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BRICK'S OFFICIAL RMN REVIEW THREAD
Posts
The Real Brickroad
2626
The Real Brickroad
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CloseResponse to my reviews has been pretty positive so far, but a couple questions and comments have come up. In the interest of transparency I'm going to address those concerns here.
What gets reviewed?
I don't get to decide what games I review (although I'm sure my input is taken into consideration). If you want your game reviewed by me, the best I can offer is to start bugging WIP and Holbert about it.
I've made a few requests of them as to what I'll review and what I won't. I won't be reviewing any unfinished, canceled projects. I won't be reviewing any fangames. I won't be reviewing any commercial games.
I've agreed to review all Featured Games. Outside of that I'm going to try and maintain a one-a-week schedule, although some games are really long so that might get stretched or squashed as needed.
You can't review a game without playing the entire thing!
Sure I can. Here's why:
RM games are free and there are hundreds of them. The average site user will download something that catches his eye, and if five minutes later he's not having fun with it he will delete it with absolutely no risk or obligation before going on to the next thing. It's not like a commercial game where you've just spent $60 and it's the only new game you got today. The site is set up so people can quickly, painlessly and easily download as many games as they want until they find one they fancy.
As "official reviewer" or whatever I do try to sink a fair amount of time into each game I play. There's no hard rule, but "a couple hours" seems fair to me. If your game hasn't shown me anything in the first few hours that leads me to believe I should continue playing the next few, well, that's the typical experience an RMN user is going to have.
Because I can't review an experience I didn't have, I don't try to extrapolate what I did play over the entire available game. Each of my reviews starts off listing how long I spent with the game, and ends detailing exactly why I quit playing it. This way the game's author knows what sections of his game my comments apply to and the exact reason I was driven away.
Your scores suck!
The entire concept of review scores suck, but they're a necessary evil. Ah well.
RMN uses a five-star scale. Rather than "three is average" I choose to interpret this as "anything under one is terrible". As far as I'm concerned there are not varying degrees of suckitude. Once a game sucks, it sucks, whether it's just a poorly made RPG or a silly joke game with one hour of work put into it. So when you see my score, remember that it's not a matter of "two stars sucks, one star sucks worse" but "two stars doesn't suck".
I'll probably never give a game five stars. If I do, it will literally only be that one game. I look forward to playing it!
No fair, you're biased against story games!
Ah... yeah, you've got me. I suppose this is true. I do like a good story, but I read books and things for that. When I play a game I really, really appreciate the gameplay more (as is evidenced by my gameplay articles, I hope!).
Still, I'm an okay writer myself and I know good writing when I see it, so I believe I am qualified to judge a game's writing and story on their own merits. I do my best to reflect that in my reviews by providing examples of things I liked and didn't like in both the story and gameplay aspects of a project.
In the case of Featured Games, we're going to balance this out a bit by appointing the venerable halibabica as official co-reviewer. He's more open to story-heavy games than I am, so he'll be able to provide a good counterpoint to my gameplay-is-god outlook. (Also I hear he can be bribed.)
Is that it?
I hope so! If you have any other concerns, feel free to post them here. I look forward to writing more excruciatingly-long reviews and witty captions for everyone's enjoyment and education!
What gets reviewed?
I don't get to decide what games I review (although I'm sure my input is taken into consideration). If you want your game reviewed by me, the best I can offer is to start bugging WIP and Holbert about it.
I've made a few requests of them as to what I'll review and what I won't. I won't be reviewing any unfinished, canceled projects. I won't be reviewing any fangames. I won't be reviewing any commercial games.
I've agreed to review all Featured Games. Outside of that I'm going to try and maintain a one-a-week schedule, although some games are really long so that might get stretched or squashed as needed.
You can't review a game without playing the entire thing!
Sure I can. Here's why:
RM games are free and there are hundreds of them. The average site user will download something that catches his eye, and if five minutes later he's not having fun with it he will delete it with absolutely no risk or obligation before going on to the next thing. It's not like a commercial game where you've just spent $60 and it's the only new game you got today. The site is set up so people can quickly, painlessly and easily download as many games as they want until they find one they fancy.
As "official reviewer" or whatever I do try to sink a fair amount of time into each game I play. There's no hard rule, but "a couple hours" seems fair to me. If your game hasn't shown me anything in the first few hours that leads me to believe I should continue playing the next few, well, that's the typical experience an RMN user is going to have.
Because I can't review an experience I didn't have, I don't try to extrapolate what I did play over the entire available game. Each of my reviews starts off listing how long I spent with the game, and ends detailing exactly why I quit playing it. This way the game's author knows what sections of his game my comments apply to and the exact reason I was driven away.
Your scores suck!
The entire concept of review scores suck, but they're a necessary evil. Ah well.
RMN uses a five-star scale. Rather than "three is average" I choose to interpret this as "anything under one is terrible". As far as I'm concerned there are not varying degrees of suckitude. Once a game sucks, it sucks, whether it's just a poorly made RPG or a silly joke game with one hour of work put into it. So when you see my score, remember that it's not a matter of "two stars sucks, one star sucks worse" but "two stars doesn't suck".
I'll probably never give a game five stars. If I do, it will literally only be that one game. I look forward to playing it!
No fair, you're biased against story games!
Ah... yeah, you've got me. I suppose this is true. I do like a good story, but I read books and things for that. When I play a game I really, really appreciate the gameplay more (as is evidenced by my gameplay articles, I hope!).
Still, I'm an okay writer myself and I know good writing when I see it, so I believe I am qualified to judge a game's writing and story on their own merits. I do my best to reflect that in my reviews by providing examples of things I liked and didn't like in both the story and gameplay aspects of a project.
In the case of Featured Games, we're going to balance this out a bit by appointing the venerable halibabica as official co-reviewer. He's more open to story-heavy games than I am, so he'll be able to provide a good counterpoint to my gameplay-is-god outlook. (Also I hear he can be bribed.)
Is that it?
I hope so! If you have any other concerns, feel free to post them here. I look forward to writing more excruciatingly-long reviews and witty captions for everyone's enjoyment and education!
post=84018This is what my review thread is for! We'll get along just fine!
You can't review a game without playing the entire thing!
post=84018You hear wrong, good sir.
In the case of Featured Games, we're going to balance this out a bit by appointing the venerable halibabica as official co-reviewer. He's more open to story-heavy games than I am, so he'll be able to provide a good counterpoint to my gameplay-is-god outlook. (Also I hear he can be bribed.)
I have just one question for you: why the refusal to play fan games? Does their fan-created nature ultimately deem them unworthy to you or something? I can understand not wanting to give feedback to a canceled project or a game being sold for profit, but what separates the fan games from the rest?
S. F. LaValle
1069
Does their fan-created nature ultimately deem them unworthy to you or something?
Don't forget you're talking to a guy who has created a well-received Rm2k fanfic as well as put great effort into a now-defunct fangame (which you can read about on his blog).
I was always among the first to encourage people to make a fangame if that's what they really wanted to do, and that sums up how I feel about fangames; they are made because people just want to do them. That is, people make fangames as tributes to the products they love. With original amateur games, the love is directed towards the media of video games and the desire to create a product for others to enjoy. Fangames have the capability to exhibit the creator's desire to be a good game designer (I've always believed that), but I have to say, the pickings are incredibly slim (largely because, but not limited to, most fangames never even seeing completion).
Dark Gaia
3474
One thing a lot of people have congratulated me about was the decent back stories of my survival horror games and the good political based story of Legionwood.
If possible, could you please review any one (or both) of my One Night games? Each one is only a few hours long, being horror games, but I do love full reviews.
If possible, could you please review any one (or both) of my One Night games? Each one is only a few hours long, being horror games, but I do love full reviews.
Nightblade
2723
post=84040
One thing a lot of people have congratulated me about was the decent back stories of my survival horror games and the good political based story of Legionwood.
If possible, could you please review any one (or both) of my One Night games? Each one is only a few hours long, being horror games, but I do love full reviews.
If you want your game reviewed by me, the best I can offer is to start bugging WIP and Holbert about it.
The Real Brickroad
2626
I'm not refusing to play fan games, I'm just refusing to review them. It's enough work considering a game in its own context, let alone in the shadow of the original source material. A lot of the appeal of fangames is the enjoyment of the source. If you're into Digimon you're probably going to like any half-decent Digimon fangame, so there's no point in me spending ten pages going into the finer points of it.
Hmm...okay, I can see where you're coming from. But I still don't think the logic follows entirely through. A game is a game regardless of its content, and all content is capable of being criticized. While it's true that fans of a game's source material might enjoy it more, the same can be said of game genres and styles. Personal preference shouldn't play into one's evaluation of a game in the first place, so whether its a fan game or a kind you don't like shouldn't matter.
I'm facing this with my play through of The Beyond right now. Thing is, I don't like horror games very much because I don't like getting spooked by them. But I'm not going to hold it against the game or the creator for being what it is, and I'm certainly not going to deny them feedback because of it, either.
A fan game is just another kind of game that has a more specific target audience. If you are part of that audience, then you might enjoy it more. If you're not, then maybe you can see why those in it might still like it anyway. Either way, it's about stepping out of your biases and making a judgment call based on what is rather than what is perceived. Or, at least, that's how I look at it.
I'm facing this with my play through of The Beyond right now. Thing is, I don't like horror games very much because I don't like getting spooked by them. But I'm not going to hold it against the game or the creator for being what it is, and I'm certainly not going to deny them feedback because of it, either.
A fan game is just another kind of game that has a more specific target audience. If you are part of that audience, then you might enjoy it more. If you're not, then maybe you can see why those in it might still like it anyway. Either way, it's about stepping out of your biases and making a judgment call based on what is rather than what is perceived. Or, at least, that's how I look at it.
Darken
3952
post=84066
Either way, it's about stepping out of your biases and making a judgment call based on what is rather than what is perceived. Or, at least, that's how I look at it.
Heh, let me know when someone in the world achieves this.
Darken
3952
im deeply sorry if you think opinions and facts should be seperate and that a perfect review is one without any opinions
Not at all. It's because there are such a diverse number of opinions that things like reviews are necessary in the first place. It's not that opinions and facts should be separated, but that they should be distinguished from each other. Presenting an opinion as a fact is fallacious, as it's only one person's perspective of something. You can qualify your opinion with examples as to why you felt that way, but that still doesn't make it 100% true. Ideally, I would say the best reviews present a good balance of both facts and opinions (backed up with evidence). It's meant to give the reader an idea of what the subject is about and what they may or may not experience with it. Both are essential, but opinions can make things complicated.
Darken
3952
you forget that people will determine whether or not your distinguishment between facts and opinions is correct, so in the end you should just make a review about what you think about the game
brickroad doesn't want to review fan games because fans of said fangame won't give two shits about what he thinks along with the nonfans
brickroad doesn't want to review fan games because fans of said fangame won't give two shits about what he thinks along with the nonfans
post=84085
you forget that people will determine whether or not your distinguishment between facts and opinions is correct, so in the end you should just make a review about what you think about the game
That's awfully fatalistic. Of course everything that's perceived is subjective, be it views being shared or others' perceptions of those views (opinions...of opinions!). Sorry for getting all philosophical here, but this is why Plato argued that the realm of opinions is ultimately unreliable and an unsound basis for anything to be considered on. I don't entirely agree with his way of thinking, as descriptions and examples help a great deal with the understanding of a viewpoint. But to say that there's no point in distinguishing fact from opinion because others may think otherwise is foolish. You might as well not state your opinion at all if you don't think you'll give the entire audience your exact thoughts on the matter. And that only leads to stagnation.
I'm not saying you shouldn't, as you put it, "say what you think" about a subject. But having a developed opinion is more complex than making a bulleted list, saying "it sucks," and calling it a review. It's a matter of putting forth the effort to show why you feel the way you do, and even consider how others might feel about the same thing. The deeper you go, the harder it gets, but to say it's not worth it in the end is counterproductive. And that's MY opinion!
post=84085
brickroad doesn't want to review fan games because fans of said fangame won't give two shits about what he thinks along with the nonfans
As a maker of fan games myself, I deeply resent this statement. Sure, it may be true of other creators of fan games, but I myself am never one to turn away honest criticism.
Darken
3952
It's a matter of putting forth the effort to show why you feel the way you do, and even consider how others might feel about the same thing.
yeah uh thats basically expressing what you think,
As a maker of fan games myself, I deeply resent this statement. Sure, it may be true of other creators of fan games,
um i am not talking about the creators of said fan game
post=84089
yeah uh thats basically expressing what you think,
Put more simply, yes.
post=84089
um i am not talking about the creators of said fan game
Oh, whoops. I misread that before. It's still not a very good argument, though. Just because they're fans doesn't mean they're more likely to not care than any other person would be. They might be more likely to take offense to a low opinion, but I'd otherwise think they care/don't care about the same.
What I'm trying to say is that there's not enough of a difference between fan games and regular games to warrant the refusal to play/review them.
Darken
3952
in order for brickroad to review a fangame he has to research the original material that is based on in order to figure out if the fans will like it's relevance. then he has to account that his opinion on said original material will affect his liking on the fangame (like you so suggest he do)
non-fangame? just fuckin play it
non-fangame? just fuckin play it
That's all assuming the fan game requires knowledge of the series it's based off of to be properly understood. You don't need to know its series through and through to make a critique of the game itself. Playing a fan game where you aren't familiar with the background material is no different than playing an original game, as you have no prior experience in both cases.
I can see the problems fan games could present for a thorough reviewer, though. It all depends on how much you want to comment on. An easy solution is to simply admit that you don't know all the nuances of the source material and comment based on what you do understand. Leave it to the fans to decide if the relevance is worth it or not; just focus on the game itself instead of where it came from. But if that approach feels inadequate, then I can understand wanting to avoid the problem altogether.
I can see the problems fan games could present for a thorough reviewer, though. It all depends on how much you want to comment on. An easy solution is to simply admit that you don't know all the nuances of the source material and comment based on what you do understand. Leave it to the fans to decide if the relevance is worth it or not; just focus on the game itself instead of where it came from. But if that approach feels inadequate, then I can understand wanting to avoid the problem altogether.
