Post by mmyburg in Planted comments

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Although this may seem harsh, it is not really. Not on you as a team. It may be harsh on the Epic Games judges, but not on you. But my honest opinion is that I do not agree with your game being the winning entry. The art is well done, and that is all; apart from the art, you have little more than a third-person character running and jumping and some basic enemies that does nothing but chase the player. Since your game won, I am now of the strong opinion that the judges gives much more credit to art, than to anything else. And to be honest, in a game jam, which is at least as much about software development as it is about art, I think this is not appropriate.

Note though, that you are clearly very good artists, and I commend you for that. It is a skill that I envy!

I do however think that given that your game is little more than a third-person character running and jumping, and even for the running part you used Dynamic Locomotion and not something you wrote yourself, that this is not a technical accomplishment at all. An artistic one sure; but this game screams 'art' where I think, in a game jam winning entry, the entry should scream 'technical accomplishment' or 'gameplay' first and art a close second, close but still second.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my view on this. A win is still a win, and I congratulate you on winning! I am sorry if it feels like I am saying 'you did not deserve to win', which, to be honest, I guess is what I am saying :). But I am not saying it against you. My entry to the jam was such a waste and junk, I did not deserve to win either, not nearly as much as you did, it was junk. Your game is orders of magnitude better than mine. So, I guess all I am trying to say is that I am disappointed in Epic for being blinded by the ability of 5 artists to push out large amounts of good looking art, and them losing sight of what a game jam is all about.

By the way, I think that your game would have been a worthy winner with just little effort. Interesting dynamic puzzles, some basic mechanics, just a couple of things to demonstrate that you can develop more interesting gameplay elements, and I would feel you deserved to win. I just really struggle to consolidate your winning against many other entries, and good ones, when your game is little more than an empty dead world with nice art.

If you are going to develop this game further, which I hope you do, I recommend you focus on story, and gameplay (maybe puzzles or a more dynamic world with crumbling cliffs or things like that). And as beautiful as it is, the world seems very static, I recommend you make it alive.

My rant is over now. Let me end with saying this is still a great artistic accomplishment in the little time you had. So good work, very good, despite my belief that you should not have won. And you did so, congratulations! I hope you continue working on this game and making it really amazing, I can see that being possible!

Jestersheepy4 years ago

Wow, we really do appreciate this much breakdown of our game and we do totally see that perspective.

We were Art heavy for sure and Art does sell games (in both vision, quality and marketing). Art doesn't make it a good game and isn't essential to have a fun game.

I have seen comments like this and we have had similar thoughts but I do think you have to keep in mind the complete package.

There is a start and ending cutscene in our game, there is design through steering the player through the environment with hand placed orbs, there is a difficulty curve and the movement did have quite a lot of dev time to ensure it felt as good as it could. There is tutorial onboarding, designed gates to prevent you from progressing too fast, enemy patrol routes that had to be thought through. There are also elements that aren't obvious such as a semi complicated FOV shifting system based on velocity and a ton of stabilisation/bug fixing around using physics with the jetpack. Main menu/pause system, death, collision blocking volumes over the entire game and a sneaking mechanic. During development we had items to unlock such as a jetpack and a Spiderman like swing rope but the progression didn't fit with the game. Our average completion time is 40 minutes, level design is one of our weaker areas.

My point here isn't to disagree with you but to put a different perspective on the game which is difficult for players to see.

From our perspective we don't feel undeserving of the conclusion that Epic came to as we did work our butts off and managed to achieve a lot. But our design was lacking behind other entries and we didn't have any innovative creative designs that a lot of people strive for. We played it safe, made a cool character with a story objective for the game and tried to make it feel fun, good and interesting to play.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this, if it's changed the way you see the game or if you stand by you original post, we are very interested!

Thanks for your time!

mmyburg4 years ago(+1)

Thank you for your both understanding and detailed reply. I was expecting that my comment would be seen as negative, and it was not meant in a negative way towards you guys; it was just meant to say that I feel that clearly, art sells games, as you say. I am impressed at your reply and your understanding.

And I do understand that your game is not JUST art with almost no other work, I know that everything is a lot of effort, even simple things. Especially in programming, every little thing was someone making it work. I know you worked hard on this and for that effort, especially the art, I can say I am OK with you having won. I definitely do not want to take the win away from you - I just feel that your game probably won on one true merit - the art - alone, which to be honest I feel is something the Epic Games judges should perhaps change slightly. I was just saying that I think the question that the judges of the ultimate Epic game jam should ask themselves about the number one game, is "is this game the best technical achievement", and not "is this game the prettiest".

Again, NOT that your game is just art and nothing else, I understand that. I just feel out of all the submissions, your game was not the best technical achievement.

That said, I accept that you won and I appreciate that you did a lot of work, not only with art but in general. Well done, and keep up the good work. I hope you can use this win, to take your studio to great heights and successes.

Happy new year as well!

Cheers,

Marius.

itch.io

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