Serious Game Reviews? Post your ideas here.

[Natako]

Zuhane posted an interesting idea in another thread. What if we were to take serious games that people have created and review them as opposed to crappy games like the ones that Drak has done? It would give game creators the opportunity to have their work critiqued and to see how other people react to their game. After all, it's easy to convince yourself that you have the best game on the planet, but much harder to actually see the flaws in your own work. It would also give people an opportunity to publicize their games, and it might even draw in prospective game makers who see the videos up on Youtube. I don't know about those of you who have been around for a while, but that was how I came to be here in the first place.

However, the hardest part of doing a project like this is starting out. So let me ask you guys: how do you feel we should go about doing this?

Reviewers - Judging by drenrin's response in the other thread, it seems that we'll have a few reviewers working on this project. How are we going to divvy up the games? Will we take turns doing games, or will we choose the games that we want to do?

Games - Once the project gains some momentum, we'll hopefully have people asking to have their games reviewed. What about the beginning, though? Are we going to take submissions right from the start, or are we just going to review any game that we feel like doing? Submissions would be ideal, of course, but I don't know how many of you have games sitting around waiting to be reviewed. What material are we going to work with?

Format - In the other thread, Zuhane suggested a setup more similar to Drak's "let's play"-style reviews where the reviewer plays the first 20 minutes of the game and the game maker's job is to impress the reviewer in that time frame. Drenrin suggested that each reviewer conducts the review in his/her own style, perhaps in a more traditional format where the reviewer gives an overview of the entire game as opposed to the first 20 minutes. I think we should have our own styles regardless, but I'd like to hear from you guys as to what you want to see.

Charas Youtube Channel? - Are we going to have a youtube account specifically for these reviews? Should all of the reviewers know the password or just one person whom all the others send their reviews to? Do you think we should do this in a different way entirely?

Yeah. I might be getting ahead of myself by throwing all of these questions out there, but I think this is a great idea and I'd like to see us go somewhere with it. I'm interested in reviewing the games, and I believe Drenrin also said that he was. Let's hear your ideas here. ^^

[carmen]

There was team for that if I recall, remember that?  Something like that again, or what?  I really like the idea of videos!

[drenrin2120]

0_o ...carmen?

Also, I like this idea b'cuz it provides an oppurtunity for disenthused old-members to contribute their knowledge of game-making while enticing new members to join and share their games and wub charas.

[fruckert]

There was team for that if I recall, remember that?

I could have sworn the Teams board was (threatened to be) dissolved.
Still though, this would be rather awesome.

I'd be all for doing text reviews as necessary.
My computer wouldn't be able to handle videos, though, and I'm boring to listen to (I sound like MS Sam).
So...I wouldn't be able to do videos.

[drenrin2120]

Wellll, if peeps don't have an aversion for... Acquired programs... I can hook people up with a good video recorder.

>_>

[carmen]

Well maybe like 30 seconds of game play. I dunno, they used to do screen shots which were nice. But like you all said before, the games have to be out there. Every game I've played from here has been a wip, or a demo. It's so rare to get finished games. They're time consuming first off, then the Passion is easy to get distracted away from. I like the ideas you have though. I like the idea of inspiring new makers.

[Natako]

My laptop can handle hypercam pretty well (as long as the game itself isn't too laggy) so I should be all right with that. I used to use Fraps on my old desktop, and from what I've heard, that's less laggy. We'll have to see what happens.

Text reviews might actually work pretty well. I've seen some pretty hilarious text reviews in my day, and even written a few of my own. If that works better for you, Fruckert, I say that you should try it that way.

[drenrin2120]

I think I might go do this tomorrow. If no one objects to me just starting a youtube thread and taking the bull by the horns. I call dibs on reviewing Zuhane's game.

(I'm pretty excited about this, so if I'm getting ahead of everyone, just tell me to calm down and have a seat.)

[Natako]

I've got a lot to do tomorrow, so I probably won't get around to it until the day after that. I'll have to take a look at the games that are up and see what I might like to review. I take it we're just randomly choosing games for the time being, then? lol

[fruckert]

Time to go see what I can do...

*browses through the games forum*

[drenrin2120]

Lol, we could probably do this a lot more orderly. Like make a thread about it and let people know we're open to reviewing games. How we're gonna decide who reviews what. All that stuff.

[Natako]

Lol, we could probably do this a lot more orderly. Like make a thread about it and let people know we're open to reviewing games. How we're gonna decide who reviews what. All that stuff.

That's what the entire original post was about. I was trying to say that we should figure out what we're going to do before we start. XD

[SaiKar]

Hi, carmen!

[drenrin2120]

That's what the entire original post was about. I was trying to say that we should figure out what we're going to do before we start. XD

Like I said, I'm an excited little kid here. =P

[carmen]

Hi, carmen!

*waves*

Do teams still exist? Then you could all just open a thread up.