The Humans in Solar Echoes (part 5)

After only a single generation, humanity had already spread to a number of worlds near New Terra, establishing a territory of their own in space while establishing themselves as a capable power in the region. The Humans began on New Terra as a meritocracy, with the most skilled and specialized holding positions of authority while encouraging others to contribute to the new society. The meritocracy slowly began to shift towards a democracy, but as the Humans made first contact with neighboring “alien” races, many wondered what the influence of alien cultures would have upon the Humans. We have been here long before the Humans arrived on New Terra, and though Human progress is considered highly impressive, the question is, will the Humans be influenced by us, or will we be influenced by them?

-Narsu Denathos, Reln Historian

The Humans in Solar Echoes (part 4)

One of the great colony ships, the Ark 3, lost contact with Earth after journeying in space for only four years. The Ark 3 had fallen into a wormhole and was propelled halfway across the galaxy almost instantaneously. Though some damage was suffered, the ship was intact and emerged from the wormhole tens of thousands of light years away from Earth, with no way back. After 3 months of searching for a world to settle in the new region, the colonists were ready to give up hope as the damaged hyperdrive began to fail, potentially leaving them adrift in space for the remainder of their lives. However, they finally came across a terrestrial planet very similar to Earth, though uninhabited by intelligent life. After landing, the colonists decided to name the planet New Terra in honor of their distant homeworld. Though they were not able to communicate with Earth, they knew that they had finally accomplished their mission.

The Humans in Solar Echoes (part 3)

The first colony ships were built for the Ark project. These starships were massive, the size of entire cities, and were designed to house generations of people for the expansive search across the universe. Criteria was strict, with participants chosen carefully based almost entirely on the skills they possessed in addition to intense medical investigations meant to ensure that healthy populations representing all Human races would be fostered through these chosen colonists. There were many protests, with mobs of people insisting they were being discriminated against because they had not been chosen for the Ark mission. Despite the controversy, the chosen colonists were able to safely depart Earth as the representatives of humanity. Five Ark colony starships in total were launched over a span of several decades, with the Humans hoping to find a planet they could consider a new Earth.

The Humans in Solar Echoes (part 2)

The Humans had been to space before, visiting their own moon and a few planets in their solar system, but these projects were more experimental and exploratory. Even though humanity had discovered faster than light speed travel, they were only able to expand into nearby star systems due to the challenge of finding habitable planets within range, which was limited by the lifespan of passengers. Supplies and support for the colonies were limited, and though self-sufficient colonies were established, none of them flourished into full-fledged civilizations. Despite this, the Humans were still eager to start over and try to rebuild their failing civilization. It became clear that the search had to be expanded, and that it would likely require large numbers of several generations to live on the starships during the search. This was the beginning of the Ark project.

The Humans in Solar Echoes (part 1)

Humans in the Solar Echoes universe primarily occupy a planet known as New Terra, and none of the Humans living on this planet have ever been to the planet of their ancestors, Earth. How did the Humans become a part of this universe, and how is it they have so quickly adapted to their new environment? The answers can be found in their past, and it is their particular history that has made them into the resilient, space-faring beings we know them as today. It all began with their failures on Earth, a planet plagued by wars, racial division, pollution, over-population, disease, and volatile economic swings. Additionally, the failure of a one-world government experiment and the fractured warring factions that resulted provided the incentive for several wealthy private corporations to invest heavily in a space exploration initiative.

Combining the Elements for a VN Game (part 4)

Background art is another vital part of a VN, because it helps set the scenario without narrative description. The mood of a scene can really be enhanced by background art, and the old saying that “a picture is worth a thousand words” really holds meaning in this case. Due to the nature of VN's being mostly dialogue-driven, a lot of time is spent on character interaction with other characters or the environment, so very little actual description of the environment itself is given. Small things that may not be illustrated can be referenced in dialogue, and it is up to the reader's imagination to conjure up those images. As a result, it is not necessary to depict everything in background art, but enough to generate a setting where your imagination can fill in the blanks. For me, the challenge with background art is on several fronts. One is price—artists spend a lot of time on their art and though a single piece of background art may not break the bank, the number of required scenes in a visual novel might! I am trying not to write the story in a way that avoids backgrounds to save money, because I want the story to be really engaging, but at the same time, I need to be careful and not include many scenes that will only be onscreen for a short amount of time. Thankfully, the story I'm writing lends itself to fewer locations than most visual novels, so I want to make sure that the background art you'll be seeing is the best it can be!

Combining the Elements for a VN Game (part 3)

I have also lined up an artist to do CG's. A CG (meaning computer graphic) is a special plot moment in a visual novel which has a separate, full-screen art illustration that is intended to emphasize the moment and provide a memorable piece of art you can access later. A lot of visual novels have a collectible art gallery where CG's are unlocked as you progress through the game. Completionist gamers like to unlock each one, and sometimes it becomes a topic of discussion online in gamer forums as they share tips about what choices you need to make in the game to go a certain route so you can unlock a particular CG. For me, the challenge is figuring out which scenes would be the most “photogenic,” in a sense, and make great artistic moments. My CG artist will be starting work with me in January, so not only do I need to complete the script by then (it's good to have deadlines!) but I'll need to have decided which scenes will be the most memorable and be the best art scenes. Some of these scenes might be the kind of art you'll want as a screen-saver, or maybe even something you'd print out in color.

Combining the Elements for a VN Game (part 2)

As I've tried to visualize the entire plot of the visual novel, some details and instances don't reveal themselves until I'm writing a particular scene. This has opened up the need for a few extra background scenes, so I'm glad that I'm more than half-way finished with the script, now that I've started talking with background artists about what I need. I still worry about the unfinished scenes, though, and what I might end up needing. As I write the script, I try to design the plot progression to follow the larger framework for the story that I've envisioned, but different circumstances sometimes result in different needs for background art. In one instance, one of the logical choice options I wrote actually results in you having a different experience in a different location. This of course requires extra background art. So, the remaining 35% of the game I have yet to write carries with it the possibility of requiring a few extra background scenes. Of course, I could save some money for the background art by rewriting that story path, but I really think it will enhance the game to have it there. This also adds to replay value!

Combining the Elements for a VN Game (part 1)

Last week I did an in-depth review of the indie RPG videogame, Infinite Adventures, which involved me really taking a deeper look at what goes into making a video game. I've been going through my own process for the Solar Echoes visual novel (VN) project, and there are a lot of parts that need to all come together for this game to work. I still have a very long way to go before it is complete, but it's exciting when some of the individual pieces are starting to near completion. Every part is contingent on another part in a way, so it's difficult to plan and adjust as everything forms. Thankfully, the core of the game is about 65% complete: the script. One of the first things that needs to be decided upon for a visual novel is who the characters are. This is not only vitally important for the script, but it is also necessary for the character artist as he works on the art for each "sprite." A sprite is the term used in visual novels to describe the individual character art, which will be positioned and highlighted on screen whenever that particular character speaks. Thankfully, most of my sprites are already complete, thanks to the work I did last spring in the Solar Echoes Video Comic for YouTube. I have only a few extra characters that I still need sprites for, and artist John Fell is at work bringing them to life with various expressions and a few different outfits.

Infinite Adventures (part 5/5)

 Overview and Highlights
 

THE ENCOUNTER RATE: There are a few innovations that really made this game for me. I absolutely love the option to adjust the encounter rate! Why haven't other RPG's implemented something like this? Sometimes I just want to explore, and in other games like this I lose interest because I often can't risk going further and have to find my way back out of a dungeon to survive. In Infinite Adventures, I can pursue little goals I want to achieve without being bothered by random encounters. For instance, I wanted to level up a few of my newbie characters, so I put two of them in a party of higher level characters, and turned off the encounters. I walked to a boss encounter, and then fought the boss—it was a hard fight with my newbies, but I won, and they leveled up a couple times! The encounter rate feature made this game so much more fun to me, and it never felt like a grind because I could choose the frequency for how often I'd be fighting lots of monsters.

THE SKILL VARIETY: A lot of RPG's have complex skill trees, so I guess this is nothing new, but I liked the skill trees in Infinite Adventures. Each character had 3 different skill trees to choose from, and it was actually possible to get some of the more powerful skills before level 10 if you invested right. The skills were interesting and changed the way I fought in battle, and they made me look forward to battle, because I was always looking for a chance to test various combinations of characters and skills. Monsters had different vulnerabilities to exploit and abilities I might want to suppress, so the variety of skills kept it interesting and strategic.

ENCOUNTER WARNING SYSTEM: I thought it was a great idea to have a slowly changing color around the map that showed me how soon my next encounter would be. Once it started turning brighter shades of red, I knew my time was up. If I knew I wasn't going to be ready, I could warp back to town, or do my best to heal up my characters before the encounter started.

SAVE ANYWHERE: Thank you, Stormseeker Games, for allowing me to save anywhere in the game. I really, really hate save points that you have to trek with the risk of losing all of your progress if you don't make it there. My time for gaming is limited, and if I invest time and then end up losing it, I may not come back to that game again. With Infinite Adventures, I can just pick up where I left off!

FAIR MAPS: So far, I've only been to dungeon station 4 (level 4), but the maps have been fine. There are a few places where there were pitfal traps that dropped me to a lower level, but it wasn't the kind of impassable aggravating obstacle that I've seen in a lot of other games of this type. There were also a few puzzle rooms, but they were fairly intuitive and could easily be reset if I made a mistake. There has been nothing so far that made me feel like I was stuck and couldn't move forward—nothing that made me feel like I'd have to waste tons of time walking around to figure it out. I play these kinds of games for the strategy, battles, and the story, not be be frustrated by infuriating map design. For me, a game needs to be fun and not feel like a chore or a punishment to endure for the good stuff, so I'm glad Infinite Adventures hasn't had any maps so far that froze my progress.

BALANCED LOOT: Again, keep in mind that I'm a low-clutter dungeon crawler where I prefer my loot to be balanced like the Dragon Quest. I don't want to carry around a million swords and struggle to pick which one to use. I like having simpler choices with a few options to upgrade and fine-tune.

CHARACTERS: With 5 races and 10 classes to choose from, each class with 3 different skill trees, I felt there was a lot of depth for strategic customization. For character types, I could also choose--in most cases--between two different art protraits with two different color schemes each, and I could choose from a huge variety of voice types. Each voice type gave more “character” to my character. I could choose noble or common for my character's background, which influenced my attributes and my skills. There is a lot of unexpected depth to this game, and character creation was extremely fun!

GAMEPLAY: The controls were fine, the game flowed quickly, and I could even adjust the speed of the action during an encounter (I put it at medium so I could better keep track of what was going on and study how effective each skill was.) The game revolved around going through dungeons, fighting monsters, leveling up and tweaking characters, returning to town to buy, sell, rest, save, upgrade, take on or report quests, and advance the main storyline.

PRICE: $25 is a little steep for a game like this at first glance, which might turn a number of buyers away. Without playing it, it's hard to justify the $25 asking price when looking at the production values and comparing with other games of the same price from much larger game studios. But, if you look past first impressions, there is a lot of game here. Consider this was done by one person who understands old-school dungeon crawling fun at its best—this game was more fun for me than other similar titles by big game studios, and Infinite Adventures has great innovations that should really become standards in this genre. I think it's totally worth the money. Even more so when considering that it supports the efforts of such a small game studio. A lot of thought and effort went into this game.

ONLINE RECEPTION SO FAR: I bought Infinite Adventures on the PS4 and was the first to rate it. I rated it 5 out of 5 stars, but over several days, the rating dropped to 3 out of 5 after others rated it. However, on Steam, I've seen nothing but good reviews, with 14 positive reviews as of today's writing. Perhaps the PC crowd has different expectations than console gamers? One complaint that I've seen a few times in forums is that there was a save file corruption issue at release, and though I never experienced this myself, I can see how people would be angry losing their saves after investing time in the game. This has already been addressed, though, because Stormseeker Games has already patched the game several times since release, so they are actively supporting it and responding to their customers.

REPLAY VALUE: For me, there is replay value because I really enjoy creating new characters and trying out new skill investments. You can create a lot of characters and vary their skill investments, and I can see myself trying a new game with a new hero to get a different Kessen skill based on the different background choices I made. I'd definitely like to try building my characters up from level 1 in different ways once I better understand what character and skill types work together best for my tactical preferences.

VERDICT: As mentioned, I ranked this 5 out of 5 stars. For me, this dungeon crawler does so many things right, including some innovations that I hope other developers take note of and make into standards for the genre. Infinite Adventures shows what one game designer with a clear vision can do alone and honestly, it is quite impressive. Somebody give this guy some major financial backing, because I really can't wait to see what he produces next!

Infinite Adventures RPG Review (part 4)

ART DESIGN

So here is where the budget of the game shows a little, and I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way. The art is good, and consistent. It's not the best art I've ever seen in a game, but it more than gets the job done, because it's colorful and there is good variety. It's a little flat and more 2D than 3D, regarding shading and texture, but when I first saw it, I honestly felt like I was looking at something out of a cartoon series from the 1980's-90's...and I liked that. It reminded me a little of the “Dragon's Lair” art style in a way, and I felt like I was playing a video game of a Saturday morning cartoon. The dungeons themselves are decent looking, as dungeons go, and maintain a cartoonish look to them. Yes, the environment art is repetitive in some places, but you're exploring a dungeon, after all! The monster art is varied and is done in the same style as the characters, and the monsters do maintain a consistently creative design and tone. The character art designs across 5 different races are done well enough, and I have to add that I was impressed with clothing styles and armor designs. I've worked with an artist on clothing design before, and it is not easy to come up with something original that also looks halfway decent. I should also mention the background art used for the loading screens and various enviornments: all of these were done well and were colorful and detailed. My only complaint was a little graphical “noise” around the edges of some of the character portraits while adveturing. Overall, the art design is average for an indie developer to maybe a little above average, but considering how expensive art is to commission, I appreciate that so much effort towards variety and color was made in the art design for this game.

SOUND

This was an unexpected surprise, because I did not think sound would be much of a consideration for an indie game like this. I was very impressed that this entire game is fully voice-acted! Every line of text is spoken for the NPC's you encounter, and all of it is done with an acting competency surprising for a one-person indie game company. There are a wide variety of voice types with varying accents and the lines were well-acted, with very few instances reminding me that some of the voice actors might be less experienced. I know the challenges of coordinating and directing voice acting with different people, so this effort was impressive and it really enhanced the game experience for me. There were a few instances where the audio was quieter and less definied than other parts with one NPC in the library, for a few lines, but otherwise, everything else came across very clearly. The background music used for the dungeons and town was suitable, and it fit the mood, but it wasn't anything that stood out to me as memorable. Sound effects were decent as well, and some of the battle effects did stand out above the others. I also noticed some nice little touches, such as the sound of walking up stone stairs during the loading scene as you wait to exit the dungeon and go to town.

CHALLENGE AND FUN

The nice thing about the challenge in Infinite Adventures was that it felt right. Perhaps that was because I could adjust the encounter rate if necessary, but I also felt that I rarely ran into monsters that were easy or impossible. I will say that some of the pit traps that dropped me to a lower dungeon scared me, because my party wasn't ready for that next level of challenge, but thankfully I was able to find the exit before my next encounter fired off (I usually keep the encounter rate at “normal.”) If I confronted a boss monster that I wasn't ready for, I could always reload and then adventure a bit more to level up, but most of the time, my party felt experienced enough to make the boss fights a fun, nail-biting challenge without being an exercise in anger management. So far I have suffered only one TPK (total-party kill), but I was fighting a dragon, after all, so time to level up a little more!

Infinite Adventures RPG Review (part 3)

QUESTS

Aside from the larger story arc, there are many sidequests that you can undertake. In town, you'll find a few of the characters there in need of your help. Short quest-related stories that are basically item fetches are common, as well as a few “locate this person” quests. I liked it that the quests had some fun little story elements to them, and the actual quests were somewhat incidental, in that I would eventually solve them through the course of my dungeon explorations anyway. But it was fun returning to town and seeing a location highlighted to indicate that I'd solved a quest and could go talk to the quest giver to advance the mini-quest story a little more. I'd get my reward, but in addition to whatever loot I was awarded, I also felt like the next part of the quest story was also a reward. Perhaps it was because of the contrast of dungeon crawling and battling with monsters, but the development of the quests while in town was a refreshing insertion of narrative.

STORY

I'm not going to give any real spoilers here; I'll generalize. The actual story in the game began with me playing a character in a higher level party. What they encounter and learn serves as a platform for my characters later when they join the game. During character development, I spent quite a long time designing each of my characters, not only because of the many options, but because of the background options. Some time was clearly spent on the history of this world, and it really helped give the characters and their races some context in the game. As I began the game, I had to talk to a few people to learn that I needed an adventurer's license of sorts, and I was eventually given the task of exploring the first level of the dungeon and activating 4 different beacons. If I did that and came back alive, I could get my license and be allowed to go deeper into the dungeon. After gaining my license and exploring further, I was surprised to meet other groups of adventurers in the dungeon, each group with different personalities and goals. Every once in a while, I'll encounter some of those characters and see the story advance a little more. I especially liked it when I met a group that were basically going to “allow” me handle the boss encounter up ahead. They, of course, were able to advance further after I'd done all the dangerous work clearing the way! The story unfolds as you play, but so far, it has remained active and amusing despite my many dungeon forays intended to level up some of the other character classes I designed.

Infinite Adventures RPG Review (part 2)

SPELL EMPOWERMENT

One thing I really loved about Infinite Adventures was the option to use that energy bar on the right to “empower” a spell and cause it to fire first in a round. Empowered heals saved my characters from dying so many times that I wonder how adventuring parties have ever lived without it in the past! A number of spells, including and healing spells, can also be adjusted in their targeting—for extra mana cost—to include not one but a full row of either your characters or enemy monsters. I particularly like using this feature to target the entire back row of enemy ranks where those nasty spellcasting shamans, wizards, and sorcerers like to hide out!

SKILLS AND CLASSES

I could spend a long time detailing the wide variety of skills, spells, and other abilities that each character class has available through well-designed skill trees. I couldn't help but create more characters than I could take with me just so I could try out each of the 10 classes and mix it up among 5 different races. I spent time going through the same parts of a dungeon just to level up some of my newbie characters and try out their skills in battle so I could decide on the perfect balance for my party. Infinite Adventures actually made this a very plausible option, too, because during my sorties, I could adjust the encounter rate whenever I wanted. When I took out a new party, I'd put the encounter rate as high as I could, but when they were beaten up and barely hanging on to their lives (or worse), I could turn the encounter rate to “none” and walk back home safely...if I'd forgotten to bring enough warp crystals with me (or couldn't afford any!) Sometimes turning the encounter rate to none helped give me a fighting chance with a fresh party when I went up against the difficult boss monsters.

LOOT

Piles of loot in a dungeon crawler is often a selling point for some, but for me, I've always liked the loot I find to feel more rewarding. I honestly dislike having so much loot that I have to spend tons of time sorting or selling it, spending more time in my inventory than in the game world. Yet the loot system in Infinite Adventures felt right to me. Instead of filling your loot bag with yet another bulky, heavy steel weapon, you find materials and runes as you explore. These materials can be taken back to town, and if you sell them to the blacksmith, it will allow him to use those materials to craft better weapons and armor than he could previously, which then go on sale. Your hard earned gold can then be spent on the best weapons and armor you can afford, which can also be improved through the use of magical runes that you find. There is even one character class that has skills you can unlock which increase the frequency of good “drops” from the monsters you encounter. Loot isn't the main focus of the game, thankfully.

Infinite Adventures RPG Review (part 1)

The first thing that caught my attention about the Infinite Adventures video game is that it is an RPG. Anything and everything that bears that title will at least get a second glance from me. When I started reading about Infinite Adventures and viewing some of the screenshots and videos, I became even more interested. The game has a very old-school turn-based “Wizardry” feel to it, with a first-person perspective common in dungeon crawler games such as Elminage, Stranger of Sword City, and Demon's Gaze, to name a few. One of the reasons I chose to purchase this game was because I read a little background info about the developer, Stormseeker Games, and discovered this game was designed and programmed by one guy. As a solo game developer myself, I know a little about what that's like, and I really wanted to be supportive of the effort. I was glad I did after I started playing Infinite Adventures!

BATTLES

To be honest, there are a lot of games done in this style and though I continually try to get into them, I always end up quitting before solving them. One thing that often deters me is the grind—when the game starts to feel endlessly repetitive and I'm pressing the same buttons, going through the same sequences as fast as possible, I quickly start to lose interest. The point of a dungeon crawl, in my opinion, is to have fun managing the various skills of your party to compliment each other and survive dangerous encounters, taking advantage of tactical options and monster weaknesses while managing your resources carefully to emerge from each battle successfully. Thankfully, Infinite Adventures does this quite well, and adds in a few innovations that embellish the experience even further.

RESOURCES

Depending on which character class you choose for each of the six characters in your party, you have four different resources to manage, including mana, rage, focus, and astral. Mana is traditional for spellcasters, and it depletes from a starting max pool until it's empty. Rage is a resource used by warrior type classes, and though it starts 0 in an encounter, it accrues based on the damage you deal or suffer over time. Focus is used by finesse or precision type classes that can specialize in the use of ranged attacks, such as a ninja or a technocrat, and these classes begin with a maxed pool that replenishes over time during battle. Finally, astral is used by the Stormseeker class (named after the company, Stormseeker games), which absorb magic with their giant greatswords and then use it to fuel powerful skills. With all these resources to manage during a battle, the strategy is already built in to each encounter, making timing and sequence very important.

TACTICAL OPTIONS

However, the strategic options don't end with the resources in Infinite Adventures. There is a 5-slot bar on the right side of the screen that fills up over time during an encounter, and you can use this energy to power “Kessens,” which are one-shot powers like: a guardian wall that reduces incoming damage by 50%, a free attack from all 3 of your front characters, a ranged attack from all 3 of your rear characters, or an ability based on some of the choices you made during the development of your main character at the beginning of the game. But wait, there's more...

What Are Your Game Rating Standards? (part 5)

It's impossible to avoid making comparisons when rating a game. Often, games emulate the successful formulas of their predecessors. If you remember Blizzard's “Diablo,” then you may also remember the horde of Diablo-clones that were released in the years after its debut. Some games even improved on Blizzard's incredibly successful formula, but ultimately, most ratings were based on comparisons to Blizzard's three Diablo games. A lot of games, though, are hybrids of a number of other games. In cases like these, comparisons may only be useful if you're trying to describe the game to someone else, rather than helping determine a fair rating. My visual novel video game is a long way from being completed, but my hope is that when I do eventually release it for sale, ratings will be given based on the genre it falls under, the story, the visual and aural presentation, and how fun it is to experience. I hope to make the best game I possibly can within my means. I can tell that the designer of Infinite Adventures by Stormseeker Games did his very best, and I am very impressed with the result. I'm looking forward to the next chance I'll have to spend some more time with it!

What Are Your Game Rating Standards? (part 4)

Regarding Infinite Adventures and the 5 star rating I gave the PS4 game, I was disappointed to see the rating starting to slip after more people added their ratings. Perhaps I was alone in my enjoyment of the game? I checked on Steam, where it had also been released for PC, and I saw that all of the PC gamers totally loved it, indicated by ten positive reviews so far. The mindset of gamers on PC's and consoles does differ sometimes, so this can affect ratings simply because of what a game is being compared with. There are so many different categories and genres of games, that it is easy to compare apples and oranges and rate the oranges badly because they're not red or sweet enough. Although mileage varies with each person, I think games should at least be ranked based on a few basic standards: How fun is the game? Does it appeal to you visually? Is the gameplay comfortable or frustrating? Did you like the sound design or was it irritating? Was the game engaging, or boring? In my opinion, these kinds of questions should drive your rating more than how the game compares with other games out there.

What Are Your Game Rating Standards? (part 3)

Last week I purchased Infinite Adventures by an indie developer, Stormseeker Games. I read up on the developer and learned that the game was developed by a husband wife team, which formed a small company to publish the game under. I plan on reviewing the game soon, possibly next week, but after playing 2 or 3 hours of the game, I went back to the digital storefront and ranked it 5 out of 5 stars. I based my rating on the fact that the game was very impressive for its humble origins, but if I had compared this game to some of the larger indie companies, many might have expected a lower rating. The art was well-done, but it was certainly lower budget than what might be seen from other, larger indie developers. The voice acting was also well-done, but in some cases it was apparent that the voice actors perhaps had less experience than you'd find in a game with higher production costs. (I was also really impressed that every character and every bit of text was voice acted!) It all worked nicely, and it was well-designed, well-written, engaging, and fun to play. If I were to price it myself, I might lower the $25 asking price to $15 to place it among games with similar production values, but I was happy to pay the full $25 when considering the impressive effort that must have been made to produce such an enjoyable game.

What Are Your Game Rating Standards? (part 2)

Being a game developer myself, I am a lot more thoughtful about ratings because I know how much they can impact sales. I once had someone give Solar Echoes a 6/10 only a few weeks after game release, and since I didn't have any reviews yet, that one review negatively impacted sales for over a month until other people started putting up reviews and ratings (which were thankfully much higher, usually 8 or 9 out of 10!) At least people could read the first reviewer's review and see that his main complaint was that Solar Echoes was a grid-based game, and he personally didn't like grid-based tactical games in general. I felt that his review was very unfair, because if he didn't like grid-based games, he should have either left that out of is review, or mentioned it in passing while basing his scoring of the game on other areas. So, when I review games now, I try to think about rating them based on what the game is in its particular genre or style, how it compares with others of its kind, and what works...or not.

What Are Your Game Rating Standards? (part 1)

I was thinking about game ratings the other day, because games can live or die based on just a few ratings. I'm not talking about reviews--reviews are more comprehensive and detail different aspects of the game so that potential buyers can make informed decisions. Game reviews can even reveal the reviewer's bias, so even if the reviewer gives a negative review, that doesn't necessarily hurt the game too much. Sometimes game companies put out demos, but this can cost more time and money and it's hard to say if demo's encourage or discourage purchases. Rating systems are a much more common method of informing consumers about a game. However, rating systems are totally impersonal and lack detail, and even if a game is rated 5 out of 5 stars, that doesn't necessarily mean that it will be a good game--it just means that one buyer really enjoyed it (or, it's also possible someone hated it and wants to trick others into purchasing it!) When a rating average is displayed and the number of raters is indicated, that sometimes helps to better communicate how the game is generally being received. Despite the absence of information in a simple rating system, most digital storefronts use a 5 or 10 star system to help potential buyers decide if they want to risk their money. When you rate a game, though, what are your standards?

Symbolism in writing (part 5)

Personally, I enjoy reading works where the reader might gain additional "mileage" and perspective after a second read-through. Sometimes a lot of the hidden elements in this style of writing are revealed at the ending, which makes a second reading reveal the hidden nuances placed throughout the story. Often these clues, by themselves, are entirely ambiguous and seemingly inconsequential. If you reach the end of these stories and think you have figured out what the author is trying to say, hopefully you enjoyed the discovery and the message. But if not, and it is something that triggers you, you can't lay the blame on the writer. It might just be your interpretation.

Symbolism in writing (part 4)

Religion and politics can even be interwoven into a writer's work, in such a way that only proponents of those views will recognize their reference. Some writers have managed this incredibly effectively, such as the Wachowskis in their script and direction of the movie, The Matrix. The movie contains a vast number of religious references, but these references were often made symbolically and in such a way that people from many different religions found something relatable, with many thinking the film was written about their particular belief system. The Wachowskis may have intended it to appeal to a wide range of people rather than to speak a specific message to a specific group. But in the end, they could not be proven to have taken a particular side, because whatever views they have personally, their personal convictions were masterfully masked behind the symbolism used in their writing.