Messages

I agree.
It's inconvenient that there aren't common expressions for some meanings, so something has to give.

(Of course, as soon as expressions become common, they start to be misused anyway, so there's no escaping it.)

[Visual]

Some ideas toward giving the rating descriptions clearer distinctions.

I've included the current text (grey) with suggested replacements in black.


First of all, please indicate how far you have got with the game. If you're still playing, we'd really rather that you finished it before voting.

I've completed it
I'm still playing it
I gave up on it

Visual
How well did the backgrounds and sprites suit the game? Did it go that extra mile by providing unexpected animations?

5) Superb - outstandingly well done backgrounds, sprites and animations
4) Good - there's obviously been a lot of effort put into them
3) Average - the graphics are ok, but nothing to write home about
3) Functional but uninteresting. Nothing to attract attention, good or bad.
2) A bit on the poor side, should have spent more time on them
1) Abysmal - no effort at all has gone into them

Immersion
Was the level of immersion right for the game?
Did the game lead your awareness to enhance its mood?
If the game was serious, did you feel like you were in the game world, or were there annoying reminders that you were not?
If the game was more light hearted, did that come across nicely?
Were ambient sounds and music used effectively?

5) I really felt like I was there - superb stuff
5) Thoroughly realised, engaging imagination beyond actual play.
4) It worked quite well at pulling me into the game world
4) Strong internal sense, rewarding free exploration.
3) I was as immersed in it as I'd expect
3) The mood is well maintained throughout.
2) Had its moments, but overall not much cop
2) Uneven, with occasional highs.
1) Not good at all, I just couldn't get into it
1) Erratic, with no particular mood.

Puzzles & Pacing
Was the game too easy, too hard, or about right? Did puzzles just involve pixel hunting and randomly combining items; or did they make more sense?

5) It was just right - the puzzles made sense and weren't too hard or easy
5) Inspiring and instructive. Encourages imaginative effort.
4) The puzzles were about right, I could proceed without too much trouble
4) Logical and well organized.
3) N/A (rolling demos / non-adventures / no puzzles)
2) I could cope with the pace of it, but it was a bit annoying
2) Some good ideas, but arbitrary and unbalanced.
1) Far too easy, or the puzzles made no sense at all
1) An excercize in manual labour. Frustrates thought.

Enjoyment
Everything else aside, how much did you enjoy playing the game? Couldn't wait to come back for more; or did you find it dull and boring? Did the game leave you feeling satisfied?

5) Amazing! You have GOT to play this game RIGHT NOW!
4) Recommended, definitely put it on your to-play list
3) It was ok, play it if you've got some spare time
2) Play it if you're bored, but not much fun to be had here
1) A bad game, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone

I'm almost afraid to upgrade*.
I'll never finish anything with all these new features tempting me to go the whole hog.
(*typed during download)

um, wouldn't you say it's up to the person who made the game to keep track of their own bug reports not make a database for them? and a finished/abandoned message could easily be added to the description of a game by the author instead of having to have a little checkbox set aside for it.

Sorry, I may have been ambiguous there. I meant that a player's rating could begin with the notifier Finished or Abandoned (as in gave up, was sickened to death by it etc.), and then progress onto the appropriate detail evaluation. So Finished does the rating, Abandoned does the why-I-quit poll.
[EDIT]Although, I do agree that some developers could be more courteous about providing valid information. At least one game on the games page has no screenshot and no game related content in it's blurb.

Now, another thing somebody mentioned was to have some sort of "If you liked this game, then try these" bit on the game detail page.

Also my doing (although  implied by others, too).
I was mainly thinking to inspire different approaches here - I don't see a practical implementation off-hand.

In my experience, a good range of factors is enough to identify areas of taste. So I'm not actually pushing for this feature.
It could be nice, but I don't even use Google's relevancy system, so it's pretty unlikely that I'd be among those who'd find it indispensable.

I think the moderators should choose which game is similar to another one. If anyone else feels that something is wrong, or finds a game they feel is similar and isn't listed, they can PM a moderator with the reasons why the feel this is so.

I think that this is expecting too much from the moderators.

About finishing the game thing. I think the least we should do, is tell people who vote, that if you haven't finished the game, please don't vote.

You don't need to have finished a game to have something to say about it.
I think that a Finished/Abandoned checkbox would provide immensely useful information. Abandoned replies could then do a poll indicating why they didn't finish instead of the ratings.
*Oh yes! I'm very pleased with this idea.*

Now, I'm wondering, should we have some sort of bug report? So people, when playing the game, can report a bug, and the author can find the bug and hopefull fix it. Or, if the author is finished with the game, and doesn't care to fix the bugs, than at least the person playing the game can see what bugs have already been reported.

Good thinking.
The moderators will have to ensure that known bugs are listed, but if people are aware at the outset, a lot of disappointment and board-noise could be avoided.
(I think that script-automated bug recording would actually be more trouble than manual editing in this case).

Is your main point though that this overall rating should just be an average of the "Enjoyment" ratings rather than combining them all? That sounds fair enough to me, actually - might be the best way to reflect it.

That's it exactly.

This post is mainly an argument against combining factors into a single rating (by any formula).
(Sorry, if this sounds terse and dogmatic. I'm a bit rushed right now.)

Enjoyment corresponds to a subjective (or subconscious) overall assessment. How it relates to other factors depends on the individual. It is, already, a kind of 'weighted average' by an unseen rule.

(We can expect that this correlates quite well with a generic single valued rating system, as is currently used, and can therefore absorb it without much error.)

The average Enjoyment rating is therefore already an implicit weighted average, with weightings adapted to the community rather than prescribed in advance.

The other factors are also treated independently, with an average for each one.

We can now, if desired, discover the average weightings that people are actually using in their assessment. It's not needed by the system, but we can, for example, use the data to design games for 'the market'.
We can also see how well the other factors reflect the general impression, and whether there is something else going on that isn't represented.

More importantly, we can get a clear idea of a game by having the independent factors available to us. And we will soon pick up certain patterns on our own, and learn to read more into them based on experience.

Any attempt to combine these values effectively overrides the judgement both of those who rate and those who search.

Once we can fit quality voice recognition into such a device, MMRPG worlds will take off.
Static adventures will be like fiction for a while, but will ultimately become a kind of email within communities of particular tastes.
There will be a veritable ocean of game-mediated communication going on, and even RPGs will be a quaintly world-like minority amongst much richer, but inhuman systems.

Just a vision. I'm not qualified to verify it.

Who cares what the device is called or what it was originally made for. It has capabilities, and society will use them as it sees fit. Its capabilities will be distorted by use (ie. demand) anyway.

Also left-handed people would get benefit

Actually, Windows sets the buttons before AGS sees them, so RIGHT is actually the left button under a left-handed configuration.

The best thing would be for the documentation to make the user aware of this, loudly, since no-one is going to think to look up something this basic, believing that they know the rules already.

It's actually quite easy to use if one is familiar with stacks and postfix notation.

[The hair proves it!]

The hair proves it!

I think I know what you're asking, but just to be sure, check the Knowledge Base listing. The 7th one from the top (Q22) may be the one you want.
I've been using that one a lot, so I may be able to help if there are further questions.

Also, anyone have any helpful links to additional scripting tutorials, explanations?

I think that the Docs page linked from the AGS main page includes pretty much all that's available. The Technical Archive on this board addresses many specific issues as well.

[Light - Deep]

oooh... is "After" heading full tilt into dissapointment town?!?!?

No way!
Ok, the interface was frustrating -- (The door, Richard. Go -through -the -door. No, not your clothes - get out of the way! : ) -- but it was a fun adventure.

Meanwhile, back on topic...
Yes, I realised humourous games weren't well represented.
There are some cases in which I'd rather see a bipolar scale, rather than one that enforces an idea about what is good. No, we don't always want immersion, but it is a big deal when it applies. How about -
Light - Deep (Avoiding derogatory terms)
This doesn't distinguish dramatic genres, which should be obvious from the game's blurb. Both ends of this scale are 'good' in their way.
(But this omits the 'atmospheric realisation' part, which I'll have to find a new home for.)

I see Variety in much the same way. The appeal of many games is that you get to excersize what you are good at frequently, whereas others require a more mobile appreciation. I still think there's something worthwhile in a category like this, but I'll have to rethink it.

I only put in Music as an acknowledgement that it is often the work of a different artist. But really, I should've seen immediately that the game rating is not the place for doing that.

[Immersion]

Yay! RLBAT, here I come!

A first draft, mainly by way of providing alternative ideas. The ranges do not reflect relative importance, but levels of precision.

Immersion x/5
__Can you settle into the game world? or is it always drawing attention to it's limitations ("I can't do that"), interface (Oops. That wasn't MODE_USE.), or making external references (e.g. to popular culture)?
Are speech, ambient and effect sounds used well.

Visual aesthetic x/5
__Do the graphics work well together to create a satisfying appearance? Are animations smooth? Are there pleasing visual effects or extras?

Pacing x/5
__Is the level of challenge and progress maintained throughout? or is it always oscillating between being totally stuck and going through the motions?

Variety x/5
__How much change do you experience, both in problem solving and feeling? Did you feel as though you were exploring diverse ideas? or just the same thing in a different costume.

Enjoyment x/5
__The visceral side of 'gameplay'.

? Music x/5 (Needs N/A option too)
__I don't know what to say about this. Should we judge it on its own merits, or by its relationship to gameplay? Should it be separate, or incorporated into Enjoyment (where it has a major influence already)?

Maybe 0 should be the default; that may give a better distribution than having people think about whether to score up or down from the middle.

[EDIT: responding to the posts that slipped in while I was typing this]
Another point in favour of multiple categories is that people (or at least I) take a greater interest in giving an opinion when I can give it some detail. Pure "volume" doesn't do it for me.

[EDIT2: oh yeah ... Opinions. I forgot]
Some problems I have with the typical categories.
"Graphics" tends to be read as 'hi-res realism' a lot, when that's not really what it's about.
"Audio" works as a sensory subdivision, but it seems too multifunctional and interdependent to separate like this.
"Story" is a valid area for discussion and critique, but it's not clear that a number can say anything useful about it.
Having a coherent and engaging experience with a sense of purpose seems like the main idea here, and a story is not the only way to acheive it. This is why I've tried to pick up different elements of experience instead.

"Gameplay" Yes. It's rather vague, but at least everyone can agree on it's importance.
I'm inclined to aim for something even simpler like "Enjoyment/satisfaction", and try to let the more technical aspects of gameplay come through in the other categories (mainly pacing and variety).

Of course, I create the new problem of whether anyone can be bothered understanding the question.

[EDIT3]
I originally had different precisions on the categories, but just realised how confusing that could be. Now, I must definitely stop changing this and go play RLBAT

Is there any common pattern to people who have this problem? Have you all got an Nvidia graphics card, for instance? Does it happen both windowed and full-screen? Does it happen for all games, or just some? If just some, is it consistent which games it happens with and which it doesn't?

Unfortunately, I hadn't thought to keep tabs on which games do this, or whether it's repeatable, sorry. I'll watch for it in future though.
My system Win2k on AMD Duron with Trio3D/2X graphics.

It didn't work on Win2k.
I can't think of what would work either.
Luckily, I wasn't going to use that feature anyway.

Main thing is that I really hate it when MSIE gets started unexpectedly, and that wopuld happen if I clicked on a link in someone else's game.

Another broken rule: double posting.

Wow, you're on a role tonight!

Way to exemplify the need for rules.

Nice work, Pau.
Although, I don't like that it launches Internet Explorer instead of the user's default browser.

P.S. The manual says that you'll accept "gits" (i.e. dweebs, useless people)

Right on!
Let go of your fears.
Follow the zombie within.
In your heart of hearts ... hang on ...
Whose heart is that?
... Oh, right. Never mind.