Project Critiques

  1. What is your favorite aspect of the proposed game? Why? For this question, point out what you think is the coolest feature of the game, what makes it novel, or what aspect would make you most inclined to play it. Your thoughts on the coolest part of the game may differ from those of the game designers!
  2. What is your least favorite aspect? Why? Which part of the proposed game seems to be the least fun? Is there something that might be dull or boring? Why might you get tired of playing the game or find it frustrating? Be candid, yet tactful and polite with your answer.
  3. What one change or addition would you suggest to most improve the game? Offer a helpful suggestion on how to make the game better. Maybe you have an idea on how to make the gameplay more fun. Or, perhaps your favorite feature could take on a more prominent role. You might offer a resolution to your least favorite aspect that would improve the game. Please make comments that are reasonable given the scope of the course.

Janick Bernet

Toon Dimension

  1. I really like the idea of playing in several dimensions (although I right now cannot actually imagine how more than three would look like). To my knowledge, only one commercial game has tried this yet, which you may have a look at: super paper Mario. If this is used right, solving puzzles this way will be a really satisfactory experience in my opinion.
  2. Good capture the flag games are hard to create, as very often the games result in stalemate. This is especially the case for viewer players, which will be the case on one x-box.
  3. My advice would be to make the puzzles in a way a player can do much on his own without having to wait for the other player to solve his part of the puzzle (maybe bash some monsters in between). Because otherwise, he will get bored and also there would be no real point in having two players individually controlling a character in one dimension – it could as easily be done by one player switching dimensions and the group arguing on how to solve the puzzles.

Incredible Battle Machines

  1. This idea of logic assignment seems really novel to me and gives the game a whole new aspect. It should however be kept simple enough so you don’t need a degree in electrical engineering to define your circuits wink
  2. If I understood the hazard-concept correctly, those will be lying around on the map, which in my opinion is a bit too much an element of surprise.
  3. To prevent one player from having to wait to long for another, I would add a timer to the first two rounds. Either assign a fixed time to a round or a fixed time after one player has finished for the other player to finish his round. This also balances the two robots more (if one player spends 5 min building his and the other one, the former will probably be better) and could be seen as an additional constraint (apart from money and energy).

Dirty Derby

  1. Driving cars around in a cool 3D environment with realistic physics, so you can jump over ramps and hills and stuff is inherently fun to me. If the levels are well designed, this alone constitutes a nice game.
  2. Not something I don’t like, but I’m not sure if it works: the system with collecting points. Will those points be of fixed amount on the map or re-spawn? Is it possible to win by just collecting the points as fast as possible (without any direct interaction)?
  3. If the levels are small anyway and you see your care from a 3rd person perspective, then why not use only one screen (maybe with adaptive zooming) instead of split-screen? On the other hand, if you go with the split screen, maybe try to add a damage-model (instead of some advanced effects). Because in a game which heavy relies on damaging the other player’s vehicle, it of course is nice to see the damage done reflected on the other car.

Dominik Kaeser

Toon Dimension

  1. The action-adventure style game is very new to the game lab and I think it has lots of potential if you manage to get the right mixture of action and riddles. Try testing this early and show it to other people to see if they understand and like the riddles. Also, I like cartoon rendering. smile
  2. As a graphics person, I have some concern about the size of the levels and the amount of models required to realize them. You should try early enough to maintain a consistent simplistic style which, at the same time, is not primitive. Don't try covering up simple models with detailed textures.
  3. I would make the dimension aspect more clear, this is hardly understandable now. Maybe also short- or/and long-ranged attacks (i.e. guns) additionally to bombs?

Incredible Battle Machines

  1. Having a huge amount of possible combinations for a robot is really interesting and might lead to a lot of different playing styles if they are implemented (and also somewhat restricted) properly.
  2. My major concern here is that the construction phase takes too long and is too slow-paced for an arcade game. First, I think the visual implementation should be appropriate (maybe comic-style montage animation of a new part once you clicked on it, maybe check out some stuff from 'World of Goo'?). Second, there should definitely be a time limit or some aspect which forces the player to hurry up.
  3. See 2. I think in this game it is especially important to do very early tests if the game might get boring if you chose the wrong upgrades/components.

Dirty Derby

  1. I like the idea of having fun with physical bodies. Also, having a racing game which does not rely on memorizing race tracks but rather on navigating in a relatively small arena is is cool!
  2. I have some concerns that the user is more busy with handling the physics than with interacting with the other player. I think you should ensure that the game is fast enough and there are enough tactical interaction possibilities with the other player. Also, you should not lose too much time just with the physics which I see as a potential hazard in this project.
  3. The rigid body physics might give the game a quite static look - maybe you want to compensate this with models that are cartoonish in style and also transfer this to some animations like the camera?

Christian Oberholzer

As a general note I would like to emphasize that it could critizise something that I have overlooked while reading the documents.

Toon Dimension

  1. My most favorite aspect here is clearly the different dimensions you have. I like this feature and I think it is quite innovative. To have places which can only be reached by one player is nice and it may create a new feeling of cooperative gameplay. I think the emphasis on the cooperative mode clearly distinguishes the game also from all the others created in this lab since in all other games you play against each other.
  2. I think one of the drawbacks of the dimensions and the puzzle- and cooperative aspects is that the game needs a sophisticated and well-thougt level-design. I think this may become the weakness of this project since this may take a lot of time to develop.
  3. I would like some kind of feature (or some suprise events) that change the dimension a player is in. For example if a player plans too far on how to solve a level he might be surpised that his plans do not work out since some elements have changed dimensions in between.

Incredible Battle Machines

  1. In general I like the idea to assemble my robot. I think people may really become addicted and fascinated to create the best robot ever.
  2. I think that one of the problems you might have is the part with the logic construction. For me it looks a bit "technical" and for non-technical or non-studied people it may be a problem. I think you should really try to make this as easy as possible since I think an important aspect of console-gaming is the ability to jump right into the game without ever reading a manual or consulting the help.
  3. I could think of lots of features to be added... One would be to e.g. share robots over the internet. This way I could test out my colleagues robots and provide feedback on how to improve it. Another situation would be to have AI steer random robots taken from the internet. Just like it is done in spore with the players creature. One could also create an addition to 'program' an automatic robot and see how well the new 'AI' fights against the other players AI. I think possibilities in this direction are endless... wink

Dirty Derby

  1. I really like racing games. I can play them for hours and its always different. What I like about your game is that, even though it is a racing game, you approach the problem from a different angle. I like the game for not being the thousandst clone of need for speed or similar. It sounds a bit like these annual fair car-crash attractions so I would like it most if you could bring in a bit of the fun of those...
  2. I am a bit worried about the amount of cars available though. I can't really imagine how this crashing is funny if you have only two players in the game. => see number 3
  3. I would really like it if you could create some AI steering cars. From my point of view this would enable you to place much more cars on the field and to simulate the car-crashing better.

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2024-03-28
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