Memories of a Golden Era

Pepsi Ranger · Post by **Pepsi Ranger** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 8:19 pm

For those of you who weren't around from 2007-2012, The Wobbler (formerly Surlaw) hosted a monthly OHR magazine called HamsterSpeak. It featured in-depth, full color game reviews, game previews, features ranging from articles on game design to silly things like comics and characters on trial for crimes they may or may not have committed, and just a wealth of helpful information for authors new and old to use. And that's for starters.

It's hosted here: http://www.superwalrusland.com/ohr/

It's been a while since we've really discussed it, about what it's offered to the community, and what we've learned from reading its articles. I'm posting this mainly for the newer people who might've missed it during its run, that they might take some time to check it out, see what was hot in the OHR back in the day, and what advice authors could give other authors in the form of How-To. But I also thought it might be nice to reminisce a little for those of us who were around (and maybe contributed some articles to it) during its run.

What fond memories do you have of HamsterSpeak?

What do you wish you could've seen featured or reviewed prior to its closing?

How much have you contributed to it? If it were still around today, would you contribute more often?

What do you miss about it?

What do you wish were different about it?

What were some of your favorite articles? Which ones did you learn the most from?

If we were to ever have a successor (a big undertaking), what would you want it to have that HamsterSpeak either did or didn't have?

Sound off your thoughts. Its doors have been closed for a little over two years now, but its legacy will hopefully last for years to come. We've had magazines try in the past, but this one outlasted the best of them by leaps and bounds.

If you're actively making games and you've never read an issue of HamsterSpeak, I'd suggest you start. And leave comments. Just because the issues are long completed doesn't mean feedback isn't welcome, as many of its contributors (and its host) are still around. Maybe you would've said something differently about a specific game than what the reviewer said. Maybe you have a better system for handling a game design mechanic than what a feature might've suggested. Maybe you just want to boost the contributors' egos or thank the Wobbler for his dedication throughout its run. Speak your mind. It's fun to reminisce.

The Wobbler · Post by **The Wobbler** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 9:08 pm

If I was still running it today I probably would have had more paid artists for covers instead of begging anyone who had time two days before release. It helped get me a job so it was worth it but it was a gigantic time sink, almost exclusively from hounding people for content.

The scripting and graphics tutorials were the best articles. This is the most popular article in the magazine's history and is still linked to by a few pixel art sites and still gets plenty of new views a month. For something published in May 2009 to still be useful to new game artists today it's pretty nice.

http://superwalrusland.com/ohr/issue26/pa/pixelart.html

Congrats to DJ Fenix for that one.

Some stats:

There were 21 commentary articles where authors gave insight on their own games, 163 Feature articles ranging from tutorials to comedy stories, 62 upcoming game previews (some for the same games over and over), 49 Retrospectives of older titles, 170 reviews of recent releases.

Some prolific author stuff (more than 20 contributions), not counting stuff with multiple authors: Moogle wrote 28 articles, Fenrir wrote or drew 48 contributions, Pepsi gave us 37, 23 from the long gone Uncommon, an incredible 51 from Meatballsub, largely reviews, 21 from MSW, 24 from Bloodlust author Only One in All, a huge 58 from RMZ, and 31 from Willy Electrix.

I wrote/drew 103 on my own and another two dozen with someone else. This is a big reason why I got burned out.

FnrrfYgmSchnish · Post by **FnrrfYgmSchnish** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 9:11 pm

Hamsterspeak was pretty awesome. By far the best and longest-lived of the various OHR magazines, and probably the best "community" thing the OHRRPGCE has ever had period, honestly--there was only a brief period (of a few years) where I actually felt like "part of an OHRRPGCE community" rather than just "one guy using the OHRRPGCE," and Hamsterspeak contributed pretty heavily to that.

I remember liking the articles that dug up really old games that never really got noticed when they were first released, or looked back at famous/infamous old games (like Fat Frog.) Always seemed like Hamsterspeak game reviews were better and went into more detail than most forum-based reviews.

The only thing I'd really change is to go back in time and prevent myself from submitting that retrospective article about one of my old awful games from the 2000-2003 time period, because I'd rather that one be forgotten and lost forever just like Xutt's Tournament was. XD

Post by **TMC** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 5:55 am

Oh, it's definitely true that the quality of reviews on HS was higher. Part of the reason is that they weren't just a checklist of comments about graphics, maps, etc, but were real reviews; they were articles and told stories. It seems like it's hard to get the reviewers around here motivated to write proper pieces without a real publication for them to go into, and the Year in Review Contest is the closest thing.

And yeah, the retrospectives were great. It hadn't really occurred to me before, but without HS noone other than MeatBallSub writes retrospectives, because he's the only one with anywhere to put them. The SS gamelist mostly only has recent titles.

There's heaps and heaps of stuff in HS that I never got around to reading, so I guess for me it's not really dead, I have a supply of new articles :). Too bad, I've probably already read all the retrospectives.

Willy Elektrix · Post by **Willy Elektrix** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 6:16 am

I love Hamsterspeak. I played a lot of OHR games for the sake of reviewing them. Almost all of them were crappy, but I also stole ideas from nearly every one.

Gizmog · Post by **Gizmog** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 2:43 pm

I dunno why it is, but this is the cover I remember the most. Hilarious.

I remember liking Fenrir's comics a lot, and there were some good plotscripting things. There's not as good of a venue for plotscripting lessons/showing off these days. The reviews were good (the retrospectives were way better), but it's absolutely amazing how succesful Sidescrollers 101 was, and I can't imagine a better place for it. If it were still around today, I think that's the kind of article I'd like to write.

The only downside to the reviews, and it's somethin' someone told me years ago that turned me off to them, is that it never seemed like the reviews made a difference in terms of download count. I'd read a lot of reviews, but I don't remember anything that convinced me to try a game. Ever since then, I've been a little more boring and tried to write reviews that'd be more useful to the author, than trying to write something to convince a non-existant audience to play. They were definitely more fun to read than the slime we get now though, and it was fun how some of the older games would pop up.

Ha, I just read an article from October 2011 where RMZ thought he'd have Mr. Triangle's Adventure wrapped up by November of that year. So much for honesty in the press!

I didn't contribute a whole lot, and I can't imagine contributing more than I did, but I do miss it a lot. It was fun to have something to look forward to, and fun too I'm sure, for people whose games got featured.

I will say one nice thing about SlimeSalad is that we can host our own images now. Any one of us could write an "article" right here and now if we really wanted. I don't know that there needs to be a successor, but if there is one, I hope that it's someone who is genuinely passionate behind it (like Surlaw was, and Rinku before him with Septaweekly) and not someone making a magazine just so there is one. Basically anyone but Spoonweaver, is what I'm saying.

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 3:28 pm

Not me indeed. If I did make one it would only be so that there would be one. Making something like this would be a thankless job and god knows I don't need more of those.

I liked Hamsterspeak. Read it every month. Towards the end though it really turned into a big blame game. Telling everyone it was going away because they didn't submit enough, complaining about the quality of articles, it really became a bummer to read.

Speaking of bummers. This thread is pretty depressing.

The Wobbler · Post by **The Wobbler** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 5:31 pm

I don't think I was complaining about the quality of articles at the end, or ever. Quantity, yes. But all of the articles I was actually getting then were fine. The last issue in particular has a lot of good Features.

By the end, this is how article submission went:

1- Someone writes to me to propose an article/claim a review. I say good, go for it.
2- End of the month approaches, article doesn't come. I ask if they've had time. They say no, I say ok, that's cool, there's always next month.
3- Repeat process for four months.
4- Fifth month, they say "ok, I'm ready to get started now" two days before deadline.
4- Article finally arrives and the content is fine.

It was a giant load of work to keep on people for content that required a ton of effort, time, and dedication. Anyone making a new one just to make one would quit in a month. If anyone's actually passionate, go for it.

But yeah I do blame the lack of contributors. I wasn't going to write the whole thing myself, people already complained about there being too much of my own content in there.

Gizmog wrote:I dunno why it is, but this is the cover I remember the most. Hilarious.

I liked that one a lot. My favorites were #55, #44, #43, #25, #19, #15, and #5.

Nathan Karr's cover's still really funny too.

Post by **TMC** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 7:00 pm

I don't find this thread depressing, quite the opposite. We all already know Surlaw managed to keep the magazine alive for years after anyone else would have given up. What's so bad about that?

There were no shortage of wonderful covers, so I won't numerate them. #63 was actually one of my favourites.

Didn't someone suggest that the best threads (articles) here on SS should be collected and linked to? I still want to do that. Would be best to put it on the wiki so that it can be kept up to date.

marionline · Post by **marionline** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 7:05 pm

Sometimes - also because of reading this topic - I have the ideas of trying to start a magazine. But then I remind myself of all the daily have-to-do-stuff and the idea quietly disappears...

These are those ideas:
Before ever starting anything like this, it's good to have a large amount of backup articles so that you can just include one or two in case of uncalculated no-enougth-time to write anything.
The other problem would be to figure out what to write about, and acctually write.
Maybe if someone would start writing others might join and submit things as well. But not stopping the process would be really hard, I guess.

And as for Hamster Speak, it was a really, really cool thing.
I wrote this before, but it made the community a bit more special. I thought: "What community of game engine users does have their own monthy magazine !?

"
Also, the tutorials and ideas about game making are infomative and good to read, even thoug if the articles are old (already).
And also remember that there were often atricles about characters from games I've never played.

Fenrir-Lunaris · Post by **Fenrir-Lunaris** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 1:01 am

I'd like to break my silence/self-imposed exile to say to Surlaw/Wobbler that working on Hamsterspeak with you was an honor. Monsterology was probably the one series I kept looking forward to each month to draw the illustrations for!

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 1:13 am

I meant quantity :P

As for this thread being depressing I mean in a nostalgic way. The talking about things like Hi-C cooler and Blue Pepsi is depressing. I loved Blue Pepsi!

In any case, if someone wants to start up a new ohr mag I'll try to help as best I can.

Post by **TMC** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 2:22 am

Was that 'fading away' cover drawn after HS had already shut up shop?

Well, there have been a few efforts since HS to start something new, which have bombed. With the exception of The Hamster Wheel, of course. Which now has published a few reviews from Pepsi. Depending on what MBS wants to do with it, it might be a better option that starting something new. Reviews and previews were always the meat of OHR magazines.

The Wobbler · Post by **The Wobbler** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 2:31 am

I don't think I've ever seen that cover before now, but it's a great one. And yeah Monsterology was probably my favorite thing to work on.

Pepsi Ranger · Post by **Pepsi Ranger** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 6:28 am

I'd love to see that cover on the HamsterSpeak homepage and have it link to an empty blue space, symbolic of the hole its departure has left behind in this community, but I do think Volume #63's cover does a fine enough job symbolizing the end of an era, and it would be weird to have a volume cover that led to nothing. But man do I love that cover.

I was thinking more about it tonight: If there ever were a new magazine to start up, I think it should utilize the open method that Surlaw had, which is to accept contributor articles (of a certain quality), but do so under the Rinku release schedule, which is to say that the next one would go up whenever there's enough content to fill it. Could be every month. Could be one this month, one five months from now, and a third issue two months after that. The cover would still be numbered, but the dates might focus on a slightly more ambiguous timeline.

Having a monthly magazine gave us something to look forward to, but it really only works when people submit content. Rinku burned out after six issues of Monthly and two issues of Septaweekly because he was doing most of the work himself (by his own choosing). Surlaw made it through 63 issues, which is impressive, but also due to having other people helping with the content. If he had to write everything himself every month, he wouldn't have gotten much farther than Rinku.

Having a magazine release when there's enough content to fill it gives the editor a bit more time to breathe, since he's not racing a deadline. He'd still have to promote the thing often and solicit for articles every few weeks, but at least he wouldn't have to worry about posting a malnourished issue, or an Annual.

As for me, I just thought the magazine was great, through and through. I really liked the diversity of authors and topics. I wasn't a big fan of reading msw188's textbook style entries, but I loved that I had the option of reading something academic like that and then reading something utterly ridiculous (Bob Surlaw on Trial, for example) in the same volume. I also just really looked forward to the full color reviews, since they were usually of better quality than the short snapshots we read here on Slime Salad (outside of the review contest). I don't know, it just had a personality of its own. It was fun to read. And I enjoyed writing for it. I actually miss that--trying to think of a unique spin on an old topic, or thinking of something completely overlooked in the past. Slime Salad doesn't really have a proper outlet for that. Forum posts don't generally get recognized as featured articles, and they certainly don't archive well.

I suppose the worst thing HamsterSpeak had going for it was knowing that the issue and its contents would be largely forgotten the following month. But, isn't that how most magazines work? Aren't they written like time capsules?

I really wish we had been able to keep the flow of content coming near the end there because I think it would still work well today as an OHR history book. The forums are more comprehensive, certainly, but no one's making commentaries about them. HamsterSpeak did a nice job summarizing the times, and it helped quite a few people get more involved with the community than if they had simply come on here and posted a game or two and then vanished in the night.