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[Derek]

Paul, if you could write a review, that'd be awesome.  If not, let me know and I'll do it... but you have a more personal perspective on the game and its development.

[ChevyRay]

As long as it's not as dull as the indiegames.com/blog review I found that it didn't do the game justice at all, and was a very technical look at something that's not about jumping and shooting but about dreams, wonder, and mystery.

[TeeGee]

Okay, this is fucking amazing! It reminds me a lot of The Cleaner. Only more artsy and immersive. I love it.

[Paul Eres]

As long as it's not as dull as the indiegames.com/blog review I found that it didn't do the game justice at all, and was a very technical look at something that's not about jumping and shooting but about dreams, wonder, and mystery.

Oh, I see timw beat me to it there, he's fast -- I actually appreciate timw's objectivity, he never really adds his personal opinion about games, and that can be valuable a lot of the time. For instance, I didn't really like the Michael Rose review of The Path in that blog, because he inserted opinions about what games should be into it. Timw wouldn't have done that (even though he wouldn't have written about how the game made him feel either).

And okay Derek, I will write about it, although it's not that much more personal except that I've argued with CosMind over game design issues a lot on those forums, so it's nice to finally see a game by him

I also donated $10 when I saw that it was released as charityware, hopefully I was the first! I recommend all of you donate something too if you have the means and like the game.

[Paul Eres]

Okay, posted. I tried to keep the review unrevealing (since a lot of the game is better not knowing about it and figuring it out as you go along) but enthusiastic.

[Sam]

I feel like an ass saying this, but the Charityware thing seems a little bit odd to me.

It sounds at first like clicking the pay button sends your money to a charity.  But if I understand the explanation, 'only' 51% of the value of the first 100 payments is actually passed on to the charity.  Once the next 100 payments are made, 52% of those 100 are passed on to the charity, and so on with increasing amounts of the total value of each 'chunk' of 100 payments being passed on.

I'm a sucker for whining about unclear explanations.  I also worry that people will hesitate to pay for this game if they find themselves getting lost in the maths of what happens to their payment, or worse yet feel that they were duped out of their money because they didn't understand it.

Better to just keep it simple, in my opinion: "Pay me what you like for my game, and I'll pass 60% of that on to this lovely charity."

I'll stop whining now, and go actually play the game!

[mark]

I feel like an ass saying this, but the Charityware thing seems a little bit odd to me.

It sounds at first like clicking the pay button sends your money to a charity.  But if I understand the explanation, 'only' 51% of the value of the first 100 payments is actually passed on to the charity.  Once the next 100 payments are made, 52% of those 100 are passed on to the charity, and so on with increasing amounts of the total value of each 'chunk' of 100 payments being passed on.

I'm a sucker for whining about unclear explanations.  I also worry that people will hesitate to pay for this game if they find themselves getting lost in the maths of what happens to their payment, or worse yet feel that they were duped out of their money because they didn't understand it.

Better to just keep it simple, in my opinion: "Pay me what you like for my game, and I'll pass 60% of that on to this lovely charity."

I'll stop whining now, and go actually play the game!

I had the same thought, is he donating something himself or the donations just split between him and a charity?

[ChevyRay]

I actually appreciate timw's objectivity, he never really adds his personal opinion about games, and that can be valuable a lot of the time. For instance, I didn't really like the Michael Rose review of The Path in that blog, because he inserted opinions about what games should be into it. Timw wouldn't have done that (even though he wouldn't have written about how the game made him feel either).

I don't think it was as much objective as it felt like he just didn't look into it at all, though. Being objective means you keep your bias to yourself, not that you refuse to immerse yourself. You don't have to go into a rant about what makes games good, or what art is in games or whatever, but the fact that most of Glum Buster's strongest values weren't even given the slightest attention is what bothered me.

It's like if I wrote a review of Iji and completely failed to mention the nonviolent values that the game communicates. It's like you're telling someone what a book is about by reading from the back of it, instead of reflecting what you found inside it.

Then again, I guess to some people there's no difference *sigh*


EDIT: I just read your review, and thought it was much better. At least it offers intrigue into what the game really has to offer

[Paul Eres]

I agree about the lack of clarity on the charity thing, I'm confused by that too, but remember that the website is still under construction. Give him time to adjust that clarity to exposure, I expect the wording to get clearer with time. I think the increasing percents are just a way of getting people to donate even very small amounts in hopes of raising the percent.

Yes, perhaps dispassionate would be a better word for the indiegames.com/blog review. But timw plays so many games that he doesn't really have much time to delve into each; he plays dozens of new indie games a day, and has told me it's been having an effect on the way in which he enjoys games. But you can mention your critique of his review as a comment and I'm sure he'll read it and take it into account in the future or even edit the entry. He runs his blog not really as a review blog the way TIGSource is, but more of a news announcements blog (mentioning as many new game releases as possible without going too much in depth about each), so I think that may be part of the issue.

[ChevyRay]

That's true, I guess I should remember where this is coming from. I suppose any exposure is better than no exposure, in the long run.

[mirosurabu]

Nit-picking aside, it looks interesting. The only real problem I have is that I can't find incentive to play it to the end.

I guess this is one of those games which depend on previous knowledge which I probably don't have.

[Paul Eres]

That's true, I guess I should remember where this is coming from. I suppose any exposure is better than no exposure, in the long run.

Plus, he said it's one of the rare efforts that *has* to be played, which is a huge complement coming from him, since he's played like 10,000 indie games -- that may even be an underestimate

Anyway, I wish I could have taken a video of this game to show to people, since that'd have been better than any review I could write in showing what the game is like, but FRAPS doesn't seem to record it well (it has problems with GM games that are not in true full-screen). And camstudio always produces choppy video for me.

Nit-picking aside, it looks interesting. The only real problem I have is that I can't find incentive to play it to the end.

I guess this is one of those games which depend on previous knowledge which I probably don't have.

Well, you don't really have to play it to the end to enjoy it; you can always just spend time with it now and again. I didn't play Seiklus to the end yet either, even though it's one of my absolute favorite games, because I'm not really a completionist who finds every single thing that I have to collect. But I enjoy playing the game now and again just for the world.

[Alex May]

The way I saw the charity thing is that over time, he will be happy to accept less income from the game, and also since the percentage increases, the more people that donate, the more money actually goes to charity.

This way, if you want to support the charity, the best way would be to make many small donations over time instead of one big donation. If you want to support the creator, a larger one-time donation is better.

[ortoslon]

Nit-picking aside, it looks interesting. The only real problem I have is that I can't find incentive to play it to the end.

It's not very long. I beat it in four hours.

[Bood_War]

  This. Is. Fucking. Amazing!  I've only played a little bit to the part where you can't fly. And I am stunned.