75 replies to this topic

[Eagle of Fire]

Personally, I'd prefer to be called a Peon...

[Geezer]

Eagle, thanks for posting that chat transcript you had with Kosta.

I was worried that the site was pulled by the International Society for the Advancement of Literature after my last review.

[A. J. Raffles]

ScytheKnight, on May 21 2007, 10:41 PM, said:

You're right about forums being dead.

Kinda depressing to comment on a game and have no replies.

Well, make a comment on the ADOM thread or the thread for any game I've played, and you'll most certainly get a reply from me. I can't discuss games I haven't played, though, I'm afraid. Tai would probably have replied to your post on the Prodigal thread, but I understand she's very busy with her "real life" at the moment...

By the way, as far as I remember, apart from a handful of exceptions (UFO, etc), game discussion threads on AB are just as "dead" as the ones here as soon as you subtract the "why can't I download this? Screw ESA " and the "How 2 set up doxbox plz?" posts and the inevitable replies to them, replies to posts written years ago - because the poster saw a question he could answer but didn't bother to check the date and whether somebody else had already answered it - and the random guest posts. Most of the activity on the AB forums takes place outside the game discussions, actually.

[velik_m]

Maybe if every other game here wouldn't be an adventure this site might get more traffic.
Also more games with graphics that don't look like they're made by a 7 year old, would help.

[Mighty Midget]

I dunno. Isn't it because adventures are far easies to make than say, state of the art FPSs? If you want to create a game as a hobby-ish project, then I'd say I wouldn't be supprised if it was an adventure game. Btw: The 5 days and 7 days are fantastic gems. If you like adventures, that is. But then again, some pretty cool sims have also been released as freeware as well as strategy games.

My point is: How can we convince people that freeware doesn't automaticly mean lame?

[_r.u.s.s.]

free booze shipped after you finish a freeware game?

[A. J. Raffles]

No need to get quite so hostile, velik. You're raising valid points and I appreciate your criticism, but I'd prefer it if you'd voice it in a less accusatory manner.

velik_m, on May 22 2007, 09:51 AM, said:

Maybe if every other game here wouldn't be an adventure this site might get more traffic.

If I counted correctly, nearly 70% of the games on AR are from other genres - which admittedly still means there are a lot of adventure games, but if you've been watching the percentage of adventure games over the past year, you'll have notice it has gone down significantly. We are trying to tackle this issue by adding non-adventure games whenever we can, but we aren't going to start removing adventure games from the site, nor are we going to stop updating them altogether for months, so the other genres can "catch up". If you wish to speed up the process, your best bet would be to become active and write a review for a non-adventure game yourself.
I also wouldn't underestimate the popularity of the genre - as far as I remember, we had a period of nearly two months once during which we updated hardly any adventure games, and during that time our traffic rating actually dropped. Perhaps the adventure afficionados aren't the ones who tend to register and post on the forums, but that doesn't necessarily mean we don't get any traffic through adventure games. But as always, you're more than welcome to review whichever puzzle- arcade- or strategy-game from the list strikes and we'll gladly add it.

Quote

Also more games with graphics that don't look like they're made by a 7 year old, would help.

Obviously opinions will always differ as to what constitutes "good" graphics and as to how "good" graphics need to be in order for a game to be enjoyable/attractive. Some of my favourite games (ADOM, for example) use rather crappy graphics, actually, but I can see how that wouldn't be everybody's cup of tea. However, one thing you need to keep in mind is that a lot of freeware games are made by people who aren't professionals, and not all makers will have the experience, patience or skill to come up with professional-looking graphics. That doesn't have to reflect negatively on the games, though, so the mere look of the graphics would only be a very superficial criterion in selecting games for the site. Naturally this doesn't mean we don't welcome reviews for (good) games with "good" graphics. If you know of such games that aren't on the site or the to be reviewed list yet, do make a post in the suggestions forum - or better still, write a review yourself.

[Mighty Midget]

I don't know about traffic at Download Central, but reviews are no good if there are few, if any at all, who read them. Are people browsing the archive and the site, or do they come to get that one game they heard about? Of course, I don't know if you're interested in the "one time poster" or any of that crowd, I guess you're not. Also, the forum does seem to be a bit "pro" oriented, programming and all. Maybe that scares some away. As I said, I don't know, but maybe a somewhat more "are you interested in games in general including freeware? GREAT "-like approach could do some good.

[velik_m]

A. J. Raffles, on May 22 2007, 12:26 PM, said:

No need to get quite so hostile, velik. You're raising valid points and I appreciate your criticism, but I'd prefer it if you'd voice it in a less accusatory manner.

velik_m, on May 22 2007, 09:51 AM, said:

Maybe if every other game here wouldn't be an adventure this site might get more traffic.

If I counted correctly, nearly 70% of the games on AR are from other genres - which admittedly still means there are a lot of adventure games, but if you've been watching the percentage of adventure games over the past year, you'll have notice it has gone down significantly. We are trying to tackle this issue by adding non-adventure games whenever we can, but we aren't going to start removing adventure games from the site, nor are we going to stop updating them altogether for months, so the other genres can "catch up". If you wish to speed up the process, your best bet would be to become active and write a review for a non-adventure game yourself.
I also wouldn't underestimate the popularity of the genre - as far as I remember, we had a period of nearly two months once during which we updated hardly any adventure games, and during that time our traffic rating actually dropped. Perhaps the adventure afficionados aren't the ones who tend to register and post on the forums, but that doesn't necessarily mean we don't get any traffic through adventure games. But as always, you're more than welcome to review whichever puzzle- arcade- or strategy-game from the list strikes and we'll gladly add it.

Quote

Also more games with graphics that don't look like they're made by a 7 year old, would help.

Obviously opinions will always differ as to what constitutes "good" graphics and as to how "good" graphics need to be in order for a game to be enjoyable/attractive. Some of my favourite games (ADOM, for example) use rather crappy graphics, actually, but I can see how that wouldn't be everybody's cup of tea. However, one thing you need to keep in mind is that a lot of freeware games are made by people who aren't professionals, and not all makers will have the experience, patience or skill to come up with professional-looking graphics. That doesn't have to reflect negatively on the games, though, so the mere look of the graphics would only be a very superficial criterion in selecting games for the site. Naturally this doesn't mean we don't welcome reviews for (good) games with "good" graphics. If you know of such games that aren't on the site or the to be reviewed list yet, do make a post in the suggestions forum - or better still, write a review yourself.

It's true that pecentage of other games is rising, but the reputation doesn't go away so quickly. If i wan't a free quality action game Reloaded is not the first to come to mind.

As for graphics - i don't mind simplistic graphics (i wouldn't play abandoned games if i did), i do mind bad graphics. For instance Alex 4 has good graphics for my taste, on the other hand ESPER: Town On The Edge Of Darkness (to use a recent example) looks very poor. If the author didn't put effort into making his game look good, how can i trust that he put effort in any other parts of the game? (and ADOM is not a graphical adventure/game - no graphics is better than bad graphics).

Anyways http://www.retroremakes.com has plenty of good remakes. And there is also http://caiman.us/ (if your looking for more games).

I don't have time to make reviews, i barely have time to play games - hence my reluctance to download games that already look crapy.

p.s.
Sorry about my insulting/flame-baiting/sarcastic/straight-to-the-point/i-have-no-friends tone, it's just the way i am.

[ScytheKnight]

Caiman games is a good place for more action oriented Freeware. Whole sections dedicated to Shooters (Side, Top and even a few 3D)... some real gems out there in Side/Top scrollers, so long as you don't mind all the documentation being in Japanese.

Techno Sylf AKA VSYS Gaiden is a great example. Really cool game, but a bit hard to get into since there's no documentation anywhere in English. Normally this wouldn't be a problem but with the game being so deep (Dynamic player controlled Upgrade & Evolution of your ship) it's hard to understand just what everything is and does.

[Doubler]

A late welcome to everyone, new and old. I'm all up for a barbeque

Quote

If the author didn't put effort into making his game look good, how can i trust that he put effort in any other parts of the game?

Because a great programmer might not be a great artist, or a great writer may not be that good at rendering stuff.
Often games made by individuals or very small teams lack in graphics simply because they haven't got anyone who can do them better. Then instead of putting abnormal ammounts of effort into graphics for little effect, they decided their time would be better spent doing that at which they are best. Thus the game itself only gets better.

In short: I do not agree with your assumption that "looks very poor" equals with "the author didn't put effort into making his game look good", nor do I agree with you that you can always expect a game to look good. In fact, I probably don't even agree with you on what kind of graphics look "very poor"

[_r.u.s.s.]

but you have to agree, that graphics Does make a first impression. and mostly people look on the screenshots before reading a review and downloading a game.
(of course, something with loads of effects and high resolution can look waaay worse than simple low res graphics)
example
good graphics:
http://www.reloaded.....php?GameID=230
bad graphics:
http://www.reloaded.....php?GameID=221

[Dave]

I admire who makes freeware games, most of them remember me these good old platform games I used to play when i was I child!

[DeathDude]

Yeah graphics it seems will always make an impression, but ya gotta keep an open mind, even if a game has not so great graphics does not mean its a crappy game, you will miss out on a lot of games.

Perfect example, the wii is beating the ps3 and 360 in terms of sales for the last 6 months, this is a system that is considered graphically inferior to the other two, but look while the graphics for some games are not the best, it has fun games and can deliever.

The same is for freeware games, there are a lot of gems that don't have great graphics, maybe its because the developer isn't a great artist, or whatever the reason is.

Think until you actually tackle making a freeware game, best not to be so harsh, then you will realize its not an easy process to make a game (and not just any ol game, but something that could be considered "quality" or would have some sort of redeeming quality.

As for adventure games, we have drastically reduced our number for the last number of months, yeah a few pop up every now and then, but heres an observation, look at its visitor page numbers and downloads over a week, compared to other genres of games that go up, in a lot of cases, the adventure numbers actually go up quite quickly, so that is to say there is an audience here that likes those sorts of games. Anyways we try to put up whatever comes up, I myself have moved to more puzzle games as of late, but again if you want to see change, write one up.

[_r.u.s.s.]

DeathDude, on May 22 2007, 06:38 PM, said:

stuff about bad graphics and good quality

of course, but thats not how does the mass of 'consumer' people think=)
..and yes they will miss on many great games..and AR on downloads