Post by Satinel in How do you evaluate games?

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I'll preface this by saying that everyone should rate the way that they feel is right. I'm not claiming that what follows is objectively correct, but I do think it's important to consider.

Games released to the public don't have their reviews weighted by the size of their teams but by the quality of their work. It's not necessarily helpful to give leniency to someone because they had a small team or are inexperienced. We've all entered the jam under the same set terms and none of us have the same personal conditions.

There's at least one entry into the jam this year which someone was forced to get done in less than a day. It's super impressive that they were able to make anything at all, but I can't give them a five star rating in all categories due to their unfortunate circumstances. In my opinion that's not fair to the individual in question and it's not fair to every other person who happened to have more time to work on their own games or who was able to work as one member of a larger team.

DeWitcher335 days ago

I said that you shouldn't give scores by comparing, not that you should give 5 stars to a bad game because X person made it under X circumstances. So, not 5 stars because he explained a sad story about his life and how he did what he could.

If there is a game similar to a AAA, you will rate it 5 stars and everyone else 1 star?

And if you like a game a lot and you give it 5 stars and then you find a much better one, you go back to give it 4 stars because it is worse in comparison?

If someone does solo a really fun game, on theme and with ok graphics he maybe deserves 4-5 in those categories without need to compare first with others to give rate based on that.

Satinel335 days ago

There are some games in the jam that I feel could be released with little to no change, they aren't triple A titles but they're extremely well done. I didn't go back and change anyone else's score as a result of this, but I also didn't lower the score of those games if they had a larger team or appeared to have more experience than most submitters. :) But even in those cases they didn't necessarily get the highest score in all categories, I did my best to judge those individually regardless of my overall impressions of the game.

DeWitcher335 days ago

Again, I didn't said that either....

Nowhere have I said that you have to give 5 stars on everything to a game made by one person in one day due to sad circumstances.

And nowhere have I said that you have to give lower stars on everything to a game made by 8 or more experienced people.

I just said that I don't think you should take those two games and give them a rating by comparing the two. Thats all.

Satinel335 days ago

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be accusatory or put words in your mouth. :(

I was trying to clarify my own thoughts on how I rated things but I did a poor job of it.

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