Freitag, 14. August 2015

My Hangups

In my profession, I try to give students accurate and reasonable feedback. I like to work with "horizons of expectation", as the half a page to three page long documents are called. They detail the things we expect and assign points for each.
My first reviews have made it clear to me that this is not as easy as grading with these things. Because while I tried to be fair to the reviewed games, I noticed how my personal hang-ups and preferences influenced my judgment.
So, in the interest of fairness, here are the things that drive me up the wall or make me lose interest, no matter how irrational they might be.

Reading
I love reading. Books, comic books, magazines, I devour written words. One of the best purchases I ever made was a tablet, which has two main functions: ebook reader and Netflix.
And I loathe reading on the computer screen.
I have no idea why, something about it just feels off and makes me skim far earlier than if I had read whatever text it is in another form.
Furthermore, if your game has a key that allows me to skip things... Yeah, do not expect me to actually have read a high percentage of your text, most likely I was pecking the key like a hyperactive woodpecker.
I know it is unfair to you and the work you put into the text, but I can't help it.

JRPG look á la RPG-Maker
I don't know what it is about characters with heads that make up 60% of their body volume and eyes the size of wheelcaps, I just have a really hard time coming to term with that aesthetic. On a related note, while I adore the artistic level of things like "Attack on Titan" and other animes, once again, the aesthetic just isn't for me.

Longwinded tutorials
Okay, can I start n... Oh, you want to explain another mechanic, okay then feel free. Now then? Oh, okay. No, no, take your time...
A huge infodump at the beginning of the game tends to make me impatient, especially if I can't do anything to pass the time.

Time
Maybe this is the wrong post, but it will suffice until I have a better one. My subjects are German and English, which means I have to grade a lot of essays, tests etc. That is time consuming and our school days tend to run long. So gaming and especially gaming time is a luxury.
I apologize if you created a stunning ten hour epic, but unless it relentlessly grips me, I probably won't spend more than half an hour on it, an hour tops.
That is not indicative of quality, your game shares this fate with several AA or AAA titles in my Steam library (and if I admitted to a few of them, I might have my gamer card revoked...)

So, there you have it, my hangups as clearly as I could put them.
Self-reflection may yield more, so... to be continued.

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