Re: what are your thoughts on BSG's new blog post?
I'm afraid this just seems to be the same argument again and again.
"mainstream games are good, audiogames are bad, audiogames need to be like mainstream games to be better, why does everyone like these bad audiogames when we should ask developers to create good mainstream games, in audio, because all audiogames are the same, which is bad!"
Back in 2006 when I joined this community, one new release a month was seen as a good thing. Galaxy ranger was the closest thing to a strategy game, and the last crusade was literally it for completely audio rpgs. Looking at what is available now, the growth has been exponential, and yet I still hear the same old arguments "why are audiogames so simple, why are audiogames so bad, why does everyone like these bad games."
Of course, some games are better than others, but personally, when I've seen matters change and develop, it's been because a developer took on board constructive criticism and moved on.
Paladin of the sky had really bad combat, well here comes Manamon.
Audio.it's games are too expensive, well look,, all the prices are down.
We need true side scrollers with a properly 2d dimension, oh look, here is the Bk series and tomb hunter.
I'm board of all these textual games Why can't we have a real time audio space trading game? Oh wait, here is new horizons!
Are there some games that are better than others? Of course, but myself I've found I personally get more fun out of concentrating on what a game does right! not what it does wrong.
A blind legend is either a short, simplistic adventure game with no replay value and a cliched story, or it is a cinematic experience with good quality acting, a great soundscape and an easy going style which is perfect for a quick break.
I'll be the first to point out what I think are design flaws or elements in a game which can be improved (look at my posts in the blind quest topic), but it equally follows that I'll be the first to praise something I think works as well, and usually most games will have a combination of both.
it's easy to bash and bash and bash, just as it's easy, as indeed the blog post said, to sit back and just repeatedly claim how nice something is, albeit I suspect myself the former attitude is far more common than the latter.
I do completely agree with the blog that saying what is wrong with a game is a valuable thing, however constructive cryticism is worthless if it's couched in completely destructive terms, and sadly we've seen a lot of destructively critical attitudes in the community lately (gold gun anybody?).
I suspect myself, if tomorrow Nintendo announced that they were putting $100000000 into developing the biggest, baddest, most complex and awesome audiogame ever seen, carefully written and crafted over a solid year by a team of thousands of developers, with professional voice acting, a richly composed score and enough gameplay to keep everyone busy for hundreds and hundreds of hours, ---- someone would still! be calling it "simplistic."
So my personal advice would be to everyone when presented with a new game would be to enjoy what you can enjoy, suggest improvements to anything you think needs improving, and above all have fun!
-- Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
