So there has been a lot of chatter around the place about how to criticise another's work, what the value of criticsm is etc. One of the things I have planned for this year is to get into the habit of reviewing the gaming books I read, including an AP report.
I have been thinking about how to construct my reviews and the sort of things I should 'rate':
1) Setting: Is it interesting, engagingly written, non-existent?
2) Clarity: How well does the book convey its mechanics and setting.
3) Time to game: This is a bug bear of mine. Many games, tabletop and computer, seem to take an age to get to the actual game. Now I don't want to include reading time in this. I want to include a general idea of how long it takes from the moment the players sit down round the table to the time they actual get to interact with the game. Yes this does include character creation.
4) Mechanics: Are they interesting, well though out, any giant gaping holes?
5) Presentation: Is it a good looking book, artwork, layout. This may tie into clarity above.
6) Actual play: I will play every game I read, so a quick overview of a session will be included.
Basically I think my review would be something along the lines of:
Name
Theme: What does the game say it is about?
Setting: If relevant
Mechanics
Clarity and Presentation
Actual Play
Conclusion
I may score these things out of 10 I may not.
Any thoughts, suggestions, criticisms?
Cheers
Iain
Cool, Iain. Scores aren't
Submitted by Joe Murphy on Sat, 23/02/2008 - 20:37.
Cool, Iain.
Scores aren't that relevant. What's a 10 in mechanics? A mechanic for everything? A mechanic that works? A mechanic that inspires?
BUT, I would like to see reviews that focus on the cleverer bits of a setting and/or system. Because they're the bits I most care about, want to sell to others, or sell me on the game. In Stitch, it's not the needle or the setting or the missions. It's the time-based skills.
Reviews don't need the same format. The cinematography in 'Be Kind, Rewind' wasn't as obviously interesting to me as 'No Country For Old Men'. It wasn't so relevant to the movie, and wouldn't be part of why I'd suggest others watch it.
Ratings
Submitted by Ashok Desai on Sun, 24/02/2008 - 09:11.
I've given up giving ratings to Indie games, because the mechanical effectiveness and style often aren't comparable to other types of game. It's more important, in my opinion, to put across an idea of what the game is about, what aspects of role-playing it emphasises, what atmosphere it engenders and what kinds of role-player will enjoy it. It's not so much like selling a pair of socks, where all most people will be worried about is the price. It's more like selling, say, a car. You've got to take into account a whole slew of different parameters, some of which will be more important to some and less important to others. Is the car reliable? Is it safe in an accident? Is it economical with its petrol? How flashy does it look? So many different parameters, and these parameters are likely to be different for every game. If I review Agon for example, it's all about the combat and the battle mechanics are going to be foremost. On the other hand, Best Friends is all about how the mechanics of the game encourage interaction between the players, rather than how any one player can 'win'. There is a vast variety of design ethics in the Indie field, and it's usually a good idea not to try and apply the same criterea to every one. Better to start with the criterea that you feel the game is designed to address.
Due to all this, my reviews don't tend to follow a preordained structure. I write organically, addressing points in an order that allows the text to flow without breaking. This usually means that I have a half-flippant introductory paragraph that evokes an overview of the game, then talk about the physical product (art values, printing quality, whatever is relevant) then move on to the actual mechanics and finish up with a more literal summing up at the end that collects the salient points of the review into one paragraph. Everything else I write about beyond that will be governed by the nature of the game. I mean heck, some of them don't even HAVE settings!
Ash
Ash, could you link me to
Submitted by Joe Murphy on Sun, 24/02/2008 - 09:39.
Ash, could you link me to some of your reviews?
You're spot-on with the car analogy. The selling points of a minivan aren't the selling points of a sportscar.
Time to Game?
Submitted by Neil Gow on Sun, 24/02/2008 - 09:59.
The only one that I think requires some consideration is 'Time to Game'. Its a touch unfair to mark/comment/review a game on something that you acknowledge is a personal bugbear of yours. Some games - like SotC, Traveller, Burning Wheel and a certain game of Napoleonic Warfare - have character generation almost as a game within itself, by design. It forms a part of the larger game.
Maybe it could be about stuff that is extraneous to the 'game within a game'. So SotC has very few knobs and whistles that aren't associated with building story and setting, whereas Burning Wheel has a large number of numbers and fiddly bits that construct the mechanics of the game but without that flavour. Maybe that is more relevant.
Or not...
Neil
Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/
My Reviews
Submitted by Ashok Desai on Sun, 24/02/2008 - 11:57.
Ash, could you link me to some of your reviews?
I'd love to, but most of my specifically Indie reviews (as opposed to mainstream reviews) are in Knights of the Dinner Table, and as such I don't think I'm at liberty to post them elsewhere. Sorry about that. I'm working on a review of Suzerain though, and when that's finally finished it'll be up on RPG Net. I have a few reviews over at RPG Net, but I've not used the same strategy on those. Partly this is because they're more mainstream titles, and partly because in KotDT I'm working to a strict word limit, which has forced me to be more economical in my writing. This is probably a good thing, since in the past I've been wont to write rambling monsters of reviews that try and tackle every aspect of the game. These were so long that they probably become boring for others to read. Here are a couple of those anyway though:
The Great War of Magellan (slightly ranty)
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13253.phtml
Corporation
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12525.phtml
Ash