AGS review system

[Krazy]

I know after spending weeks, months or even years working on a game it's always good to get feedback. But I know most feedback you get from posting your game in the forum or on the AGS site is either "Cool game but such and such could be better." or asking for hints, and sure that's fine people don't tend to write particularly long comments about your game in a forum or comennt system.  But I also know that the mose satisfying feedback you can ever get on a game is a detailed review higlighting the good and bad points of your game, telling what you did right, what aspects were the best etc and an overall rating (sometimes sub ratings of all the different aspects of the game e.g graphics, story etc). But people just don't get that sort of feedback for their games, I think it would be great though if the AGS site had some sort of review feature which would encourage readers to write a substantial review on the game with pros and cons for the developers to see. As reviews usually only come from 3rd party sites which is still kind of rare and usually the developer will only get one review anyway. Sure not everyone would write lengthy reviews if a feature like this would be added, but I think that detailed reviews and comments on peoples games would really make all the hardwork even more worthwhile for AGS developers. I am aware there are some PDF based online things that do review AGS games, but I was thinking more along (multiple) reviews fro the general AGS game playing public but eh. Maybe I'm just rambling, but eh what do you think?

[SSH]

Josef Purdes does a great job reviewing pretty much every AGS game that comes out on http://www.diygames.com/index.php?p=889&more=1

[Raider]

It sounds like a good idea.
One Question: Will it work?
It sounds good in theory, but in practice it may be a different story. I like the idea.

[Krazy]

Josef Purdes does a great job reviewing pretty much every AGS game that comes out on http://www.diygames.com/index.php?p=889&more=1

As I said third party sites do review and stuff, but I was thinking more along the lines of the general public who post those thin little comments, it would be nice if they were encouraged to give much more feedback don't you think?

[mätzyboy]

Josef Purdes does a great job reviewing pretty much every AGS game that comes out on http://www.diygames.com/index.php?p=889&more=1

Wow, this guy is really making an effort! Such a nice site! Is he one of the forum regulars who goes under another name 'round here?

[Krazy]

Josef Purdes does a great job reviewing pretty much every AGS game that comes out on http://www.diygames.com/index.php?p=889&more=1

Wow, this guy is really making an effort! Such a nice site! Is he one of the forum regulars who goes under another name 'round here?

Dunno, but he did email about TImothy Lande once, that's how I found out about his nice little review of it too, he probobly atleast visists the forums.

[Kinoko]

I think you just have to be happy with the third party reviews. If people aren't doing reviews now, they aren't going to later. At least not people like me. I just can't be bothered. There are certain people who like writing reviews, and they're typically the people who are already doing them. I prefer hearing people's natural comments, whatever comes to mind. If someone just writes "Cool game", that's obviously all that came to mind when he played it. I think it's a nice honest comment. Reviews are nice, we all love hearing about what someone thinks of our game in detail, but it's definitely not what most people want to do.

[Pumaman]

The AGS Games page allows people to leave a comment that's as big as they want to. Occasionally people do give a fully-fledged review there, but most people simply don't have the time or inclanation to and will leave a short comment. At the end of the day you can't force people to review your game if they don't want to

[Vel]

Sorry for going a bit off-topic, but when I open a thread in the completed games forum, I expect to read criticism and comments on the game itself, not requests for help and hints.... After all thats why we have the hints and tips forum, right?

[Scummbuddy]

adventuredevelopers.com plans on having exactly what you want, when it can finally get around to it. Their review section will not give a review of how the game is, for people to read and decide if they want to play it, but it will be a type of weighted score card, depending on the level of development that went in to producting the game, and will give constructive criticism towards the developer(s).

[Krazy]

adventuredevelopers.com plans on having exactly what you want, when it can finally get around to it. Their review section will not give a review of how the game is, for people to read and decide if they want to play it, but it will be a type of weighted score card, depending on the level of development that went in to producting the game, and will give constructive criticism towards the developer(s).

Sounds cool 

Sorry for going a bit off-topic, but when I open a thread in the completed games forum, I expect to read criticism and comments on the game itself, not requests for help and hints.... After all thats why we have the hints and tips forum, right?

Yeah, it is kind of annoying to get a 4 page topic of hints, but that's the way it's always been  Only other option is make your game really REALLY easy.

[SSH]

Amazon encourage reviews by letting people rate the reviews themselves as helpful or not. If this was done with the games page review then (A) most helpful reviews could be listed first (b) people would be encouraged to write helpful reviews (c) people who wrote lots of helpful reviews coudl get like a star or seomthign against their name, encouraging peopel to write more helpful reviews...

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Nice idea. I second it.

[Jozef]

Josef Purdes does a great job reviewing pretty much every AGS game that comes out on http://www.diygames.com/index.php?p=889&more=1

Wow, this guy is really making an effort! Such a nice site! Is he one of the forum regulars who goes under another name 'round here?

Actually, I've been lurking around for something like two years now, but never created a login for myself

[SSH]

Well, welcome at last Jozef and thanks for being the only guy ever to review a Princess Marian game 

[Snarky]

And in the spirit of encouraging reviewers (and I think rating as an incentive is a great idea), I'd like to tell you, Jozef, how much I enjoy your monthly review column, and appreciate the roundup of underground adventures. More than once has it pointed me towards a great adventure game I had overlooked or ignored.

[Jozef]

Thanks, guys

I really enjoy adventure games, and in particular those with a great deal of personal touch, which is why I enjoyed the Princess Marian games very much.

I just submitted my May column; it should be posted in a few days, and until then I'll spend some time hunting for more games and participating more on this forum.

[Vince Twelve]

Whoa!  Josef, nice to hear from you.  I'm a big fan of the column.  You put in a hell of a lot of work, and it shows.

Aside from pointing me towards great underground games that I've missed, your column has given me a lot of tips (both things to strive for and things to avoid) to consider while working on my own game. 

I look forward to seeing the eventual paragraph reviewing my game in one of your (possibly far) future colums.

Keep up the good work!

[Ubel]

I also enjoyed your reviews very much and am waiting for more to be read. Welcome to forums!

[magintz]

I think what would be good s if someone where to devise a system, maybe incorporated into the forums that would contain some sort of "Forum Karma" levels. By posting reviews, critisism other members can give these helpful people karma points, the higher the number of points you have the better karma rating. Like in the old ezboard days with the posting levels, once you reached 100 posts or something it would be something like posts too much or break out the bubbly.

I think having this would encourage people to write reviews and help with critisism and also for people who respond with "this is the biggest poiece of crap that I have ever seen, you suck" could be given negative karma.

I'm not sure if someone could implement this. I think that the point system should be governed by moderators who would read through posts in technical forums, critics lounge and completed games page, when something useful or helpful has been posted they would award these points, or we could have where any user can give karma points, but restrict it to 1 point per post so that people don;t start spamming.