RMN DEVELOPER PROFILES

Posts

Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
Thank you. Abadox is one of my ridiculous nostalgia games, despite the fact that I am terrible at it.

ETA: I'M SORRY FOR SNIPING WITH OFF-TOPIC CHATTER I WILL NOW COMMIT INTERNET HARAKIRI FOR THIS DISGRACE.

ETA2:
author=CashmereCat
OK, can we settle this once and for all... what does DES mean, game design or graphical design? I always thought it meant game design because graphical design would fall under art.

DES is short for desu
CashmereCat
Self-proclaimed Puzzle Snob
11638
You like surrealism and puzzles, Sooz? Aww <3

Also Rhyme no need to be self deprecating. You're making us all look bad. Multiply those values by 1.5 at least. Most people are overrating their skills so it makes no sense to underrate yourself.
Frogge
I wanna marry ALL the boys!! And Donna is a meanc
18536
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
If all your games are walking-around simulators that don't have any gameplay, you don't get to give yourself 8/10 in gameplay design. Come on guys.
slash
APATHY IS FOR COWARDS
4158
I think it's interesting to see how people rank themselves. Even if you disagree, you get a glimpse into their mindset! See: Rhyme's humility, my belief that I'm a perfect designer.

For what it's worth, my stats were mostly relative to each other - I ranked design and code high to emphasize how much better I am at those than I am at writing (IMO).
I think we should try and rate each other and use the average for our 'official' ranking. Obviously, we can't rate the newer users here because we have no idea what kind of games they'd design, but it would be interesting how the regular RM crowd rate each other. =)
CashmereCat
Self-proclaimed Puzzle Snob
11638
@Luchino That could turn out quite mean. I reckon only rate those who would like to be rated.

On the other hand, I'd like to be rated. (Or is this a ploy just to get people to play my games so they know how good/terrible I am?)
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
I'd totally be up for being rated! ^_^ Seeing how others measure you is a neat idea!
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Yeah, I'd be cool with being rated too. Though I'm not sure about the average rating being turned into some kind of official rating.
slash
APATHY IS FOR COWARDS
4158
Huh. That would be interesting... well, if you're going to rate someone, it might be nice to provide a little assessment, and not just numbers. That way it's a little less random and a little more like critique :P

Well, anyway, I'm up for being rated, if people wanted to! I'm curious to know what people think and I like ego boosts~

I'm tough, I can take it -_-)b
It'll be hard to rate the people who don't have enough decent projects under their names (like me, for example). It's also kinda unfair to rate someone who hasn't made anything recently based on his/her past projects, since one can change quite a lot in a mere month or two.

Other than that, yeah it'll be a great way to know your own strengths and weaknesses.
Frogge
I wanna marry ALL the boys!! And Donna is a meanc
18536
Me too! I don't mind being rated!
I'll try rating CashmereCat, with what little I know (played one short game).
Design: 5/10
Simple but functional.

Writing: ?/10
Since your game that I played have no story I don't actually know.

Art: 4/10
Simple. Sense for it seems to be good, with some training could be great.

Coding: 1/10
No coding in game that I could see.

Mapping: 5/10
Simple, basically just flat surfaces everywhere.
They serve the function well enough but I'd lie
if I said I was impressed.

Composing: 4/10
Alot to learn.

Puzzlemaking: 9/10
Sexy in a brainy way.

Atmospheremaking: 7/10
Coherent look and feel.

Raet me plz.
Frogge
I wanna marry ALL the boys!! And Donna is a meanc
18536
Alright here's you Snowy

Design-6/10

Writing-8/10
Need I say more?

Art-9/10
Your art is wonderful and eerie, but the characters from games like Skinwalker have a weird style

Coding-1/10
I don't think you do coding.

Mapping-7/10
Sometimes your maps can be a bit poor like the forest from ''The Visitor''

Composing-?
I don't know if you make music or not

Puzzlemaking-3/10
I liked the puzzle from it moves

Athmospheremaking-10/10
Your games have some of the best athmosphere

Rate me too!
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
If you posted a thing, you deserve to be rated by other people, whether you want to be or not! Destroy ALL the self-esteem!

Of course, there are only two people who posted score sheets whose work and style I am familiar enough with to actually rate them.

Craze: Got his self-evaluation basically perfect. Boring.
Unity: Should probably take like 5 less points of DES but 1 more point of MAP and 2 or 3 more points of ART. Her pixel art isn't top tier, but an entire game's worth of badly colored fully custom pixel art (plus artwork for the winning game of a contest with 800 entries) is a lot more than most of us can put out.
CashmereCat
Self-proclaimed Puzzle Snob
11638
I wrote this about 5 times, erasing it each time, thinking "I'm being too mean". I'm just going to give general comments on each user, because giving numerical scores is kind of hard for me. Here goes.

Luchino
I like that Enelysion is a labour of love that took so many years. I was originally put off because of the long narration sequence and the long descriptions for each object in the house, but I should get back to it because it did have kind of a nice feeling of world-building. But generally games like Accelerated World and Lawrence of Aragorn had fairly decent dungeon design and good pacing.
Strengths: Worldbuilding, creating luscious maps, caring about her characters

unity
One of the most productive there is. I really like that every game feels complete in and of itself. Excels in the dungeon design department. Last Minute Gift is a good example of pulling together non-linear elements + metroidvania unlocking + dodge-based gameplay into a virtually seamless, complete-feeling project. The custom graphics were cute, but if there's one thing that could be improved it's the thick lines on portraits and sometimes wonky proportions and weird-looking eyes. Tilesets by unity are great. Also, if unity has a name attached to a game, there's probably a high percent chance it's going to be complete sometime soon. Which is a great thing and a rare thing. Also a pleasant person who's willing to share knowledge.
Strengths: Completeness of games, custom tilesets, dungeon design

Red Nova
Strong writer on RMN, one of my favourites, followed closely by Calunio then perhaps Housekeeping or Capage or Merlandese. Character arcs are well-realized, creating a complete package. Even a short game like The Gift feels complete. The end scenes from Red Nova games are some of the most transcendent and engaging moments in gaming I've experienced. Good guard-based battle systems as well, very well-balanced and utilizing a good resource management of TP. If anything's his weakness, it's mapping. Character portraits are definitely getting better.
Strengths: Writing, battle system, dungeon design

slash
I've only played Resume, but I can see that slash is a talented coder with a good eye for visuals. The way that Resume introduced one element at a time for consideration was brilliant and I bet his other games are great too. The portraits he draws as well show a good use of colour and are very cute.
Strengths: Gameplay, portraits, tileset for Bright Future

karins soulkeeper
From what I played of Lyra, it was quite confusing but at least you knew what you wanted to do and you achieved it. The puzzles ranged from good to almost average. I think you have a good amount of potential, you're like me, you're yet to prove to the world your amazingness, but it's definitely there ;)
Strengths: Atmosphere, minimal storywriting

Unfortunately I haven't played any of ExtremeDevelopment's games. :(

SnowOwl
Creates atmospheric horror games with a sense of surrealism. My favourite SnowOwl game might be Reap and Sow, my least favourite being Manatees for obvious reasons, but I think Snow knows that. Extremely strong sound design. Pastes together graphics to create creepy textured environments.
Strengths: Atmosphere, graphics, sound, minimally told horror stories

LockeZ
Granted, I've only played a limited number of his games... a bit of Born Under the Rain, a bit of a 2-hour entry he did, part of his Direvil Darkfort submission. Has a post-battle combat outlook, at least from the games I've played. Has a good sense of humour, able to write humorously, rubs shoulders with the talented Ratty, Capage and Gourd Clae in terms of quality. Good at writing characters. Battles can tend to be a bit long and drawn out, but require good amounts of strategy. Also manages his own Squaresoft MUD which is badass.
Strengths: Battle strategies, humour, coding
Frogge
I wanna marry ALL the boys!! And Donna is a meanc
18536
Awww nobody rates me :(
I'm going to rate myself the lazy way:

Design: 6/10
Art: 4/10
Writing: 9/10
Coding: 1/10
Mapping: 4/10
Sound: 9/10


@Red_Nova: I think you could more or less swap your writing/design ratings, maybe with one less point in (the new) design. Edit: Not sure about the writing in retrospect: I've just played Remnants of Isolation, which might not have even been written by him. I need to check out more of your work!
Frame of Reference: Remnants of Isolation

@Cash: I think that's pretty accurate--maybe several more in mapping, but all I've played is Account Mu, which was pretty minimalistic, so it's hard to judge. The mapping was definitely appropriate there. I'd bump up your art rating a few points based on that, too, but, again, I don't know if Account Mu is the best indicator of your talent since it's so simple graphically.
Frame of Reference: Account Mu

@Luchino: Pretty accurate, but I'd maybe drop about 10-20 points in writing. I feel kind of bad because my original comment was going to be really positive about how you should increase your mapping and a few other categories, but you changed the values in your second ranking post, and now I feel like a dick.
Frame of Reference: Enelysion

@Craze: Umm, maybe drop a point or two off mapping? Maybe I haven't played the right games from you, but your mapping is in the "gets the job done" territory, i.e. all I can do. Your design ranking is painfully accurate.
Frame of Reference: Teenage Costume Squad, Wine and Roses

@Unity: I'd say more like one/two points off design, one additional point to mapping, and a point less on writing--but it's been a little while since I've played a game just from you.
Frame of Reference: Remnants of Isolation, Luxaren Allure (early demo)

@Snow: Your composing is more of a 4 or 5; you're making very effective sound design, so I might even rank you higher, but I can't remember hearing any traditional music from you. I'd also boost your writing to a 6 because while your dialogue/narration is generally not good, you're pretty great at telling stories through imagery and gameplay, which is a pretty major part of storytelling in the medium. Maybe drop design down to a 6; it's hard to really rank you on this since most of your games are fairly gameplay-light (but done well in that context). Reap and Sow might change that for me, but I haven't played the demo.
Frame of Reference: It Moves, Misrere, Rust and Blood, No Manatees Promised

@Locke: Where's your ranking? I could have sworn I've seen it before.

Double edit: Now that I think about it, it's a good idea to put down the games we've played from each developer if we rank them like this, so I did that!
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=LockeZ
Unity: Should probably take like 5 less points of DES but 1 more point of MAP and 2 or 3 more points of ART. Her pixel art isn't top tier, but an entire game's worth of badly colored fully custom pixel art (plus artwork for the winning game of a contest with 800 entries) is a lot more than most of us can put out.

Thanks very much for the evaluation! Sooz deserves almost all the props for RoI being pretty, as she did most everything artistic, but thanks for the comments about my pixel art. I don't completely agree, as while I certainly have learned a lot from doing so many tilesets, I don't think quantity should count so much, and I still have much to learn about making it look good. I'm still pretty terrible at picking colors and getting lighting anywhere near right.

When it comes to the minus five points on my DES score, I can at least somewhat agree, as in hindsight I did set it a bit high. In your opinion, what are my weakest points in DES that could use more work? I'd like to try to improve in that area.

author=CashmereCat
unityOne of the most productive there is. I really like that every game feels complete in and of itself. Excels in the dungeon design department. Last Minute Gift is a good example of pulling together non-linear elements + metroidvania unlocking + dodge-based gameplay into a virtually seamless, complete-feeling project. The custom graphics were cute, but if there's one thing that could be improved it's the thick lines on portraits and sometimes wonky proportions and weird-looking eyes. Tilesets by unity are great. Also, if unity has a name attached to a game, there's probably a high percent chance it's going to be complete sometime soon. Which is a great thing and a rare thing. Also a pleasant person who's willing to share knowledge.
Strengths: Completeness of games, custom tilesets, dungeon design

Thanks very much, Cash! ^_^ I'm glad to hear you like my dungeon designs, as I sometimes go overboard and make them a bit bigger than maybe they should be. I also agree about my art and portrait-drawing. After years of trying to learn to draw, I'm just not grasping what I need to make humans look right (more actual paid classes might help with that) which is why I've been commissioning facesets for some games.

author=ExtremeDevelopment
Awww nobody rates me :(

I'll have to play a game or two of yours and get back to you.

author=Housekeeping
@Unity: I'd say more like one/two points off design, one additional point to mapping, and a point less on writing--but it's been a little while since I've played a game just from you.

Thanks, that sounds about right. ^_^ I'm still pretty bad with the whole "show, don't tell" aspect of writing. Gotta work harder on that.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Hmm. Your sense of pacing and speed of progression are good all around, and your battles are really well balanced when the player plays exactly the way you were expecting. You have trouble getting combat to be much more engaging than it is with the basic pre-made characters and enemies though. And like most people I think you sometimes (often) just don't have the patience to sit around playtesting dungeons different ways and fiddling with numbers, which leads to your skills and equipment and items and enemies not being balanced very well if the player does things in any order other than what you predicted. Those were the problems I saw with Luxuren Allure and the first segment of Wyrm Warriors anyway. Let me playtest the next segment and I'll be a lot more specific with the feedback~

Also, yeah, as far as this thingy goes, quantity definitely counts considering how many people give themselves a 5/10 in a category or higher when the number of games worth of stuff they've made in that category is less than one. Being able to actually follow through and make a whole set of graphics is a very important skill; as an indie developer it's a lot more important than color selection or line work.