The heck did I just watch???
A dramatic story in space, supposedly. Yeah I know, graphics don't look too good, even from a stylized standpoint.
Think I should state beforehand that the developer of this game is Giant Spacekat, a 4-member team consisting of all women and founded by Brianna Wu and Amanda Stenquist Warner, the former of which has had some controversy in recent months that has led to comparisons to Phil Fish amongst others. So anyone thinking about using this thread to soapbox about the developer and her supposed wrongdoings should think twice before doing so.
The Tropes page is definitely gonna need some fixing then, because right now it's more or less damned by faint praise from what I'm seeing on it. At least the author kept the YMMV stuff off the main page entirely.
Personally though from what I'm seeing of the gameplay, the criticism isn't unjustified: the game's being hyped for way more than what the final product really was and doesn't live up to most of it's promises.
Well, I think a lot of that criticism exists because Brianna Wu is one of the big Gamergate Targets. The game itself isn't bad, but it's gotten a lot of people who are predisposed to hating it. Metacritic really is not the place to look if you want an objective opinion.
Personally, I've played it. The game is fine, especially for an IOS game. It's nothing special, but it's hardly deserving of such negativity.
edited 19th Feb '15 9:56:00 PM by RSLee
I've looked further into this. This... doesn't look like a good game at all. Its really... I'll be honest, its ugly to look at and there are FAR better CGI IOS games out there such as anything Telltale has put out for IOS or games like The Room for iPad. The sound quality seems to be terrible and what I've heard of the voice acting isn't good. The interface is messy. The entire thing is lacking for polish.
This really doesn't look good and I don't think those metacritic low scores are because of Gamer Gate and I formulated these opinions of the game before I was aware one of the creators was a Gamer Gate target. Not like that knowledge changes my opinion. I hate to say that this game looks really poor.
edited 19th Feb '15 11:58:52 PM by InkDagger
I think a good part of the hatred comes from a degree of Hype Backlash, what with it being in development for some time and not quite living up to the developer's label of "groundbreaking" or the whole "choices matter" thing in the end (Then again, this is part of a planned trilogy, so maybe they will matter in a future game). If she and her team never had this hatred for the stuff they do outside of the game, they may still have gotten hatred for the reasons within the game alone.
I don't have any experience for whatever they hyped it up to be. I'm looking purely at the game.
And, looking at this game on its own merits, it doesn't look like quality work at all. I'm surprised this is even a completed product. It doesn't even look like a Beta or Alpha. This is just... unacceptable to be charging $6.00 for. And this is AFTER a year extended deadline???
So who's heard of this game? It appears to be some kind of story/narrative-driven experience for iOS that's also looking to get released on PC at some point. Reviews range anywhere from "pretty decent at what it does" to "a load of crap." In fact, the negative review on the trope page
is also pretty much the only review we have, and it seems to cover all the bases with regards to what's wrong with it.
Official link to the trailer
iOS link
edited 19th Feb '15 6:02:53 PM by Nettacki