Xbox Live Arcade - games review

#41 On that note =)

As Joe mentioned above, we don't have an issue with this particular reviewer. We duly noted his opinion and have factored it into our future plans/development in what we feel is an appropriate way. Personally, I felt his reviews were a bit harsh an unwarranted.

At this point we are happy with where our XBLA games are at and Microsoft is very happy with us ;)

#42 I love both Marble Blast and Think Tanks great games and I own both. The thing is that I love these games knowing the stories and people behind them. Additionally, these games represent success to me ... in something that I hope to achieve. There are a lot of personal attachments that I and many other people have in the community here. I think both Marble Blast and Think Tanks have found good niches and made enough money to keep their developers going which is about all I want to achieve for the moment personally. Maybe for the developers it was fun making the games and they found enough people who had fun playing the games that it was worth it and that's their only goal ... which is a good one. Great job on two fun games that found their respective niches.

I think what other people are getting at though is that if we want to be more than competent or even good as I would consider these two games. If we want to be among the best then we have to please these reviewers. I must admit that seeing these reviews was an eye opener to me about just how big a climb it is to the very peak ... which is where I want to be someday. Right now I haven't even reached the level that Marble Blast and Think Tanks are on. I'm aiming to reproduce at least their level of success ... and that's very difficult to do. Nevertheless, when I reach that goal I'll still be a long way from the games these reviewers and millions of other people love to praise.

I know it's only one person in this particular review but I've heard similar responses from other people about these same games. The typical jaded gamer will quickly dismiss anything that's not above and beyond most of the time and there are a lot of jaded gamers out there. As I said above I understand that there was no intention of making these games the best games ever. These games both accomplished what the developers set out to do and also this reviewer is one joe shmoe ... no big deal I understand for your business or your niche ... you're still successful!

I do think though that other people have some points. If we as Independent developers are a group here at GG and the best in our group have achieved these reviews that it should be an eye opener to what we have to do if we want to achieve more. Basically, if you want to get a game on XBLA and you want console reviewers to gush over it you've got your work cut out for you BIG TIME! Now back to trying to achieve that goal myself!

#43 Anthony,
I don't like the PC version of ThinkTanks either but I thought we did a really good job of making the Xbox version a lot more approachable and more fun to play. Have you tried it? Where did it fail to appeal to you?

Honestly, I was a bit surprised by Peter's comment that "Aiming was a chore". I didn't think that it could get any easier than full auto-aim? We spent nearly a month testing and fine tuning a wide variety of different aiming models before settling on the current one. How could it have been made easier?

#44 ROFL... Man, and I thought auto-aim bots were cheats.... turns out they just make game harder.

#45 Unfortunately the reviewer did not specify if he is in the coveted 34 - 36, Married with Kids, Favorite Color is Blue, Pontiac Driving, Diet Caffeine-Free Coke drinking demographic, so it is tough to know how well he represents the ThinkTanks audience.

How much should we tailor a game to try to appeal to all people? Where do we hit the balance between filing our established niche and going for mass appeal? Make it too easy and possibly alienate those who we know respond to TT. Don't make it easy enough, and miss out on the super casual Bejeweled loving crowd. How well does the PC/Mac TT demographic align with the XBLA demographic?

I guess these are for the sales numbers to tell. As Matt mentioned, we did adjust the play mechanic for the Xbox version. Ironically enough, we made the tanks faster and the aim easier than in the PC version to give it a more "quick thrills, non-brain intensive" feel.

Did we succeed? For some yes, clearly for others we didn't. Sadly the reviewer didn't give us much to go on in terms of his actual play experience.

But there is room for improvement based on the feedback we've received (including the multiplayer comment from the short, terse review in question).

TT's strength in my opinion is in multiplayer. In the playtesting we did, that was certainly the best part (especially for those of us who were mopping the floor with TT noobs like Matt.. heh heh..).

Unfortunately on XBLA, (given the time constraints and other issues beyond our control), there was no way for us to add a dedicated server functionality. As a result it is tough to find any games in progress to drop into on XBLA. So the strongest part of TT is also the least played. That's a shame.

So what do we do with that? Well we add it to the lessons learned and continue making games. Hopefully the result of the lessons will be games that are more things to more people. Eventually resulting in a game that is indeed all things to all people. AKA: Mrs. Pac-Man.

I think somewhere in the middle of typing this I lost track of who the core audience for this post is.

The opinions presented in this post are purely my own and do not reflect the statements or opinions of Garage Games. It is GG policy that ThinkTanks is the one game that is all things to all people. Unfortunately many of you have not yet acknowledged or accepted that and have yet to buy your copy. Please for the sake of your sanity make your way to the game store and buy a copy or two, and maybe some extra copies for your friends and relatives.

#46 @Matt

Fair enough. I think cultural differences got in the way there. As for my comment about think tanks on XBox being a chore to aim. I feel I should elaborate if only to give you some useful info.

What I found was that I would get shot and never seem to know where the shots were coming from. Turning to aim at the correct attacker often lead to me locking on to the wrong attacker and getting nuked anyway. Moving the tanks around felt really slugish to me as well. I also never seemed able to make it to any power-ups except ones that appeared right next to me!

Also I too will remove my comment on my post as a gesture of good will, given that I now realise you meant no offence by your remark.

Edit : Stephen already removed it so thanks for that.

Also (though I probably shouldn't bother with this bit but hey!)

@Chris

I already have a masters and am doing a PHd at the moment. I have a very successful company and do regular contract work for big name games companies. My views come mainly from my own observations of working with those companies. I am able to see from the outside in, what works and what doesn't work for them and then take that away and apply it to my own company.

If you have a very sucessful company too, then that's great for you and I wish you all the sucess in the future.

#47

Quote:
Is Peter the only one here with any sense?? Why does the indie industry go into denial about every bad review? Is it AT ALL POSSIBLE that the games may be, *gasp* BAD??!?

Yeah, the games are so bad that Apple bundles one of them with every Mac.
Microsoft hates them so much they keep writing us checks and giving us hardware to do more of them.
In fact, ThinkTanks and Marble Blast are hated world wide, so much that other companies have paid us to port them to other languages.

No. It's not at all possible that the games could be bad. This reviewer's wife ran over his dog on the way out of his garage with his car as she left him for a Columbian drug lord, and when he drove after her, he found that his son didn't fill up the gas tank after he borrowed the car last night when he went out and pawned his dads class-rings for money to pay the mafia to put a hit out on his grand-mother. Or something like that.

#48

Quote:Like I said It is still POSSIBLE for us to make bad games.

I would agree with this whole heartedly and add that to think otherwise will in set you up to certain failure. The hard work that goes into making a good (fun) game must go into every game, no matter what your track record is. There are plenty of examples of companies that made game that they assumed would be fun just because the last one was fun, and they ended up missing the mark. So indeed, a critical step back is always helpful.

On the other hand, there is the balance between trying to tweak to perfection, and just getting the thing shipped and moving to the next project...

And remember prototyping with the Bravetree Girl Pack will increase your odds of producing a good game by 500%*

*results may vary.

Edit: Where'd the post I was responding to go?

#49 Hehe. That looks dope!


@Matt
About TT, iv'e only played the PC version. the things I wasn't too trilled about were:

level design: too bare, not a lot of use of the landscape, no structures (demo). Graphicaly they were a bit lacking (which I found odd, because the tanks themselves look so cool)

Control: was kind of annoying. It was a different way of doing it which is nice, but I just didn't find it fun. This is tricky since the auto aiming might be cheap, and I can see not wanting to stick to the normal "shooter" method. It may have been more fun though.

Features: Not enough. Since it was another shooter with a 'lob' feature, there would have to be more ways of playing/ weapons/ Tank maneuvers/ Tank weapon customizations.

Unfortunately, the demo had no human players when I played, so that may be a large part of why it wasn't fun. I also remember there being glitches, tho it's been a long time since I played it. Can't remember.. :(

#50 Here's a link to that cool image from the Witcher Game. www.thewitcher.com/witcher.asp

Now... this is going to sound like all talk and no proof... but the town picture is almost exactly like the castle/city that I was making for the Robin Hood game I was trying to do. It has normal mapping and shaders, but besides that, it's pretty close. I am pretty excited to play this game just to get to play in this city. :)

#51 The only real thing i have agaist that review(not the reveiwer, mind you) is that it wasnt very descriptive of what was done wrong.
The opposite end of the reviewing spectrum, would be like when Peter went to explain what he had problems with(such as the aiming system and the movement) information that helps nail down on specific faults that can be fixed at a later time are far more helpful than a 3 sentance short detailing how much the game sucked in its sucky-ness.

The Third Reich used to be a mod, so review and feed back from our community was THE backbone in adding new features and fixing old ones. That tradition has been carried over to TTR in it's indie development, where people's legitimate, detailed explinations of wanted features, issues they had with older versions or other games, and other things that fall into that category help spur us to make the game better.
I agree that all reviews are important, good or bad, but i have a very hard time placing what that reviewer said about TT in either catagory, because there was no elaboration, nothing to help the game in future versions.

I'm all for reading reviews and learning what to do, and what not to do(gaming magazine reviews are very good at insights for that), but when a reviewer does not take the initiative to pose a actual review that woul benifit anyone, and posts a rant instead, it doesnt help anyone, him, or the developers.

Just my opinion, and i dont mean to target anyone or cause more unsettled behaviors.
-Jeff "Reno" Raab

#52 Wait wait wait wait wait.....Fall victim to hype? Lol, most good reviewers dont, remember a little game dalled daikatana? see any great reviews for that? What about Advent rising? Super hyped because of the author, but got 6.6 and other mediocre reviews.

halo 2 not changing much from its predecessor? Duel Wielding? Vehicle boarding? The greatest console online system Ive ever experienced(That alone making it a HUGE improvment over halo 1)?

Doom 3 being a pos? I love the game, Ive been playing games non stop since I was 3(Wolfenstien days) and I loved it. I own the xbox version, as well as the pc, and the expansion pack.

#53

Quote:Yeah, the games are so bad that Apple bundles one of them with every Mac.
Microsoft hates them so much they keep writing us checks and giving us hardware to do more of them.
In fact, ThinkTanks and Marble Blast are hated world wide, so much that other companies have paid us to port them to other languages.

No. It's not at all possible that the games could be bad. This reviewer's wife ran over his dog on the way out of his garage with his car as she left him for a Columbian drug lord, and when he drove after her, he found that his son didn't fill up the gas tank after he borrowed the car last night when he went out and pawned his dads class-rings for money to pay the mafia to put a hit out on his grand-mother. Or something like that.

ROFL. That almost beats Mark McCoys off the wall sales pitches :)

#54 Rofl... sarcasm is great :)

#55
Love spell came out tremendously, I highly recommending robinson.buckler @ yahoo . com for whatever problems you are experiencing in your relationship. He is the real deal. his love spell is absolutely wonderful.