So, Dragondot’s Sky was recently featured on Jay is Games. I was initially quite excited by this, as it’s certainly the game I’ve put the most work, dedication, and passion into to date. The critical reception there, however, has been… less than inspiring, shall we say.
Dragondot’s sky was a huge failure in my eyes. The controls were crummy, and the soundtrack was a piece of sh!t. well at least on my laptop, because for some reason, the soundtrack kept skipping and sounding all cr@ppy.
Dragondot’s Sky was beyond screwed up. With that control scheme, I would have had a hard time even going through a maze – much less trying to chase and shoot moving enemies. You’re controlling a circle – and it’s not as simple as “Holding the right arrow key makes you rotate clockwise?” And how could a game with such sparse graphics, terrible AI, terrible music, and terrible EVERYTHING take that long to load?
Ouch. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I’ve made some mediocre games, but I’m frankly stunned that this game has inspired such a degree of vitriol. My weekly games are something I do for myself, but when times are tough the encouragement of others is what helps keep me going. This, though, is not terribly encouraging – nor does it provide me anything I can work with to improve in the future. The music sounds “cr@ppy” on your laptop? Thanks for letting me know, but when making my games I have a) one week, b) one computer, c) one person (myself) to test and debug. I can’t fix an issue that I can’t reproduce myself, and a week is not exactly enough time to run betas and focus groups. I’m immensely grateful for the rest of you here that give me feedback that I can learn from and act on (such as the changes made to enemy advancement rates in Dragondot’s Sky). Please continue to do so – the more I can learn, the more I can improve, and that means better games for all of you. =)
And to those whose puppy my game has apparently kicked: My sincerest apologies. Hold the right arrow key to rotate clockwise.
Don’t get too discouraged, I get the impression a lot of younger folks tend to frequent that site. I think they are quite impatient, and couldn’t get used to the controls. They don’t understand much about game creation, I believe. You can see the vast difference between *them* and the people who actually commented directly on your site.
Don’t worry about pleasing every body, just make the games you want to make. There’s a certain appeal to that, I think.
That was a horrific way to critique. Not only was it not helpful or constructive, but intentionally aimed at destroying future work rather than creating better quality. While I had difficulty with the control scheme as well, it did not destroy the entire game–just made the learning curve too hard for trolls in the guise of game reviewers.
Don’t let one idiot kill the awesome thing you have going here. I look forward to your creativity every week. Of course Dragondot’s Sky needed(s) some improvement, but you had ONE WEEK. As a programmer myself, I know a week to be fantastic for what you have here. Creative mistakes are bound to happen when the testing period is limited to the development period itself.
Keep up the good work. I would be proud of the goodness you’ve got going here.
First, do they only show games that are finished in a week? Second, why are you quoting the guy who said the gameplay was the same as the first game plus fireballs? He doesn’t seem the most reliable source.
The controls were difficult to grasp intially, and the boss levels seem to make you level out sooner than the others, but it’s more an issue with the controls being unique than with them being flawed. It took me twenty minutes from first seeing the game to beating it.
Remember, just because someone speaks doesn’t mean they’re worth listening to.
There are a lot of people on the internet who judge everything they see as if it was claiming to be the perfect thing just for them. If it fails to live up to that imagined claim, they get offended and complain.
Though JayIsGames is a respectable site, it far from makes their audience any better judge of value.
There will always be assholes and thoughtless people, and they will always be the most vocal people around. On a site like JayIsGames, I’d bet 50% of the people who clicked on the link played it for about 5 minutes, thought “that’s pretty cool,” and left. 49% tried it out, thoguht “these controls are more complicated than I have patience for” and left. The last few had thoughts like the latter, but felt like posting about it in a particularly.
Basically, you designed a game that asks for a bit more time and patience than that particular demographic goes for.
Also keep in mind that while YOU are looking for a helpful, productive critique, the people who post on a site like that don’t have you in mind at all when they write. They are just offhandedly ranting because they feel like being heard.
tl;dr:
It doesn’t take a particularly bad game to get that sort of comment. It just takes any content, ever, and the masses of people who like to rant.
Thanks for the kind words, everyone. Thinking about it a bit, I realize that I’ve never seen posts like those quoted above on, say, TigSource – the folks there all realize that there are actual people creating the games, not just some nebulous Internet force obligated to cater to their whims. I’ve seen similar vitriolic and negative reactions on Reddit to the controls of the game Loved – and while I acknowledge that the somewhat floaty momentum is unusual for a “modern” game (and have none of these people ever played Sonic the Hedgehog?) it struck me as very appropriate that you needed to learn to adapt to the way the game works. At least, given the message that I got out of it. Players who expect Loved to cater to their personal preferences are missing the point in at least a few ways…
I myself should remember that I am an artist and as such I am daring to be different and try new things – and there are people out there who don’t like new things. But I’m not doing this for them. I’m doing this because it’s my passion. And if you folks like it too, that’s great. Rock on and stay awesome.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a game to make. =D
Good man.
Over the years I have been very proud of the community we have at Jayisgames, usually skewing older and more compassionate and analytical than your newgrounds and kongregates of the world. Mostly it comes from meticulously moderating the comments to prevent unconstructive, insensitive and childish comments from getting through like that. This particular one was a moderation failure, and I apologize for it. It’s been removed.
Allow me to share a few things I’ve learned from running my site for the past 7 years: you can’t please everyone no matter how hard you try. There will always be someone who will complain. You must not take these negative comments to heart, but use them as motivation to do your very best. And above all, know there are many more people out there who enjoy what you do. They make up the majority of the silent ones.
Best of luck in all your creative endeavors.
The controls took maybe ten minutes to get the hang of, and once I did the game became extremely addicting. (Though I still prefer the original Dragondot, maybe I’m a purist)
Make the games that YOU want to make and play; Targeting the mass market of 2 minute Flash gamers is such a waste of talent. I routinely check your blog specifically to find games with a bit more ingenuity than point and shoot.
(and the rotational movement version of DDS is just counterintuitive and even more difficult to aim. Thanks for showing the critics how their suggestions pan out)
Keep in mind that this game was only featured there in one of JiG’s “Link Dump Fridays”. Games in a link dump Friday are not as carefully selected or explained by the blogger as games which get their own post. So commenters in general tend to be much more critical of those games, and much quicker to dismiss them, since the entries are being viewed under the assumption that they’re quick time-wasters, rather than as full fledged games. So when I game gets included that has a bit more depth to it, sometimes the response will be negative, simply because it’s being directed at the wrong audience mindset. Like Shawn said, the controls take about 5-10 minutes to get the hang of. That’s how long you’d expect to spend on a time-waster.
So it’s nothing against the commenters or the game. It was just categorized incorrectly is all. Although enemies *do* advance too fast…and I wasn’t clear on whether my goal was to merely be defensive and protect the Kobolds, wipe out everyone, or just kill the bosses. But the fighting mechanic was pretty fun once I got used to it.
Another note in defense of the Jayisgames people… it really isn’t clear from the review or link that the game was made in only a week.
The “bad control scheme” isn’t actually bad, but the lack of explanation in-game really hurts. And it *is* tricky to use (what with the wide turns), but I get the feeling that was intentional. I don’t suppose dragons would really have tight turns.
I’m sure that it’s quite clear what’s going with the advancing, either. I spent a while trying to select my first level, because I was thinking along the lines of the other dragon-dot game, and trying to start small – with the 0% screens which I now realize meant 0 enemies, not a rating of difficulty, I guess? Then after a few levels I am now stuck on a screen that says “Enemies reinforcing” and won’t progress. I am using Windows XP and Firefox 3.6.2. (If it’s helpful, here’s what Firefox says about my browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.2) Gecko/20100316 Firefox/3.6.2)
I plan to try the game again, but the main thing I wanted to get across was that a little explanation of the game’s intent, time-frame and controls would probably go a long way for you. I know as a programmer that that’s the boring part, but if it decreases the learning curve of the players/users, it’s probably worth doing.
Cheers, and keep it up!
Incidentally, tips on controlling Dragondot’s Sky – the brake/dash mechanic is absolutely vital. Braking substantially increases your turning speed (and makes melee combat feasible), and dashing reorients you instantaneously in the direction you’re holding (vital for dodging some bosses, like Dark Wyvern). No idea about the “enemies reinforcing” freeze thing, though I’ve discovered that hitting Esc will halt execution of the program even in applet mode and can result in an apparent crash.
It does help to go after at least one boss directly, but if you want to get 100% completion you should go rescue kobolds in “!!” areas as well (especially before boss levels) rather than going straight for all the bosses.
I religiously check your site whenever there’s supposed to be a new game and I enjoy all of your games. They aren’t amazing, but they’re great for games made in one week. I was really hoping that you would make another dragondot game and maybe even regularly expand on the dragondot universe, but I was very disappointed with dragondot’s sky. The controls were pretty bad and although there seemed to be a lot going on, there wasn’t much depth. As always, the graphics look nice, I thought the music was good, and some dialog was a good addition, but that couldn’t make up for the lack of fun. My point is that this game is pretty bad and there could be nothing that can change that. Those commenters do have a point and although they are harsh and immature, this is the internet.
I do want you to keep making games though.
I wouldn’t worry too much about it if I were you. No matter what you do, someone on the internet is going to be grumpy about it.
With regards to the individual complaining about the music skipping, I get the same problem on my computer (it happens in both DDS and Wavespark). I don’t know if they use a lot more resources than the average java game or what the issue is. The music itself is very nice, it’s just that for some reason it does skip a lot for me.
I thought that the core gameplay of Dragondot’s Sky was a lot of fun, and the controls worked perfectly for me. The time-based mechanic was an interesting and original idea, but it was also flawed. It seems to have improved since the initial release. By the way, has the super fireball always been there, or was that added after the game was first released? I never noticed it before.
The super fireball was always there (and indeed, part of the reason that there’s a fireball attack in the game was because I wanted to try out that timing mechanic). The inspiration for not documenting it in the instructions came from Aquaria, which has a similar hidden quirk to its attack system that I quite enjoyed discovering on my own.
I agree that the time-based constraint is somewhat flawed; were I remaking the game now there are several things I would do differently, and that’s one of the most major. Part of the reason for this whole project is so I can learn more about making games – and there’s nothing that teaches like a mistake. =)
Wow, I liked the game so much that I felt I had to leave a comment.
I think the attraction of a game is not so much “the next level”, but how it “unfolds” — ie, the sense of discovery is discovering the unfamiliar in the familiar rather than pushing onwards. For example, I like how I discovered how to beat the 2 wargs easily about the 10th time I went through that level. I love how you can power your way through a level, but each level is also like a puzzle, in that there is some insight to be understood.
The difference from a puzzle game is that a puzzle game usually makes it really obvious that there is something to be discovered, so that the discovery is basically the gameplay. But dragondots sort of performs a slight of hand, it misdirects the player towards a simple goal while hiding the puzzles as surprises. In this sense, the modern “acheivement” system, or the idea of “subquests” really detracts from the charm of games, since it seems to eliminate the sense of discovery from reflecting on gameplay.
1) I like the sandbox feel, there are at least 3 distinct strategies to beat a 2 wargs.
2) The “emergent properties” .. surprisingly, 4 wargs play a lot differently than 2 wargs, or 3 wargs and a hobgoblin.
3) It’s way it’s balanced gives it a megaman feel, where you have to find some path through the stages.
In one sense, these elements are merely “planted there” by the developer. But in another sense, they seem to emerge from the world itself. Even though the developer introduced the elements that would result, for example, varying warg strategies, there is also a sense that he didn’t plan them beforehand, so that they seem to be consequences of the interacting elements of the game world.
Understanding is to achievement as insight is to emergence, the difference being that the former is thought of as “contrived” while the latter seems the more “natural”, and the latter is believed to be a component of superior games. The latter seems the more “mathematical” or geometrical, or it can be seen as the unintended or unexpected (perhaps in the sense of natural) consequences of the elements of the game. All games, in this sense, encourage a kind of “hacking” — but hacking itself is not that interesting because it is too goal oriented and ignores the “beauty”, let’s say, of the emergent system itself, which is what games encourage.
The question here is not so much the aesthetics of emergent properties, to find out which systems produce more interesting insights, but the way in which the emergent properties of games is really what gives games that prized aspect of “immersion”, the strange way in which gameplay is related to sought-after sense engagement or work at the most concrete level.