Well, Bo, if the story happens to be a big wall of text with poor or no good use of formatting, I'll be hesitant to read it. If the story is furthur problemed by poor or no punctuation and is full of spelling errors, there's a pretty good chance that I won't read it at all. Now replace "formatting" with "map design" and "punctuation/spelling erros" with "does the game work", and you''ve basically got an idea of how I myself judge the games I play (although, map design would have to be pretty bad for me to not want to play the game because of it).



On the flipside, those objective reviews would prove helpful. If I want to know more about a game, reading a review allows me to find out more than what the game's basic description and its screenshots (if it has any) provide. And as I said, subjectively, I'd still be interested in playing a poorly reviewed game if it still provides some sort of feature or story element that interests me.

With that said, my LPs help serve a similar purpose as reviews. True, the main purpose is to give the developer first-hand insight on how I play their games and react to certain elements. This is something I feel that all of us as developers would like to know, yet most of us can only get written accounts. But it also lets people know, those who haven't tried the game or even heard of the game (as a side-effect, free publicity), what this game is about, what it's like, how it plays, et cetra. True, both games I've LPd so far have resulted in several comments along the lines of "I don't think this is a game I'd like to play", and I'm sure my bashing in commentary doesn't help. But at the same time, there might be something I show off that will catch somebody's interest, and at the slow rate I release episodes of these LPs, it gives the person a chance to go get that game s/he hasn't tried and start playing through the game, eventually exceeding my current distance into the game.

As far as my current LP, Untamed Madness, the first episode showed a fetch quest that involved fighting the very things you had to collect. Fetch quests tend to turn players off, so that might've been a deciding factor to not play it there. But the second and third episodes showed real promise, featuring one of the best dungeons I've ever played in an RPG Maker game, the only downside being the annoying encounter ratio (another possible turnoff). But who knows, despite the initial annoyances, the promise the game showed from that one dungeon might've convinced somebody to try the game themselves. I hadn't heard of anybody else trying it yet, but you never know, might've been downloaded by a lurker.

Now turn this LP into a review. Seeing within the review "one of the best dungeons I've ever played in an RPG Maker game" is bound to get some interest, convincing some people to give the game a shot, even if I do complain some about the other dungeons and game nuances.

idealistically its far better to have a review coincide with the games full release. a game should be reviewed within a month of it hitting the shelves so others know what to expect. the reality has been far from this. its a struggle to get any kind of feedback and so many games go unnoticed and as far as anyone knows, largely unplayed.

ive tried to be as fair as i can with scoring games. i know that some are not as great today as they where when they where released - some have stood beautifully over time. its out of my league to play games in the mentality of when they came out, i cant separate game time lines as ive played around 100 games over the last 10 years. is it unfair for some of these past games? yes. can we realistically expect a review like you suggest? no.

my reviews are based in the time they are written as all reviews should be. its a tragedy that these games have not been reviewed but we cant lament the past - its already written. unfortunately those past games which wouldnt make todays standards will forever be left in the dust. people want to play the games of todays standards - not those of the first generation. its like how most gamers want to play the newest games, leaving the older games to the niche markets. id almost be doing a disservice by scoring games higher based on their age rather then by todays standards.

to be very honest the overall score of a game is relatively moot. how a game is sold maters far more then the numbered tag accompanying it. if the developer cant write or even be bothered to sell their game with the description then only a top score is going to save it from obscurity. most dont even look at the top and instead just prowl the game archive itself. even games without any score have very high downloads because their descriptions are grabbing or interesting. in some cases the game itself is a horrible pile of crap but that doesnt stop people from initially downloading them.

i put a full 10 years into my game and now that its released i dont have a single sole even playing it to let me know if there is even a bug in it or how they thought of it. its very discouraging and i end up going back and seeing if there is some way i can promote it a bit better. even long time developers dont always hit it off with their product, but thats ok because developing is a process. every review is a portal into how a designer is doing and where they need to improve. numbers are not as important as the critique itself. a fancy value just tells me how the game compares to other games, the actual words tell me why it scored as it did and which elements raised and lowered the final value.

we are thinking of this as a contest where only the highest scored games get played. games designed to make games are meant to be fun, to be a learning experience, and to be a great challenge. everyone wants their game to be a success. just try your best, market the hell out of your game, and release a good product and you can be successful. hell, even a game like edwards quest - the worst game out there - can get notoriety. i think developers just want to know what their peers think so they can begin work on their next big game, not what minor technicalities govern their scores. if youd been waiting 10 years for a review, i think youd be happy to get one.