HamsterSpeak #35 Online

[The Wobbler]

http://superwalrusland.com/ohr/issue35/cover.html

Meatballsub helps provide a beefy issue this month, and puppets have their moment of glory. Three years down, X to go.

[JSH357]

Lots of reviews of old games... I'm not really in to those, but take what you can get I guess. The Dexmaster feature was great. For some reason I was under the impression he had made a lot more terrible games than that--did he have an alias MBS was not aware of?

MBS states in the String Quarter review that comedic RPGs are rare on the engine. How about no? I can name at least ten from this last year alone, and at one point everyone and his mother was whining about there being too many comedy games.

I'm not feeling the Game of the Year results, honestly. I know a lot of this is based on opinion, but I couldn't disagree more with some of the results. Tetris OHR, for instance, is by far one of the prettiest games on the engine. I don't say this to rain of any of the winners' parades, but I can't fathom picking Okedoke over it, as nice as Okedoke looks. It also bugs me that Village People won out over so many complete games, but what's there was pretty excellent so it isn't that big a deal.

I think that the "Best Design" category was a little too vague, which kind of explains the confusion over it.

Of course, the real culprit here is that not enough votes came in, which is sort of ironic to me since I've had people complain about the Top 30 including older games instead of focusing on the new--well, if people cared that much, then why didn't they vote for this? :/ Surlaw made plenty of threads and announcements about it.

God slime it, I forgot to write that Kana Learning article again. I'm sorry, it just hasn't been on the forefront of my mind, as I've been working on Motrya in my spare time. Soon enough we'll be able to preview it!

[Meatballsub]

MBS states in the String Quarter review that comedic RPGs are rare on the engine. How about no? I can name at least ten from this last year alone, and at one point everyone and his mother was whining about there being too many comedy games.

I did say that, but the very next sentence says that "many have tried but failed to make a decent one". There have been tons of joke games and even more that could probably be considered "inside joke games". However, very few "in my experience" have been geared toward the general audience, rather than being filled to the brim with various inside jokes.

String Quartet is a game that anyone can pick up and play without having to worry about quotes or cameos from other games, OHRRPGCE or non.

[FnrrfYgmSchnish]

The Dexmaster feature was great. For some reason I was under the impression he had made a lot more terrible games than that--did he have an alias MBS was not aware of?

After a quick glance at the Castle Paradox gamelist, it seems like he must have overlooked 4th Year by "MasterXGamy" (which is a bit odd, since one of the ones that was reviewed had a screenshot mentioning it.)

Strange that there's "1st Year," "4th Year," and "6th Year" but not any of the others in between them...

[Meatballsub]

The Dexmaster feature was great. For some reason I was under the impression he had made a lot more terrible games than that--did he have an alias MBS was not aware of?

After a quick glance at the Castle Paradox gamelist, it seems like he must have overlooked 4th Year by "MasterXGamy" (which is a bit odd, since one of the ones that was reviewed had a screenshot mentioning it.)

Strange that there's "1st Year," "4th Year," and "6th Year" but not any of the others in between them...

Dude! I can't believe I forgot one of them! I may have to write that one up for the next issue and ask for an apology for skipping it

[The Wobbler]

Of course, the real culprit here is that not enough votes came in, which is sort of ironic to me since I've had people complain about the Top 30 including older games instead of focusing on the new--well, if people cared that much, then why didn't they vote for this? :/ Surlaw made plenty of threads and announcements about it.

We received exactly half as many votes this year as last year, even though I gave people longer to vote and almost every one of the people who voted last year is still active. I'm not sure what else I can do. It drives me nuts this year especially because there were so many good games released.

The Dexmaster feature was my favorite.

Also, I voted for Okedoke and not Tetris for graphics because while Tetris looks great, it's Tetris. The backgrounds are imported photos (chosen very well, granted) and what's there looks wonderful, but it's still Tetris. Okedoke's visuals create a style and world not found anywhere else. I'm not even a fan of it as a game, but visually it easily trumps the rest of this year's games in my mind.

I really don't think "Best Design: This can be Plotscripting, map design, battle systems, or any other technical game aspects" is vague at all, it's just a category that covers a wide range of topics. If every one of those individual aspects had its own category, no one would have voted for them. It was hard enough to get full sets of votes in the categories we DID have. And who was confused about anything? All of the games that did well were extremely well scripted games. No one said anything about the category being vague or confusing in the months prior to voting.

[Bob the Hamster]

I love the puppets!

[Baconlabs]

Re: Game of the Year 2009

It's a given that there was a severe lack of votes, but it still irks me that Bloodlust didn't make it in the top 3 anywhere. Especially the Best Writing category. That mess was deep.
But that, that's probably for a different reason than I'm thinking.
The masses aren't saying Bloodlust sucks, they're just
A) Ignorant of the game's existance
B) Too scared to finish it
C) Eager to have something else get points (like OHR House or Village People)

Isn't there a poll going around that's asking everyone what games they enjoyed? Maybe feature that and other people will catch the fever and play more games. Even better, someone could take that a step further and write an article about the OHR underdogs.


Oh, or D) THEY DIDN'T FREAKIN VOTE

[Twinconclusive]

<s>I didn't want to vote until somebody could vote for something I made that didn't completely o_ o me.</s>

I-I mean, did not play enough games! :c

After the Photoshoot, I am sexually confused by puppets now?

I used to remember frequently seeing Adventur's screenshot with the floating head and everything in the random game thing on CP and that must have been the one thing I didn't ever click.

Overall a great showing as always.

[edit]
[<3]

[Pepsi Ranger]

I really like the puppet show idea. One thing this issue has reminded me about that I've noticed about HamsterSpeak's entire run is how much we seem to avoid photo covers. To date, I think this is only the second time that a photo was used in HamsterSpeak, and that's a shame. I love the creativity that went behind this cover, but I also love the simplicity. I'd like to see more photo covers (with obvious shopping tricks) like this in the future. I've had enough of the crayons and the crowded images. I know some artists love to draw, and that's fine. But let's get some more photo entries. I think my next submission will be photo based.

I agree that the Dexmaster article was the best of the bunch. Again, it's such a simple and obvious idea that I'm surprised no one's really done it before (unless you count the video JSH Retrospectives, which we are in desperate need for another). I think this would be a fine replacement for the Shiny but Rusty series, and since I'm probably gonna concede Covered With Dust this year (whenever I get around to finishing it), I think this kind of feature will be needed even more. Really good idea, and I thought it brought the best out of MBS's review skills.

Speaking of Meatballsub, I fear the day when he runs out of oil. Your work is great, but slow down, man. HamsterSpeak will survive another month. It's okay. Keep the home happy.

I've been looking forward to this year's Game of the Year since last February, and I must confess that I'm disappointed. It's not that I mind the results so much. Most of the things I voted for made the top charts. I'm disappointed, rather, at how little voter support goes into these polls anymore. I think the wild nature of the charts reflects how few people actually voted, and as an author, I find it highly discouraging. It tells me that either people aren't playing my game, or they don't care enough about my work to support me, or they don't care enough about the community to support the whole. I mean, look at the top games, Slimes and Don't Eat Soap. Both were excellent games. Both deserved a hefty stream of votes. Why on earth could they possibly tie for first if both were good enough to get the bulk, and otherwise diverse vote? Well, because they both only received 19 points. If top games receive three points a vote, does that mean only seven people voted? Where were the other fifteen or twenty active members that have been around for months, if not years? Are they not playing games? Why are they here then?

In the end, this is just a hobbyist community. Nothing to get worked up over. But for a community, I find it surprising just how little support we seem to offer each other anymore. Yeah, a game like Slimes will get attention because it's different, it's fun, and Spoonweaver made it (who has risen in popularity in '09). I thought it was a great game and I was happy to support it. But what about that guy who released Quest for the Bone last year? Or the one that was looking for help with Tests for Normality? How many of us PMed those authors giving them advice for making their games better? How many of us said nothing? How many even bothered to play them? Kudos, by the way, to the people who did play these games and spoke up about them.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't care how the Game of the Year or Top 30 results look. I care that so few people seem to be interested in supporting them. They don't rank themselves, and it seems that we forget that. I find it especially frustrating that JSH and Surlaw both allow two months for people to play the games and formulate their votes, and somehow the potential voters still forget to do anything about it. Have you or have you not played these games? If you have, why on earth is it so hard to form an opinion about them? This is a legitimate question, by the way. I want to know what's so hard about casting a vote, especially when you're given two months to put one together, especially when most games don't take more than an hour to get through. Would it be easier to rate them as you play them? Does Castle Paradox or Slime Salad need to implement a Rate as You Go system so that you can remember whether you liked a game or not? Do you need a profile tag that tells authors what you thought about their games? Will that system help you stay organized so that you don't have to keep turning JSH and Surlaw into grumpy old men?

We're regarded as one of the best game making communities around. We have one of the most encouraging and personable developers here. We have forum moderators who are active and supportive of ideas. We have a magazine that encourages community involvement. So why are we wasting it with such little community involvement, especially when it takes such little effort to support a game? It doesn't take much time or effort to even make a game anymore. We can do better than this.

On a completely unrelated note, I'm still waiting for the day that James will write his own feature for HamsterSpeak. I want to know his design philosophy. And because he is one of the few engine designers who is active with the community that supports it, I'd like to see at least one article in his own words that encourages newcomers to give the OHR a fair try. I think it'll make for a nice addition.

Well, that's probably it. The community involvement thing has been bugging me for a long time, and this felt like the right place to vent about that. I don't know if it will light any fires under people's feet in the future, but I hope it will at least get active members to think twice before they completely write off a good idea, like supporting your fellow community member and his crazy desire to formulate a Top 30 or Game of the Year list. Or, if the old guys are too far removed, then maybe some of you lurkers will come out of hiding for a change and get involved.

And I don't want anyone discouraged by this. I'm really trying to get people to respond to things more, because it's really the only way that a community can stay healthy. When seven people do all the work, six of them are gonna burn out in a year. Things can't work that way. The community needs more involvement. If you're a part of this community, stop being lazy. And just for the record, if you're still reading this, then you can't tell me you're too busy to vote or to do something helpful. I will not buy that for a second. You make time for whatever you want. MBS is a busy guy and he wrote half the magazine this month. Can you do that?

[Mogri]

Does Castle Paradox or Slime Salad need to implement a Rate as You Go system so that you can remember whether you liked a game or not?

Both sites have a rating system. It's probably a little more obvious here.

[Baconlabs]

What Pepsi Ranger said reminded me of something.
Part of the reason why I, or anyone else for that matter, never bothered to review games on Castle Paradox, and that's because of the long, tedious input that's necessary (which, combined with moderator inactivity, can result in a month-long pause between review submission and review availability.)
That's a reasonable excuse for inactivity.

But here, things are about as simple as can be. You submit a review and treat it like a new forum thread, just enter in some text, assert the game you're reviewing, maybe upload a picture, and you're done.
Star-voting games is a one-click feature, too. I don't see why people don't review more, 'cause that's a great way to voice an opinion AND give feedback to the artists who need it. We don't need to wait for Hamsterspeak to speak up and give reviews (though I'm not complaining, it helps sustain each issue). The opportunity is always there, and it's not difficult or time-consuming. (Unless you're a hopelessly bad typist)

Back to Castle Paradox reviewing for a second, I'd hazard a guess that the difficult interface was deliberate because, at some point in time, there were tons of junk reviews written by trolls or illiterate boobs that were stinking up the place. [/CP]

This is no longer the case. If anyone writes a review, it's probably by a community veteran and will be many many paragraphs long. This creates an unspoken rule that ALL reviews must look like this, which is very frightening to newbies or the weak of will. We need to encourage people of all sorts to play lotsa games and give sincere reviews and opinions about them. And not just the popular ones, either! I say we give a brownie to people who are the first to review a game.
With that said, I'm no review guru either. I need to build up my repertoire. This weekend, I'm reviewing some of my favorites.

tl;dr: REVIEW MOAR GAMES

[The Wobbler]

Where were the other fifteen or twenty active members that have been around for months, if not years? Are they not playing games? Why are they here then?

I got "I'll post my votes tomorrow" from like three different people, a week before the polls closed. None of them voted.

[Spoonweaver]

Hooray! I win! heh..

Seriously though, I'm honored. The attention Slimes has gotten is really awesome. First, game of the month, now tied for game of the year. Thank you.

The issue was entertaining aside from the results of course. That puppet cover, was awesome, and just as I was going to ask about the creation of them I saw the article about them. Nice.
The dexmaster article, honestly, made me laugh pretty hard. However, I hope to god he never sees it, it's pretty harsh. Poor guy, lol.
All and all a great issue. I always look forward to reading HamsterSpeak, and I hope to read it for years to come.


@The above comments:
That's some pretty harsh community bashing, but it's not as if I don't agree with a lot of it.
On the topic of the games Quest for Bone and Test of Normality. I both agree and disagree. I mean, first of all, lets be honest, these weren't exactly the best games. The total lack of attention didn't really make much since to me though. They were both far superior to a lot of other games that have come out. I think the main reason is because of the developer's lack of personal involvement in the community. If they were on here, reviewing, voting, generally commenting, then it's very possible someone would see their posts and perhaps decide to give their games a chance. As it is, Quest for Bone isn't even on SlimeSalad. If the developer isn't excited about his/her game, then why should I be.
At the same time, this community does seem to have a stigma against newbee members. I mean, the Dexmaster article is a prime example of our instinct to mock rather then help.
The comment on reviews that I read above is really spot on. I can't imagine any new member would want to write a review after reading the comments basically mocking a person for attempting to write a review but falling short. I've personally been berated for my sub-par reviews and it took away a lot of my drive to review games.

Anyways, with all that said, I think the community is great. We accomplish a lot and ask nothing in return. We're like missionaries or something. If video games where a religion.
Keep up the good work guys.

[Meatballsub]

Honestly, I try to be very constructive in my criticism when I review games. The only time I try and be a douche is when people (such as Dan Dela Rosa) habitually release terrible games and its obvious that they could care less about improving their skills.

And I second the puppet stuff; it is amazing.