An indie-game-scene contest concept: a critical review contest.
An early draft of a game is the subject, and the critique needs to address certain important elements. Dunno what they’d be yet.
Just thinking about the weak link I feel many contestants see in these game design contests.
But of course there wouldn’t be any contestants, because there’s pretty much no recognition of strong critique outside of established designers who know the score.
Oh man, this made me laugh for like ten solid minutes.
I’ve actually thought about this a lot: teaching people how to critique. But its so time intensive.
Right? It’s also crazy enough that it might be interesting. For the three people who participate.
Orrr we aim for Maximum Snark and just tear the shit out of Game Chef feedback.
The real problem, for me, is that text is a terrible medium for critique. It’s so exhausting to write a coherent, useful engagement with someone else’s work, and there seems to be so little benefit from it for the critic. Being in a live critique session I’m absolutely on board, but written? Yuck.
Yes yes, and some people prefer to have rules explained to them in person and some people prefer to play in a room together rather than online. Similar problems exist on the rules side and we’ve somehow overcome them enough to run contests.
All I’m saying is that, for all the excellent conversational critique I think most of us prefer, plenty of written critique is still being produced. And in places where written critique is mandated (ie contests) it’s almost uniformly terrible.
So can it be gameified? Can it be structured so participants can hone their craft?
This thread gets funnier every time I read it.
If I had to eyeball, I’d put Brand Robins at about 175 IBUs. Wicked hoppy!
Paul Beakley oh, I’m sure it can be done, finding the 3 people who want to do it is going to be the big challenge is all I’m saying.
It was a beautiful dream.
Make it a retroactive contest and treat every Game Chef critique you can find on the net as an entry.
Dan Maruschak I was actually thinking you could just invert Game Chef, or add a step: every designer submits a favorite critique; critique writers who get the most votes are advanced to a judging round.
I’m good with writing or talking, actually, but I do think talking is sometimes more effective.
Talking is better if you have single, easily digestible points and can stay committed to it’s delivery. It’s harder to convey logical nuance (as opposed to emotional, which is reversed), extended examples, and far easier to back down, fail to deliver but feel that you have, etc.
Which is to say, both ways have strengths and weaknesses. Shock. Awe.
Brand Robins I DISAGREE WITH YOU LETS CRITIQUE BATTLE
meh
I THINK YOUR RESPONSE WAS MEDIOCRE. TRY HARDER NEXT TIME. USE MORE PUNCTUATION.
lol
your trolling is a+ though great job good sarcasm
Brand is always wrong so this one is p easy to call tbh.
Nathan Paoletta does the Law Murder.
Oh hey true. Objective truth outweighs my subjective opinion here.
eat the rich
I dedicate this one to Nathan Paoletta
I am probably awesome at doing things where there is no record of my performance. This is likely especially true in areas where there is no well-understood method of gauging my effectiveness. When I deliver my game design critique via mental telepathy it is almost certainly really awesome.
If I had a team, I would do a series of google hangouts where we critique stuff, or roleplay how to critique.
Brand Robins just rickrolled me into allowing 3 seconds of Aerosmith into my prefrontal cortex. There goes my day.
I just feed your game into the Scalia insult generator now. Saves time.
Judging from the comments in your Kickstarter thread, there’s apparently a huge audience out there for Dungeon World criticism. Someone should run a Dungeon World critique contest.