YakYak

OK, I found him on the Partnernet leaderboards. Come to think of it I remember having seen his entries before because they were a bit unusual.

He's on as "OXM Dan" and he has NO achievements at all for Space Giraffe. It's really pretty hard to play SG for any length of time and get no achievements whatsoever; there are a few that are given out fairly easily by way of encouragement. Genius-boy here has managed to get none at all.

His score in interesting because it shows that he got 6.7 million at a maximum level of 31. To have such a small score for level 31 is pretty extraordinary. It basically means that the player must have just been scraping through one level at a time, just barely pushing the start level and accompanying start bonus over the threshold each time, and stubbornly refusing to actually play on earlier levels and actually, y'know, learn something. It's a truly horrible way to play, a combination of idiocy and brute force that is spectacularly unrewarding.

A good player should be scoring 40 or 50 million by level 30. I'm looking at the leaderboard now, Jimaroid's level 30 score is 57 mill. "JoeQA" obviously playing the game correctly got 51 mill by level 31. I have a level *17* score that is 64 million (and that's the very point of SG; learning how to score efficiently is part of the skill and the pleasure of it).

In short, the leaderboards show that OXM Dan was playing the game in about the most shit way possible, and being absolutely crap at it. The leaderboards also show a lot of other people playing the game rather well, so we know it's not the game at fault here.

Basically he was just rubbish.

Yep I agree, cutting out the personal contact deets now

How long would it take to play up to Level 31 'the crap way'?

At this point if you agree with me ( and I hope you will ) I think it's time
to call for this thread lock.

Space Giraffe will be out .. soon .. there's no point any more in say
anything more about this 2.0 score.

Far too many things already been said and at the end of the day the
conclusion is "download the demo and play it, if you like it fine if not fine the same".

Effectively, in entering the realm of stalking and things like those we
are crossing the borders of "what's really acceptable" and I'd say
"before too much shite is coming out" maybe it's time to stop for now.

We already had and have far too many problems we really don't need
even more now.

So, my SUGGESTION is "let's close this thread now as it is", we can
continue to talk things among ourselves if we like my opinion is continuing
this thread is no longer a good thing for anyone.

I would say "ok, we got this 2, what been said been said it's here and
can always be read but now it's time to stop until SG is out".

So I suppose it's time to call for a thread lock, I hope you understand
I am not trying to stop anyone's opinions here but I'd like to stop instead
people ( including me and Yak ) maybe going into the real of "what's not acceptable any more" in this kind of conversations.

So that's it basically, I feel that it could be good time for an end of
all this "until further notice", I would also ask people that maybe
put in this thread "discutible personal informations" about that person
that wrote that rewiew to maybe take them away.

After all we can say "it's a fucking cunt" all time we want but stalking/publishing
personal info it's another thing, here we really risk the illegal.

So that's my call, you decide, this is my suggestion for now.

Again I repeat, to be clear, I ask this thread to be closed.

Now that's worth a citation next to the review on Wikipedia .

Well it sounds like Dan-OXM was playing SG as if it was T2K - killing everything in sight. Maybe this is a US thing (hell I live here)...I was listening to the US IGN podcast the other day and they commented that they'd played SG and it was "just another tempest"

I was a bit surprised after hearing that the gameplay and scoring mechanic is significantly different.

Paid reviewers, who needs 'em.

Speaking of which, so far nine revisions on the Wiki SG page today. Not all of them positive changes either .........

Well, you can blunder your way through almost the whole game if you want to. To open a level for restart all you have to do is survive till that level, so you could just start on level $x, barely scrape through till level $x+1 with one life left, and then be able to start a new game at level $x+1. This is how he got to level 31, just hack-and-force like that.

What that won;'t do is get you many points. In order to set a restart score you have to begin a new level with at least 3 lives in hand. He will have been starting higher levels with zero point start bonuses and that's why his score for such a high level is so unusually low.

Basically he's forced himself up into higher levels of the game where he plainly hasn't had the skills to be. A sensible player would be playing through earlier levels, learning and settling in and beginning to carry a decent restart position and accompanying bonus through the game. He's just blindly blundered his way up to levels where he doesn't belong, learning fuck-all in the process, and his score is therefore shit.

He's playing the game entirely wrong and is just shit at it.

Aye, but how long do you think it would take to do that?

So that 2/10 is just him getting restarts for later levels, instead of actually
playing the game?

Like playing Chess, using the rules of checkers then...

So is the score wrong on the forums, or what? There was something a bit back about it but it got lost in all the hubbub.

If it is still 2.0/10.0, that's just shit and I'd be personally crushed about it, no matter what game it was. I can't blame Jeff for his reaction.

I'm sure you guys will be proven right upon release; from what I hear from the other denizens who have played it (people who I trust and are generally in line with my own opinions) it will be quite firmly excellent.

Of course it's no fun to struggle through a game. That's why arcade games have a difficulty curve so you have to start over and gain skills through muscle memory with continual play. That's why they cost money. If you just hack your way forward, like he did here, you don't learn anything so you can't improve and just get the impression that the game is consistently kicking you in the balls.

It's unbelievably disappointing this is the first review.

Smeg knows. Proper playthrough to level 31 probably takes about an hour. Doing it that way, probably days.

It's really odd, like he's approached the game as if it were a bush of thorns to be flailed through rather than a playground in which to acquire skills and have fun. Getting to higher levels by brute force is pretty empty if you don't have the ability to get a decent score there or the skills to enjoy it. Goat forbid you should play a few games from the start and actually learn some skillz :/.

Yeah, he was just flailing and completely failing to actually learn how to play. It must have been truly painful to watch.

As a coder myself, I really feel for Jeff in all this. It's such a shame that this is the first review, as it has obviously put a horrible cloud over what should be a time of r&r for the devs.

It's very easy to say, chill out, don't worry about it, it's only one persons view amongst a planet of 6 billion. However, I know that attitude isn't one that will be taken and I understand completely. When you've sunk your life into something for a long period it becomes personal to you. It's not like he's working as a small cog in part of a big team. This game represents a significant portion of his life. The reviewer will have no such personal attachement to it and it's really unfortunate that this one person hated it at this time.

I haven't played the game, so can offer no opinion on it other than to say that I'm looking forward to getting my hands on it. I might love it, I might not but that isn't important at the moment. What I can do right now, is empathise with how he is feeling and if it was me, I'd be venting just as much. There couldn't have been a worse review at a worse time than this and I would have thought that everyone could understand his feelings under the circumstances.

At least things can only go up from here!