Retro Gamer review...

[korruptor]

And that's whats frustrating me about this argument, blowing hot air and indignation over having to dumb a game down when you plainly don't have to do any such thing to make a game more accessible doesn't actually make it true. No matter how many times it's repeated.

Yet I'm pretty sure a few of us here have worked on games that have been dumbed down and focused-grouped to hell in the name of accessibility. I can think of one I've worked on...

That's probably a different conversation though

[Fuseball]

Sadly, I think to the lazy and uninitiated starting Space Giraffe felt like they were stepping into it mid-game. That's something that a lot of us who grew up playing early '80s coin-ops are completely used to, but I think it really threw a lot of players used to cookie-cutter comfort gaming.

In retrospect it might have been given an easier ride by some players if the game gradually introduced its aesthetic style, perhaps with an almost wireframe GW look to make players feel some initial comfort, and then ramped up the Neon-ness over the first dozen or so levels. The pacing of new elements once you're up and running is sublime, which is why once players "get" the game they tend to stick with it, singing its praises.

I'd rather see an arcade-style attract mode than a tutorial. As an example, think how well Galaga introduced the doubleship concept in its attract sequence. A couple of diagrams and a simple scripted sequence of gameplay could be all you need to explain the gameplay.

I can't see any reason why the next game should be any more dumbed down. The one thing it might have to do is build on a very simple formula, but that's no reason not to pull that formula into new and interesting shapes as the player progresses. Get the player hooked... and then mess with their heads.

[oddbob0]

And that's whats frustrating me about this argument, blowing hot air and indignation over having to dumb a game down when you plainly don't have to do any such thing to make a game more accessible doesn't actually make it true. No matter how many times it's repeated.

Yet I'm pretty sure a few of us here have worked on games that have been dumbed down and focused-grouped to hell in the name of accessibility. I can think of one I've worked on...

That's probably a different conversation though

Christ yes, I know. I hope I don't sound like I condone that either, because it's just as fucking useless as making a game shit hard and leaving the player no clues whatsoever.

The general problem with that approach is that as anyone who makes games and has ever been near the internet will tell you, a lot of players haven't a fucking clue about game design at all and some will ask for bits that break fundamental parts of the game. Listen to them enough and yeah, you end up on a train to Fucked Game City.

I deconstructed bits of SG over the other place a while back and accessibility wise, from Barrie Ellis wish list, it covers 90% of the bases as it stands in its released state. Jeffs got enough years of experience and game design talent to already know off the bat what works and it shows with SG.

The save system alone is one of the best features of a game I've come across in all my years of playing, it's simply glorious.

The tutorial is lacking but not to a massive degree. It does far more right than a huge percentage of commercial, freeware, shareware and XBLA games - it doesn't tread into the extremes of Exit territory (move one, stop - information blast, move one, stop - information blast, repeat till you're dead inside) which makes me want to put my fist through the screen, and nor should it.

I reckon Fuse has it bang on here, a show and tell attract mode would alleviate a good 80/90% of the complaints about Space Giraffe. It's how old school arcade games introduced new concepts, and it obviously worked or most of us wouldn't be here now eulogising over them.

And it does depress me to see Jeff saying, and I paraphrase of course, "oh well, people are thick, I'm going to have to make my game retarded for thicky people".

Take away the Jeff and Giles magic from Space Giraffe and it'd be shit worthless. The last thing I'd ever want is to have the game any *less* Jeff, see, because that's what makes it so utterly wonderful to play and come back to and has made SG far and away my game of the year.

Add a few tiny concessions like an attract mode, perhaps a pause before respawn so the camera resits itself and at the extreme end of the scale (whilst a proper vector Space Giraffe gives me the horn because that's my bag baby, I don't think it's really necessary) introduce the Neon effects gently during the tutorial and voila - you've covered most of the complaints and kept the game intact.

Perhaps a slider would be nice for some people so you can control the Neon effects, but to me it's something so fundamentally tied to the beauty of the game that it'd break the game. It might not break the gameplay, but it'd break what makes the game so fucking special and unique.

I sincerely believe that this *is* the best thing Jeffs ever done, and I really want to see him on the up and up - both creatively and commercially. Which is why I probably sound like a broken record on this

With a few tweaks to the setup he's got now in Space Giraffe and learning from some of the repeated complaints, the next game could hopefully bring in the $ as well as the acclaim.

Lets face it, if anyone deserves both...

[skweek]

Perhaps a slider would be nice for some people so you can control the Neon effects, but to me it's something so fundamentally tied to the beauty of the game that it'd break the game. It might not break the gameplay, but it'd break what makes the game so fucking special and unique.

It would break the gameplay though, the feedback monsters would be worthless.

[bcass]

I've said it before, but if it means attracting more customers, then why not simply have a non-neon mode in the game. If you play the non-neon mode, let's say all your scores are halfed. If you play with the effects on (as creator intended) then you get double the scores of those who play without neon effects. That way, not only do you appeal to people who might like your game, but are put off by the trippy backgrounds, but you also provide an incentive for them to play as was intended by creator once they get into the game.

I have shown Space Giraffe to various friends since it's release. Most of them liked the idea but the trippy visuals were just too much for them to handle, and basically, it put them off buying it. These aren't just noobs either, some of them have been playing games as long as I have (early 80s).

[Raff]

All the people I know who didn't buy it after playing the demo said they just couldn't see what was going on.

[tufty]

All the people I know who didn't buy it after playing the demo said they just couldn't see what was going on.

Yeah, but if you start ramping up the visuals as you get further in, the people who can't handle the trippiness are still gonna have a hard time, and that hard time is going to start happening *once they have paid*. So, instead of having a number of people who simply didn't bother buying it, you have a potentially large number of people who have bought your product, *but feel cheated*, who have bought something that was not necessarily what they thought it was. People like that are loud.

Just a thought, like.

Simon

[PVB]

All the people I know who didn't buy it after playing the demo said they just couldn't see what was going on.

Yeah, but if you start ramping up the visuals as you get further in, the people who can't handle the trippiness are still gonna have a hard time, and that hard time is going to start happening *once they have paid*. So, instead of having a number of people who simply didn't bother buying it, you have a potentially large number of people who have bought your product, *but feel cheated*, who have bought something that was not necessarily what they thought it was. People like that are loud.

Just a thought, like.

Simon

Exactly.

I guess they wouldn't like Cave shooters either:



Their loss I suppose.

[FatElvisForever]

The next game, however, will have *no* tutorial mode (in fact I think I will now make a basic rule never to do a tutorial mode ever again, I have been completely put off doing that). .

First off Jeff, I love Space Giraffe. My motto on XBLA is "T2K 4 XBLA" and has been for two years. I appreciate that I got a lot more than what I asked for!

That said, it's a fairly difficult and inaccessible game at first. People aren't going to bother with tutorial mode or reading instructions.

It's the instant gratification era. Do you have statistics on trial download to purchase ratios versus other games on XBLA? My guess is that SG's is rather low. I simply bought it for 400 pts sight unseen... but how much content is included in the trial version?

NOW, once you settle in to the game... all of the below points I'm about to make are moot. But at first take:

Microsoft's description of the game in XBLA makes no sense. The games title makes no sense. There's nothing here to draw trial... not even "a modern take on a coin-op classic from the creator of Tempest 2000". Marketing 101... trial is everything. "Irreverent humor from the folks at Llamasoft"? Huh? Who?

Then, upon first play, the VLM visuals are distracting. It's hard to tell what's going on. It's not clear that the play style is completely different from Tempest (bulling, juggling, harvesting flowers, the power zone... all that). Tutorial mode ain't happening for the instant gratification youth. Eventually I've learned to enjoy the VLM visuals once I was able to focus on the web, but it did take awhile.

The game should basically start nice and simple, and be addicting from the first moment.

This is XBLA after all -- the intent is to grab people and make them want to upgrade immediately. Pac-Man CE did this to me (don't laugh!). This means keeping gameplay mechanics obvious, with certain "tutorial" elements built into the game from the first level. Had I been an alpha tester I'd have told you all of this!

Best bet for you is to move forward, knowing you've created something great, but to recognize at least some of the criticism as constructive. It seems you are talking much of the feedback personally.

I LOVE this game, but even for a foaming at the mouth T2K fanboy, I was at first confused and underwhelmed. But being a fanboy I stuck with it and now recognize the genius. But plenty of your market has never heard of the T2k and the Jaguar, and they also need to be included in your design considerations. The newer generation has many choices... there's lots of clutter in the media and in the market... and if it doesn't grab them, they are off to other things. They aren't *stupid*, just *impatient*. In the 80's we'd sit there forever trying to figure out a game. Many of the games weren't worth the effort, but what the fuck else did we have to do? Watch three TV channels (four on a clear day)? Read the same comics over and over? Fuck that, current gamers don't have time to twiddle about with something that doesn't make sense from second 1. They aren't stupid, they simply have loads of options.

[FatElvisForever]

The general problem with that approach is that as anyone who makes games and has ever been near the internet will tell you, a lot of players haven't a fucking clue about game design at all and some will ask for bits that break fundamental parts of the game. Listen to them enough and yeah, you end up on a train to Fucked Game City.

You guys need better researchers... or a different approach to conducting research. You don't ask people what they want. They don't know what they want. But you can ask they if they are enjoying the game, likes / dislikes, and correlate those factors to replayability and purchase interest. But don't be like drooling sheep expecting respondents to tell you what to do... that's the path to hell. I do this for a living, people! And there's lots of half-witted research being done out there, unfortunately.

[Arganoid]

I LOVE this game, but even for a foaming at the mouth T2K fanboy, I was at first confused and underwhelmed. But being a fanboy I stuck with it and now recognize the genius.

My experience was similar; I had plenty of experience with T2K, GR ++ and Yak's ST-era games. So I was quite surprised when I found SG really difficult to begin with - the learning curve seemed steeper than in his previous games. Before I got past level 32 I thought the game would just keep getting harder and harder - and given the difficulty I had on some of the levels in the 20s, I felt that I would never be able to finish it. So it was a relief to get past level 32 and find that the difficulty dropped down again, but I'm sure there must be people who will have given up before that point.

As for why I found it so difficult to begin with, there were multiple reasons. On its own, each issue would have been pretty minor but together they added up to quite a daunting initial experience.

That said, for those who take the time to get to grips with it, the game is genius (and is better designed than any of the seven published games I've worked on). It's incredible in this day and age to find a game which makes you think in ways you haven't had to think before, and provides an experience unlike any other.

[No Refuge]

Of course Microsoft take a cut, after all, it's them who are providing the infrastructure for you to sell your game. I don't know what it is, but I think you get more if you develop your game without their funding/assistance. My estimates were based on the developer geting £5 per game from that £6.80.

Even if the developer cut is £4 per game, you'd still end up with higher than average anual income when divided by two.

The dev/MS split was quoted as 50/50 by Peter Moore back at the start of '06 - of course, MS were supposedly providing "support" to the dev teams, but in what capacity (ie does it actually reduce costs?) I don't know.

[Firefox]

*** constructive criticism intended ***

I know a lot of blokes who aren't gamers as such but have a console under their telly to unwind with or to play with their mates when they get back from the pub.

I can imagine most of them really loving the actual Space Giraffe gameplay. They'd love bulling and so on.

*But*, I can see that most of them would be intimidated to fuck by Space Giraffe in its present form. I imagine most would have a go for a couple of minutes, announce "this is doing my head in" and throw their controller down with a frown on their face.


*** constructive criticism intended ***


There are a lot of good ideas in this thread. I think the Galaga-style attract mode would help a lot, or perhaps a few seconds of animation before each of the early levels (which could be turned off on the options screen) introducing one new gameplay element that appears in the level. That would keep it feeling like a game rather than being back at school.

Also, the idea of the slider to vary the quantity of Neon effects would help a lot. The low end could be labelled "Wireframe Minimalism", the high end "Maximum Yakness" (or something) with the default being perhaps a third of the way up.

I'm absolutely not having a go in any way shape or form here, just trying to point out that there are ways that Space Giraffe could sell to ordinary people without having to dumb down the gameplay one whit or do away with the lush Neon effects.

Who knows, perhaps in a year or so there could be a Space Giraffe II that's easier to get into for the novice and has more levels and powerups for the fans. I'm sure they wouldn't mind dropping a couple of quid on a second installment.

[No Refuge]

I don't see how someone not having the cranial faculties to appreciate any piece of art is the fault of the art or it's creator.

Start going down the route of lowest common denominator gaming (or any other at form) and it will undoubtedly be a bleak future for the creators and critically-functioning consumer.

[PVB]

I don't see how someone not having the cranial faculties to appreciate any piece of art is the fault of the art or it's creator.

Start going down the route of lowest common denominator gaming (or any other at form) and it will undoubtedly be a bleak future for the creators and critically-functioning consumer.

Can we stop the 'Why SG isn't popular....' musings now, cos I find it all a bit tiresome?