The 2014 In Review Contest [Reviews: 97]

Make games! Discuss those games here.

Moderators: Bob the Hamster, marionline, SDHawk

TMC
Metal King Slime
Posts: 4308
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 9:19 am

Post by TMC »

Meow won the Ultimate Challenge Contest with this SMBX game: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=106766

I disagree that the Ultimate Challenge Contest was a bad idea; it was a great idea. A game could be incredibly challenging and fun at the same time, but to manage to walk that line I think requires some clever and innovative game design. No disrespect, but none of the entries really attempted that; they went with same-old. The mistake might have been to host the contest here rather than somewhere more suited to it, like the experimental gameplay project (if they have forums or something).
User avatar
charbile
Metal Slime
Posts: 601
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2011 6:18 am

Post by charbile »

The idea is great and all, but you would need to define what is meant by challenge. It's too vague a term with what I saw in the thread, and in general for designers. I think how Iron Galaxy approached it is how most rpg devs handle it to varying degrees. And it's not entirely their fault as the nature of a rpg, so far as the common style, subverts challenge--isn't really about it.

That and like most any contest here, when it's hosted by someone who makes a certain kind of game and the contest is about making that same kind of game, you tell me what the practical point of it all is. Think it's super implied. Nobody wanted to say it out loud though.

Interesting link btw!
User avatar
charbile
Metal Slime
Posts: 601
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2011 6:18 am

Post by charbile »

Batman & Robin

Being aware of DC's long history of having to deal with batman copyright infringement, it's hard not to look at this in that respect. Will try not to. Fan works are fun, harmless. In twenty years batman will be public domain anyway.

And it's a contest game. Kidding me. A 2010 Fan Game Contest. Want to throw my hands up and quit.

Megaman music. Choose the robot master to fight. Make sure to have the right equipment.

Can we all agree RMZ doesn't care about maptiles at this point? It's weird because they're used so much, spread all about. In some ways, it's good in that it allows focus on other things, like 2+ finished games. Maybe super smart. Only problem is all the low quality results. Things like...

The batcave is needlessly empty, but it didn't have to be. Plenty of material to draw and put in there, but wasn't. Plenty of menu items and things through the computer and butler, but instead of creating different objects to show each item, it's stuffed in a couple NPC's. Counted 10 seconds to walk from the computer to the equipment area of the cave, which has the rest of the menu items. May not seem like that much time, but there's no reason it has to be spent. Not walking through town, there's no atmosphere to the cave. Figure this is the main hub, going to be using it a lot. Time well spent?

The plot is you aren't playing this for the plot. Have read and watched some good Batman stories. Clearly a fan game here, if you know what i mean.

I like the title screen and mission interlude driving hype. That's fine. Being entertained. When it's time to play, it's walk around and fight things. If you like that, and want it all batman themed, there it is. Mediocre, unexciting, if you really have nothing else to do.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!BONUS NUMBERS ROUND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

8 frames for hero battle graphics, right? Who here draws the standing one and copies and pastes it for the other 7, maybe moving an arm or a foot? Exciting.

16 tiles width-wise on a screen, right? Who here has wanted to make things seem realistically proportioned in their maps like say a mall food court with tables, but you can't put in 100 tables because that wouldn't be fun, so you put in 18 that take up 26 tiles wide. Yet you're smart enough to make things like the batmobile or airship 1 or 2 tiles wide.

I don't know, could try to get into heavy theory and practice and whatever, but the bottom line is if most of the game in a rpg is spent walking, fighting, or reading text, try to keep at least one of those entertaining. Ideally all of them. Sucks when you botch all three.

(edit: image quote)
Attachments
"I'd dance with HER devil by the pale moonlight, you know what I'm sayin'"--TheGiz
"I'd dance with HER devil by the pale moonlight, you know what I'm sayin'"--TheGiz
ohrbingo.png (154.83 KiB) Viewed 6118 times
Last edited by charbile on Fri Feb 06, 2015 7:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Pepsi Ranger
Liquid Metal Slime
Posts: 1457
Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2007 6:25 am
Location: South Florida

Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Charbile wrote:Batman & Robin

Being aware of DC's long history of having to deal with batman copyright infringement, it's hard not to look at this in that respect. Will try not to. Fan works are fun, harmless. In twenty years batman will be public domain anyway.

And it's a contest game. Kidding me. A 2010 Fan Game Contest. Want to throw my hands up and quit.

Megaman music. Choose the robot master to fight. Make sure to have the right equipment.

(and so on and so on)
That's a nice review of the 2010 version of the game. What did you think of the 2014 version? In case you're wondering, that version is called "Joker's Breakout." What did you think of that?
Place Obligatory Signature Here
User avatar
charbile
Metal Slime
Posts: 601
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2011 6:18 am

Post by charbile »

The joker part is not really an update on the main game so far as I can see, but extra post-game content. I.e. I've already played the 2014 version release.

From what I understand about the Heart of the OHR, new content is supposed to be reviewed separately, but in real terms, players will play a game as it is, old and new parts merging for a single experience. Don't like being so contrary with every reply, but have to call it like i see it. Will download the save file and check it out.

Batman & Robin JOKER's BREAKOUT BONUS REVIEW

Something that i find silly that's super easy to spot in the intro, is when you take the time to script a scene with many walkabouts on it, and you make them walk alone in turns, waiting till one moves until you move the next one. It's super stiff. Hey, if it works for you, fine. great. To me, don't see why it can't feel more fluid. It's not harder to code. It only looks more 'messy' on your txt file, because you'll need to

wait(2)
pace out the text
wait(10)
turn_char_around
wait(3)
char_jokerface
wait(3)
like this, you see. a little extra effort and thought, where everything doesn't happen at once the moment a text box advances.

Other than that, is more of the same. Play as Joker instead of Batman. Prison is fairly dull given the source material. I can appreciate the elevators and camera and whatnot stuff, but I can't say my enjoyment is so shallow that all i need is to see an attempt or effort toward something. Execution matters.

On that note, you could reskin this to anything you want and achieve the same effect. Make an avengers game, tmnt, whatever. For a fan game, this sure is lazy at hitting those fan service buttons. About as lazy as any other game I've played this year that thinks so long as you show the thing, that's it. Here's the joker. Here's Harley Quinn. It misses the heart of the material, or why anyone's a fan. The ohr's equivalent of ljn cash-in nintendo games.
User avatar
charbile
Metal Slime
Posts: 601
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2011 6:18 am

Post by charbile »

Dragons!

If it weren't for the music, would have stopped playing 10 minutes in. Music is fun. JSH's right, it doesn't fit. I'd hire--hit me up dawg.

To quickly clue you in on the experience because odds are you're never going to play this:
  • - Save the princess plot

    - exactly 4 heroes, each fulfilling the generic roles--except replace the thief with an archer

    - town and overworld maps extremely small and tight, overworld so tight you can't walk off the one-tile-wide path, but dungeons are huge with corridors that could have used a zelda-like auto pan

    - exploration design is keys and locked doors, no treasure chests that i could see

    - first dungeon is the forest

    - and it only uses 3 tiles. guess what they are--hint one's brown the others are green

    - 3 enemies in that dungeon. guess what--trick question they're all rats of different girths hue hue hue
Weird thing I noticed with the battles: on the first turn, the starting target for each hero is somewhat random. But not random-random. Guessing a weird choice for basic attack targeting.

If the game was as good as the music, this would be the game of the year. It's not terrible, maybe it is, who can judge? I can clearly see the why and what about it. Someone wanted to make a generic no-frills rpg. Nothing fancy, straight to the point of town->dungeon->randoms->repeat, twerking to that music. Maybe if it was re-themed to Batman or some other hot topic, we'd all be twerking to it right now.
Attachments
has potential. does show the default ohr experience needs a lot of herbs and spices and dressing up to be fun
has potential. does show the default ohr experience needs a lot of herbs and spices and dressing up to be fun
ohrbingo.png (157.45 KiB) Viewed 6060 times
User avatar
Pepsi Ranger
Liquid Metal Slime
Posts: 1457
Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2007 6:25 am
Location: South Florida

Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Charbile wrote:The joker part is not really an update on the main game so far as I can see, but extra post-game content. I.e. I've already played the 2014 version release.
According to RMZ, "Joker's Breakout" is the only new thing he's added since 2010, so to say you've already played the 2014 version is to say you've already played "Joker's Breakout," because nothing in the Batman & Robin section has been touched since 2010. Again, this is "2014 in Review," not "2010 in Review."

But, I see you stepped up and reviewed that part in this new post, so thanks for keeping it current.
Charbile wrote:From what I understand about the Heart of the OHR, new content is supposed to be reviewed separately, but in real terms, players will play a game as it is, old and new parts merging for a single experience. Don't like being so contrary with every reply, but have to call it like i see it. Will download the save file and check it out.
Well, no one who participates in judging the Heart of the OHR entries has to supply a review. Players just volunteer that information because it's a nice service to the game's designer. The only thing Heart of the OHR asks for is the numeric value to score the game (so that I can rank them and give games like Winged Realm a win).

But, I won't debate your logic about new players merging new and old for a single experience, especially if they're playing outside of contest season. You are totally right about that. Which is why I think it's equally important to mention "Joker's Breakout" in the review.

However, the thing you want to remember is that you're posting your review of the game in the "2014 in Review" thread, not the dedicated Review forum that connects to the games' pages. So, anyone who decides to download Batman & Robin in the year 2017 is not going to read your review, since they'll be looking for reviews that are attached to the game, not those buried in a two-year-old game discussion thread. For the sake of this thread, there really is no merging of new and old. It's all about the new.

Now, while you might be able to get away with reviewing old stuff in games where the update is just more of the same (and in fairness to your review style, most game updates are just that), you can't really do that with Batman & Robin because "Joker's Breakout" adopts a completely different play style and set of strategies from the base game, so the experience from one to the other does not persist. Players need to know that, and they need to know how the new game is different. It really needs to be treated as a separate game.

That's my take at any rate.

Again, it doesn't matter now that you've gone back and reviewed the stuff that was released in 2014. But I hope you keep new material in mind when you come back to do 2015 in Review.

P.S. Are you playing traditional Bingo or Blackout Bingo? Seems like you're filling in those tiles quite nicely. I still think that's an awesome addition to the review contest.
Place Obligatory Signature Here
User avatar
Spoonweaver
Liquid Metal King Slime
Posts: 6461
Joined: Mon Dec 08, 2008 7:07 am
Contact:

Post by Spoonweaver »

Are you serious Pepsi...
User avatar
JSH357
Liquid Metal Slime
Posts: 1341
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:38 pm
Location: Columbia, SC
Contact:

Post by JSH357 »

Going to have to agree with Spoonweaver. Charbile's original review of the Batman game is entirely valid, especially if he had never played it before now. Why should the onus be on the reviewer to even keep track of what content is new anyway? Maybe it mattered for the Heart contest, but certainly not here; nothing in the rules says you must focus on content added in 2014. The old contents of the game still exist, after all.
My website, the home of Motrya:
http://www.jshgaming.com
User avatar
Pepsi Ranger
Liquid Metal Slime
Posts: 1457
Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2007 6:25 am
Location: South Florida

Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Spoonweaver wrote:Are you serious Pepsi...
Well...yeah.

"Joker's Breakout" might be a Spacebar masher like the base game, but it doesn't give you a prep stage like the base game, or a stage select, or even a do-over if you run out of healing items. And, well, your "heroes" are completely different characters with different skills. And it's got a different title screen, different save conditions; shall I go on? It might be a "reskin," but it's a reskin in the same way half of the OHR library is a reskin of Dragon Warrior or Final Fantasy. Are you going to say that a review of Zero: Secret Pasts Collide is enough to qualify as a review for Final Fantasy (since it uses its same graphics, sound, etc.)? No. It's a different story altogether. If you need a more local example, would you say Batman & Robin and Mr. Triangle's Adventure are the same game? Would you say Tim-Tim the Mighty Gnome and Tim-Tim 2 are the same game? If RMZ had packaged "Joker's Breakout" in its current form as a different game file, would you say it's still Batman & Robin?

Of course I'm serious.

Look, none of these reviews affects me in the slightest. I haven't released a game in 2014. But reviewers should still try to be effective when describing the games they play, as they are as much for the developers as they are for the players. I'm sure RMZ would love feedback on 2010's version of Batman & Robin, and probably will until the day the Internet catches fire, but the game he's released in 2014 is "Joker's Breakout," and I think that's what's most relevant now.

Not trying to be jerk about this. The contest does say 2014. I don't know why reviewing something that was released in 2010 should work here unless it also includes reviewing the stuff released in 2014. In the traditional game review forum, review however you want; focus on whatever you want; I don't care. But when part of the rules states,
Rule #5 of 2014 in Review Contest Rules wrote:It's okay to use reviews you wrote before this contest started! As long as it covers the latest version of the game as of 2014 and follows the above rules:
I'd think that covering what was released in 2014 is important when you review for this thread. Not doing so seems to violate the rules.

Just because we do this for fun doesn't mean we should do it halfheartedly. Take pride in what you do, including the words you use to help your fellow developers and the words you use to inform your fellow players. I mean, if you're not gonna go all in, why write anything?
JSH357 wrote:Going to have to agree with Spoonweaver. Charbile's original review of the Batman game is entirely valid, especially if he had never played it before now. Why should the onus be on the reviewer to even keep track of what content is new anyway?
Right. For a review under nonspecific conditions, I wouldn't even bring this up. Games should be reviewed according to what the reviewer has played. (In the Operation: OHR days, we actually tried to finish a game before reviewing it, but I know that's asking for too much nowadays.)

But this is a review contest dedicated to games released or significantly updated in 2014, so there are restrictions here. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the contest imply 2014 content? I know that RMZ is boggled that people keep focusing on the stuff he did five years ago and nearly ignorant of the stuff he did for 2014 (in this case, with the exception of sharing the filename, something entirely separate from the original game).

That said...
JSH357 wrote:Maybe it mattered for the Heart contest, but certainly not here; nothing in the rules says you must focus on content added in 2014. The old contents of the game still exist, after all.
Maybe the rules are entirely up for interpretation, but if you look at them again:
The 2014 in Review Contest Rules wrote:RULES:


* Write a review for each game!
* Make each review at least 3 paragraphs long!
* Post a link to (or the review itself) in this thread!
* Do it for every game on the list before March 13th, 2015.
* It's okay to use reviews you wrote before this contest started! As long as it covers the latest version of the game as of 2014 and follows the above rules.
* For the compilation list you can review one, several, or all of the games on the list as a single compilation review. The list counts as a single 3-paragraphs required review.
I guess one way to interpret this is to review whichever file is most recent in 2014 instead of an older file released in some other year. But would you really download an older file for this contest, and do the rules honestly have to remind you to download whatever's most recent? I'd hope the rule is about more than that. More importantly, if you were basing your new review on an old one, why would you go back and say exactly what you said in 2010 (or whenever) and not say anything about the stuff that's changed (or been added)? If the author isn't clear about what he's added, then I suppose you're off the hook (how would you even know what's new?). But when the author outlines the new stuff for you and makes the info easy to find, why ignore it?

I'm not debating the review of the core game of Batman & Robin. Review it to your heart's content. I'm debating the lack of review for "Joker's Breakout," since that's clearly what is relevant in 2014, and the author even tells you that:
RedMaverickZero on Batman's game page wrote:This game was made from June 11th, 2010 to June 21st, 2010 for the Fan Game Contest, hosted on Slime Salad. All graphics are property of RMZ, if you wish to use them for whatever reason, I ask that you please ask first.

Update January 1st, 2011 : More enemies have been added, additional costumes, a secret stage, an overall increase to the detail of the game. This is now the final version of the game, as I intended it to be from the beginning.

Update June 12, 2014 : Music has been updated to ogg, Clayface reappearing infinitely bug, Joker's level puzzle switch from keypad to menus.

Update August 30, 2014 : Joker Mode has been added, more costumes to unlock, Boss Rush mode, minor bug fixes.
Tell me, if we're reviewing in this thread for 2014, which part of the original game is relevant to this contest?

This debate has gone moot now that Charbile has attempted to review "Joker's Breakout." But I do think my argument would stand if he hadn't.

Honestly, I don't even know why I feel the need to bring it up. I'd hope every reviewer here is more interested in helping his fellow developers by covering as much content and information as he can (like Giz does in his reviews) than he is in writing shotgun reviews in order to rack up points for a contest.

But, do what you want. Keep telling RMZ and players of Batman & Robin what he and they already knew five years ago. I'm sure he appreciates it.
Place Obligatory Signature Here
User avatar
Spoonweaver
Liquid Metal King Slime
Posts: 6461
Joined: Mon Dec 08, 2008 7:07 am
Contact:

Post by Spoonweaver »

@Pepsi, I wasn't asking if you were serious with your point. I was asking if you were serious with the entire tone of your post. You're complaining about a long review of a game that's not even yours. Think about that. Someone went out of their way to review a game and you're criticism them for it. Ever think that doing something like that might scare other potential reviewers off? Plus, you're not even doing any reviewing yourself. You're just posting wall after wall of cringe worthy tantrum talk.

Knock it off.
User avatar
The Wobbler
A Scrambled Egg
Posts: 2817
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:36 pm
Location: Underwater
Contact:

Post by The Wobbler »

Giz reviews are good.

Edit:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/dAT9M4w.png[/img] wrote:cringe worthy tantrum talk.
That's violence.
Last edited by The Wobbler on Sun Feb 08, 2015 6:48 am, edited 3 times in total.
User avatar
Feenicks
Metal Slime
Posts: 696
Joined: Tue Aug 10, 2010 9:23 pm
Location: ON THE AIR IN THE AIR
Contact:

Post by Feenicks »

Pepsi Ranger wrote: Tell me, if we're reviewing in this thread for 2014, which part of the original game is relevant to this contest?
If it's not meant to be played and viewed in the context of the original game, why has it been released in the form of a bonus game mode for it?
User avatar
JSH357
Liquid Metal Slime
Posts: 1341
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:38 pm
Location: Columbia, SC
Contact:

Post by JSH357 »

Well, if the contest is meant for new content to be reviewed, then how come nobody defended Motrya when every review sans Giz's in last year's contest had nothing to do with the new content? In fact, Pepsi, you yourself made a point to speak only of the Chapter 1 content. (Don't misunderstand my intent: I'm not asking for reviews, just pointing out a notable contradiction that should have been brought up then if this was actually as relevant as you say)

It just feels like you guys are trying to pile on Charbile to me. I get that he kind of invites it, but he's made a lot of great points in his reviews that are probably more valuable than this particular post/discussion.
My website, the home of Motrya:
http://www.jshgaming.com
User avatar
The Wobbler
A Scrambled Egg
Posts: 2817
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:36 pm
Location: Underwater
Contact:

Post by The Wobbler »

I'll be honest, I haven't actually read these reviews so I don't know if they're good or not. They're contest reviews. Made me throw my hands up and quit.
Post Reply