The Great 2012 Review Contest [Reviews: 94] [CLOSED]

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The Great 2012 Review Contest [Reviews: 94] [CLOSED]

Post by SDHawk »

Without Hamster Speak around to band reviewers together, more and more games are slipping through the cracks without a single review. Contest games might get a few comments during voting, but outside of that many games don't even receive so much as a comment. Let's help fix that, while reminiscing on the year that was 2012.

GOAL:

As individuals, to review every game from 2012. (But it's still okay to contribute less than that!)

RULES:
  • * Write a review for a game!
    * Try to make it at least 3 paragraphs long! But if you can't, that's okay!
    * Post a link to (or the review itself) in this thread!
    * Do it for every game on the list before November 10th, 2013.
    * It's okay to post reviews you wrote before this contest started! As long as it covers the latest version of the game as of 2012.
Check out last year's thread for an idea of how this goes.

PRIZES:

There aren't any! Because I'm still trying to get 2011's prizes done! I suck!

Anyone can contribute a prize to the pool using whatever criteria they want, though.

FAQ:

Q: I've never written a review before / I'm bad at writing! I shouldn't enter, right?
A: WRONG. One of the worst parts of this community is that most games only get one review EVER, if they even get one. It makes the authors feel isolated from the community and never bother to come back because why bother if no one is going to play their games? So for once, let people KNOW that you played their games and what you thought of them. Even if your writing isn't the best, authors still appreciate more feedback.

Q: I have like 2 months to write these things! Whoooo! Time to forget about this for 2 months!
A: There are THIRTY EIGHT GAMES released this year. And some of them are pretty dang long! If you want to take a decent chunk of reviews out you need to start playing NOW. So set aside your laziness, and start to reminiscence on 2012 before it's too late.

Q: Do I have to review my own games?
A: Yes! Most authors go for a "director's commentary" style for their own games, but the exact format that you review your own work in is up to you.

Q: I want to make a comic review! But where do I host the images?
A: Right here on Slime Salad! Just use the review feature of the site and upload your comic as one of the images, then simply link that image within the review! Not only is this way easier than hassling with a free hosting site, but it also means your comic will last as long as Slime Salad does. Free image hosting sites have a propensity to delete images after a certain length of time or collapse entirely. So please, host your comics on Slime Salad so we don't end up with a bunch of 404'd reviews!

Special Thanks:

Meatballsub - Compiled the original list that the game list is derived from.
JSH - Told me to just host the contest without prizes.

List of 2012 Games

Abel [Charbile] [marionline] [Spoonweaver] [Gizmog1]
Alice Falls Asleep [Master K] [Spoonweaver] [Gizmog1]
AR-PUH-GUH! [Nathan Karr] [Meowskivich] [Gizmog1]
Clam Digger [Spoonweaver] [Gizmog1]
Cool Guy Bob Surlaw [Spoonweaver] [Meowskivitch] [Gizmog1] [Charbile]
Dreadful Occupant [Spoonweaver] [Gizmog1] [Charbile]
Dreg Sector: The Tract [Gizmog1]
DUNGEONMEN: Men of Dungeons [Spoonweaver] [Gizmog1]
Epic! The Humorous RPG [Gizmog1] [Meowskivich]
Ephixial [JSH357] [Spoonweaver] [Gizmog1] [Meowskivitch]
Final Dragon Legacy [Spoonweaver] [MrBrutehater] [Gizmog1]
Flash 48 Hour Contest - The Actor's Daughter [Gizmog1]
Hamburgerman RPG 1.0 [Gizmog1]
Illusions [Spoonweaver] [Gizmog1]
Karate Fight (Ambush 48 Edition) [Gizmog1]
KARRIBLE.RPG [Gizmog1]
Kinvesard: Epilogue of the Princess [Spoonweaver] [Gizmog1] [Charbile]
Legacy [Spoonweaver] [Gizmog1]
Legendary Heroes [Spoonweaver] [Meowskivich] [Gizmog1]
Look, But Don't Touch [Gizmog1]
L'Sol Nocturnal Tears No Ingles [Gizmog1]
Memento Mori (50%) [Gizmog1] [Meowskivitch]
My Little Gahn [JSH357] [Gizmog1]
No More Villains [Spoonweaver] [Meowskivich] [Gizmog1]
Open Trail [JSH357] [Meowskivich] [Gizmog1]
Ortega Colonies [Spoonweaver] [Gizmog1]
Pearl Tear [lizord] [SparElric] [Gizmog1] [Charbile]
Pilgrimage [Gizmog1] [Spoonweaver] [JSH357]
Reign Of Grelok [Charbile] [Gizmog1]
Rouge's Revenge [Meowskivich] [Gizmog1]
Silhouette [Spoonweaver] [Charbile] [Gizmog1]
Spirit Chronicles RIFT [Meowskivitch] [Gizmog1]
Super Harem Builder 2012 [JSH357] [Gizmog1]
Super Penguin Chef [Spoonweaver] [Meowskivich] [MrBrutehater] [Gizmog1] [Charbile]
The Death of Von Stabbingmore [JSH357] [Spoonweaver] [Gizmog1]
The K'hyurbhi Lands [Spoonweaver] [Gizmog1]
The Towers of Love and Energy (48 hr) [marionline] [MrBrutehater] [Gizmog1] [Charbile]
Universal Wars [Spoonweaver] [marionline] [Gizmog1]

Bonus Games

I don't actually know if these games received significant enough updates in 2012 to qualify, or they may be so incredibly short that they don't merit more than one review. Review at your own risk.

Cars
Doom: Evil Unleashed
POKEMON vs MARIO BROS vs FINAL FANTASY
There Is No Exit
Trolls!
Vikings of Midgard

Can't decide which game to choose?

Then try out Gizmog1's amazing UNOFFICIAL RANDOM GAME CHOOSER and let it choose for you!

Game Criteria:
  • * Was either released in 2012 or had a major update in 2012 (a major update is an update which contains significant new content rather than just bug fixes).
    * Is intended to be engaged with as a piece of entertainment, and not as a tool or example.
Some of these games have since had updates in 2013 (Notably: Universal Wars, Dreg Sector, Illusions, Cool Guy Bob Surlaw). Such is the risk of doing such a contest so late. So just roll with it. If they don't receive another major update by the 2013 review contest, they won't be part of the 2013 contest line up.

Updates:

Removed voice rpg entirely since it's pretty clearly just a tech demo. Trolls!, POKEMON vs MARIO BROS vs FINAL FANTASY, Cars, and There Is No Exit were moved to the bonus list for being crazy short (the bonus list is basically "these games don't have enough in them for more than one or two reviews to ever be written for them"). More games may be moved at a later date.

Feel free to discuss in the thread if any games actually failed to meet the criteria and should be removed, or if I missed a game.

Reviewer Leaderboard:

Gizmog1: 38 [Completed 9/21/2013!] [Index]
Spoonweaver: 20
Meowskivitch: 11 [Intro]
Charbile: 9
JSH357: 6
marionline: 3
MrBrutehater: 3
lizord: 1
Nathan Karr: 1
Master K: 1
SparElric: 1
Last edited by SDHawk on Mon Nov 11, 2013 5:22 pm, edited 36 times in total.
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Post by charbile »

I suppose I could pretend to be someone who plays and talks about ohrrpgce games. This was a lot of fun last time, and I've learned a lot since then. Maybe we've all grown a little since then and the games will be that much better.

Am curious who else is interested, as I'd hate to do this alone and have nobody else to share my excitement with.
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Post by Meatballsub »

I've been writing reviews on the Hamster Wheel as much as possible. I'd like to contribute, so I'll be sure to review games from 2012 after I finish up a couple already in queue.
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Post by Meowskivich »

I DARE someone to make a super review of AR-PUH-GUH!

I mean that in a non-threatening way, by the by.

Super as in really in-depth
Last edited by Meowskivich on Wed Sep 04, 2013 2:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Spoonweaver »

I'll be reviewing all these games.

Oh and Jsh is streaming the games at a rate of 3 a day in the IRC.
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Post by JSH357 »

As Spoonweaver said, I'll be posting videos of my streams of these games. If the videos are not your cup of tea, don't watch 'em. I'll be writing reviews as well.



Game #1 - Ephixial

Ephixial is an incomplete game. It's made up of almost entirely ripped graphics and poor midi renditions of Zelda songs. The battles show no signs of playtesting and the dialogue, while occasionally kind of charming, seems rushed and unimportant. The demo ends before anything actually happens in the story. You guide a small party to a cave on an island and get stuck in the cave after a landslide. Unfortunately, since the demo ends here as there's no way to get out of the cave, we may never know what happens to our heroes.

Time and time again, people release demos like this without enough content to justify it. I can't think of any reason the creator bothered posting this unless he was showing it to friends. There's nothing to recommend checking out, and it's a shame because the demo has its decent spots. The graphics, while ripped, are imported very skillfully, especially the Minecraft backdrops; they look surprisingly professional.

It's hard to put any kind of score on this kind of game. I don't know the author's true intent or where the story might have gone. Thus, I can only judge what was given to me to play, and it doesn't come out looking good. Some amusing issues aside, this game is rather bad as-is and you shouldn't give it a chance unless the creator works very hard in developing actual content.

1/5
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Post by Mogri »

In honor of this contest (and in order to get more up-to-date feedback), I've uploaded a bugfix release for Super Penguin Chef. This version fixes some issues using items in battle, text display problems, dungeon vendors, and probably several more things I've forgotten.
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Post by JSH357 »



Game #2 - My Little Gahn

Charbile delivers yet another acid trip of a game here, this time focusing on the My Little Pony craze and reusing as many Fenrir-Lunaris game graphics as possible. The result is a game that does what it intended, but may not appeal to everyone. It's a joke game of the highest order: one with a lot of effort put in.

This game is about Gahn, the villain of Sword of Jade, going to a boring meeting, attempting to meet Eggie for a date, and... uh, do I have to summarize this? The most impressive section of the game, without a doubt, is the Derpy Hooves space shooter segment. While the controls are slightly clunky, it's still an impressive piece of plot-scripting that is quite playable and fits the goofy, chaotic tone of the game. The game begs to be compared to Sleepover, which may be what hurts it a little for me. Aesthetically, I think Sleepover was a lot more impressive and unsettling, and this feels a little more phoned in as a result. Charbile goes for a Nathan Karr-style surreal atmosphere with lots of brony references.

Of course, as a quick joke game it's worth the play time. If you enjoy Charbile's humor this will make you smile. If you don't, you probably won't get much out of My Little Gahn. As such, I don't know that I can recommend it. You probably already played the game if you were the type of person who would enjoy such a thing.

3/5
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Post by Nathan Karr »

You guide a small party to a cave on an island and get stuck in the cave after a landslide.
Rocks fall, everyone dies. :hurr:
Charbile goes for a Nathan Karr-style surreal atmosphere with lots of brony references.
Funny how long it took me to see the similarities beyond "I like what this is doing and think it's funny".
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Post by Spoonweaver »

Ephixial
This game is full of ripped graphics and ripped music. The graphics seemed placed fairly well, but at times the different styles from graphics ripped from different games is very noticeable. The music all just seems randomly placed.
Other than all that, the game doesn't have much to offer. The battle system seems thrown together. The few pieces of equipment don't do anything. The game ends without any real notice. Basically, everything feels unfinished, and the parts that are finished are terrible.

This shouldn't have been released. 0/10


The K'hyurbhi Lands
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtop ... 202#102202

Universal Wars
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5450

Cool Guy Bob Surlaw
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5453

Illusions
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5449

Silhouette
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5452

No More Villians
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5438

Legacy
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5434
*I'm really looking forward to the completely redone Legacy, that BMR has been hyping.

Super Penguin Chef
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5431
*I haven't played the updated version yet. When I do, I might post an update here at some point.

DUNGEONMEN: Men of Dungeons
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5454
*Despite a somewhat harsh Let's Play video, I do think this is one of the best OHR games.

Final Dragon Legacy
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4974
*was this updated since I reviewed it?




Abel
Alice Falls Asleep
AR-PUH-GUH!
*
[s]Cool Guy Bob Surlaw[/s]
*
Dreg Sector: The Tract
[s]DUNGEONMEN: Men of Dungeons[/s]
Epic! The Humorous RPG
[s]Ephixial[/s]
[s]Final Dragon Legacy[/s]
Flash 48 Hour Contest - The Actor's Daughter
Hamburgerman RPG 1.0
[s]Illusions[/s]
Karate Fight (Ambush 48 Edition)
KARRIBLE.RPG
*
[s]Legacy[/s]
*
Look, But Don't Touch
L'Sol Nocturnal Tears No Ingles
Memento Mori (50%)
My Little Gahn
[s]No More Villains[/s]
Open Trail
Ortega Colonies
Pilgrimage
Pearl Tear
Reign Of Grelok
Rouge's Revenge
[s]Silhouette[/s]
Spirit Chronicles RIFT
Super Harem Builder 2012
[s]Super Penguin Chef[/s]
The Death of Von Stabbingmore
[s]The K'hyurbhi Lands[/s]
The Towers of Love and Energy (48 hr)
[s]Universal Wars[/s]

15/38
Last edited by Spoonweaver on Fri Sep 06, 2013 1:00 am, edited 10 times in total.
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Post by charbile »

Hold up Spoon. You aint fooling nobody with them asterisks on your review list. You gotta go down on yourself too. That's the rules. Half a mind to do sometin crazy if'n you don't, fool!

Am loving the videos by JSH from school. They're a lot of fun. I'm guessing there's no avoiding talking about my game if I'm doing this, should help explain things. Why I was thinking it'd be great to see Spoon review/explain his games too.

Well, I've got 2 months. Time to go sit somewhere.
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Post by jcenterprises »

If anyone wants to review Universal Wars, you might want to download the newest version put up a few days ago, it has slightly better art, and turn-based battles now.
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Post by charbile »

I'd love to review it, am a fan of turn based games :)

And I forgot to tell Meowskivich that I'll accept his dare. But so help me, Meow, if your game be trolling and wasting my time, so help me >:(
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Post by Spoonweaver »

charbile wrote:Hold up Spoon. You aint fooling nobody with them asterisks on your review list. You gotta go down on yourself too. That's the rules. Half a mind to do sometin crazy if'n you don't, fool!

Am loving the videos by JSH from school. They're a lot of fun. I'm guessing there's no avoiding talking about my game if I'm doing this, should help explain things. Why I was thinking it'd be great to see Spoon review/explain his games too.

Well, I've got 2 months. Time to go sit somewhere.
ok


Clam Digger
  The biggest thing I have to say about this game is that it turned out way better than I expected it to. What started as a joke game actually turned into something I personally really enjoy playing.
  I have it on my phone right now, and it's one of the games I go back to. I don't know if it's just the pleasure of playing a completed game I made myself, or if it's actually really fun, but I like to think it's because of how fun it is.
  Most of the response I've gotten about the game are either very positive or seem like the person didn't play it at all or only played it for about 2 minutes, dismissing it as a joke game.
  I'm really proud of this game, which is why I put it up on Ouya. If you haven't given it a chance, please do.


Dreadful Occupant
  Like Clam Digger, this game also turned out way better than I thought it would. I have gotten a lot of complaints about it though. The biggest being the way hiding works, and the ear piercing scream. Please know that I'm currently planning on revisiting this game with Master K and polishing it up in order to put it on Ouya.
  One of the things that will be changing is showing the player actively hiding in objects rather than just having his sprite disappear. This was always the plan but, because the game development had a limit of a week because of the contest, it wasn't done. We'll also be adding in a flashlight effect similar to the one I have in House escape, but with an aimed light cone as one might see in Link to the past.
  Overall, I think the game did really well. I love the fact that several people outside the community have made let's plays of it on youtube.


Kinvesard: Epilogue of the Princess
  This game was meant to be much longer than it ended up being. Despite it's short length and unpolished appearance, I'm glad people seemed to like it. Some of the concepts for the game didn't work out the way I wanted them to.
  Ultimately, The game is meant to play a lot like Dungeonmen. I was actually surprised to see Dungeonmen come out with so many design concepts that I was looking to use, already in play.
  Currently, the game's development is on hold. When I found out I could release things on Android and Ouya now, I switched gears to do that instead of working on the new projects I was currently working on. Kinvesard and Tim-Tim2.
  Oh, and some people asked about the title, Epilogue of the Princess. This stems from 2 things. First, I had suggested a story about a princess who controls weather for a colab game ( with Mogri ) at one point. I'm not sure what ever happened to that, but having shared the story concept with my girlfriend, she decided to write the story up. ( I'd share the story but it's only on notebook paper right now, and I don't even know where it is right now. ) Anyways, basically this game is suppose to take place after that short story in which the main characters fight the princess but only manage to weaken her, not fully defeat her. The game is meant to have an old mage appear at the beginning and explain how you've been teleported here in order to venture through the area's dangers and finally finish off the weakened princess.
  The other reason for the title is that Kinvesard is also the name of the MMORPG I've been working on little by little. However, I'm chnaging the name of the mmorpg to Kinvesard Online, and the next release of the OHr game will simply be titled Kinvesard. It also might not retain any mention of the princess at all.


Legendary Heroes
  I was really surprised at how poorly the new update of this game was received. I mean, I know I shouldn't have rushed it so much, but I still can't believe it went from a bit short but a game people loved to a little bit longer and considered boring.
  It wasn't really the best of ideas to work on Kinvesard and Legendary Heroes at the same time. Both games suffered because of it. The only reason I really did it was because of the format of the HotOHR. I didn't like how new games were considered differently then older games and so I wanted to make a new game because of that, but I still wanted to update Legendary Heroes like I said I would. The results are two under developed games.
  I personally like how Legendary Heroes has turned out so far. It's kind of suppose to be an easy, generic RPG, so I understand how some people would get bored with it. It's suppose to be a remake of the newbee game I made when I was in middle school that got lost. So far, I've changed dozens of things. The girl in the game, was originally a dinosaur creature, much like the orange ones you can find in the game. Currently, I plan to have her reveal that she is a dragon creature at some point in the game, which turns out to be the reason her brother was kidnapped. Veloka originally wore a cloak and a mask and revealed his horrible bug face at the end of the game. Originally, there were only 3 characters. Tim-tim's part was originally just an npc that berated the player with backstory.
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Post by Meowskivich »

I notice no one has taken my dare for reviewing my game. It's not terrible, I swear! Even I play it for fun here and there!
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