Definitely Not Graceful

A Prologue To A Review...Of A Prologue

Reviewing a game like this is where I feel like the very idea of reviews and scores breaks down, or if not breaks down, then at least struggles mightily. I'm definitely not going to "bury the lead" here. I did not like this game. I thought it did a a lot of things "right" and obviously had a lot of effort put into it. I was even impressed with aspects of it, in certain places. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that this game felt very much to me like the RPG Maker community equivalent of "Oscar bait", a game seemingly designed specifically to have a lot of people like it and released correspondingly right before the Misao voting if I am not mistaken.

But overall, and in spite of the fact that the last thing I want is to insult or discourage the creator, I was unimpressed by Graceless Reminisce. Still, though, it seems on some level insane that I am giving this game a score only marginally higher than I gave Fantasy Gold. Because of the obvious discrepancy of effort and experience and technical no-how on display here, I feel like those scores should be far more widely divergent but the lack of granularity in the review scoring system doesn't seem to allow for that. And for instance...I was definitely substantially more impressed by the technical accomplishments of this game than I was by anything in Les Visiteurs Dan L'Espace which I gave the same score. It's just that I also found a bit more to dislike here.

As readers of my reviews may know, I attempt to mitigate this by including a score for each category in my reviews given out of 100 points instead of out of 5 Stars, but I feel as though the degree to which that mitigates the inherent problems is limited at best. In part, this is because the problem doesn't lie just in granularity. It lies in the fact that the merits of any work of art are truly impossible to describe in a purely quantitative way, rather than textually.

Penultimate disclaimer before I begin to evaluate different categories of the game. This is only a Prologue and a quite short one at that. While I made the judgement call that there was enough on play here to review, when a more complete version of the game is available, I intend to revise this review accordingly to reflect the new content although it will probably take me some time to do so.

And now, a final disclaimer. I need to disclose that I found this game to be suspiciously, conspicuously, eerily similar to some earlier demo releases of LINUS by blueperiod, a game which I was later brought on as a gameplay consultant for. The similarities are numerous, and the most striking are the bleak and dark story of three doomed and demoralized conscript soldiers trapped in a unwinnable war against an unstoppable empress and the nearly identical moody and distinctly artsy aesthetic and thematic cues used to unfold this story. As someone who has personally been caused severe mental distress and emotional harm by (unfair) accusations of plagiarism in the past, I would think very carefully before leveling such accusations against anyone else, so I want to make it clear that I am not doing any such thing. Furthermore, I haven't let this observation impact the score of this review at all. However, I would cautiously suggest that these similarities, be they homage, uncanny coincidence, or whatever are something that VVBlastFuryVV may want to think about in the future.

Now, onto the meat of the review!

Story
Let me be honest. Graceless Reminisce is a stupid and pretentious title for a game. "Pretentious" is a label I hate to append to anything. I think the internet is much too quick to jump to it and I think the speed with which it is used pejoratively reflects a disturbing anti-intellectual and anti-art trend in internet culture: anyone who fails to be sufficiently humble and genuflect at all times is in danger of being labeled "pretentious". Nonetheless, the particular shoe does seem to fit here.

The formal title of the game I played, Graceless Reminisce: Will of Rebellion compounds these issues of stupidity and pretentiousness by being far too long.

The word Graceless means among other things

author=Merriam Webster Online Dictionary
Adjective
  • Awkward or clumsy
  • Having a style or shape that is not attractive or pleasing
  • Not kind or polite
  • 1. Lacking in divine grace
  • 2. a. Lacking a sense of propriety
    b. devoid of attractive qualities
  • 3: artistically inept or unbeautiful


Please understand that this word is used as the title descriptor in a game that is trying achingly hard to be the exact opposite of all of these things. I don't know if the use of this word was meant as an ironic genuflection towards humility or what, but it just comes off as rather obnoxious.

The word Reminisce means...

author=Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
Verb
  • To talk, think, or write about things that happened in the past


This word is inappropriate because if the game is meant as a reminiscence (which by the way is the NOUN form of reminisce and yes I am going somewhere with this later on) i.e. a story that took place in the past being told to the player in the presence, this is so overly subtle that it is effectively hinted at nowhere in the Prologue until the very, very end.

Additionally, please don't fail to apprehend the fact that Graceless is an Adjective while Reminisce is a verb. Therefore, the title of this game is already a grammatical aberration. Adjectives do not modify verbs: adverbs do that. Adjectives modify nouns.

Something can be a Graceless Reminiscence and one can Gracelessly Reminisce but the grammatical bastard phrase "Graceless Reminisce" neither describes a thing that can exist or a thing that one can do.

It is possible that if VVBlastFuryVV speaks English as a second language, this all may come off a bit harsh. However, I must insist that it is a fair request to ask that non-native English speakers stay away from showy $10 words like 'Graceless' and 'Reminisce'.

So we have a title that might as well be, spelled out in plain english, "crappily written memoir". Except grammatically, it is closer to "crappy memoir write". And it describes a game that is clearly striving for artistic elegance (i.e. the exact opposite of graceless) in presenting a story unfolding in the presence.

tl;dr shit title

I want you the reader to understand that I did not let my hatred of the title influence my opinion of the game as a whole, largely because I did not unpack a complete, fully realized understanding of the title's dumbness until now.

Graceless Reminisce opens with a parable about a pair of swans that seems a bit sappy and overwrought but annoyed me immediately with its baffling assumption about the aerial ability of swans. Unless I'm mistaken in an ornithological sense, swans are fully flighted birds able to fly from the moment they are fledged. They do not swim because they have not yet learned to fly, they swim because they are fucking water fowl and it is convenient for them to swim. I know that this opening segment is striving more for poetic truth than ornithological truth but still, as a bird lover and a lover of metaphors, it really bothered me.

Certainly more importantly, I did not see anything about the opening parable reflected even slightly in the greater prologue.

Graceless Reminisce's prologue tells a story about three soldiers named Lyron, Yevan, and Leiza who were apparently childhood friends fighting in a doomed rebellion for the freedom of the land of Xetha. They know that they are fucked over from the start, but rather fatalistically, although they whine about this fact they do not desert. This annoyed me from the beginning, because when Leiza has an emotional breakdown I thought that the characters were going to desert the doomed rebel army. They certainly seemed to know that they were going to die, and in vein, to boot. But they didn't desert, and neither did they stay with the column they were marching in, in proper tactical formation. In other words, they had neither the renegade courage to desert nor the soldierly competence to stay in formation. Instead, they just wound up stragglers fighting other stragglers.

The game continuously stabs towards poignancy but keeps falling short of the mark and wallowing in angst which is kind of like poignancy's mildly retarded cousin. Lyron was whiny and grumpy and fatalistic. Leiza was whiny and emotional and sensitive. Yevan whiles till whiny was the least whiny and the most likable of the characters but in the end was ultimately quite forgettable. In the end the game seems to posit a very bog-standard anime/JRPG message about BECOMING STRONG ENOUGH TO PROTECT THE ONES YOU CARE ABOUT. Bla bla I have seen these themes before. I have to say this generic and uniquely Japanese pathos never resonated with me much in the first place, and I have now seen it so much that I am done to death with it.

But the story's moment of utmost disgrace was an excruciatingly stupid instance of ludonarrative dissonance occurring towards the end of the Prologue/demo. Our trio of soldiers comes across a wounded civilian and Yevan and Leiza want to help. Lyron says no, let's just stand by and WATCH THIS DYING CIVILIAN TALK WITH HER HUSBAND ABOUT HOW SAD IT IS TO DIE FOR SEVERAL MINUTES FIRST because...REASONS.


Thanks Angela for using your dying moments to reinforce harmful gender stereotypes. Just like I always remembered you. Mad sexist.


At no point during this conversation which strove so hard and so...so...well gracelessly to be poignant and sorrowful did Leiza move over to use the POWERFUL HEALING MAGIC SHE HAS BEEN USING TO HEAL AND RESURRECT HER COMRADES FOR THE ENTIRE GAME THUS FAR to aid this tragically dying civilian, nor could I as a player do anything to compel her to help.

The vile stink of ludonarrative dissonance just comes off so much worse to a sniff test here and now in the end of 2014 than back in 1997 when I wasn't allowed to use a Phoenix Down on Aeris which I could at least justify in a handful of ways. But this scene was completely unjustifiable. If your game's story chafes THIS powerfully against its mechanics, then YOU ARE CHEATING AS A STORYTELLER AND AS A GAME MAKER. Cheating in a way that makes everyone lose.

You need to understand that in the story, this scene comes across as Lyron, Yevan, and Leiza standing by and doing absolutely nothing to help this dying woman BECAUSE ANGST and this moment of utmost dumbness makes it impossible to like or care about these characters. Please. Fix.

STORY SCORE: 28/100

Gameplay

This game's gameplay suffered the most from the fact that the entire demo had only one enemy. The enemy was a perfectly fine enemy, and appeared in groups of several sizes, but by the end of the demo I was REALLY SICK OF FIGHTING THAT SAME ENEMY over and over.

Other than that I have no major issues here. Battles feel a bit too numerous and frequent for a prologue. On-touch encounters are appreciated. Battles are decently balanced and were neither too easy (too easy is hard to do for the very beginning of a game, granted: at this stage things should be really damn easy) nor too hard. The battle system is interesting, and I'm not sure how much I like it. The idea of giving the player a grade after the battle is interesting and I appreciated the fairly slick combat animations. But having the heroes represented on the screen BOTH as facesets and in a separate area as battle sprites was a bit confusing, especially since the facesets are used for displaying damage and status effect pop-ups and targeting skills on allies, while the battle sprites just jump around and attack or get attacked. Additionally I found the battle system to be a bit buggy and laggy in places.

The tutorials for things like basic battle functions and save points felt awkward, stilted, and quite unnecessary, which was not helped by missing resource errors popping up. I'd cut them entirely at this point.

Overall the game could use a bit more polish. Among missing resource errors, a few typos, and other things, noticed that the path to the right was named 'Left Path' and the path to the left was named 'Right Path' in one of many anonymous city blocks. And then there was this.


The ability to loot the same healing item off of the same dead enemy soldier over and over made me question both the emotionally charged wording of the options offered in the show choice box...and if the creator of this game fully understood how SWITCHES work :P.


GAMEPLAY SCORE: 50/100

Graphics

Mapping was competently done but nothing to write home about. The use of heavy weather effects and a muted color palette helped the game's mood and atmosphere along substantially while serving as a bit of eye candy. I appreciated some of the many little aesthetic details put into the game's presentation (particularly the asymmetrical pauldrons on the protagonists' armor and cloaks), while others fell a bit flat for me. The battle animations used were cool and flashy and the battle system was very aesthetically pleasing when it wasn't lagging on me. The facesets were put together in the VX Ace faceset editor function, but I thought they were put together nicely. Like any other tool, the VX Ace chara maker can be used well or used poorly. In this case it was used well.

The open flames on the heavily rain soaked streets felt a bit counter-intuitive and dishonest. I understand the visual dramatic instinct to depict things that are both on fire and in the rain, but you must be careful how you handle it because as we all know...rain puts fires out.


I noticed a strange graphical glitch concerning what appeared to be a mysteriously reflective ceiling tile (?), documented here.


GRAPHICS SCORE: 86/100

Audio

While I mostly enjoyed the soundtrack, especially the battle music, during certain slower and more emotionally fraught scenes, the music felt a bit sappy and overwrought to me, a heavy and overpowering soundtrack exacerbating the issues detailed above with the story occasionally feeling as though it was wallowing in angst.

As is often the case, sound effects did not make much of an impression one way or another. I did notice and appreciate the use of a non-default sound for the ambient rainfall.

AUDIO SCORE: 70/100

FINAL SCORE: 44/100 (NOT An Average)
BOTTOM LINE
As for a recommendation to potential players, mine would currently be to skip it. At least in its present state.

I wanted to like this game and I still want to like this game in the future. I respect the technical and artistic accomplishments that VVBlastFuryVV has made here and I earnestly hope that VVBlastFuryVV will take my critique here and use it to make Graceless Reminisce a better game in the future--perhaps even with a better and less grammatically nonsensical title, although even I admit that's probably a pipe dream--rather than becoming discouraged, or offended. Personally speaking as a creator, I know that the latter reactions are all too easy when an obvious labor of love such as this is greeted with a critique such as this.

Posts

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Yeah, that's ridiculous.
This was probably a big mistake asking you to review my game. And here I thought you didn't believe in rating demos because it's unfair to completed games.

Lol. You sure like to deceive.
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
author=VVBlastFuryVV
Yeah, that's ridiculous.

What, in particular? Believe me when I say I can understand a reaction of general outrage in response to a negative review. Believe me also when I say that such a reaction helps no one. I have experience with this. More than I care to admit, to be honest. I know this might sound condescending. I don't mean it that way. I'm just being earnest.

author=VVBlastFuryVV
And here I thought you didn't believe in rating demos because it's unfair to completed games.

Well, yes. I'm not sure what you're getting at here. This certainly did not effect the rating of your game. But yes my underlying logic there is that completed games be they 6 hours or 10 hours or 30 hours or more are longer and therefore have more of a chance to err, to be imperfect, to frustrate, and so on. Whereas a 20-30 minute demo only needs to be "perfect" for a much shorter window. But that was the idea I was articulating, that unfinished things shouldn't be rated at all...not that I might one day give your demo a two star review and that should be avoided at all costs.

I'm not sure if you're requesting this, but I would be happy enough to alter my review of this demo to Unrated if I saw the other reviewers do the same. : )

author=VVBlastFuryVV
Lol. You sure like to deceive.

Well to state the obvious I find this offensive. I pride myself on being straight forward and honest. Now I'm not sure what you mean, precisely. I opened myself to solicitations/requests to play people's games, stating that I would review them. You made such a request, I played your game, and reviewed it. I played many other people's games and reviewed them also. That seems quite straightforward to me. I'm not sure where you see false advertising there.

If you mean...and I probably shouldn't play this guessing game much longer...the comment I made in my review thread along the lines that I tend to be generous and easy to impress as reviewers go, well to be honest I still consider that to be true, this review notwithstanding. Sorry.

If you're really hung up on the opinion article I wrote a month or so ago, I'm not sure what to tell you. I don't think that I said "I personally swear I will never rate a demo again". I think what I was saying was more along the lines of, if ratings were disabled for all incomplete games, sitewide, I could get behind that. But until such a thing happens I'm still going to operate within the framework of the site as it currently exists.
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
This review is pretty darn fleshed out, BlastFury.

Take some of the hits with a grain of salt, as this is one mans opinion. And try to work on/improve some of the points brought up here. Or don't. That's up to you if you think it needs to be different.

Either way, you're still sitting at a 3.5 and have three reviews. One being a 4.5 which I assume was your crown jewel of gam mak and why you're bothered by this 2 star.
I'm just being earnest.
Oh please. Get over yourself.

I'm not sure if you're requesting this, but I would be happy enough to alter my review of this demo to Unrated if I saw the other reviewers do the same. : )
And? That doesn't mean you have to go with the same flow as the other reviewers.

why you're bothered by this 2 star.
Game's average score going down by an entire point, no longer having the chance of being on the 'Highly Rated' page... yeah. I think have a reason to be bothered by this review.
Oh, and a few more things.

a game seemingly designed specifically to have a lot of people like it and released correspondingly right before the Misao voting if I am not mistaken.

Uh, yeah, you're mistaken there. Big time.

And now, a final disclaimer. I need to disclose that I found this game to be suspiciously, conspicuously, eerily similar to some earlier demo releases of LINUS by blueperiod, a game which I was later brought on as a gameplay consultant for.

If you think I'm copying him, you are dead wrong.

It is possible that if VVBlastFuryVV speaks English as a second language, this all may come off a bit harsh. However, I must insist that it is a fair request to ask that non-native English speakers stay away from showy $10 words like 'Graceless' and 'Reminisce'.

Yeah. Sure. Ok.
I thought the review did a good job pointing out the obvious flaws within the game itself, Max McGee.

As for the developer himself, it's better to read the review, thank the person who wrote it, and consider what he/she disliked about the game. That way, you avoid looking like a total jerk.
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
Unless you have another download elsewhere, you have 301 downloads with three reviews all with star ratings.

This is a good thing.

Your game will mature and more and more people will play it and more than likely you will get more reviews if you keep working hard like you are.
This is only a prologue after all!

A good thing to learn is to roll with the punches. This is not an appropriate response to someone reviewing you game, BlastFury.
The way you go about these kinds of things can determine whether or not you might receive more reviews in the future.



nhubi
Liberté, égalité, fraternité
11099
The problem I have with this review isn't the brusque tone that it adopts, that is apparently Max's style (and could be argued by some is mine also), nor with his conclusions, as they are like all reviews his opinion of the game and really arguing with that is fruitless and he has justified in most respects his reasoning.

No the problem I have is with the above the fold comment of "Oscar Bait".

Not simply because I don't believe it was the developer's intent, but also because it is simply counter to his aims if it was. The Misao nomination period is the entire year, most games that win, other than the odd aberration, win because they have had the better part of a year to build up a following, to have people comment, get the game buzzing, draw attention to it. To allow time for the dev to explain their vision and to make changes and corrections along the way. This game was originally released at the beginning of October which is only a few months ago and this current version is less than a week old, to release a nomination ready game less than a month before the nomination period ends actually reduces the chances of its success.

Yes there is the 'fresh' aspect that can be argued but given the final list that is compiled is from all nominations during the year, all games in all categories are up against games that have been around and simply by seeing the other nominations in the list it tends to remind people of the games they have played during the year and how much they enjoyed them, so the new and fresh in your mind advantage isn't really a factor in the long run.

As to the rest of the review, yes it is pedantic, especially in light of the grammatical errors within it, but that is Max. You have to take him or leave him, and I would suggest that you take from this what aids you in making the game the best you can, and leave the rest.
Hey Blastfury.

Just wanted to chime in with my thoughts on the review. I haven't actually played the game to completion yet, but I have seen a bit of the game being played on youtube. As far as the similarities between my game and yours go, I don't think it was intentional and I don't really have any issues with GR. I do think you might've been inspired a bit by LINUS (I know you've been following the project for a few years now, ever since I posted those first videos on youtube) in the visual style and some of the music, but that's about it. I do hope to play this once you release the next chapters as I'm curious to see how the story plays out.

In any case, I think you've done a good job with the game and people seem to really like it, so you probably shouldn't worry too much over one bad review. The game seems to already have a bit of a following, and that's something to take pride in. :)



unity
You're magical to me.
12540
I personally couldn't get into the game because of the two female characters, one is pretty much just motivation for the male lead and the other, in your own words, is "rather lazy, weak-willed, and frail." It seems like it sucks to be female in a story that you pen.

I don't agree with all of Max's points, like the Misao-baiting, and I think he went a little overboard with the title-bashing, but he still has some valid points in there. It's interesting to see your reaction to feedback that's not 100% positive. You don't have to agree with any of it, but you shouldn't just brush it all aside either.

You've made a lot of status posts about wondering why the game's not more popular and if you qualify for being a featured game and so on and so on, but what I'd really like to see is you growing and learning as a developer, rather than the mindset of "I've made something great! Where's my recognition?"

A lot of people like what you've done, so you're clearly on the right track. But the mindset of "take the praise, dump the criticism" is only going to harm you in the long-run.
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
author=VVBlastFuryVV
That doesn't mean you have to go with the same flow as the other reviewers.

Well clearly I am not having a problem with that mate. XD

author=VVBlastFuryVV
If you think I'm copying him, you are dead wrong.

Now that I know for certain you were aware and a fan of LINUS before releasing or developing this, if I were inclined to put it diplomatically, I would say that it is clear that you were at least heavily inspired by LINUS in the development of Graceless Reminisce.

The good news for you is that my thinking this will not effect your game in any way. The bad news should therefore be easy enough to handle, and the bad news is that you cannot prevent me from thinking this. (The other good news is that the creator of LINUS has posted giving you a pass, which is a nice thing to have.)

***

@nhubi: I have to disagree at least slightly with the characterization of my reviewing style as brusque. I mean, to be clear: these are among what I consider to be typical and representative Max McGee reviews. And even in this review I made a point of stating that I hoped VVBlastFuryVV would not be offended or discouraged, said that I wanted to like the game and that I was impressed by its technical accomplishments, bemoaned that while I had given it the same score as Les Visiteurs Dan L'Espace I thought it was more impressive in many ways, and so on. I think that all of that was fairly gentle and diplomatic.

As to your core point regarding Misaos v Oscars, I fully agree with you that the timing and logic of Oscar bait does not correspond to the Misaos although they both take place at approximately the same time. I meant more to evoke the idea of Oscar bait--because let's be honest, this game has already teased out some glowing critical praise--than to actually suggest that had factored into the creator's release schedule, so my wording could definitely have been more clear there.

@unity:

Regarding the title of the game, I don't think that I went overboard. Titles are important--they are the first thing you see of a game--and they are something that creators worth their salt put a lot of thought into. As to pedantic (which nhubi said) I suppose I'll take Merriam-Webster definition #2, that is to say "narrowly, stodgily, and often ostentatiously learned" and call that a fair cop. I know that I expended a lot of words explaining that the title was grammatically nonsensical and meaningless, but that is because it is not a matter of opinion. Words have specific meanings--this is something that's always been important to me as a (now ostensibly professional) writer--and can't just be thrown about willy-nilly. The use of dictionary definitions and the inclusion of grammatical rules helps explain clearly and factually why the title is bad, and in a world where words have set meanings, you can have a title that is objectively bad because it does not work grammatically or does not mean anything sensible.

author=unity
I personally couldn't get into the game because of the two female characters, one is pretty much just motivation for the male lead and the other, in your own words, is "rather lazy, weak-willed, and frail." It seems like it sucks to be female in a story that you pen.

I wouldn't take it too personally on behalf of either gender. All of the characters in this game are rather poorly written (and prone to wangst). : )

That said, to balance things out later on there is the Empress, who is an enormously powerful killing machine, so I certainly wouldn't say that this game does not have strong female characters. There is evidently at least one female character with power levels well over 9000.
That way, you avoid looking like a total jerk.
I'm not being a jerk.

This is not an appropriate response to someone reviewing you game, BlastFury.
Then what is?

You have to take him or leave him, and I would suggest that you take from this what aids you in making the game the best you can, and leave the rest.
I guess so. I might as well just take the gameplay criticism.

As far as the similarities between my game and yours go, I don't think it was intentional and I don't really have any issues with GR.
Thank you. I was at least motivated by it to continue my game when I play-tested your game, but I never aimed to rip off of your game.

A lot of people like what you've done, so you're clearly on the right track.
Here's how I think of game downloads on RMN:

500 and below - Alright.
500 - Not bad.
1000 - Good.
5000 - Great.
10,000 - Legend.


The use of dictionary definitions and the inclusion of grammatical rules helps explain clearly and factually why the title is bad, and in a world where words have set meanings, you can have a title that is objectively bad because it does not work grammatically or does not mean anything sensible.
Ok.

Now that I know for certain you were aware and a fan of LINUS before releasing or developing this, if I were inclined to put it diplomatically, I would say that it is clear that you were at least heavily inspired by LINUS in the development of Graceless Reminisce.
No, I was not heavily inspired by it. Maybe a little inspired or motivated, but not heavily. I don't have any proof that I wasn't heavily inspired by Linus unless you want to go inside my brain and find out. Think what you want, but bottom line is I wasn't.

I wouldn't take it too personally on behalf of either gender. All of the characters in this game are rather poorly written (and prone to wangst). : )
Ok then, Mr. God Of Characters And Story: since my game seems to be such a joke to you with that smiley face, what should I do to improve my characters?
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
VVBlastFuryVV, you are kind of being a jerk. As I haven't always not been a jerk myself in my life, I can be pretty forgiving of this, but it is something you should probably at least be aware of.

author=VVBlastFuryVV
Ok then, Mr. God Of Characters And Story: since my game seems to be such a joke to you with that smiley face, what should I do to improve my characters?


I think I went into quite some detail on that subject in the body of my review, if you would care to read it. The pertinent sections come after the bolded words "tldr;shit title" and before the story score of 28/100.
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
It's sometimes better to say nothing than to say anything.

When I first started using rpgmaker I got some pretty harsh criticism that I didn't want to hear and gave excuses to as to why things were. Which isn't wrong at the time, because it's ALWAYS up to you to change things or not to change them.
But I learned a lot from feedback, the harsher it was the more it made me think.

I know you'll never forget this experience in your game making career, as this was the first time that you felt cheated or denied of your hard work.
The best use of reviews such as this is to learn from it. And I mean that for both ways. Listening to what others have to say, which is opinion not factual. (sometimes maybe factual)
And learning when to not necessarily ignore feedback, but take it in stride or know that your particular creative vision calls for this certain thing to stay. Because in the end this is your game.

As for your chart, you can't base your level of success primarily off that. The fact that you're putting some much effort and thought into this game is reason enough to call for victory.
You and your game are still fledglings to this whole scene.

In time you will grow as will your game, and your download counter and your makerscore and everything else!

Just keep at it, you're obviously talented but also have much to learn.
Because around these here parts, you can't have a polished game if you yourself ain't polished enough to glimmer like gold. ;)
VVBlastFuryVV, you are kind of being a jerk.
...really? You know what, forget it. This doesn't even faze me anymore. I'll take the gameplay feedback, but I'll ignore the story feedback. I've read it. One man's opinion. You don't like the story? Boo hoo to you.

I know you'll never forget this experience in your game making career, as this was the first time that you felt cheated or denied of your hard work.
I guess so.

As for your chart, you can't base your level of success primarily off that. The fact that you're putting some much effort and thought into this game is reason enough to call for victory.
Is it really? I feel as if working hard on a game and releasing the project was never enough. Completing the game, maybe, but never putting alot of effort into the game was never enough to me. With the way I work, there's never such a thing as a break or victory.
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
Considering your game is fairly fresh, you have got a lot of attention in a short time.
There is milestones I would say in the rmn community, or any rpgmaker community and one is accepting that your game won't be liked by all or appreciated in the same way others do or as you do yourself.

I would say focus on finishing this game, and not let the nay sayers interrupt that process. Finish this game as you see fit, then if you're determined to, polish it up after its final release.

This is your first negative review, after having two glowing reviews I say this is your first REAL review.

Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
author=VVBlastFuryVV
I'll take the gameplay feedback, but I'll ignore the story feedback. I've read it. One man's opinion. You don't like the story? Boo hoo to you.

Yeah what would I know about writing fiction, I just studied it intensively for four years in college, got a degree in it, have been making video games praised specifically for their writing for about ten years now, and get paid to do it for a living.

Let me put this another way, lest my considerable hubris deafen you to an important point: not taking my advice does not hurt me. It hurts your game, by spurning an opportunity to improve it. This is highly inadvisable, because the gameplay issues in your game aren't nearly as serious as the story issues.

Good luck with your game.
I've sat through the entire thing and I have to say that BlastFury's reaction was quite a turn-off. The criticism, though honestly somewhat insulting (for me), were well-defined and justified. I know that just because *one* player didn't like your game unlike 300 others doesn't mean your game sucks. But that *one* player spelled out completely why he disliked your game. And the reason behind it is quite tangible too. Just because someone doesn't see things the way you do doesn't mean they're wrong.

That said, I'll continue to leave the argument to you guys.

Sorry for barging in. Just thought I'd say that.
I've sat through the entire thing and I have to say that BlastFury's reaction was quite a turn-off.
I usually never have negative reactions towards reviews but his pissed me off.

Just because someone doesn't see things the way you do doesn't mean they're wrong.
I'm not saying he's wrong on entirely everything. I just didn't agree with most of the things he wrote, and I guess, acted in an unpleasant manner.
CashmereCat
Self-proclaimed Puzzle Snob
11638
author=VVBlastFuryVV
I've sat through the entire thing and I have to say that BlastFury's reaction was quite a turn-off.
I usually never have negative reactions towards reviews but his one just pissed me off.

Is it because this is the first hugely negative review you've received? I doubt you would get angry at your other 4 star and 4.5 star reviews. People are much more liable to get angry at negative reviews. I can see why Max might have pissed you off with his comments, but I think the rational thing to do would be to argue certain points rationally. For example, if you have a qualm with the way that Max dedicated a large portion of the review to dismissing your title as pretentious (I do), then I think you should address that in a level-headed and calm manner, instead of accusing him of such things as being deceitful. Response to what you perceive as bad criticism doesn't have to automatically be insulting their character. Perhaps Max thought this review was fair, and I think in all probability he does think it is fair. But maybe you can point out reasons why you think he was being unfair without launching headfirst into an assault of his personality.

author=VVBlastFuryVV
Just because someone doesn't see things the way you do doesn't mean they're wrong.
I'm not saying he's wrong on entirely everything. I just didn't agree with most of the things he wrote, and I guess, acted in an unpleasant manner.

I think you should have addressed this calmly and inquired on each of the things you disagreed with. Then he may have been more reasonable to explain these issues further. You might also have been able to call him out on rude things he said, like "shit title". I think that was pretty rude to say, and might I say I didn't find the title itself that off-putting at all, despite the attention that Max gave to it. There are much worse titles out there. But I think that you responded to this incorrectly and maybe you should now recoup, and address the points that you think are wrong about this review, and use the parts that he did address that were correct to make the game better.

One might say that your response to his criticism was rather graceless.
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