The Great 2011 Review Contest [Reviews: 200]

I really, really disagree with this. I've seen ugly, Atari-style (and actual Atari!) games that don't work for me at all. This one works for me. Again, the tiles aren't attractive, but I think the sprites are good for this style and funny, and attractive tiles wouldn't really work with that. It's totally cool to not like them, but they're not zero effort products with no style.

---

Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

Fnrrf: You are correct. I appreciate you noticing it!

By the way, Harbinger 6EQUJ5 now has a walkthrough inside its readme file. Any who is interested can solve the game and see that it isn't impossible, but just very cryptic.

The solution to the lightning maze is left, right, left in sequence.

There is a better ending. You must collect 2 items to make it happen. Are you up to the challenge, OR WILL THE GREY STAR HAUNT YOU FOR ETERNITY.

By the way, when is the Amish contest ever going to be judged?

Spoonweaver's Retrospective: Deforestation

The idea for deforestation was basically to make the shortest simplest ohr movie I could make, just to get my foot in the door of the contest. Then, see how much I could boost it's final rank by hype alone.
I started out with the idea to just make a movie poster and a trailer, but as the hype parade went on I saw people's interest in the hype I was posting rise and felt the need to post more and more.
However, after spending less then a couple hours to make Deforestation, I got impatient. The hype started to get to my own head and I kept thinking I needed to make this thing bigger and better. "I could win this thing," I told myself.
The movie started off, as someone who had pre-watched it mentioned, as just the simple dialog between the lumberjack and the hippy and then ended. But, after the hype got to my head I kept thinking of ways I could throw something else in somewhere to keep my original plan intact and yet improve upon the movie somehow. That's how I blew up the world.
The blowing up the world reflected what I had done to my cute little movie. It was turned into garbage. I no longer held hope of winning with what I had done. So I hatched a plan.

Spoonweaver's Retrospective: Deforestation 2

After the flop that was Deforestation hit the digital shelves of Slime Salad, I lost hope of winning the contest I had originally not set out to win. I came up with a super misguided plan to fight quality with quantity. Deforestation 2 was made with Deforestation 3 in mind. I wanted to make a trilogy. Movies seemed to be moving in the direction of the trilogy so I thought making deforestation a trilogy would invoke thoughts of trilogies that people loved and might get me some votes based solely on that fact.
Making Deforestation 2 was done with even less effort than Deforestation 1. With no real plan for the plot of this sequal, I looked up jokes online and basically used one as my plot. I threw in the characters from Technoship Funkotron for 2 reasons. The first being I had already done them and I could just important them (easy). The second being I know I had generated some "fame" with those characters and thought they could help my score.
The result was much like those of the 2nd installment to most movie trilogies. People disliked it. This dashed my hopes of winning the contest, or even ranking slightly high. However, the hype was still getting a lot of attention. With the hate Deforestation got from people and some of the other entries in the contest clearly making more effort then I was, I got bitter. That bitterness would fuel the final installment to the trilogy.

Spoonweaver's Retrospective: Deforestation 3

I didn't approach this movie like I did the others. I actually allotted more then an hour or 2 to it's creation first of all. I worked on it for about 3days. I wanted to make something truly rememberable but I wasn't focused on winning anymore. I felt like winning was impossible, (defininately when I found out my personal score would be averaged).
I remembered some slightly terrible games in the past getting attention because of OHR character cameos and so the plot was born. I would kill all the ohr main characters I could think of. (If your character isn't in the game, sorry? I guess?)
I started the game off by killing what I considered to be my own main character Tim-tim. I didn't want to draw too much attention to my own character, but at the same time I wanted to still put it in the movie. So I never really mention him but he's there in the opening scene. I add Giz to the movie because I was talking with people on IRC about what they considered to be their main OHR character and he answered himself. (I thought that was pretty funny)
After 2 days of making this thing, I actaully recieved 2 messages. Both basically wondering why the guys from funkotron didn't rape anyone, and why deforestation wasn't more edgy, basically. At this point I scraped the original plan to end the movie with Mr. triangle being thrown into Bob the hamster impaling him and then having the Lumberjack explode not just the world but the galaxy. This is when I started making the "love" scene.
By day 3, the "love" scene was complete and my bitterness was gone with it. I had to think up a new way to kill Bob now that Mr. Triangle was dealt with in another way (though thinking about it now I still could have ended it the same way, though that would have been more gross). This is when someone reminded me of my never released colab game that had a guitar hero part in it. During the guitar hero mini game, the main hero was playing a guitar and I remember that I really liked how easily I made the guitar playing effect, and I thought of using that. That's when the guitar ending to Deforestation 3 was born.
Thoughts of still blowing up the galaxy floated through my mind, and the main reason it didn't happen was laziness (yea... that's the only reason).
Anyways, in the end I'm glad I ended the slasher flick on a high note. The whole trilogy was marking me more and more as a troll and I think the happy ending might have helped my rep some (Even though there might be no saving it at this point).

Deforestation:Origins, the gritty series reboot, due out in 2012?... or not ;)

Like who?

I read a quote from a marketing guy recently which you might find interesting: "Remember that praise and criticism are the same: other people's thoughts that shouldn't sway your overall mission. (We tend to accept praise but loathe criticism. Learn to loathe it equally.)" It assumes you have an overall mission though.

Mostly Involving Robots
---

No exe file included. As a player it's very frustrating. The game.exe I chose auto-updated it, so hopefully it works right.

The title screen is text. These are video games! Video! I want some visual stimulation. Get me worked up, get me hyped! My eyes are flaccid with these text title screens.

I assume this was another entry into the fight or battle contest. Greeted by a midi track of Portal's "I'm alive" song. Graphics are above average, but the tileset is incomplete. There's a happy orange block npc, and a sad blue one I'm playing as. They're named Anger and Misery.

I actually like these characters. They'd make for an interesting full rpg. As it stands, too many names are being thrown out too fast.

The battle's ok for what it is. It has the common problem of the player not knowing about or seeing all the neat things going on that the developer put in place. Though it was explained in the text before the battle, it's better if you can show it.

Judgment: Not much here.

Nordomin: Quest of Creole
---

It's an odd title. Not bad, but 'creole' has me thinking of food.

It's a chapter 1 release. Another text title. Hopefully the game has more to it.

It begins with the world story, something best saved for later or as flavor text spread throughout the game. At this point, I feel like I'm on a fairly predictable slow moving roller coaster that never really climbs.

You get to choose which Goddess you align yourself with, which is neat. Seems very D&D. I chose "I'm not sure..." but it doesn't do anything. It's a tough choice between "Seer of Fate" and "Voice of Wind". If this were a commercial rpg, I could trust "Patron of Life" would be the best choice for the healing, but wind seems to be speed and fate just sounds cool. Going with fate, "telepathic abilities, and are able to direct the emotions of others." Curious to see what this means ability-wise in game.

Even get to choose your sex and name. Nice.

It seems that fate means I can reduce enemy accuracy and magic, stun, and scan HP. Not bad.

You also get to choose your responses for dialogue. I'm liking this. The graphics aren't bad. The music needs work. It wanders too much, needs more structure. Sounds homemade though.

I'm having trouble making out who I'm playing. Creole's blue, Agora's black. Can't tell if they're elves or furries or something else.

The battles are very forgiving: one of my characters died, but the next battle they were back to full health. Spells don't cost anything to do, and reducing accuracy actually works well. There aren't random battles, only wandering enemy npcs.

The music is actually getting a tad obnoxious. It's cool if this is custom made, but it's too random! Probably made in a program that doesn't show measures. Can't even tell the beat.

First boss killed me. I was dealing 16 at most, and scan showed it at 600+ HP. Suppose I should have fought more enemies.

Judgment: Play if you'd like to see the beginnings of a fun rpg and don't mind poor music composition.

May come back to it later. Don't remember seeing the author anywhere. Hope he hasn't given up.

---

transylvania girls
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=86672#86672

no eat
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=86673#86673

raep dungeon
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=86674#86674

I can write those in the style I'm doing now, where I give my impressions as I go if those don't count. They were all great.

Previously written reviews are eligible, yes.

Princess Flesh Cartoon RPG
---

No exe file included. The readme has me interested though. If I win the 'tetris dagger' and equip it to princess flesh bone, it promises to be very fun.

Something sounds really off with the title song. Like a skipping or sucking sound. I appreciate there are actual graphics on it.

The graphics aren't great, the map's okay. I don't mind blocky maps, so long as they're done tastefully.

First thing I find is a note saying this is a demo and giving the credits. Jesse R. Garza: you can just say 'princess flesh by' instead of each part. There's a link to his/her deviantart page. So this is an actual person.

The text and sound effects are making me laugh, in a good way. What in the world is this! "yes or no?" "Yes. I'm ready if you are!" THWUMP

Battles take forever until you get Emilly Cricket by... talking to a closed door. The battle music is pretty nice, though ripped.

I can see what looks like a sword at the bottom, going to get it...

Judgment: Think I just got trolled.

I just tried to start a video review-a-thon, and I want to persevere with it, but... it's going to be difficult. The first thing I tackled was the updated Grayscale, during which I flew off the handle spouting angry things about how awfully predictable its newbie elements were, with heavy emphasis on the myriad allusions to Pokemon. I broke down sobbing when a character in-game actually mentioned Pokemon by name.

I'm deleting this first take for many reasons, the biggest one being that the game music drowned out my voice (my fault for forgetting to tweak the audio levels), but also because it's not constructive at all. It's not even criticism, it's just me getting upset at a newbie game. This might be entertaining for some people, but I'm almost certain that unless Master K was trolling me with his game, he won't find it amusing in the slightest.

And I think the purpose of these reviews is to provide constructive criticism, right? Please stop me here if I'm wrong. The effort will be worthwhile if my reviews get through to a single OHR game maker and genuinely gets him or her to improve their efforts and make a better game.

Anyway, first bit of advice, always include game.exe and the .dll files when distributing your game.

It's kind of neat that you're starting with Grayscale. I'm supposed to be reviewing it next and I'm having trouble deciding how to judge it. It seems like a pretty solid demo, but it always freezes when I go to the mansion. I don't know how to deal with the fact that the hero is level 99. Walking through without difficulty makes it hard to judge a game on how fun it'll be, but the story is likable so far.

I also think you're making the right choice in not being angry with your reviews. It's easy to be angry and plenty of video reviewers do it, but it's much harder to explain how something can be improved in a way that's helpful to the author and interesting to the average viewer. It'll be tough, but you can do it.



This point cannot be emphasized enough. Put as few obstacles between your game and its players as possible. Including an .exe convenient and it also eliminates the risk they'll use an incompatible version of game.exe and blame you for the resulting glitches.

Spoonweaver's Retrospective: Escape the Zombie Horde

To put it short, this game really wasn't what I had imagined making. Made for the Ludum Dare 48 hour contest, it was already given too little time to become fully developed. However when coupled with an unexpected work schedule, the game really never had a chance.
I ended up making this game in about 5 hours. And as such a lot of the ideas I had for the game never really came together. There are a number of bugs that never got taken care of, and you can't even win.
I was happy to actually upload a game though. Having never taken part in Ludum Dare before, I wasn't really sure what to expect. I ended up having a lot of fun playing the other games and talking with other game developers I might never have met otherwise. Also, because of the contest, Escape the Zombie Horde, became one of my more downloaded games almost over night. Because of the number of downloads it received I almost went back and fixed it up.
The reasons I didn't fix this game up were a few. The major one is that I didn't really have much hope for it. The main criticism this game got was that you just press space bar through the whole thing. Even though there was meant to be hunting and some better decisions to be made along the journey, pressing the space bar was still going to be the main activity in the game. This is just how I remembered Oregon Trail (which the game is roughly based off of, in case you didn't realize), you press space bar about 100 times and hope you bought the right supplies and got lucky enough to make it to Oregon before losing your children to terrible illnesses. I'm not really sure what people (including myself) found fun about that game. I guess it's just one of those things that can't be recreated.
Another reason I didn't fix this game up is that I simply didn't feel like I had the time. There were a couple times when I went to fix it up but decided I should work on Tim-tim2 or Legendary heroes instead. Basically, I assumed those 2 games had a better chance of actually being good, and so I worked on them instead.
I ended up uploading a new file of the game including the script in text file format for anyone with interest to look at. Maybe someone else will use it to make an actually good Oregon Trail game in the future.

Having judged "The Say It Ain't So" Contest, I reviewed 3 games on the list here. Seeing that "Reviews written before this contest started are still eligible" I figure I might as well just us the old reviews instead of writing new ones. I'm not sure I'd say anything different this time that I didn't before anyways. But, we'll see I guess.
I can't make reviews for 2 of the games on Slimesalad, because they aren't on Slimesalad. So, instead of linking to them in the old thread, I'll just re post them all here.


Fenrir-Lunaris's "RAEP Dungeon"

As with all of Fenrir's games, the graphics in this game were top notch. Some of the most refined graphics in the whole contest were in this game. ( This includes the ripped graphic in Sephy's entry ) Graphics are very important when you're making the kind of game that this contest was calling for, but they aren't everything.
The fact that this game was so incomplete is what landed it in 3rd place. As disturbing as some of the enemies and overall plot might have been, I still would have liked to see more. There's an overabundance of unfinished games in the OHR community and I don't plan to reward someone for adding another.
The gameplay was very basic in this game. Which isn't terrible, but after seeing what the other games in the contest had to offer, I found myself bored with this title. The ripped music wasn't doing this game any favors either.

New thought?: I regret voting this to 3rd place. I should have made it tied for first, but I wanted to play up Nathan Karr's game a bit because it was the best game he's ever made. This game is pretty darn good, but I don't suggest playing it.


Nathan Karr's "NO EAT"

Before I even started playing this game I expected a strange experience, and this game didn't disappoint. No Eat is perhaps the best game ever made by the developer Nathan Karr. The cutscenes look like something straight form his comic series and the gameplay actually kept me entertained.
This point in the game were you choose which weapon you get really sets this game apart from Raep Dungeon in my eyes. It adds a layer of re playability to the game that actually had me coming back for more. ( I needed to know what was in those chests )
The Graphics in this game were above passable. This was some of Nate's best work. The mouth part, that I posted a screen shot of, really surprised me.
The sound effects were great, though the game could have used a bit more sound. Overall I think the sound in this game was pretty good.
I did have a bit of a problem with the battle backdrops in this game. The final boss was kind of gross looking, but mostly it was the fact that they were all most likely ripped. If you're going to go through the trouble of doing all the other graphics you really should make them all and not just rip 1 or 2. It calls into question the origins of all the other graphics in your game when you do that.
Overall, the game was amazing. I would have liked to see a bit more going on in it though. 1 or 2 more choices like the weapon one would have been fantastic.

New thought?: Ripped graphics?! For Shame Nathan! For shame....



SDHawk & The Giz's "Transylvania Girls"
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=89235#89235