- Joined
- Nov 26, 2006
- Messages
- 11,136
- Love the art. Really do.
- Good use of models, everything.
- Purpose of the red stone was unclear. All the other things you interact with, but this one you select.
The opening cinematic was wonderful. It did a good job of introducing the player to the feel of the game.
Art [x/5] - 5/5. The art was just awesome. You made something original, or at least original to me and I loved it. Simple, yet graceful. It just worked for me. The best art rating of all, this was certainly impressive.
Gameplay [x/10] - 7/10. The gameplay didn't live up to the art. It had a plot, which was nice to see but I found that the gameplay itself wasn't too directed. Yes, I can see why you tried to do that but I found it too loose. What I want to see from a game is clear, but difficult puzzles. What I don't want to do is spend time wandering around in search of puzzles, or parts thereof. But it was actually a puzzle game, not an Action-RPG so bravo there. I also had a hard time dealing with the camera angles, some of them could have been a lot smoother.
Overall - 12/15. The art was just fucking fantastic. And yeah, that's the technical term.
- Loading screen formatting fail.
- There is no item slot 6.
- Needs more detailed instructions/clarity of task.
- It's not spelt reancarnation
- Ridiculously small line of sight is non-fun.
- Breakable Camera. (Ctrl-C)
- Sloooow gameplay.
No puzzles?
So, you get into the game. Stagger around blindly running across items that you have no idea what they do, and killing carrion beetles. You then encounter a dranei who asks you to kill a wolf, and recover his masters soul. You don't even really need to contribute all that much, as the dranei just rush over en-mass.
You now can buy a bunch more items that you have no idea what they do, and are told you can advance.
Advance on, more stumbling around in the dark. Reach a praying mantis that would appear to be effectively un-killable. Tried a few times, failed then quit.
The map would appear to not contain any puzzles, direction or pointed gameplay. You run around, attacking a few carrion beetles, and one wolf with one ability.
Art [x/5] - 2/5. There was at least an attempt at ambience, although it had a very negative effect on the gameplay.
Gameplay [x/10] - 1/10. There were no puzzles. What combat there was was boring, and no skills were used. The gameplay was un-directed, dark and slow. Descriptions and writing were simply terrible.
Overall - 3/15. You seem to have missed the point of the contest entirely, by not including a single puzzle in the portion of the game I could reach, followed by a seemlingly impossible task.
- Loading screen & intro fine.
- Initially, missions are clear.
- The existence of elevators to open gates does NOT constitute a puzzle.
- Having +250 gold hidden in a barrel does NOT constitute a puzzle.
- Fighting monsters in an arena doe NOT constiture a puzzle.
Art [x/5] - 2/5. Boring, square terrain. However, the cinematics were done in an understable fashion, and the writing was nicely intelligeble.
Gameplay [x/10] - 2/10. There were no puzzles. The combat was boring. Walking around standing on platforms was boring.Standing their pounding on a siege golem for two minutes was boring. The game was boring. But it was clear. And you get points for clarity of gameplay.
Overall - 4/15. The only puzzling thing about this game is why anyone would think it is a puzzle game. There were no puzzles. It was not puzzling. However, it was readable and you did understand what you, as a player, were supposed to do, it's just that what you were supposed to do was incipitally stupid.
- Nice lighting.
- Grammar needed work.
- Leaderboard seemed unneccesary.
I came into the game, and proceeded to attack move around the map. That's all I needed to do for the first bit. The first actual 'puzzle', seemed to involve terrain killing me with random spikes coming from the ground. Died once, moved on and got past. Then the runes. Summon a bunch of skeletons who expire before anything happens? Not exactly a puzzle, or even a fight. Like I've mentioned before, puzzles require the gamer to use logic and their brain. Not to click A, then left click in the general area of their target.
Art [x/5] - 3/5. The art in this game was nice, if not exactly widely varied. Still, I enjoyed the general atmosphere if not all the models. Good use of lighting and fog, could have used more doodad variation for sure. The interface was ugly as hell however, and didn't fit/interact with the buttons well at all.
Gameplay [x/10] - 1/10. The gameplay was just bad. Not only was it not puzzles, but it was poorly described and not really that fun. I've addressed the attack moving thing, but you need to work on clarity of what to do in games. For example, skill selection. For the first skill, you tell the gamer to pick carefully. BUT DON'T GIVE ANY INFORMATION ON THE SKILLS. That might be an important factor in making your descision.
Overall - 4/15. The art was nice enough, the gameplay wasn't. See the sub-sections for why. Not really much to say here.
- Grammar was bad again, and map lacked polish overall.
- Controls were awkward to use, and attack orders had to be given repeatedly etc.
Art [x/5] - 2/5. Not the worst, but the tile variation was terrible in particular. You used good enough looking doodads, but the placement was poor especially in the house.
Gameplay [x/10] - 3/10. There were actual puzzles in this game, but they didn't make very much sense. You can't follow a lone thief through the crops as 5 heavily armoured swordsmen, and therefore have to chop down a rock to go through a oddly trapped house. I couldn't even get past the house in a reasonable time frame, and was just annoyed by the traps, not really threatened. I got the demonology book and then happened to interact with the statue (unknowning that it would consume the book), then used all the candles to close the furnaces. However, this didn't seem to do anything. I tried using the potion on the barricade, but only for half-damage still leaving me with an indestructable wall.
Overall - 5/15. There were puzzles, which is an up compared to some of the other maps in this competition. However, they weren't terrible sensible or requiring of logic so much as just clicking on everything.
- Grammatical errors throughout intro, language barrier still understandable.
- I could not get past the first level. I walked down, killed the ghouls lit the branch on fire, and then could not interect with the diary, or find any other interactive things in the first level.
Art [x/5] - 3/5. The art that I was able to see was actually quite nice. Had I been able to see the art in the rest of the game, and it was the same this would have been a 4.
Gameplay [x/10] - 1/10. The gameplay played was okay, and contained at least some puzzle based elements. The systems looked possibly entertaining, and the puzzles actually did exist. However, not being able to progress past the first level is something of a problem.
Overall - 4/15. The game seemed like it could be okay, although had a major flaw (It's impossible to play the game?)
- Opening cinematic well done, authentic dialogue.
- Nice lighting.
- You should warn about turning up your light setting to "High".
- Loved the grue reference.
- Very nice dialogue system.
- Mushroom puzzle was very nice.
Art [x/5] - 4.5/5. Really was wonderful. The use of lighting was great. The main character's portrait model did thow me off just a bit though. Creative, and effective. A wonderful piece of art all round. Also, you left the tooltips on lumber/gold as lumber/gold which was a tad offsetting. However, just wonderful overall.
Gameplay [x/10] - 8.5/10. This was actually a puzzle game, which is something of a rarity apperently. The gameplay and use of common sense in interesting ways was great. The levels of immersion and wonderful dialogue really tied the game together.A little more direction might be needed in some parts of the game. While it is good to have your player confused, what you don't want them to be confused about what puzzle they are supposed to be solving.
Overall - 13/15. This game was marvelous. I had fun, and I felt as if I was engaged. More direction to the player would be a good idea, to keep them more engaged. However, I didn't have too hard a time with it. However, I have played quite a few of these mystery style games, and I think this game would be a hard break-in for a novice player. This certainly doesn't take away from the game in a serious manner, and it was still a wonderful piece of game design. I thoughourly enjoyed playing, and that is what matters.
- Very nice polish.
- Should make a note about turning your Light settings up under options.
Art [x/5] - 4.5/5. The art here was wonderful, if a bit cliched. Nonetheless, you get props here.
Gameplay [x/10] - 3/10. The game was a fine RPG. But it was an RPG. It was also rather hard, bordering on the impossible, considering your lack of healing.
Overall - 7.5/15. It was an RPG. Not a puzzle/riddle oriented map. This seems to be a reccuring problem in this contest, but yours was a very nice RPG, so congrats.
- Map unpolished.
- Needs more cinematic, or at least text explanation.
- Particularily a better ending. You have no emotional involvment with any of it.
Art [x/5] - 2/5. Terrain was rather barren throughout, and you would have been far better sticking with a normal Jaina skin, due to the fact that the present skin looks awful. Tile variation and more naturally placed doodads are your friend. However, the areas were at least somewhat decorated.
Gameplay [x/10] - 6/10. The puzzles in this game were a bit easy, but the overall structure of them was very nice. This captured what I had in mind when I heard the contest, and that's a good thing. The combination of speed/micro based puzzles and ones that required thinking (however little) was well placed. This was one of the few games that I felt happy playing through. To improve, it needed to be somewhat less obviously linearly guided, be harder and to have some penalty for death. Also, less walking more puzzle (but at least you walked quickly)
Overall - 8/15. You should be happy with this map. I enjoyed it. Puzzles should be harded, but beyond that it was fun.
- Removing the loading bar was annoying. I want to see how much loading time is left.
- Camera resetable with Ctrl-C. Make sure to reset it in a loop.
- Use system is really odd. Took me a few minutes to figure out and is awkward once you do.
Art [x/5] - 3.5/5. Again, the art was okay. The cinematic was quite good, as was the first room. However, the second room looked not as great. Nonetheless, we'll be generous.
Gameplay [x/10] - 3/10. I'll be honest here I didn't make it past the second room. I spent probably about 5 minutes in the first, finding various things, mostly clicking randomly until I happened to select something, then using it. Clicking around the poorly lit, funnily camera angled room randomly for small, hidden items is not terrible puzzling, just stupid. I eventually blow up the wall. Next room, find three books. I find two books. I spend the next five minutes looking for the third book. I get bored and quit out.
Overall - 6.5/15. Here in all fairness, the map could have got better. I don't know. But if I'm not motivated to play that far because of the lameness of the puzzles, that's a problem. I'm perfectly happy to spend time on solving puzzles I enjoy, and require logic. I didn't have that here, and hence the game didn't capture my attention or caring.
- Character selection not informative.
- Puzzles existant, if fairly simple. Nonetheless, solid combination style puzzles.
- Frog nice touch.
- Systems were not overly complex and easy to use.
Art [x/5] - 3.5/5. Nothing special, but not bad either. Big loss of marks comes in with the obtrusivness of CoP's. Something a little more subtle would have been nice, but overall terrain was quite satisfactory.
Gameplay [x/10] - 7/10. I wasn't blown away by the gameplay, but I was amused by it. You had the right tone of voice throughout, and the text box narrator/tooltips were sometimes quite amusing. Puzzles required some basic logical sorting, and were actually puzzles which was quite nice to see.
Overall - 11.5/15. Decent art, decent gameplay, decent polish. I enjoyed playing what I did play of this map. Bravo sir.
(Kwah's judging * 4) + ((Votes / Total votes) * 40) = Total score
De.Facto: (12 * 4) + ((37 / 107) * 40) = 61.8317757
Equal: (3 * 4) + ((6 / 107) * 40) = 14.2429907
w3mapmaker: (4 * 4) + ((7 / 107) * 40) = 18.6168224
X-OMG-X: (4 * 4) + ((15 / 107) * 40) = 21.6074766
VergilThazaar: (5 * 4) + ((14 / 107) * 40) = 25.2336449
Kingz: (4 * 4) + ((16 / 107) * 40) = 21.9813084
Softmints: (13 * 4) + ((20 / 107) * 40) = 59.4766355
Ardnived: (7.5 * 4) + ((12 / 107) * 40) = 34.4859813
Xiliger: (8 * 4) + ((11 / 107) * 40) = 36.1121495
Amigurumi: (6.5 * 4) + ((37 / 107) * 40) = 39.8317757
Marcelo Hossomi: (11.5 * 4) + ((17 / 107) * 40) = 52.3551402
4th: Amigurumi
5th: Xiliger
6th: Ardnived
7th: VergilThazaar
8th: Kingz
9th: X-OMG-X
10th: w3mapmaker
11th: Equal
5th: Xiliger
6th: Ardnived
7th: VergilThazaar
8th: Kingz
9th: X-OMG-X
10th: w3mapmaker
11th: Equal
Poll | Contest
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