GameTunnel's March Indie Game Round-Up [The return of?]

[cyrus_zuo]

Hey all,

After some exhausting months of not getting a round-up done, I thought I'd try to cut out some of my sleep and do one this month.

http://www.gametunnel.com/articles.php?id=682

Enjoy!

[RinkuHero]

"In a maze filled with ninjas the Samurai sets out to resque the lost geishas."

Rescue?

Anyway, great as always. Keep doing these!

One minor complaint is that the screenshots are too small. The thumbnails are too small to see what's going on and I hate having to click on them to see them -- perhaps double the size of the thumbnails to make them more appealing? I don't know what it is with websites and tiny thumbnails, resolutions like 1280x960 and 1600x1200 are almost standard now, so screenshots that are barely more than 100 pixels tall are *really* tiny. I've seen avatars on forums that are bigger.

[cyrus_zuo]

Fix-ed, thanks!

I'll think on the images...at the moment I was happy to just get the article done...a new format will take some additional thought ;).

[TeeGee]

Great to see it back! Good job there.

[Grey Alien]

Aha! Wondered when this was coming out...

[princec]

Aww, it's just not the same without the panel :( (And not just coz I was in it, either)

Cas :)

[cyrus_zuo]

Aww, it's just not the same without the panel :( (And not just coz I was in it, either)

Cas

Yeah, but you only did one-half a panel slot b/c you didn't have time for more!

...and that is why we don't have a panel any more.

It's one of those things that lots of people thought was a great idea, but unfortunately I can't be a panel by myself, and as much as people liked the idea of a panel, there weren't enough people who liked it enough to make it happen. It's a LOT of work to play and review that many games each month, month after month.

So...yeah, again, feeling like a bit of a broken record here, I liked the panel too, and I really appreciated those who wrote for it for so long (Seth and Mike and Mike are quite missed among MANY others!). I understand the kind of time it takes to do it each month and WOW, it's a lot of commitment that can get REALLY old REALLY fast. I never canceled the panel or kicked anyone off or said "We're not doing a panel!" The people on the panel just ran out of time and had to move on to greener pastures. I really thank them for what they did! Since they moved on, GameTunnel has been forced to do so as well :). I tried to string the panel together for 6 months with a revolving door of people on it, who quickly realized they didn't have time or interest in doing it. After hitting a point of having no-one left (except for your 1/2 a slot Cas ;) ), I just started doing it myself...

If we ever hit a point where there are 2-3 other people who can honestly devote 20+ hours a month to it for the next year out of the goodness of their own hearts, I'd be happy to bring it back! (otherwise...I feel like I've addressed 'why' there isn't a panel ad nauseum...)

[princec]

Well, here's a thing... I pretty much explicitly only devoted about 30-60 minutes to each game. My reviews weren't in depth at all; they were my gut feelings (with a fairly straightforward scoring thingy), and that made them much easier to write without getting too detailed or too critical. Perhaps if a couple of others could be persuaded to give just that level of commitment it might be a goer again? We could even submit the scores based on my 10 checkboxes :)

Cas :)

[Grey Alien]

I liked the panel too. I write longer reviews for Binary Joy and it is a bind (but also fun) because I feel like I have to play the game for quite a long time to give a good opinion about it and then I have to write a lot. So I guess a shorter play and article could be easier for reviewers but would readers feel "cheated" like the review didn't play it properly to find out hidden depths? Perhaps if it was touted as more of a "first impressions" thing, it would be honest and OK?

[cyrus_zuo]

I liked the panel too. I write longer reviews for Binary Joy and it is a bind (but also fun) because I feel like I have to play the game for quite a long time to give a good opinion about it and then I have to write a lot. So I guess a shorter play and article could be easier for reviewers but would readers feel "cheated" like the review didn't play it properly to find out hidden depths? Perhaps if it was touted as more of a "first impressions" thing, it would be honest and OK?
Yeah...but that feels cheaper to me...as a gamer. I want something of an honest opinion. As a reviewer who has played hundreds of games for review, I feel like I have an understanding of at what point my opinion is pretty set and won't change. Sometimes (Zombie Shooter) I play every level for the review (or simply because I want to), but typically I don't...and don't need to. That's a common practice in all gaming media. Most of the reviewers of Zelda, for example, stated that they didn't clear 20 hours of the game (it's about 40 hours long - though it took me closer to 50).

Downloadable games, I think you can review a lot more quickly, but I dislike the impressions route, since I as a gamer wouldn't really want to read someone's impressions, I could get my own by playing for a few minutes, I want someone to write who has put in a little more time to help me differentiate the games from one another. I think an hour minimum is a pretty good number to avoid SNAP judgements (and there are WAY too many of them in game reviews...and I HATE THEM). 60 minutes is the baseline the one I use for myself, though sometimes I come up just a little shy of the hour, and most of the time I go way over the hour :).

[Grey Alien]

Yeah, I either complete all the games I review or go far enough that my opinion wouldn't alter, agreed. It's just time consuming so I wondered if another approach would work. Guess not.

[princec]

Really, what I gleaned most from reading the panel were which games I wanted to download and try out. So I only need enough information to know that I want to try it out - and after that I'm quite capable of forming my own opinion!

Cas :)