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[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

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (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.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (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.

[mark]

Very nice game

Loving the hat thing.

[Nikica]

  Fantastic, I love it, I love the "equipment" you can get and the hats!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

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.

Did you collect all the whatever-they-are's though? I would think collecting them all would take longer than that. I don't actually know if anything special happens when you collect them all, but I'd assume so.

[ortoslon]

Did you collect all the whatever-they-are's though?

No, I just ran through the game, I missed several locked rooms. Maybe I'll try to collect everything on my second playthrough in the dangerous mode (which is unlocked after you beat the game).

Also, the yellow shiny things are called grins.

[Alex May]

It's hard work collecting them all. Very hard work.

[pgil]

Just started playing. I love the way there are very few instructions, but you can figure out what to do simply through intuition.

[cravesoft]

This game is fantastic! I love the art style.

I am stuck in the first room of the second chapter. What are we supposed to do with the birds, the cage and the flying creature? I just know that we can cut the rope with the creature and that the birds can kill the creature. Is there a way to catch the birds with the cage?

[increpare]

i like the game a lot; not particular for the visual atmosphere as of yet (screen not resizing is annoying; only on third part), but rather for the process of thinking that one goes through when playing.  it feels so far that it's built up at a nice pace.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

This game is fantastic! I love the art style.

I am stuck in the first room of the second chapter. What are we supposed to do with the birds, the cage and the flying creature? I just know that we can cut the rope with the creature and that the birds can kill the creature. Is there a way to catch the birds with the cage?

I'm not sure which room you mean, but try the blue mouse button, that seems to do the trick for a lot of the black enemies in terms of getting them to reveal themselves. If you could post a screenshot or something of what room exactly you mean I'd be able to give more specific tips.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i like the game a lot; not particular for the visual atmosphere as of yet (screen not resizing is annoying; only on third part), but rather for the process of thinking that one goes through when playing.  it feels so far that it's built up at a nice pace.

CosMind informed me that you can actually press the screen change button *three times*, it's a 3-way toggle, and on the third time it goes to true full screen mode. And yes, I like how varied the gameplay is. Most games find a mechanic and stick with it, varying the theme and varying the combinations of a few basic gameplay elements. This game just keeps throwing new gameplay element after new gameplay element at you, endlessly. It reminds me of the latter areas of 'jumpman' in that regard, although in a different way than that did it.