drawn by big numbers in bold type. More interesting reflections such as those found in The Gamer’s Quarter are much more like my cup of tea.
TIGSource is fine the way it is, I don’t need any sort of arbitrary ranking system for games that in all essence means bugger all compared to a explanatory sentence or two.
I did indeed say that in another review, mushu… only you don’t have any comment on it! Was it good, bad? Stupid? Not what indie games do well? Exactly what indie games do well and I’m a genius? I don’t understand your non-comment.
To further on my comment, that’s what I’ve found. The best indie games tend to be very short games that are like large, clunky, hard-to-play, commercial games. They pare it down to the core and (unfortunately) make it short. Oasis (not so short actually, but definitely cut down to the absolute core), Mexican Motor Mafia, Weird Worlds (anti-shortness credits for being a mini-game that you can infinitely replay), The Blob (highly original, but still very reminiscent of certain commercial games), and Land Of Legends all immediately come to mind. I find that the one or two games each month I like enough to try to finish, I always finish WAY sooner than I thought because they’re really short. But obviously also really good, or I wouldn’t have bothered. In fact, on a match-3 note, this applies to Scrubbles this month as well. Usually match-3s have ten billion levels I don’t wanna know about. This one was fun and had bosses, but only had maybe 30 levels. It’s not exactly simplified, but how simple can you make Bust-A-Move?
And no, we don’t coordinate in any way. We each write what we write, send it to Russ, and he uploads it. I think that’s actually a good thing (I find this particular GOTM a bit of a conundrum as well, though - maybe 50% failure rate should exempt it from the awards?), because it’s pure. My review is what I think, no pressure.
“This is what indie games do well. Take a not-so-indie thing - turn-based fantasy strategy battles in this case - and pare it down to a simple core, and then make a rather short game of it.”
That quote makes it sound like all indie games have to suck.
Its silly that the game of the month is the game of the month in spite of the fact that it only was reviewable by 2/3 reviewers, and received a 6/10 and 10/10. Maybe that’s honest, two people can disagree. But the difference between 6 and a perfect 10? It sounds like you guys have a completely different scale for reviewing things. From Russ’s review it sounds like he marked it 10 just to make it game of the month. He mentions a number of flaws in the game, that clearly prevent it from being perfect. I think that’s where the readers feel like “WTF”. I mean if I were interested in buying this game, and saw it was game of the month I’d be like.. okay, cool! But if I saw that one person couldn’t run it, and the dude who really liked it sounded like he was motivated to make it GotM because there was nothing better… then…. W T F
(also, based on the fact that ‘Seth’ can’t run a game as hardware-lame as Avernum4 at full speed, it sounds like he has a really fucked up computer)
I’m sorry it sounds like indie games suck… maybe you think simple=suck? I consider simple the ultimate goal of game design. I think indie games are better than commercial games as a general rule. Expressing the pure simple core of an idea well is much better than muddling together a bunch of crap. Notice the most acclaimed commercial games (outside of hardcore geeks who love to use WASD) are this way as well - Guitar Hero and Katamari Damacy.
Seth’s system has a weird video conflict with the way text is rendered by Spiderweb games. Don’t know what it is. I have the weakest system in the roundup by far, so I’m usually the odd man out.
No comment on how other people choose to rate… I just don’t know! I believe Gumboy is a 6 (plain average) myself, hence the rating. And it was only playable by 2/4, 50%! I agree, shouldn’t get GOTM in that case. But it’s not my roundup.
“This is what indie games do well. Take a not-so-indie thing - turn-based fantasy strategy battles in this case - and pare it down to a simple core, and then make a rather short game of it.”
You basically said they took a game concept that already existed, boiled it down to its bare bones, and then made it into a short game. That sounds like they made a really short ‘n simple version of a regular commercial game. So either you could buy the game it ripped off, which likely has better production values and more features, and which you can probably find in a bargain bin somewhere. Or you can download this one which costs the same, only its much shorter, less value.
There’s nothing wrong with simple/elegant game design, but why should it be a knock off of something that already exists. Maybe this isn’t what you meant, but that’s what the quote says. As if indie games should strive to make “rather short” knock offs of other games. I’d hope that there’s other things that “indie games do well” besides that.
“But it’s not my roundup.”
“turn based fantasy strategy” is obviously and clearly NOT ‘a commercial game’. It’s an entire genre. I didn’t mention ripping off any game (and Styrateg doesn’t - it follows many general TBS conventions, but is not particularly similar to any game I can think of). Trimming down a genre to the meat that makes it tasty is a good thing.
Taking away the bloat that’s in commercial games is a good thing. You don’t want more features (better production values are never a bad thing, of course, but they cost money). More features means more complexity, a very bad thing in game design. Go ahead and buy a commercial game of the genre - it’ll be clunky and crappy (with a million levels). The indie game will be simple and elegant (and short).
Not knock off. Genre. “Not-so-indie thing” does not mean “specific not-so-indie game”. And simple is better than complex. Are all of these things now clear? Short, on the other hand, is indeed a bad thing. It also happens to be true. What I said was not a purely positive statement. It was a positive statement, tempered by a downside, based on my experience of hundreds of indie games.
It of course was also an offhand remark, not intended to be dissected in detail. So it may not have been crystal clear. Hopefully I have now added to it enough that it is clear to you at least. Bringing clarity to your existence is my raison d’etre.
And you close again by quoting me without comment. Let me take that to mean you think I’m somehow dodging some responsibility… Well, I have none. Russ runs the round-up. It’s all his business. I write for the roundup. The content of my reviews is my business. He doesn’t edit me, I don’t edit him. When I said it’s not my roundup, I meant I have no control over what becomes GOTM (other than what input to the average my score causes). Simple as that. I don’t get any input into the rules of the roundup. Same as you. I was simply pointing out that while I agree with the idea of not GOTMing a game that doesn’t work, I cannot implement it. I have the same power you do in that regard (maybe a little more influence, but I don’t care enough to ask him about it - this is not life or death!).
FYI, Triplane Turmoil II is 3D graphics but 2D mechanics. Shouldn’t be anything wrong with that ;)