We need a purposely-but-maybe-not-purposely bad game making contest. >:[ You guys have no idea how fun the Wyvern was to make! ;] The pressure was off and I just had a bloody good time.
In all seriousness, making a horrible, rushed game gives you the chance to see something all the way through - and I know how hard it can be to finish a game for most people (myself included). You can sort of get a feel for what a complete game should function like (if that makes sense), and that can help you set guidelines for the future. Or maybe even go back through and clean up the "rushed" game and make it pretty after you've got the core down.
Basically, it gives a bit of perspective. B)
Well I got last place and the review was pretty negative and was like what I said before wasn't even viewed or something. I know not everyone has something good to say about it, but there is definitely a lot to be learned from the experience.
We added some constructive criticism in the video review, but I'll go ahead and post something brief here.
The goal is to help you improve from the experience, after all!
Spoiler for :
Visuals The maps were just a bit spacious, so adding clutter can really help! What I like to do is minimize the map size. I find that the best maps are the ones that function like real life - you've got very little space and have to find out where to put all your essentials! Think of everything he'll need in his room: a bed, a dresser, a desk, a tv (maybe), some extra drawers, a lamp, etc. There tends to not be so many essentials in a bed room, so oftentimes I like to make those rooms very, very tiny! The character and sprite didn't match all too well. When I was first starting out, I really wanted to use Kaduki's stuff, but the sprites didn't seem to go with any of the RTP ones. Grr! Still, sometimes its easier to look up facesets for the RTP characters - and trust me, there's a lot of 'em out there!
Gameplay Mechanics - Be careful about the allure of scripts! They might look sexy and those charming scripters want you to buy their stuff like a buncha snake oil salesmen (lol just kidding but srsly). For non-scripters, the idea of scripts is magical, thus we tend to spend a lot of time hunting for them (not saying that you did that per se, but just in case). Therefore, what might be a good idea is to take note of a list of "essential" scripts that make your life easier. Avoid the ones that aren't plug-n-play, especially with a timed contest. For example, I've seen the light and decided to use MA's Formatting script on basically every game ever because it eliminates a lot of time with formatting your own text, and play-testing your text to make sure there are no cut-offs.Bugs?! - Okay, with your game passability was a bit of an issue. The only really good way to get around this is to test play a loooot! You may have to stop and test play a little bit after every scene. It's a good idea to set aside the last day for nothing but test playing. 9 times out of 10, bugs are the leading pesky jerks that absolutely crush a score.Writing/Story There wasn't enough of a demo for us to get a look at the story, sadly. But there was dialogue and a few minor misspellings. Those are usually overlooked quite easily, but it still helps to keep an eye on that. What might help is to write your dialogue lines in MS Word or something, which will spell-check for you, and then copy + paste it into RPG Maker. And I hope that small review was enough to help even a little bit!Well, I may have placed low, but yuyu is being awesome and using my completed game for the video review. It at least won't bug out (or shouldn't too badly). We'll probably review this one next, tomorrow or so!
Sadly, I've been unable to get to posting the other two videos yet today, nor have I done my darned algebra and biotech homework. ._. Both games are fairly short, so it shouldn't take too long!