Author Topic: about teh listin'...  (Read 7791 times)

Zorb Burger

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about teh listin'...
« on: 2006-01-20, 07:40:38 PM »
alot o dem gams be over ated.  lik teh family runoin is so borin and i los my wepon.  not a 4 but 2 star ratin wou do it right.  an age of rust er what ever dat is is so so repeativte tha i be alo ways fallin asleep an dyin.

dis al ma opinion dough, so dont be mean... :-[

one mer thin the bob teh unlike is a joke, no guy sho gibe 3 star!! >:(

Zorb Burger

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Re: about teh listin'...
« Reply #1 on: 2006-01-20, 08:38:33 PM »
jus go thru playin gam call Cinos or somfin, it was teh oberated!1 teh graphic wer all blurry an teh gam froz

bluemonkmn

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Re: about teh listin'...
« Reply #2 on: 2006-01-21, 09:27:41 AM »
How can you say they're overrated when you don't even know the scale that they're being rated on?  If they're all overrated, then none of them are overrated in comparison to each other.  What if it's a 10-point scale -- and with nothing above 5 points, do you think everything is overrated?

Zorb Burger

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Re: about teh listin'...
« Reply #3 on: 2006-01-21, 09:42:28 AM »
i said dis ma opinion, lil boy!  i be percievin thins i wanna perciev em, whetre dey writ er wron.  maybe if ya could deflate yo head a bit, thn you be able to execp dat oders got differin opinions from you, ya arogont yank... ::)

bluemonkmn

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Re: about teh listin'...
« Reply #4 on: 2006-01-21, 11:12:04 AM »
If I couldn't accept that you had opinions different from mine I wouldn't have even cared or bothered to reply.  For that matter I probably would have deleted your messages and banned you long ago.  The fact that I'm talking to you about your opinion means I do understand that you have a different opinion and was even interested enough to ask you about it.  (I certainly don't think I've been "mean" about it ... nearly as much as you have been to others.)

So to re-state my question, do you really think all the games are overrated?  How can you make sense of that opinion if you don't know/specify the scale on which they are rated?  Is it because you think that a 5 star game should mean that you will think the game is spectacular?  Or do you think that some of the games actually are spectacular (or rated correctly) and the other listings with similar ratings don't measure up?  I just want to understand more about why you have that opinion because I don't understand how everything in a rating system can be overrated.  It would suggest that you are misusing the rating system, because if everything is equally overrated, then you could just change your understanding of the rating system and everything (or at least one thing) would be right.  So my last question is, what if you assume that 5 stars means "OK", then does the rating system work for you?

Zorb Burger

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Re: about teh listin'...
« Reply #5 on: 2006-01-21, 11:22:42 AM »
1st:  i neber say dat all of teh gams r overated

2nd:  i be relizin dat 5 star be good, bu whe n i ply em day sem teh be rate be to high. purty simple, i jus tink dat yo rat teh 5 star games too hi, lik yer own gam, rolly, don c why ya ratd dat so hig uder den it yer own gam! ::)

3rd it seem dat yer usin  1 teh 5 star ating systm, so i be jus assumin tha t, an dat i no the 5 star mean good an a 1 sta not quite as good.

i tink i answred yer ques., an wit yer posts i can fel lots o anger comin from dem, again dat be wat i be percievin. >:(

bluemonkmn

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Re: about teh listin'...
« Reply #6 on: 2006-01-21, 11:58:15 AM »
I'm still not entirely clear on what you think is off in the ratings.  Your first comment implies that not all the games are overrated.  Your next comment says that the 5 star rating is too high, and your earlier comments say that other ratings are too high.  So is there any rating that's correct or too low in your opinion?  Or is the rating of every game you've tried too high?  I would again suggest that if you think the ratings of all the games you've tried are too nigh, maybe you are misunderstanding the intention of the ratings.  It's all relative.  Genrally 4 stars just means better than 3 stars, and 3 stars just means better than 2 stars and so forth.  If you use the rating system like that, it might work better.

I do admit (and I believe I have admitted in the past) that even in my own opinion it's hard to come up with a single fair rating for each game, and if I rated them again, there's a good chance the ratings might end up being somewhat different because it's mostly a subjective rating system (my opinions).  So I will tell you why some of my opinions are what they are, and maybe you can compare them to yours to help me understand more about what you think of the games and the ratings.

I tend to put a lot of weight on gameplay.  I really like games that last a long time and/or tell a long/good story.  I like games with a lot of variety and a lot of choices and freedom.  Ethereal Peace is one of the best games in the listing in those categories I think.  That's why it has 4 stars.  So why did I rate Rolly the Purple Ball so high?  Well, I value more than just gameplay and story.  I also like clean design, nice graphics/animation/scrolling and pleasing sound effects and music.  Naturally, since I designed all the graphics/animation and sound, and composed all the music for Rolly the Purple Ball, they are to my taste.  And since I am obviously very familiar with how the kit works, I knew how to design the game to work very cleanly without allowing the character to get stuck on any corners or fall through platforms, walk through solids, or have difficulty fitting through narrow passageways.  Those are some of the primary annoyances I see in many other games.  And rolly does have some interestign gameplay and variety too.  Level 4, for example throws in the new twist of mixing balloons.  Level 7 lets you swim and get in a submarine.  You have some choices, you can take different paths through the game.  Honestly I don't think I've even seen one other game where you have real choices of playing different levels or possibly in a different order.

Now the Guildhall games are great as far as graphics (and sometimes music) goes, and they have some pretty clever moves/tricks in the gameplay, but they just don't last very long.  I regret having to rate some of them so low -- I regret it because they do have some great gameplay.  If they offered as much variety or length as Rolly or Ethereal Peace, then they would probably get much higher ratings (possibly higher than Rolly).  But since I value the length and variety so much, and since many of the games didn't have time to fine-tune the design to work just right (there are some minor problems/annoyances left) they usually don't quite measure up to the same level.

So why is Ethereal Peace only 4 stars and Rolly 5?  Ethereal Peace doesn't have any sound.  That's about it.

You could ask me why the ratings are what they are all day long and I could do my best to explain... actually that might be fun to try to justify myself on every rating.  But honestly, part of it is also just based on a feeling, so it might not be perfect.  I have done my best to make the ratings fair, and I suspect that I could justify most of my ratings, but when you're talking about opinions, it's hard to find an absolute.  If you don't like comic books or geeky kids, you probably don't like Bob the Unlikely as much.  But I try to be fair in my ratings and not consider the subject matter so much as other more objective things.  I generally don't like war games, but I gave TAC-B a 4 star rating because it was just so well done.  But sometimes it's not possible to be entirely objective.  How can one measure how good the voice-overs in "Family Reunion" are?  That's probably mych more a matter of opinion.

So now you see tha challenge of expressing the ratings.  I would be interested to hear how you assess the quality of a game compared to me.  If I can better understand what everyone in general likes about games I can maybe rate them better.  But even more valuable, if game developers better understand what people like about games, they can make better games.

bluemonkmn

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Re: about teh listin'...
« Reply #7 on: 2006-01-21, 11:59:18 AM »
By the way are you still working on your own game?

Dr Obvious

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Re: about teh listin'...
« Reply #8 on: 2006-01-21, 12:23:46 PM »

Now the Guildhall games are great as far as graphics (and sometimes music) goes, and they have some pretty clever moves/tricks in the gameplay, but they just don't last very long.  I regret having to rate some of them so low -- I regret it because they do have some great gameplay.  If they offered as much variety or length as Rolly or Ethereal Peace, then they would probably get much higher ratings (possibly higher than Rolly).  But since I value the length and variety so much, and since many of the games didn't have time to fine-tune the design to work just right (there are some minor problems/annoyances left) they usually don't quite measure up to the same level.

Wish we could make them longer, but since we have to work on that along with the other work, time is always a huge factor.  >_<  I know Iron Meg was originally six levels but the LD's just didn't have time to make more than the two.

bluemonkmn

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Re: about teh listin'...
« Reply #9 on: 2006-01-21, 12:46:44 PM »
Yeah, I completely understand why the games are as short as they are and I'm even surprised/impressed that the students can finish (and usually nearly perfect) the amount that they do.  It's just a fact of life I guess.  My regret is that it does have to affect the rating... and that the game never has the chance to reach the potential it could if the teams just had more time to work on them.

Zorb Burger

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Re: about teh listin'...
« Reply #10 on: 2006-01-21, 01:33:43 PM »
honest teh god, i do be not c'ing as how ya lik guild hall gams!  der notin specaicl!!  i gess afer reviewn yer text, most of teh reviews r good, but do ya reiew to da peopl woo downlode dem or jus fer ya own likin?? 

an as administrater, ya shoul abid to ya own rooles der buddy an stay on topic.(DAYYUUMM!!!)

Zorb Burger

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Re: about teh listin'...
« Reply #11 on: 2006-01-21, 04:15:23 PM »
forget teh post abov dis 1!!

yup i be workin har at ma gam, it be goin real solw dough...
i toook a nkew style o grphaics to sav som spac, so it all real small stuff.  but i gots quality graphids still ;)

Dr Obvious

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Re: about teh listin'...
« Reply #12 on: 2006-01-23, 12:00:03 AM »
Yeah, I completely understand why the games are as short as they are and I'm even surprised/impressed that the students can finish (and usually nearly perfect) the amount that they do.  It's just a fact of life I guess.  My regret is that it does have to affect the rating... and that the game never has the chance to reach the potential it could if the teams just had more time to work on them.

Thinking of the Guildhall games, how are the reviews on the rest of them going?

bluemonkmn

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Re: about teh listin'...
« Reply #13 on: 2006-01-23, 06:56:38 AM »
I haven't looked at any more Guildhall games.  I have been too concerned about getting something done on SGDK2.  But now I think I should let that "simmer" for a while and look at some more Guildhall games.  The problem with the Guildhall games is that many of them aren't working for me.  At least a couple of the games have just a couple of WAV files that can't play on my system and just terminates the game.  I'll try some new games soon though -- hopefully this evening.

Uhfgood

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Re: about teh listin'...
« Reply #14 on: 2006-01-24, 06:20:22 PM »
My apologies to Zorb Burger if he has some sort of handicap.  Would you mind spelling your words out normally?  It takes me a few seconds to "translate" your speech.  I know you know how to spell, because every so often is a full word.  Other times you seem to abbreviate or misspell full sentences.  Not that everyone here spells perfectly, but when you're consistantly doing it for the whole of your message it makes it hard to read.  Maybe you're only typing with one hand (ie handicap) which is fine, because if that's the case I won't complain.  But if you have two hands, at least consider typing out the full words so we don't have to spend so much time deciphering your speech.

To Mr. Marty.  Consider giving demos their own catagory.  This way you can rate them against each other and they could then reflect a possibly higher rating.  For instance of all the games i've played (with maybe the exception of Rolly, however I don't even remember it so I may have to play it again) Nuclear Neddy seems to be the most professional polished game in there (of course this is an opinion too) and you only gave it 2 stars.  But that's because it was short (or at least that's what I assume from your review).  I would give it at least a 4 star rating.  But of course it would only be 4 stars against the other "demos".  Also if you did this you'd have to create a demo requirement.  This is 2 levels or 3 levels or whatever.  (Mark "Marble Madness" Cerny on his speech on his method for developing games considers a first playable to be a complete 2 level demo showing all the game mechanics and a small example of the gameplay variety so maybe this would be a good idea for demo reviews).  Secondly as far as opinions go, maybe you should get a few more people to rate with you, sort of like a panel.  It's customary to use 2 or 3 people (3 is probably adequate, ie 3 judges in american idol, 2 or 3 witnesses in the old testatment of the bible to witness a crime, etc...)  Also it might be a good idea to open up ratings in individual catagories.  (Different from the demo/full game catagories)  Where you rate on graphics, sound, length of play (so like something that has only 4 levels wouldn't qualify it for demo but for full game, and then the rating would be lower than a longer game), game mechanics (this would be variety of game mechanics, does the player just collect stuff, or does he shoot and collect, or does he do more), Interface ie how easy it is to pick up and play.  Anyways this is what I think you should do about it.

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