The 2016 In Review Contest [Reviews: 43]

Make games! Discuss those games here.

Moderators: Bob the Hamster, marionline, SDHawk

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The Wobbler
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Post by The Wobbler »

marionline wrote:That would be cool. I'm using the OHR on Linux.
I'd like to review the game, but I can't promise to make it before the deadline of the contest.
I'm still busy with the wandering hamster game (and real life). Maybe the review would be written after the contest.
Cool, I sent it to you through a PM, let me know if that works!
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charbile
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Post by charbile »

Look at these postings. 4 from Fen, and only 1 from Giz? very very curious.

Congrats in advance, Marionline. On track to review them all! I really like your format. Every time I see the "Bravo! Great Design!" section, it puts a smile on my face like we're in some super upbeat anime. It's infecting me. Just found out about this, still reading through them at leisure. Very nice.

I see Hawk giving Fen doubt on his last review. Thought the heavy metal queen narrative was fine, you get a sense of the appeal of a game or what it's aiming for. But yeah, maybe not what it actually is. Sometimes it's fun to buy into a game like that, especially ones like... nah, who am i to judge. Haven't even played it.

If you want to accept reviews that aren't goofy or thin, I could super serious. Where's the flamewar? Did I miss any? Wouldn't that be retro cool to see. Kidding, just joking. What a challenge though: which review or kind of review do you think is the most solid? Any examples?
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TheLordThyGod
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Post by TheLordThyGod »

List of 2016 Games:

Andy and Ollie Save Christmas
BALE
Blackeagle
Dragon Chaser
Grapnes 2: Kepnalcide
Labyrinthilium
Mirrored Soul Gaiden
Necromancer Ate My Cat
Puckamon
Quodia
Sour City by Phil
Spooks and Summons
Star Trucker
Surfasaurus
The Successor's Legacy
Void Pyramid
witch2.rpg
You Need a Hero

C. Kane
Color Organizer
Dark Planet
Dungeon Bout
FruityQuest
Gomie's LoveTester
LinearQuest III: Dungeon Maze
Magic and Monsters
Nathan's Halloween
Overgrowth Demo
Wandering Hamster
Yi
...spake The Lord Thy God.
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SDHawk
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Post by SDHawk »

marionline wrote:Okay, thanks for clarifying the rules. :)

About RMZ's game, Steam says it's only for windows and I'm not using a windows machine.
And it also looks like I need to sign in to download the game, is that correct?
(I'd rather not do that.)

For now, I'll just continue the compilation list.
Since the game is still ultimately an OHR game, you should probably be able to just use the .rpg after downloading it. That said, you would still need to install steam and register an account. You can try sending a message to RMZ asking for a bare copy if you want, though.
charbile wrote: If you want to accept reviews that aren't goofy or thin, I could super serious. Where's the flamewar? Did I miss any? Wouldn't that be retro cool to see. Kidding, just joking. What a challenge though: which review or kind of review do you think is the most solid? Any examples?
What's a review, anyway? It's something I think about a lot as videos have nearly made the written review extinct. And why wouldn't they, for most people's purposes they can figure out whether they want to play something after a few minutes of footage. More detailed commentary is available in a host of easily digestible video formats if they need it, too.

That shift might have consequences, though. One of the things written reviews really excel at is putting the reader in the place of the reviewer as a player. I've seen plenty of video reviews where the author is desperately trying to get the viewer to understand how they felt about a game at the time (usually about very old games), but all the while the footage of the game itself is constantly backstabbing them and dragging the viewer into the realm of stark reality instead of imagination.

You see this shift happen most obviously when it comes to people having to demonstrate turn based RPGs, or strategy games, or whatever other slow paced genre. Most of the time people have to resort to explaining how the game works while plodding through it (or cutting between action shots). Or when playing through them, they'll have to resort to funny voices or comical reactions to the plot. A really passionate player can make it work, but can you imagine these videos being your first introduction to these types of genres? Most of the time the descriptions of what makes a game different relies heavily on you already understanding the appeal to begin with. Videos have to work hard to shine a light on the actual appeal, they can't give you that flash of understanding where for one brief moment that knight you named after your friend really was your friend and really did land the final blow on the boss with the rest of the party dead.

So naturally Tim Roger's reviews are probably my favorite game reviews? His earlier reviews had a lot of focus on time and place which wasn't always that great, but was probably worthwhile in setting up context for older games. His middle era of reviews got more caught up in writing what can essentially be described as fan fiction about Japanese game developers (which is an appealing concept because they say so little that everyone wants to know what's actually going on in their heads). There was always a good point about the games in the lies, and they were fun/obvious lies, but it still never sat quite right with me to make things up about real people. The late era reviews got more obsessed about trying to define and describe the abstract feeling of various mechanics, and what makes things feel good. This is an incredibly important topic that no one talks about, but naturally he ended up moving on to making games after that (this is usually the problem with people who write about games in depth).

(Oh, right, you wanted an example. Maybe look up his review of Earth Bound? Probably only pops up in my mind because I discussed it with JSH once, but I still occasionally think about the player/developer relationship he mentions.)

There are other great styles of text reviews out there, but it's getting late and memory is failing me. I remember an old comedy game review site I used to read a lot of, the guy had a thing about Abobo or something? I don't think the reviews were actually all that funny (not as funny as some of the previous entries in this very contest anyway), but it's amazing to think about how that style of comedy internet writing is fading away now (lives on with cracked I suppose, but even they're shifting to video).
Last edited by SDHawk on Mon Jun 05, 2017 6:51 am, edited 4 times in total.
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marionline
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Post by marionline »

@charbile: I'm happy to hear you like reading the reviews I wrote. :)
I also like reading other peoples reviews. I feel my vocabulary is somewhat limited and reading helps to find new expressions.

@SDHwak: Should there unexpectedly be still time to review surfasaurus, I might try to ask RMZ for an .rpg file to review.
Any OHR reviews for an old contest you'd recommend?

In regard to the discussion, I'd say there are two types of reviews one that pretends to be objective and one that is subjective.
There is no real objectivity there because the author will always put some personal opinions into the writing. I guess that also applies to video reviews where the author is talking.
I'm trying to write objectively although that's not possible. I try to find out what is done well and what not so well, (and why it works) so I can try to copy the good parts and avoid the bad one when making a game. Unfortunately it's easier to find something to improve than to figure out why something works well.

And here's a review for wandering hamster
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Post by TMC »

Oh ho, a Charbile appears!

What is a review?

Well I don't actually care; the question I ask myself is: if multiple other people review the same game, how can I make my review stand out? Stand up? Be useful? In what circumstances is anyone going to bother reading through a whole set of lengthy reviews?
Marionline's summaries are a good example. They kind of feel like they're written for the game author. A slightly different idea, summarising why you might want to play the game or why not seems almost to maximise the utility of the review for someone trying to make that decision, yet there are plenty of other reasons to read one. Reviews are generally written both for the players and the game author.
Whenever I write comments on game I just can't help writing about minutiae that could be improved. Probably I should put that stuff in a PM instead. However plenty of comments aimed at the game author are also helpful for other people creating games too, so definitely that should go in the review.

----

It's really nice to see an unbiased, long and solid review of Wandering Hamster. The fact that you had never played it before means your point of view isn't tilted due to having played it long ago, as most people here. Most of us remember what the game was like with James instead of Misa, and may just have too much nostalgia over it.
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charbile
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Post by charbile »

Interesting thoughts.

On the shift to video reviews, have been thinking about it too. Some video reviewers seem to just read aloud a written review (Yahtzee comes to mind.) So there's still a need for text, at least production wise. You could read aloud any of this year's reviews, slap some images together, would up the entertainment value. Easier to digest for most. I enjoyed JSH's (and everyone else's, really) videos. Let's plays with commentary. The ultimate feedback.

On writing objectively, I think it's possible, but not exactly the right frame of mind or desire. Readers want to know what a game is, but they can consume all the marketing (screenshots, trailers, letsplays, ad copy, etc) or play it themselves to get an objective experience (barring wacky expectations). What they really want is to hear your thoughts about it. Not so much what the game is exactly, but is there anything of note about it. Anything to talk about, or worth playing. Something to have a discussion forums on.

if i were to review some more, not saying i will...

thinking easymode like what you're saying TMC, would be just talking about the game to whoever made it like it's a private message or irc. having someone to bounce ideas off of or give your design some thought is always useful, sometimes fun. who wouldn't want someone to tell them how to make their game, haha

also, Misa DuHamstre??? didn't know about this. Neat
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SDHawk
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Post by SDHawk »

Of course scripts are still involved, but y'know: "George, you can type this slime, but you can't say it!". Even the sloppiest self-trained speaker in the world with the most minimal visual presentation is going to start to shift their writing to accommodate the spoken form after enough years. There's a lot of first person writing you can't do in spoken form without starting to sound like a crazy person, to pick a random example. It's a very subtle shift that goes in hand with going from "a couple paragraphs in a magazine with a few screenshots" to "watch the entire game in video form if you want to" in terms of available information.

Player feedback is an interesting topic in of itself. Let's Plays give a more readily accessible taste of it these days, but there's always that layer of the player putting their own thoughts into relating what they experienced- coming up with their own explanations and solutions for issues without even realizing it. There's the more stripped down version of watching the face of someone as they play a game, registering their expressions changing in reaction. Valve goes so far as to track the eyes of players to figure out what visual elements are and aren't actually drawing attention.

I guess what I'm getting at is that we have a lot of sage developer to developer talk here, but not so much conveying more basic player experiences. That's probably just inevitable given the nature of the community, though.
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Posting my first two reviews here. I'll get to the others later.

C.Kane

https://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7390

Surfasaurus

Note: I'm posting the two Surfasaurus reviews here directly, in their entirety, because it is not available on the game list, and I cannot post the review to the reviews section without it. So, I hope that's cool.

This review was originally posted on Steam, under my alt-name, zippywings. Porting it here for all of the fanboys (and for the 2016 Review Contest):

First the disclaimer:

Whatever time shows up on my playtime stats, it's considerably lower than the truth. I've actually been playing a pre-Steam-release version of Surfasaurus off and on since last summer (2016), so ignore the time stats.

I was also given a Steam key as a courtesy to my support of this game in the past. But I would've paid for my copy anyway!

Now the facts:

This game is great, but you need to consider a couple of factors before you choose to buy it (and let me just say that you should choose to buy it, but I digress...well, no I don't; you should buy it, but still...)

1. This is not the kind of game you can just binge on. Well, you can, but not without cheating. Let me explain.
-Surfasaurus is designed with mobile play in mind. No, not that stupid pay-to-play freemium stuff. None of that here. No, it's designed as "potato chip gaming," in that you only need to play about 15 minutes a day to get the full effect of what this game is. I'll explain more in a moment.

2. You should play the mobile version if you haven't already, but the Steam version is bigger. No, not longer with more features. I just mean you can see the screen better. Unless you're playing on a six-inch monitor. Then maybe the phone is better. You should really get a bigger monitor.

3. It's designed on the OHRRPGCE, which means that resolution is limited for now. Suck it up. It's a fun game.

4. The price is way too low for its quality. I keep trying to convince the designer to raise the price to $4.99 or higher. I don't think he'll do it. Take advantage of the low price! It's worth it.

5. This game fits in the same world as the designer's other games, including one that's already on Steam, called Mr. Triangle's Adventure. I haven't reviewed that game yet, but I will. It's also worth playing. You don't need to play Mr. Triangle's Adventure to appreciate this one, but it does help if you want to "get" some of the references.

You get the idea.

Now, the way this game works is that you play the game in real time, which means, if you're playing on a Thursday night between 5pm and 9pm, you can visit the cafe in the game to play its Trivia night. The game "lives" parallel to our own world and time, so the game exists at whatever time and day you're playing in real life. That's both a positive and negative.

The positive is that you can plan your gaming time around the events that would happen at the same time in the game. In other words, if you're playing on a Sunday, then you can probably visit the kiosks and buy costumes, since the town's vendors show up on Sundays. Same thing with trading cards. Want to listen to one of the island's special guest bands at the cafe? Play on a Friday or Saturday night, instead of going out to the bars and clubs with your real life friends. It's cheaper.

The negatives are basically identical to the positives. If you have Thursday night commitments, for example, you might miss out on Trivia night. This is why the mobile version is more accessible than the desktop version, even though it's smaller. At least you can play trivia with gorillas and parrots the same time you're doing whatever you'd normally be doing on a Thursday night. It's a bit harder on the desktop, unless you have some useful way to lug your desktop around everywhere.

Or you could have the best of both worlds and play it on your laptop. That works, too.

Gameplay is simple. You just talk to townies, pick fruit, collect trash, and interact with others in order to collect bonuses, buy things, trade things, etc. There's also a social element, where you can learn about the townies through trading card collection, and find out their likes, dislikes, and birthdays. Knowing these things improves your social standing around town. You can also visit the gym to make yourself stronger, but you have to make sure you visit it consistently. Don't treat it like your own gym, the one you have a membership for but haven't visited since last August. You need to actually show up at this one consistently if you want to get far in the game.

Oh, and of course, there's surfing. Eh, you'll figure it out. It's easy, but important.

So, on the surface this game doesn't look like much, and if you expect to play the whole thing in one sitting, then you're not going to get much out of it, especially since playing the whole thing in one sitting will mean playing for a month straight--I hope you don't have that kind of free time. But, when you think of it as a lifestyle, and a consistent adventure (use your imagination), you'll find that there's a lot to mine from this little gem of a game. All you have to do is play a little here, play a little there, then get back to the grind of real life.

Or, you could just mess with your computer's system clock and marathon the thing. Do what you want.

Just get the game and give it a chance. It's smart. And it's grossly underpriced. Take advantage of that. One of these days the developer might actually take my advice and raise the thing to $4.99 or higher. And pick up Red Triangle Games other titles, too, if you want the complete experience. All of his games exist in the same universe, so you'll get more out of each if you give each a chance. You can get the whole series for hardly anything.

Oh, and just for trivia, this game is a contest winner. Look it up.

I could say more, but I don't want to ruin any surprises.

(end Steam review)

This next review was written in the Heart of the OHR 2016 thread:

Synopsis:
Dinosaur is banished to a small island where surfing and trivia are king, and he must somehow make a new life for himself as a surfing champion amidst a band of chatty citizens and a real time system.

General Opinion:
This is probably my favorite game of the contest so far. I think RedMaverickZero has made his definitive game with this one. It takes the best of his skills, the best of his characters, and melds them all into not just a game, but an experience. Reminds me a little of certain elements from Stardew Valley, including the chill tone. Even though it is not a traditional RPG, it still works as a social RPG, and does it well. Right up my alley.

Pros:
-The game is well-designed, well-thought out, and has an interesting range of diverse characters to keep you talking to them for a bit. Their comments change depending on the time and the day, which maintains the game's variety each time you play.
-The real time system, while controversial, keeps the player from having to invest too much time in the game at a single pop, but also rewards you for playing at different times of day by giving you a slightly different experience.
-There's generally a gimmick (trivia, puzzles) that keeps you checking back from time to time, and on specific days of the week. Gives the game a unique personality that "lives even when you're not playing."
-Stats are extensive and gives value to nearly everything you do.
-Graphics, sounds, and music are all pleasant and adhere to RMZ's trademark style.
-There's very little interaction with people or objects that's ultimately pointless. Even the act of breaking rocks has value.
-There are plenty of items to buy or discover.
-Little touches like the smart clock help add to the game's personality and gimmick.
-Learning surfing moves is part of the adventure.

Cons:
-Even though the real time system adds variety to the game, it's easy to see how a week's worth of playing will expose its repetitious nature for what it really is.
-The real time system also makes things difficult when real life schedules conflict with certain events like trivia night.
-Buildings are relatively empty most of the time.
-Characters have only one response per condition, which means they will inevitably run out of things to say before long.
-Island is small, so it doesn't leave much room for exploration. Seeing as how this game utilizes real time, a second or third island providing different experience, gimmicks, or adventures would be helpful to fill in "dead time."
-Not sure what the hotel is there for, other than for scenery.
-While the game is great, it isn't perfect. Some inconsistencies between dialogue and events remain. The first puzzle I played was broken when I played it on Wednesday (the numbers puzzle), but seemed fine when I played it tonight, so the bugs could potentially hurt the stat record. Shouldn't be hard to fix though.

Suggestions:
Keep adding to it. It's great so far, but also limited when you consider how certain times give you much more to do than other times do. Also, recognizing weeks might give you more variety to work with when all of the current week's systems and conversations have worn out. It's basically built for expansion.

Rating:
9 out of 10

(end Heart of the OHR 2016 review)

If/when I post my other reviews, they'll appear in the reviews section. If RMZ ever creates a game entry for Surfasaurus, I'll move these there.
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marionline
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Post by marionline »

Wrote a review for C.Kane
Next I'll read Pepsi Ranger's reviews.
Do you read other peoples reviews before or after you write one yourself?
SDHwak wrote:I guess what I'm getting at is that we have a lot of sage developer to developer talk here, but not so much conveying more basic player experiences. That's probably just inevitable given the nature of the community, though.
That's true. Also to me it seems that is the main reason there are so few reviews here, because everyone is more or less busy game making.
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charbile
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Post by charbile »

marionline wrote:Also to me it seems that is the main reason there are so few reviews here, because everyone is more or less busy game making.
smile on my face ten miles wide, thanks for that

I tend to read others' reviews before I write. It's more interesting, not afraid to cover same ground or lose interest--it actually helps as then the review can be part of a dialogue more than a stand-alone formal 'this is so' from on high, kind of thing. To Mogri's credit, the simple addition of allowing users to comment on reviews is smart for this, compared to how it used to be handled from what I remember. Nowadays, people simply expect any review to have a comments section.

About conveying more basic player experiences, might be onto something here. I want to knee-jerk and say it's the fault of the games, but that doesn't mean a reviewer can't at least attempt to understand the aim and talk about how to better convey it. But isn't that what Fenrir's review was? It was about the experience. Mission accomplished, right?
What do you mean by more basic player experience?
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marionline
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Post by marionline »

I tried a comic review... I fear I missed the point (that would be to make a review) and drew a story instead how the characters react to the tech demo of their game. :P
Anyhow I had fun drawing this comic.
(You'll have to read it in manga style.)

Image

Image

Image

Image
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All in all ... too many bugs
All in all ... too many bugs
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Why review this?
Why review this?
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One day in Mage School
One day in Mage School
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marionline
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Post by marionline »

I nearly forgot them, but here it is: A really short review on Gizmog's Firework3d and Watereffect.

Review on Firework3d and Watereffect by Gizmog

Firework3d and Watereffect were made by Gizmog. Both "games" are really short, not not really games.
They show what one can do with plotscripting, similar to the screensaver Yi.
They can be found in a collection of scipt-demos called OHR Screen Saver

Firework3d works with colourful circles that seem to fall of the screen and then are dropped down from the top again. They move so fast that they can not be seen (or displayed?) well except for once,and that creates a flashing on the screen , a bit like a firework.
Water effects is different, there is an image shown on the screen. The pixels of the image move, to create an effect as if the images in mirrored on a water surface.

Water effects is very impressive! I could imagine me using it in a game. (Firework3d was not that impressive, since the dots did not seem like firework to me.)
Water effects includes the scripts needed to run it and the third part.hsi and a read-me with copyright information. Firework3d does not, maybe it is unfinished?
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Gizmog
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Post by Gizmog »

marionline wrote:Firework3d does not, maybe it is unfinished?
Oh! Somehow it must've gotten away from its documentation. You can press (or hold) Spacebar to generate fireworks. The stuff you see at the start is because of a goofball workaround to keep from having to write like.. 5 more lines of script. Glad you liked the other one! And how nice to review fire and water at the same time!
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Gizmog
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Post by Gizmog »

Blackeagle Reviewed! Sure I'm forgetting to link the others, but I'll get to it eventually.

Also, I feel like I should say it: You can make a good game name-dropping Hitler and Jesus. You can even make a funny one. I don't want to seem like one of them moralists running around with my head cut off or hypocritical or anything. I don't feel like the game is serious enough to be satire, and I don't feel like it's ridiculous enough to be outrageous. It's kind of in the middle of the road.

One of the heroes threatens to rape and murder a hotel clerk, and I don't want to be squeamish or a prude and say there's no place for that in art, because there is. But nothing comes of it, we're not seeing that the good guys are bad guys, or that the bad guys are good guys. There's not a moral to the story, I guess you could say, and so it feels like it's just random slime happening. In another game, I might absolutely despise this, and in yet another, I might support it. Blackeagle doesn't make me feel much either way, and that's kind of damning in and of itself.
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