Frying tonight!

Written by oddbob   Comment

Awesome friends of Mersey Remakes, Zombie Cow & Lemmy and Binky have just released themselves a new game thing lark.

It’s very much like Keystone Capers gone wrong but with zombies. It’s also rather fucking ace. We’ve just bunged the trailer up on xnPlay as it’ll be getting a CC release, but for those more impatient you can download yourselves the PC version whilst you wait.

Grab it here

This here is my RSS Feed. Subscribe away!


Consolevania

Written by oddbob   2 Comments

And why did no-one tell me that Consolevania had been running an Indie segment? Pfft, I tells thee - the intertainmenttits network highway isn’t what it was in my day.

Alright, alright, it’s my own fault for watching the first couple of segments of series 4 then wandering off for a while. This morning I remembered to play catchup and lo and behold, those finest of fine chaps had been doing Independents Day over a couple of Fridays. Awesome stuff, even if they are now a month old.

This here is my RSS Feed. Subscribe away!


You see, I do fuck up :)

Written by oddbob   Comment

Just been through todays complaints mail about xnPlay and come across a mail from the developer of Brain Party pointing out that I’d incorrectly represented his game. And whaddya know, I only bloody did.

Such a silly mistake too as when I was hitting publish I thought “hmm, was that two or three matching games” and rather than do the sensible thing and go back and check, I put three down anyway and hit publish. Which was wrong.

So apologies due there, text amended and mental note made not to make that mistake again. Considering how diligent I am about these things normally, I feel a bit of a prat right now.

This here is my RSS Feed. Subscribe away!


A few days of xnPlay…

Written by oddbob   Comment

…and as I suspected, a couple of upset developers already. Which is, well, more than entertaining but more than a tad depressing. My mailbox (which I’ve pretty much ignored due to y’know, birthdays taking priority) has been lively today with folks complaining that they’ve gotten a bad rap. Strangely enough, none of the complaints have come from people who got good reviews… hmmm…

So, some advice:

1. Your demo is the bridge to the public. With 4-8 games a day currently going onto the Community Games service - folks aren’t going to try each and every one of them. You can’t rely on the “oh well, it’s only [x] points and I’m bored” for good word of mouth or the majority of your sales. You certainly can’t rely on that from a reviewer. Make your demo the best it can be. Sell it to me. I want you to sell your games to me because I, believe it or not, want to hand over my money to people who make good games. If I review your game poorly and you’re not happy, fine. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me and if the game is truly that much better than I or any of the staff say it is - you’re safe in the knowledge that I, or the reviewer is wrong.

2. I’m not developing for the community (well, I might yet be - I haven’t decided yet) but I’ve known for months about the time limit. It is not an excuse for a poor demo.

3. If you’re really that offended by me or any of the staff reviewing the trial version (and labelling it as a trial version review…) then give us access to the full game or a reasonable portion of the game somehow. I can run your games on my 360 if you supply me with an appropriate build, build a PC version that I can use, do something proactive towards getting good press and you might find you get better press. You might not, but at least you’ve done something constructive and tried.

4. Please don’t argue semantics with me. I’ve got a tolerance level of a gnat with concentration problems for poor internet argument techniques . Telling me I’m wrong or stupid or “not a proper reviewer” or I didn’t use the word you’d prefer isn’t going to make me change my opinion. Convincing me I might be wrong on the other hand…

So, please folks, try and be a bit less sulky and a bit more proactive. I’ve set up a site you can use to help yourselves with but its primary function is not for developers but for the folks who have the purse strings for making or breaking your games. It does and will contain opinion and you may not like or agree with that opinion, and that’s fine. That’s the world in a nutshell and if you’re not ready to deal with negative opinion you’re probably not ready for the internet.

It’s within your power to help shape those opinions. Picking semantic arguments over whether we have the right to call a review of a trial version clearly labelled as a review of the trial version a review is silly. Telling us we should buy a game and review it properly if we want to call ourselves proper reviewers is silly. It gets no-one any further, and I seriously doubt it makes you feel better afterwards.

Bitching never sold more copies of a game, people.

This here is my RSS Feed. Subscribe away!


33

Written by oddbob   3 Comments

Blimey!

This here is my RSS Feed. Subscribe away!


« Previous Page — Next Page »