Voting time for Retro Code a game competition - Nov - Jan 2018

[therevills]

@Derron - nice reviews, reminds me of the old Amstard Action reviews!



Did "Get to the Choppa" run in Wine? Since I used Monkey2 to code it and Syntax Bomb was also coded in MX2 it should "work" the same.

With the music stopping, I have coded it to loop but I have seen (heard) that bug only once... strange!

[Qube]

Nice chart Derron but I do have a couple of points to raise

1.. For SyntaxBomb you state that the music was done by the author but fail to mention that my entry was too. I think that deserves a couple of percent more especially as Twitter is in meltdown over that omission
2.. You said single level theme but if you pass world 1, level 3 there is another theme ( see screen shots in showcase post )-  Unless you mean single level as in no up / down scrolling.

Seriously though, I like the chart and it looks like a good way of scoring games.

[Derron]

Please excuse. I just did not make it further than level 1-3 ... spikes killed me in all my tries.
Maybe we should consider adding a "compo cheat key" so "judges" are able to see the whole game, even if they do not make it. Or we need to add more media so people could at least judge by the media (which is not always good as sometimes only the "motion/animation" exposes details).

So yes, you seem to have done a "cavern"-theme too (according to your showcase thread)
(Keep it for you: I also tried to check your assets to see if you prepared more and missed that 2 tiles you are using for the caverns, only saw the "upper world"-theme).

These reviewers notes did not necessarily have an effect on the "objective ratings". They were more "thoughts" of myself. But no further excuse, I think you might have deserved a few more percents in "graphics" then. Luckily (for me) you would not have reached another spot then.


In your game I would like to see different themes: european forest, asian bamboo-forest, village/den of some ninjas, mountains, caverns, ... think that would fit well.


@ music
I did not know you made yours, I just know it when it is stated in a readme, credit-screen or I've read about it in the compo-thread (Adam posted much Dev-Logs, thanks!). In "The Last Ginger Ninja" I found it too bad to not have "ingame music" (not just on the title screen). So you got 40% for "existence of music" and sound effects. Would have been more when there was something played during the game.
The music itself was a good "synthie"-style music. Seems I need to convince some of you to compose some music for TVTower - only am using "free/OSS music" now but would like to have some "retro stuff" (Mad TV originated on Amiga and then PC). Had people doing that already but music was way too "heavy" (complex arrangements, rock ballads), "modern".


PS: I was aware that a "detailed view" into my ratings would create some discussion as it exposes some "reasons" or maybe someone is thinking of values being "biased" (yes they are, which is why we all vote together - to remove the individual bias).


@ "Amstrad Action reviews"
English is not my mother tongue so I appreciate the "captions" you suggested indirectly. Was looking for something like "grab factor" and "staying power" to give ratings on how "easy to start enjoying a game" and how good a game is able to "keep you playing". So a game like "mind swap" would loose my interest pretty fast, once I know how to solve, a game with levels instead is forcing me to try try try until I give up or do not master it yet (with my current skills).


@ Get To Da Choppa
Nope, did not run.
"Caught signal:Memory access violation" (inbetween the wine logs) so you might do something which is not necessarily "bad". Maybe something like an unintialized array or so. Dunno if monkey has default values for numbers (int = 0, float = 0, string = "", ...) or if it just reserves memory and uses whatever is there as long as you do not assign a new value.
Or maybe you relying on some audio stuff (Just play a song without validating the file first - or checking if audio driver loaded properly or ...).


I also disabled CRT and fullscreeneffect in the json file - without changes. Didn't you use a special file-function? Maybe that thing is not working nicely with Wine? At least it could be something eg. Adam (also used Monkey2) did not use.


If you want, compile me a more verbose version and I will try it.


bye
Ron

[Qube]

Please excuse. I just did not make it further than level 1-3 ... spikes killed me in all my tries.

I'm just messing with ya

I also tried to check your assets to see if you prepared more and missed that 2 tiles you are using for the caverns, only saw the "upper world"-theme).

There are also three other shadow tiles too - To be fair the cavern level was extremely quickly thrown in during my two day dash to get what I had into some form on game / entry. I had 5 themes roughly mapped out but only the first "upper world" one was 90% done. Even that one needed more tiles to blend things out better.

In your game I would like to see different themes: european forest, asian bamboo-forest, village/den of some ninjas, mountains, caverns, ... think that would fit well.

I had at least 5 themes planned but really got hammered with boring real life stuff before Christmas which really ground my game to a halt. All the themes, enemies, game features, abilities, theme music etc etc went flying out the window.

So you got 40% for "existence of music" and sound effects. Would have been more when there was something played during the game.

This was generous considering - The in game sound effects were literally thrown in and barely tested ( in the last 30 minutes before the deadline ). The in game music was only developed to around 30 seconds so I couldn't use it. The theme tune music was supposed to be the game over scene music. The title screen and high score screen was done with two hours to spare so you can imagine just how much is missing from the game.

[RemiD]

@Derron>>i hope that you realize that your reviews are mostly subjective appreciations ? (depending on your tastes/preferences)

You rate the games depending on if they run and Wine whereas most of them were not made for that...(made to run on Windows OS)

And you do not penalize the AGK games which produced an error message and had no sound, without having to install some redistributable... (On Windows OS)

very reasonable indeed...

[Derron]

Check the weighting for the "compatibility".
If something had no sound I started it on another platform. Nonetheless I stated when I run it via native (linux, win) or wine/vbox.
On win10 I did not see that boxes, so I might have had them already installed. I also do not blame the linux apps to require OpenAL - already had that installed (I use PulseAudio for TVTower - and provide a Alsa-only solution too - to avoid OpenAL dependency - but that is no need to downvote other apps for requiring a library).


Want to have a downgrade in ratings if I removed DX7 or have issues with it (could play it on an old SiS GPU - which only run openGL). Nope, I wont.
So this is the reason why "compatibility" has a weighting of 0 percent in my sheet.




Graphic and sound ratings were of course "subjective" somehow but I tried to be "objective". So if something suited together / looked well assembled and pleasing to the eyes then it got a good rating. "pleasing" is in that case the "subjective" part.

Input rating is based on the about >1000 games I played in nearly 2 decades (I played almost all the games we reviewed/tested on gamezworld.de). So if something has odd key combinations, or has a "non smooth" reaction, .... it gets less percents than others. If everything is snappy, working as expected, in platformers offers "gamepad input", ... then it can reach the 100%. Things like "ingame configuration" could fit in there too - or in a maybe-to-add "convenience"-thing (or extend "help/guide" ?).

Regarding gameplay I also tried to incorporate the "game type". So a platformer has other requirements to reach 100%. Nonetheless I tried to also incorporate the competition thing: so 100% were reachable also in a non-perfect state. If I compared only racing games, then VanTourismo might get less points as others might have had better "toolbox/tune-screens" (aside of upgrades also car paint, ...). If all games were "find hidden things" your gameplay score might have been lower or higher too, depends on the other entries.
You cannot get rid of that "passive subjectivity". Just imagine you have to rate "X-Men" and "Avengers" - watching them on the same evening. You will always rate them "in connection with the other", even if you are told not to do. As said this is the reason why the voting takes other votes than mine into consideration too - to avoid the introduces bias.


But I assume it is easier to accept a "non #1-3 listing" than to see the current position if it is non #1-3.


bye
Ron

[RemiD]

You could rate objectively some aspects of a game like :

->compatibility "out of the box" with the target computers/OS

->no major bug (which alters/blocks the gameplay)

->no major graphics artifact

->shapes and colors and lighting/shading which allow the player to easily see what is going on in the environment (i made the mistake to color the moutains with the same grey color than the statues, so they were less visible...)

->"gain" which is similar for all sounds of the game, and default volume which is not too low, not too high on most computers (if volume is set around 50%)

->possibility to configure the volume of sound effects and of music

->possibility to configure the controls (actions keys)

->instructions on how to play the game which are easy enough to understand

->possibility to skip the title, prologue/cutscene, the instructions screen, a training section, a messagebox, the score screen, the thanks/credits screen (it is highly annoying to not be able to skip these, when you want to replay a game)

and there are probably others...


Concerning gameplay, it is really a matter of tastes, except if the gameplay is buggy / hard to control / difficult to understand what to do next

[Derron]

black screen: no major graphic artifacts
black screen + text display: no major graphic artifacts
gain: no sound = perfect gain
no sound: no need to configure sound, so no downvote
only one key needed for everything: no need to configure, no downvote
...
think you got the point.


"no major bug": there are games which might be played in various ways, so the tester might not come across such a bug, another one does: so how to rate it?


If I create a drawing application and only offer Yellow, Slime and Pink, then people would downvote it for the odd color limitation.
If I create a Odd-3-Color-drawing app, then things would get rated differently


It was your decision to make the world 3D - but compared to the 3 better rated ones your graphics lacked "appeal" - but compared to them your graphics contained some "freedom" (the 3D) which upvoted it.
Also: nobody requested "code drawn" sprites, so there is no real reason to vote graphics better just because someone created some "DrawOval/DrawLine/..."chains instead of handcrafting them in a sprite editor / drawing program of choice
Same to music: Adam did not get upvotes because he wrote a chiptracker - he got his sound rated according to the "retro"-style (which for me is "up to" SNES/Megadrive, so chipsynth is not really needed).
Rules did not request to create your own music, your very own sprites, ... but I would downvote graphics if it was a "copy paste tileset" I have seen a hundred times before.




There is _no_ way to have an unbiased checklist - already the "weighting" is biased to what I (or others) think is important of a game. Others would say "gameplay 90%", "graphics 2%", "story 8%". Ok, then they adjust the sheed to their needs and there they go...
You rate "Strip Poker" differently to "text adventure".






One could create a science out of ratings, I tried to make it "similar to game magazines" (having read the last almost a decade ago). Seems I should have better just wrote down "#1...#2...#3" without giving any reason and this would save me all the hassle to self-defend my person from prejudiced arguments.


bye
Ron

[round157]

Some comments:

Get to Da Choppa:
Make people remember Rambo, First Blood film series in 1980s. If the size of the character is bigger, gamers may like this game more.

FUNGICIDE:
This game is quite good. Make people remember the game Defender(or Stargate) in 1980s.

The Last Ginger Ninja:
Make people remember the game Super Mario Bros. on Nintendo System in 1980s.

Van Tourisimo:
It is a nice game. I don't like racing game actually.

SyntaxBomb:
Make people remember the game Lode Runner in 1980s. When playing in full screen mode, the size of the characters are not too small or too large. It is a really exciting game. In addition, the name of this game are promoting this forum.

Finally,
SyntaxBomb > FUNGICIDE > The Last Ginger Ninja > Get to Da Choppa > Van Tourisimo


Therefore,

1. SyntaxBomb
2. FUNGICIDE
3. The Last Ginger Ninja 


One more thing,
https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,4000.msg11712.html#msg11712

Three of the ten entries are made with Blitz3d. It shows that Blitz3D is still popular. If a good development team continues to improve Blitz3D. The future of Blitz3D will be very good. Blitz3D will be more popular.

After I read some code of Monkey2, I feel that Monkey2 is not an easy language. It is not learner friendly. However, SyntaxBomb and Get to Da Choppa are top five games in this competition. Maybe a lot of people will consider to start learning Monkey2.

[col]

You guys are funny.

It must be the IT scientist in you to be able to take a persons opinion, a simple vote for your fave game in a friendly community competition, and turn it an over-analysed complication 

[round157]

Will voting end at 06:51:03 PM today.?

[Derron]

Voting takes place from now and will close on Jan 28th @ 23:59:59 GMT.

[round157]

Voting takes place from now and will close on Jan 28th @ 23:59:59 GMT.

9 hours 30 minutes left.....

[Xerra]

Ah, just noticed I still have time to vote. I've been unlucky in the fact that I've only got access to my Mac here this weekend as my Windows laptop is at work so I've only been able to look at two of the games as a Mac version was available. So, I'm biased in that those games would have the top two positions but I suspect they'd have got it anyway as they're both excellent.

1 - SyntaxBomb
2 - The Last Ginger Ninja
3 - Get to Da Choppa

Syntax bomb is a fun little game that I played for quite a while even though I usually hate platform type games. Adam did a great job with this one.

The Last Ginger Ninja just really impressed me technically. It doesn't look like a rushed game even though Qube says he was really pushing to get it done in time. Again, not the type of game i'd normally play, but this one did grab me too.

I'm giving 3rd place to Get to Da Choppa even though I couldn't actually get to play it in the time because, from looking at the games, it's the one I most wanted to play.

[Derron]

Install Wine and you should be able to start some more apps - at least worth a try. Choppa is not running on Wine here tough - but on native windows or eg. VirtualBox-Windows7.


bye
Ron