OHR Confessional

Confessions About Threads / Forums:

-I really like personal threads, threads that actually force the writer to sit back and think. Threads like this. Make me feel like I have something to say.

-I tend to find the "fun" threads (like this) a day too late (as in I'm usually the last to post).

-I really, really hate being the last poster in a thread, and yet it seems to happen ALL THE TIME. It usually leaves me thinking that my opinion doesn't matter or that it offers nothing to respond to, which leaves me thinking I wasted my time.

-Lately I've been watching what I post for concern that someone will "call me out" on something I've said. Sometimes I think my "voice of maturity" or whatever has slipped a bit in the last couple years.

-Conventions like the "Jerkstore" prevent me from posting how I really feel about things sometimes (which is probably a good thing). I have a paranoia about sounding like a douche.

-I hate how threads requesting help can go unanswered for days. I also hate that I usually don't know how to help the people asking for it.

-It irks me to no end that a quality game can receive little to no attention in the forums, but a "crap" game gets pages of responses. It feels like all the hard work that goes into a quality game is thankless.

-It also irks me that author popularity seems to be a factor in a game's interest, whereas unknowns and quiet veterans get little to none. (Granted, this doesn't irk me quite as much as the previous point, since the real world operates this way, too.)

-I hate crap threads. I hate opening them. I feel soiled for having read them. And yet I feel like I haven't given the author a fair shake if I don't at least look at them.

-It bothers me that some people will ask a question that's already been answered in a given thread, because it goes to show that they can't be bothered to read, which defeats the purpose of having the thread. When you have eight pages or more and the question was answered back on page three, I can understand the need for a repeat. But when you only have three pages to reference, READ THE FREAKIN' POSTS before you ask.

-I hate "post count." I don't like being reminded how many times I've posted something somewhere. If not for that counter, I'd probably post more often. That's mainly why I'll cram everything I want to say about a subject into one post (and why I rarely write "short" comments).

-I hate seeing posters in their mid-20s acting like retards. I can understand a 17-year-old being angsty over stupid things, but not a 24-year-old. I guess that's one thing I miss about the "Golden Age." The drama happened among the teenagers. People like James, Komera, and Byako never got involved in that crap. Now it seems the drama has no limit (though the 30+ year-olds like the above mentioned manage to keep their heads together whenever they do grace us with their presence). I guess I'm a stickler for maturity and it surprises me when someone in his mid-20s starts drunk posting and whining over nothing.

Note: This thread is about confessions, and the inevitable whine, so I can make the exception here.

Confessions About Games:

-I still think about Surlaw's "The Art of Making a 'Bad Game'" from HamsterSpeak 12 whenever I write anything comedic into Powerstick Man.

-I've been forcing myself to work on at least one of my games once a week to ensure that I finish, but it's become a chore these days.

-I feel like game design for the public is futile for reasons stated in my confessions about forums and threads. I tell myself repeatedly that I'm making the game for myself first and for everyone else second.

-Powerstick Man Extended Edition has been a lot of fun to revamp. Tightfloss Maiden has not. The former is my canvas for jokes; the latter my canvas for design. Jokes are a lot more fun than design.

-I hate making shadows, but I do it to shut up the critics.

-I hate designing battles because it's the one thing I was never good at.

-I think the battles are what will ultimately kill The Adventures of Powerstick Man: Extended Edition in the public eye.

-A writer writes, and I don't feel like I'm enjoying myself or doing my job if I'm not writing dialogue in a game. For this reason, it bothers me that most players will skim or skip NPC dialogue in a given game. It essentially invalidates a year of my life.

-I think the amount of text to read will also contribute to the death of The Adventures of Powerstick Man: Extended Edition, despite how freakin' cool it's gonna be when it's finished.

-So much work goes into my games that by the time I manage to release them, the fancy tricks implemented have already become novelty.

-I'm on the fence about releasing these games because of their simultaneous existence as novels. If I sell the novels, I'll probably have to pull the games, which makes releasing them pointless.

-I hate anime in RPGs. I used to like anime in the early 90s when it was still an obscure subculture, but the Americanization of anime soured my taste for it, and now I can't even bring myself to watch the quality movies or shows anymore. And I certainly can't bring myself to play any OHR game that features anime characters.

-City of Dreams was the only Orchard-L game I've played. I got about halfway through it. Was never interested in Boundless Ocean.

-I played about ten minutes of Sword of Jade before deciding I wasn't interested in it. I respect the amount of work that went into it, but at the end of the day I have to like the story, and I really wasn't taken by it.

-I skipped most of the games released between 2003 - 2007. The Vikings of Midgard is what got me playing this stuff again.

-I'm disappointed that Vikings of Midgard has taken Wandering Hamster's place as the official game of the OHR. I notice I have to dig through the Hamster Republic archives just to find the Wandering Hamster download anymore. It's not on the main page like it used to be. I find that odd. If anything, I think they should be a joint representation of the engine, a bridge between the old OHR and the new. I hope that when both games are finished, they can be packaged together in a single download.

-I'm really looking forward to the engine features for the coming year. Script multitasking has been on my wish list for a long time now.

-I refuse to learn new plotscripting syntax and I'm resistant to indentation. On a side note, I used to criticize the nurses of the hospital once I worked at for not wanting to adapt to change.

Confessions About Reviews:

-The most painful review I ever wrote was the one for Sailor Moon RPG back on Operation:OHR. As mentioned above, I hate anything anime in the OHR, and even touching the game was torturous. I ended up having my kid sister (when she was 9 or so) play the game for me and tell me what she thought just so I could get the review written.

-I only wrote that review because it had been up for months and no one else would touch it.

-I nearly wet myself when another Sailor Moon game popped up on O:OHR for review a week after I posted the first.

-I love the way reviews are handled on HamsterSpeak. My favorite review ever was the first half of Surlaw's review for Urban Fantasy (I say the first half because the second half started getting personal to the author, and I don't condone that). What makes this format better than any other since the O:OHR days is not only the lack of rating, but the ability to intersperse screenshots to highlight the points made. The Urban Fantasy review (the first half) was not only informative about what makes a terrible game terrible, or funny in the way it was written, but laugh-out-loud hilarious simply in the screenshots chosen to represent its awfulness. On the flip-side, the use of screenshots has also brought out the life of quality games in ways that mere words could never do.

-It bothers me that more people don't submit reviews to HamsterSpeak or the forums.

-I entered this community as a reviewer. And I only did it because no one else was doing it.

-I used to get a lot of praise for my reviews in the early part of the decade, but looking back I think those reviews were pretty awful. They were wordy as all heck and were guilty of being nice to games that didn't deserve the accolade.

-Out of all my reviews, the one for Planetoid Penguins was the only one to get author response / tirade.

-I stopped reviewing because enough people had started and I was getting tired of it.

-It used to bother me that I could write the number of reviews that I did, and still not see a quality review for Powerstick Man until about three years after its release.

-I never cared much for Chaos Nyte's reviews. I always had the feeling he did it for the publicity and not for the sake of helping the author. This feeling was, of course, fueled by his goal of reviewing fifty games.

-I was most surprised by a review from MCW (I wish I could remember the game, but I think it was written for CP). I remember him being one of the angsty teenagers way back in the annals of OHR history, and then one day, like a kid who went from 4'10" to 6'3" overnight, he wrote this awesome review and completely shattered my original impression of him. I was so impressed that I had to personally congratulate his submission.

-I'm still disappointed with the "short" reviews in HamsterSpeak.

-I like it when a writer/reviewer tries new things, and was happy to see Mariel doing that very thing with her "versus" review in HamsterSpeak 23.

-I think personal attacks in reviews are tasteless, even when it's for a game like Hamburgerman RPG. Attack the game all you want, but try to keep your feelings about the author to yourself.

Confessions About HamsterSpeak (and other mags):

-To follow up with my comment about "The Art of Making a 'Bad Game'," I find myself judging my gaming standards against HamsterSpeak's articles far more than I have in any other magazine to date. I think a part of it has to do with me having more respect for those who write for HamsterSpeak than I do for those who authored other magazines.

-As an example, I still haven't read that 200-page gaming opus in the last issue of OHR Monthly that was a long-time standard for the OHR's game design learning curve.

-I miss the walkthroughs that began and ended with OHR Monthly.

-I hate contributing more than half the monthly content (when I do) because it makes me feel like no one else is stepping up. Picking up the slack is one of my pet peeves.

-It really annoys me when no one answers the monthly questions posted in the magazine. It means the one or two people that do answer will undoubtedly be singled out, and it ultimately makes the magazine look like it has shoddy readership. And I know Surlaw feels the same way, which probably explains why the last couple issues didn't have questions posted.

-I read Monsterology, but I'm not really into it. I liked the two recent articles far more than I liked the originals.

-I don't care for the "academic" tone of certain articles. I think this magazine does better with the casual presentation.

-I don't look forward to the art section. And I don't remember the last time I read the comics.

-I never really got the comics. There's some inside joke I'm not aware of.

-The inclusion of Youtube videos (like the JSH Retrospectives) is one of the best things to happen to an OHR magazine.

-I didn't enjoy writing "Covered With Dust," and I've procrastinated on the next series because of it. (But it will return.)

-I miss the "Most Anticipated" feature of OHR Monthly. It was pretty pointless to have, as half the anticipated games listed were never released, but it served as a nice gauge for what people wanted to see. I think features like that helped a game's popularity when it was finally released.

Confessions About Miscellaneous Things:

-I'm guilty of the "company name for one author" syndrome. I'm actually its worst offender because I have THREE company names under one author. But I justify it for cinematic purposes. I like opening my games with movie credits and it doesn't look so great if every attribution has the words "Pepsi Ranger" underneath. It's all about the aesthetic and nothing more. Get over it.

-I kinda regret starting the Epic Marathon Contest. I regretted it initially because of the flack I received for basing the original off of Magnus (which was especially off-putting given its ultimate success). I regretted it even more when the second series failed miserably. And I almost felt justified when Mynorety Whispers had a reasonable turnout, but from Who Shot Bob the Hamster? on, it felt more like an obligation to an idea than it did an actual good idea. I know much of the regret comes from the obvious dismal turnout, though I wonder if that's not just a symptom of contests in general. In any case, I've been tempted to cut the cord on it since Epic Marathon 2, and have only kept at it out of some false hope that someday there will be another worthy turnout. After the contest rules fallout of Epic Marathon 5, I almost dropped the series again, but decided to keep it going for the sake of following through with my part (which was to moderate until the end). I'd still like to have Epic Marathon 7 next summer, but I've stopped expecting results from any of them (which is counter-productive, I know). Mynority Whispers is the reason I still do this. I didn't expect a turnout for that, either.

-I have three games I started for contests that were never finished.

-I started work on a TGC entry this year, but have little motivation to finish it.

-I think 2009 has given us the best crop of games in its three short months than has any other year since the "Golden Age." And my feeling is that 2009 and 2010 will be the next golden age for the OHR, as there are some great titles on the horizon (anyone seen the Viridia journal yet?).

-I'm sick of joke games, mainly because they all feature the same jokes. The only ones I look forward to are the I Made Dis games.

-My potential TGC entry is a joke game, but one that I don't believe has been done yet. I'll probably be sick of that one, too.

-I spent close to three hours compiling this list and have fallen way behind on my day's plans. I hope you're happy:).

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Place Obligatory Signature Here

- I'm definitely embarrassed by how mean-spirited my old reviews are. Some of them are kind of funny, and I guess knowing other people thought so is what kept me going with them, but the others make me feel bad. The only thing that makes me feel validated for writing them is that Twinconclusive has said that my review of Exposing The Unknown inspired him to do better. I actually still have notes for an unfinished Dark Moon review.

- I think my review for Gauntlets Of The Dragon ended with the last two paragraphs as an attempt to be fair to it, just to help me resolve my feelings toward my old reviews.

- I feel awful for being the guy who transferred all the O:OHR reviews to CP because so many of them weren't worth it. The original idea was to have Pepsi Ranger's over there, but the rest... I really didn't like CN as a reviewer, especially how he kept the title for years without writing one.

- For my part in the Common Sense fiasco and everything leading up to it, I'm sorry. It was a mess that ruined things for everyone involved for a while. I still think it's funny they expected me to stick around and keep moving O:OHR reviews afterward, but maybe even funnier that I did.

- I also feel really bad that I haven't done anything for the Epic Marathon this year. I really want to, I believe in the contest, but I'm just not into making games so much anymore. This makes me feel silly still hanging around the community, but I've never felt like leaving. A Shot In The Dark is probably my last game, since it and Mazes Of Persistence were the two ideas I wanted to get done before giving up on it forever, but you never know what the future will hold.

- Just so every point I make in this post won't amount to I FEEL BAD ABOUT STUFF GUYS, my favorite kind of OHR game these days is the short concept game. It might have evolved out of the joke game, but it's become a new thing in its own right. Games like all those little demos RMSephy used to put out, or Twinconclusive's recent games. I live for this stuff, playing with ideas on how things work, optimizing it to work in a brand new way. It's great.
Keep up the good work, guys.

This is me. I've sent scripts to people before when I've needed some help it and drove at least a couple of them nuts. My scripts are a mess, but they're totally readable by me, and I guess that's what matters most.

I've found that a lot of old OHR reviews are pretty terrible in general, but yours have aged better than most. I think several of Aethereal's and Uncommon's reviews still hold up well too. I think it's because you guys actually used a spell-checked/proofread your reviews. Even when I don't agree with their content at least they don't make me angry.

Yeah, I've kind of given up on the reader responses, and it pisses me off. I wanted to encourage discussion, but I got almost none whether I presented questions or not. I'm not interested in "I liked/disliked this article" responses as much as personal responses to the articles. "I disagree with this review because of X," or "This review is spot on, I couldn't stand this part either" means a lot more to me.

I don't remember the last time I received one

Since we're talking about the Epic Marathons, I feel especially bad about them because I've wanted to make a submission for just about every one and, for one reason or another, I never get around to it. It makes me feel like a huge jerk.

You'd better not stop reviewing, even though your reviews are kind of uncommon they're probably my favorites in the magazine.

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

Hey, if this is a good thread for complaining about stuff, NAME CHANGES DRIVE ME CRAZY! Avatar changes are okay. That is all good fun, like trying on a new silly hat...

But when somebody changes their nickname, it is like they have thrown away the key which my brain used to unlock their entire IDENTITY. For a friend who I know face to face to have the same disruptive effect on my mind they would have to abruptly change their face, gender, race, hair, clothing style, manner of speech, body shape, body language and smell.

When LeTrompe change his name back to Jack, it was a shock to me. The identity-disorientation to me feels just like as if this dude:
Who I have said "hello" to at the Gaffey St. Diner every sunday morning for the past six months suddenly rips off his face Scooby-Doo-Villain style, and says "Hey! It's me! You remember me from High School?"


And it isn't just Jack. This happens to me over and over. Take Rock & Roll Sentai for example. I know you have been in the community for ages, but I can't remember who you were before the name change. I know I knew you before, but I just don't know which person you were! I could be carrying on a conversation with you on castleparadox under one name, and here on slimesalad under andother name, and think that I was talking to two different people!

This is why when I change people's names on my forum, they're related to their original name. I get confused too

Other Surlaw confessions:

-I really don't like Super Walrus Man. I keep bringing him back because I know other people like him, but I'm honestly bored of the character, at least the Walthrus/Walrus Chef version. It's part of what's kept me from making Walrus Chef 2. He'll still be in Armageddon and in the eventual Walthros Remake, but toned way down, but I'm afraid people will react really badly to it.

-I don't like RPGs where I can't save anywhere, unless dying doesn't delete your progress (in that case, I'd let myself die to get back to town and save). Maybe it doesn't have to be EVERYWHERE, but I hate how long it takes me to get between save points in RPGs, both professional and amateur. Even if it's only an hour, I don't always have an hour to play! Sometimes I want to just explore for 15 minutes, but almost no console-style RPGs give me that option. Grind heavy games are even worse, because if I die after an hour of grinding I've wasted an hour of my life and gained nothing. If I die in an action game and don't progress, it's fine, because I'll be improving my skill at that game. Dieing in a level-grinder is horrible because I gained absolutely nothing from the hour I played.

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

At least I made a place where people can change them back. There's also a reason I did that random name thing only once.

I ocnfess that I'm really annoyed withthe overall lakc if questions for Ask Fortis that I'm thinking about stopping. It doesn't seem worth it.

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� Blasphemous Saga Fantasy
� Comic Art & Illustration Portfolio
� Zantetsuken!

I have no intention to stop reviewing (i fully intend to review Ravu for next month, maybe i can make myself do Thella too). I have no intention of jumping out of the community, I just feel like my existence here is kind of...vestigial.
And James, there's a big hint in that Surlaw quote. I kind of stopped going by Uncommon (my Hamsterspeak articles are attributed to Kingston C. Rockwell these days), and you even had a thread on the topic a few months back, but if it'd help I'll get them to revert it!

I don't know much about the old days, but I'll contribute:

*I also thought that the IM/CN feud was stupid and honestly none of anyone else's business, and I said so then.

*I'm not an internet community person, I never was, and I doubt I ever will be. That's why I could never totally understand why so many people got so bent away from the OHR just because dumb stuff was going on between people who happened to also visit Castle Paradox. Sure one of the people ran the site, but he never let the stuff get in the way of keeping the site running that I can remember.

*I miss the Game Design Discussion threads that we used to have going. I like theory and academia, thus the tone of my Hamsterspeak articles. I especially miss my discussions with Iblis. But it could be said that the more and more you discuss, the less there is left to talk about.

*Along those lines, I usually feel that my articles don't get read, but I really don't mind that much because I can understand if other people aren't interested in the same kinds of discussion and considerations that I am. For myself, I find some of the other articles rather dull and devoid of any real theoretical interest or insight. I still appreciate the articles more than the art and/or comics though.

*Also along those lines, I usually feel that my ideas on what is enjoyable about RPGs are very different from most other people's. I started using the OHR to make games for myself rather than for others (I know what I enjoy, not what others enjoy), and I fully intend on continuing with that mindset. The bad part about that is it means I don't have deadlines, and things get put in limbo for months at a time. And I regret that too, although not too much.

*All that negative BS aside, I do genuinely like a lot of the people around here and I respect a lot of opinions here, even if I rarely agree with them. Some of the people here are, I feel, quite good at various aspects of game design, and there are some great senses of humor strewn throughout the community.

*I agree that the HelpMe board was very welcoming compared to the wiki. I don't think it has anything to do with themes or anything like that. I think that problem is that a wiki is not really a place to ask for help; for one thing, there's already a good chance that the question is answered somewhere, and a wiki feels permanent. I didn't feel bad asking a question on the HelpMe board because:
A) it was a message board, where threads (my dumb questions) die
B) it was anonymous and free of any possible 'community'

*Another problem with the wiki may be that the OHR is becoming too complicated for FAQ-style documentation. The categorization is terrible, but I can't think of a better way of doing it. For one thing though, alphabetization doesn't work for a list of questions that all start with "How" or "What". Maybe once the help screens in the editor are complete, the wiki can get a makeover of sorts. I wish I could help think of how to make it set up.

*I wish that more COMPLETE RPGs were made; RPGs in and of themselves aren't fun for me in the same way as other kinds of games - they need a feeling of completion and accomplishment, so that the world feels complete and the gameplay feels like working towards a final goal.

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I am Srime

i wish more people would team up to create games. i think if the best scripters in the community joined up with the best pixel artists and the best composers, we would have some really fantastic games that could easily pass as real SNES games. i think there's so much love and fantastic ideas that go into all the games you guys make, but because they aren't as well rounded as some games they get overlooked. i actually prefer there to be 3 or 4 really awesome games in the works that i can't yet play to several mediocre or unpolished already released games. just give me some eye candy to get me excited about the game and i will be just fine waiting for it.

does anyone remember the articles written for the old OHR website ran by Steve/Hooked on Phonics? they were so inspiring! i remember feeling pretty uninspired and lost when i first found the OHR engine but after reading the articles at that website about how to create interesting and memorable towns in your game and what to think about when creating your game's villain, i had a whole head full of great ideas. i like that hamsterspeak has some articles related to game making, but i would like to see more articles that inspire the readers right along side the articles you guys already have that explain to you how to do some neat things in the OHR.

that's all i've got right now. probably will have more later!

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!!!

I have tried this several times. With the same person for that matter. He knows who HE is. I know I'm not the greatest pixel artist, but I can make some pretty unique fun stuff.

Hell I tried to hold a contest that was based around people working together. I didn't have enough to create 2 teams or anything. It was pretty pathetic. Does everyone like flying solo?

From the Collaboration Contest sign ups, it looks like a bunch of people are interested, but they're afraid that they don't have the time to devote to such a project.

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♪♪♪ Du du duuuu ♪♪♪

That's everyone's problem at this point Twin. Everyone has a ton of great ideas, but no time for any of them. It's pretty sad and pathetic how our lives have gotten so busy.

-I've been thinking that maybe the FAQ could be fixed by removing say, all of the questions that aren't really frequently asked. The articles can stay up and be accesible through the search function. It'd be a lot less overwhelming that way.

-I love hosting the Halloween Contests, but it was actually IM who volunteered to have a prize for that first one, Shads (You're welcome, though!). He's always been a nice guy like that. The only bad thing I can say about IM is that he's kind of distant from the community. Zant's mods were great in that all of them had a real interest in their forum, and did a hell of a lot of posting.

-Shadow's post kills me, because I always thought he was one of the better "Jack-of-all-trades" in the community. Good at art, good at plotscripting, could be funny, could be serious. I wonder how many other people left (at least in part) because they felt underappreciated.

in the topic of teaming up:

I'm currently working on a colab with vampiducki that I have high hopes for.

I'd also be down for teaming up with just about anyone else to make just about anything.

Just figured I'd put this out there.

Also: I'd like to see some kind of huge project being worked on by like half the community if possible. lets say 2-3 people working scripting, 2-3 people working on graphics, 1-2 on music. 1-2 on odd jobs.

I think this could really bring the community together.

It's a good idea, but it's been tried before, and in a time when the community was way more active. If it didn't work then, it wouldn't work now.

Personally, I don't have any interest in working on OHR games with other people, because even with the best intentions people will inevitably drop out. A small team of 2 or 3 can work, larger ones not really.

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition