Archive for the ‘Rant’ tag

Did you miss us?!

Hi everyone, Vlad here…

I know it’s getting kind of an habit, but we don’t post too much when we are on deadlines or our work-meter is sky high which is exactly our current status. Still and given the amount of email we’ve received I decided to answer it today and lighten up a bit. Some stuff is still pending, so here are the categories of pending issues:

You said you were going to work with us on a project and you didn’t contact me back…

Although I’m slightly disappointed, I’m also used to it. People do this all the time! It’s your opportunity to catch me on MSN, Gtalk or email and sort things out. Feel free to do it, I’m really on a good mood today.

Your last email had the sentence “Rot in hell!”…

Several issues with this… I don’t really believe in the whole heaven and hell definitions, so I’ll just skip that. I also believe that mutual understanding is far better than spamming for attention. If I offer an helping hand but I don’t want to promote your website, than you should take the helping hand instead telling me to rot… sorta makes sense doesn’t it?

You are expecting an answer from me…

I think I cleared all the late email. If not, accept my apologies and contact me back.

You just miss us…

Oh… that’s sweet of you! We are rockin’n'rolling and although the current project doesn’t leave any room for showing things up or further developing other projects, such as M:A:D, we will try to keep in touch as much as possible, so see you soon!

Encyclopedia of Players

Disclaimer: this post, unlike most of this blog, does not have the intention to present information or discuss any particular item. It is a fun motivated post, one that should be taken lightly, with a smile and nothing else.

Most if not all flash game developers have read comments about their games that triggered some feeling. Many times we fail to see the positive side and focus on the negative side. We are taking content to an audience and nowadays that means that either we like it or not, that audience will voice an opinion. Is is much easier to take the strong opinions with a smile and I hope this helps giving you that smile.

The 100m athlete

His only motivation is to be the first. He wants to, he has a lot of competition, but sooner or later he will be fast enough to be able to write:

FIRST!!!!111

and he won’t rest until he is banned! That’s his gold medal!

The obvious

It could be better.

O’rly? It could, I admit, but how? It’s like saying that it is a game, isn’t it?

The nonsense

This type of player is really unpredictable. We never know what’s his next comment. It can be something like:

LOL OMG it’s yeah!

to something really strange like:

Loved the game! 1/5 because I don’t like the name!

We never know what to expect… by the way, this last quote… true story.

The sober policeman

This player plays a lot of flash games. He knows the portals, he knows the developers, he knows if a game was uploaded by someone that is not the rightful owner. What can I say? The sober policeman is a real helpful player in many ways.

The drunk policeman

Ok… I only wrote the previous one so I could write this one. This player plays a lot of flash games but all games that look alike were stolen! What was the stolen game you may ask? Easy! The first game of the same genre he played. He also assumes that a sponsored game uploaded by the developer was, without a trace of doubt, stolen by the developer.

Games with stolen IPs are ok though, as long as he is a fan, like a Mario clone or something that remotely looks like Zelda… with Zelda graphics…

The analyst aka flash game journalist

This is a real, typical comment from this player type:

It feels… restricted. As far as I can tell, it is perfectly unclear as to how money is being earned. It just hands it to you at the end of the level. Similarly, there is almost no indication as to whether you are hitting something, unless it dies. Having scrollwheel weapon change is bit odd, considering that most people will be playing tihs in a browser.

I honestly love these guys (and gals)! They usualy know what they are saying, they write well, take the developer hardwork into consideration. They pinpoint problems the game has and they do so in an elegant way. Bottom line, they are really helpful.

The needy

Needs upgrades…

Needs badges…

Needs ketchup…

Needs more levels…

<insert your favorite need here>

Now that I think about it, usualy it’s not the game that needs it. It was designed like that so, that’s what it is for better or worse. Who needs something is the player.

The nice guy

I don’t like this game. It’s boring! I have better things to do than to waste 5 minutes of my life playing it. But since you used red in the logo and my dog is running after his tail, I’ll give it an 8.

Thanks mate, very helpful!

The complacent father of all developers

Really funny… he assumes that ALL developers are 13 years old. It’s really easy to spot! If you make one mistake, serious or not, he will say something like

The mute button is not working! I don’t expect that you 13 year olds can do a proper game.

or (and this is just hilarious) if you do something that he doesn’t like, it is not a mistake, bug or problem, he just doesn’t like that…

You 13 year olds still have a lot to learn. Ice towers also deal damage, not just slow down.

The uber game designer

This is probably the only type of player that I really don’t like and that annoys the hell out of me, but there are so few of them that their presence is rarely noted, thankfuly. This is someone that took a couple of hours to create something that remotely looks like a game and that from that moment on feels he has all the know-how to trash every single game that he doesn’t like.

He usualy shares pearls of wisdom such has:

This game sucks! Collision detection fails more than 50% of the time!

These pearls of wisdom usualy meet the following logic: the game in question does not have collisions, or even if it had, how does he know that it is more than 50% of the time? It’s funny because it’s true.

The spell checker

The typical spell checker is usually also a complacent father of all developers. But there’s a weird breed of spell checkers… I can’t really explain how they are, so here’s a comment…

LOL u dont now how 2 spel aphrodisiac

and last but not least… The follower

The follower is cute in a way. Followers simply follow an opinion that is from someone else. For instance if a uber game designer says that the game has a problem with collision detection, even if the game doesn’t have CD at all, he will just state that he also noticed that. A lot of followers follow spell checkers, I don’t know why. Followers are good if you have a good game and bad if you have a bad game.

Hope you like it!

Like I said, this post is for fun and kicks, don’t think too much about it. Many comments are really good and helpful and we have to look at pointless comments as part of it.

Gamer != Game Designer

I could finish this post right now and I would consider I had said enough. This is sort of a re-post of a post on my now dead Portuguese blog. The basic premise is that a gamer is not a game designer and a game designer is not a gamer.

When I play a game as a gamer, I play the games I like to play. I have fun with the games, I truly enjoy the moment. When I’m playing a game with the game designer hat on, I don’t have to enjoy the game, but rather try to understand its mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics.

Being a gamer is for sure the start of being a game designer, as much as driving is the start of being a race driver, but no one is a game designer just because it plays games, the same way no one is a race driver because it knows how to drive! Game design, like it or not, is a technical work. Game design is not about having ideas for games, but to fill the blanks from the idea to the finished product.

While this is true a bit everywhere, flash market is a great way for gamers to start their crazy journey on game development and as soon as they put a box moving in the flash player they are automagically extraordinary game designers and awesome coders. Well, it’s a start, we can only hope that they work it out with time. I know I went through an automagical phase of my own only to find out that there’s a world of things to learn everyday.