New Website Idea - Volunteers Needed

[Pazil]

OK...My game is going nowhere right about now...NO wait! Right about........................NOW! OK...yup...it's not going anywhere...But I am getting help so have faith in me! I shall have my game, and depending on how bad/worse it does on MY site, I'd be glad to make it's home right on your site. I think your site should have one official game, and since this will be a game that you could update every onece in a while, it would get better and better!

[EvilKris]

Well let's see your game crazyLatvian.

The quality of the coding definitely needs to be rated. Like if it has time-based collisions or ragdoll physics, or clever BitmapData work. It's also nice to point out how fast the developer has managed to make the game run (*cough* ).

That's definitely a good idea.

[Pazil]

Well...That's the thing. I don't really have any of the game yet...since what I usually do is do a bunch of tests on the new things I try, then out of those tests I piece together the ultimate game. My crappy work (I haven't updated it in a long time) is at:
http://www.freewebs.com/crazylatvianproductions/
But I have a bit newer version of the invader thing on my computer...It's mostly a test of this new game I'm going to make. I'm still gathering codes and such. I hope to have a BETA by the end of christmas...maybe even new years. But...for now...it's not showing too much progress, I'm working on a minor game right now. I'll try getting it on my website soon...SpaceFlight747...Weird name...I know, but it was all I could think of in a few seconds.

[Squize]

"The quality of the coding definitely needs to be rated."

Totally disagree I'm afraid

The mechanics of a game should be transparent and irrelevant. Gameplay is all that matters, how you get to that is your skill as a developer.

Compare the passenger database game I did for Jamie Kane, and... HA3. pDBase handles a vast amount of data, it covers a 24 hour period with something like 30 airlines, all flying in and out of up to 3 different terminals, 20 something destinations, each with two different aircraft type, and you can rollover any passenger on any of those flights and be given a totally unique name and even their dietary requirements.
All this without any backend code, it's all xml powered and had to work on dial-up. We never transferred more than 14k of data in one hit, and this was gold from start to finish in 4 days.

HA3 craps all over it in terms of enjoyment.

Something being technically clever is a mile away from being a good game, honestly I've had to write my share of demanding games and very few have been games I'd ever want to play.
So in a round about way what I'm saying is that it doesn't matter how clever it is under the hood, it's the fun that counts.

What about the games where the technical issues are hidden away from user ? That's part of good game design, people not noticing when something's just right.
I remember when DiS came out, and I think it was ihoss was "Well, yeah it's pretty, but it's fairly straight forward" ( paraphrasing ), it takes a lot of effort to make games feel like that.
Just 'cause a game doesn't revolve around some clever effect, be it verlet, ik or what ever's really buzzy atm, doesn't make it less technically accomplished.

Also, hopefully as the final nail in this point's coffin ( Doubt it though ), whose to say what's technically stunning ? What may blow one reviewer away may not be all that to another.

Squize.

[renderhjs]

well maybe there´d be a system like medals wich are unique bonuses a game can get. Honorable mentions like filesize/ loading times, performance, simplicity, and some others that dont fit into the main categories.
But as I said,- as a developer I´d like to see it,- as a consumer it may be completely different. A consumer propably wants (in most cases):
- fun & unique content
- short loading time (if any)
- no need to upgrade to newer flash version or enable JAVA or anything like that
- no need for registration or even worse email- registration (spam?)
- readable font & design and propably not to much text to read
- easy control (some people are actually confused with W,A,S,D)
...
that´s why I said a rating system can´t be decided within a day

[Squize]

And as a developer I can tell myself when something's cleverly done, or when a lot of work has gone into behind the scenes, or if it's just a really simple bit of code but used to it's fullest potential.

But yeah, it's not going to be sorted in a day ( Although I really think gAP reviews have got it pretty much bang on ).

Squize.