- Joined
- Oct 5, 2015
- Messages
- 173
- Reaction score
- 80
- First Language
- English
- Primarily Uses
Description
The RPG Maker Review Game is a thread meant to allow project developers to gain quick feedback from their peers while also offering their own perspective on other projects either in development or otherwise finished. The idea is simple – you review someone’s game, someone else reviews yours.
How This Works
1. One person will post their game in the next post in the format explained below.
2. A potential reviewer will “claim” the posted game by posting a “Reserved” post, to be edited later.
3. That reviewer will download the posted game and play it for AT LEAST 15-20 minutes, or until they feel they’ve accumulated enough data to give decent feedback.
4. The reviewer will then post their review of the game they just played in this thread (the poster of the game being reviewed can also request for the review to be posted on their game’s download page; a common courtesy, though, should be that it’s headed with “From the RPG Maker Review Game Thread”)
5. In the same post in this thread, the reviewer will then post a link to their own game to be reviewed by someone else.
6. The cycle then repeats ad infinitum.
7. If a game has been "claimed", no one should try and post their own review of the game until the reviewer has finished. As a guideline for now, the reviewer is allowed up to three days until someone else can swoop in and claim a game for their own. If you can't make the time to play through someone's game (and no one's game should take three whole days just to get the gist), then wait until you do have time. This is to ensure the game doesn't stall out.
8. Likewise, if no one has claimed a game in three days, then someone else can post their own game without reviewing the game causing the stall. In order to prevent people just farming reviewers without participating, you will have to pick another game at your own discretion to review. It would also be nice of you to request permission to do so in the event that they have some seething hatred against people writing things about their game in a different thread.
9. (Added rule) To avoid farming reviews by reviewing every other game, try to wait until at least two other players have had the chance to post their own reviews and games. Obviously this won't apply initially, as there might not be that many playing yet, but in the future if this thread gets 9 trillion people this will apply.
10. (Added rule) In the event that the game stalls because everyone has already reviewed everyone else's game and no newcomers have come in, one can review the next 15 or so minutes of a game they've already played if they haven't finished the whole thing. On that note, it's also suggested to state at where in the game you've stopped.
11. Finally, if the thread just stalls out for whatever reason and no one reviews or posts anything, then... I don't know. Someone will summon Satan and we'll be forced to hand out toothbrushes during Halloween.
Post Format
The post should be split into two parts: your review and the game you want reviewed. Obviously this won’t apply to the first person who posts. As a general rule, a review should at the very least state if the game is fun or not, and why you would think so.
Constructive criticism is the aim here. The review should help the developer, not make them want to quit. If you don’t think their game is fun, explain why and offer some tips to better the experience. On the flip side, those wanting reviews should expect criticism, and not take every little detail like the reviewer is personally trying to murder your dog.
The second part of the post should obviously include a link to your game’s download page, but a brief synopsis of what your game’s about, what you’re aiming to do with it, what genre it’s in, what kind of reaction you’re going for, the RPG Maker your game was made in, etc. should help a potential reviewer know what they need to say about the game in order to help. If you want to keep these elements a mystery, that’s fine, but keep in mind that with less information going in, the reviewer will likely have no idea how to respond other than some broad, emotional feedback. Which might be a good thing depending on the project.
The next two posts will be fake ones I will write to give a better example of what this all looks like.
Disclaimer
Since I’m a complete nubcake to this forum’s community, please let me know if this is inappropriate or if it belongs somewhere else or if your grandma was offended by my liberal use of numbered lists. None of these guidelines are meant to be permanent, as it’s impossible to know without experience how this will all turn out; if tweaking of this thread exchange is needed, then it’ll be tweaked. If someone comes up with a better way to do something and it’s agreed upon by a majority, then it’ll certainly be implemented. As mentioned, the aim is to circulate feedback that would otherwise be foreign to new developers (or old, I dunno). This will probably be more useful to those in Early Feedback or Project Development, but Completed Games might get some reviews that are considered helpful.
If you have any questions, please feel free to PM me so the thread is focused on reviews and posted games. Maybe in time we'll be lucky and the Admin Gods will grant some kind of a sub-thread that allows for everyone to blab incessantly about how great hot dogs are or something.
In any case, below are the posts mentioned above that will show how this will work.
The RPG Maker Review Game is a thread meant to allow project developers to gain quick feedback from their peers while also offering their own perspective on other projects either in development or otherwise finished. The idea is simple – you review someone’s game, someone else reviews yours.
How This Works
1. One person will post their game in the next post in the format explained below.
2. A potential reviewer will “claim” the posted game by posting a “Reserved” post, to be edited later.
3. That reviewer will download the posted game and play it for AT LEAST 15-20 minutes, or until they feel they’ve accumulated enough data to give decent feedback.
4. The reviewer will then post their review of the game they just played in this thread (the poster of the game being reviewed can also request for the review to be posted on their game’s download page; a common courtesy, though, should be that it’s headed with “From the RPG Maker Review Game Thread”)
5. In the same post in this thread, the reviewer will then post a link to their own game to be reviewed by someone else.
6. The cycle then repeats ad infinitum.
7. If a game has been "claimed", no one should try and post their own review of the game until the reviewer has finished. As a guideline for now, the reviewer is allowed up to three days until someone else can swoop in and claim a game for their own. If you can't make the time to play through someone's game (and no one's game should take three whole days just to get the gist), then wait until you do have time. This is to ensure the game doesn't stall out.
8. Likewise, if no one has claimed a game in three days, then someone else can post their own game without reviewing the game causing the stall. In order to prevent people just farming reviewers without participating, you will have to pick another game at your own discretion to review. It would also be nice of you to request permission to do so in the event that they have some seething hatred against people writing things about their game in a different thread.
9. (Added rule) To avoid farming reviews by reviewing every other game, try to wait until at least two other players have had the chance to post their own reviews and games. Obviously this won't apply initially, as there might not be that many playing yet, but in the future if this thread gets 9 trillion people this will apply.
10. (Added rule) In the event that the game stalls because everyone has already reviewed everyone else's game and no newcomers have come in, one can review the next 15 or so minutes of a game they've already played if they haven't finished the whole thing. On that note, it's also suggested to state at where in the game you've stopped.
11. Finally, if the thread just stalls out for whatever reason and no one reviews or posts anything, then... I don't know. Someone will summon Satan and we'll be forced to hand out toothbrushes during Halloween.
Post Format
The post should be split into two parts: your review and the game you want reviewed. Obviously this won’t apply to the first person who posts. As a general rule, a review should at the very least state if the game is fun or not, and why you would think so.
Constructive criticism is the aim here. The review should help the developer, not make them want to quit. If you don’t think their game is fun, explain why and offer some tips to better the experience. On the flip side, those wanting reviews should expect criticism, and not take every little detail like the reviewer is personally trying to murder your dog.
The second part of the post should obviously include a link to your game’s download page, but a brief synopsis of what your game’s about, what you’re aiming to do with it, what genre it’s in, what kind of reaction you’re going for, the RPG Maker your game was made in, etc. should help a potential reviewer know what they need to say about the game in order to help. If you want to keep these elements a mystery, that’s fine, but keep in mind that with less information going in, the reviewer will likely have no idea how to respond other than some broad, emotional feedback. Which might be a good thing depending on the project.
The next two posts will be fake ones I will write to give a better example of what this all looks like.
Disclaimer
Since I’m a complete nubcake to this forum’s community, please let me know if this is inappropriate or if it belongs somewhere else or if your grandma was offended by my liberal use of numbered lists. None of these guidelines are meant to be permanent, as it’s impossible to know without experience how this will all turn out; if tweaking of this thread exchange is needed, then it’ll be tweaked. If someone comes up with a better way to do something and it’s agreed upon by a majority, then it’ll certainly be implemented. As mentioned, the aim is to circulate feedback that would otherwise be foreign to new developers (or old, I dunno). This will probably be more useful to those in Early Feedback or Project Development, but Completed Games might get some reviews that are considered helpful.
If you have any questions, please feel free to PM me so the thread is focused on reviews and posted games. Maybe in time we'll be lucky and the Admin Gods will grant some kind of a sub-thread that allows for everyone to blab incessantly about how great hot dogs are or something.
In any case, below are the posts mentioned above that will show how this will work.
Last edited by a moderator:
