Spewer

It’s one of these single screen flash platformers that feel like an extended tutorial.

I’ve been playing this game for the past couple of days, and overall, it’s quite, quite good. The collision detection is slightly shoddy at certain places (the spikes, mainly), and the vomit sometimes feels like it doesn’t have enough power (even with the red), but it’s a damn fun time nonetheless.

Aww man, no lurve from the commenters? I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, I think it’s pretty superb.

It’ll stop being an “extened tutorial” and start kicking your arse in a few levels time. I promise.

…Or maybe I’m just bad at the game.

Can i suggest this game?

http://www.flashgamesvillage.com/2009/05/04/spit/

Runs wayyyyy to slow(set graphics to minimum). What for a powerhouse does he expect me to have?
Otherwise quite cool, but frustrating.

“this place is becoming more and more a place to bash indie games, thanks for contributing to the r3volution. Your comments need more personal attacks on the developer, though.”

You’re right, those weren’t personal attacks. If they were, then maybe you’d have a point. Those were both legitimate complaints and opinions towards the game, that just happen to differ from your own (oh no!).

There is no rule here saying that people have to like everything that is posted here and blindly compliment everything and give asspats to everyone. People are allowed to have whatever opinions they want towards anything. Perhaps you should understand that and stop trying to take it as a personal attack when it isn’t.

It’s a pretty nice game; I particularly like the scientist guy who wanders around in the background.

In terms of the character design, however… a pink blob who sucks stuff in and spews it out again… wow, that’s original…

Hmmm yeah. though i have become very calloused by the Internet comments and reviews of my work over the past 8 years, it does honestly upset me to see these comments start out so strongly as a passive aggressive attempt to hurt the feeling of the games creators and or make yourself feel better somehow.. honestly im not sure how it works, or why it seems to be happening so much on TIG these days, but when the initial comments on TIG are actually worse then those on newgrounds.com… its a little sad.

Im making games for you guys… im an entertainer im giving you free entertainment, no ones paying to play this game. Eli and i spent 3 months of our lives working on this game as a gift to people who appreciate innovative and indie video games asking for nothing in return, in what way have we upset you to the point of wanting to bash the game?

im almost regretting writing this as i type this, but honestly im getting tired of reading this passive aggressive non constructive bullshit that people from our already tiny community are slinging at one another. its fucking depressing and doesn’t make any sense at all. we are a minority group here, the only leg up we have on the mainstream comes from is being united.. if you dont like something then dont play it, if your criticism is will aid the developer in someway then by all means post it.. but be nice about it, when a boy scout helps an old lady across the street he doesn’t tell her how she fucking stinks while doing it.

when you tell someone something and you punch them in the face while doing it, how do you expect them to remember what you were telling them… all they are going to be thinking is “why the fuck did that asshole punch me in the face?”

-Edmund

Paul, are those kinds of posts any less useful than a string of comments that really equate to “good game” with no elaboration?

I think it’s great that we actually have people taking the time to bash indie games. It’s sure to keep us honest, at least.

As for Spewer, I’m not sure the world needed yet another physics-based 2D platformer, but if you’re still attracted to that type of thing this game will not disappoint. Production values and style are top-notch, typical of Ed’s games.

@meepmeep,
I don’t buy that argument at all. In this case specifically, Edmund is not putting this up for “no personal gain”, he’s putting it up for ad revenue and to further establish his reputation. I believe he’s even making a living off his games these days. So to say he owes his players nothing is pretty off.

And in a more general sense, there are too many people putting out too many great games these days to cut anybody slack. If you make a game and the first reaction you get is “this is no fun”, you probably did a shitty job of playtesting. If it’s a situation where the player didn’t give the game a chance, it’s still your fault. It’s on the game maker to produce a compelling reason to play the damn thing and to make it fun. You can’t blame a player for not wanting to play.

i think this argument should be more focused on the art of not being a fucking asshole when being critical of someone’s work. criticism is fine when its valid.. but like i said there’s a tactful way to tell someone you feel like their work could be improved.

i realize this is the Internet where no one can punch you in the face for being an asshole, but come on guys if your going to say “this games no fun” and nothing more, then why not just call me a Fag and get it over with… at least it would be more amusing.

Edmund, instead of focusing on the few comments that deride the game, why not focus on all the ones who are saying it’s fun/enjoyable?

On a different note..Edmund, what machine are you running that would allow you to even attempt ‘The Dive’? I have a pretty beefy machine and it absolutely chokes on that level.

im not as focused on my own haters as the haters of basicly everyone who gets a post on here or the indiegames blog these days… the last post about cactus’s new game was also quite depressing.

Spewer will lag on levels that have 80-100 particals on screen at once the only thing that will help this is having over 2gigs of ram usually or just playing in the stand alone version. flash doesnt support any kind of graphics acceleration at all so physics driven games tend to eat up your cpu like mad.

and yeah dont play this with a touch pad.

“Non constructive” criticism goes both ways. Saying something like “this game is pretty good” is just as bad as saying “this game isn’t fun.”

Besides, since when did a comments section have to be so specific anyway? These are comments not reviews. They’re meant to be short little drive-by remarks on what you think about whatever was posted.

I don’t see it as out of spite or jealousy. They’re just saying how they feel about the game.

It’s nothing personal. I don’t see how people are interpreting those comments as an attack on the author.

I don’t think the argument likening positive feedback to negative feedback is at all valid.
If someone says ‘this game is pretty good’ then it’s just validation for the creator! It means you did what you set out to do in the first place – you made a fun game that people enjoy playing. That’s quite different from dishing out negative criticism with no feedback.

I don’t think there needs to be a justification for praise, though it’s always welcomed so you know what to keep in mind for your next game.

On an unrelated note…controls! Overall I was happy with how the character moved, but I had a really hard time getting used to pressing spacebar to suck up vomit. My left hand is already using WASD to move around, so requiring it to *also* suck up vomit was a bit frustrating.

You might describe it as a physical cognitive dissonance. My left hand is already trying to hold one ‘idea’ (i.e. movement) while my right hand holds onto another (i.e. vomiting). But with the current control scheme the left hand is now responsible for two separate, unrelated actions. I realize that embedded Flash makes it impossible to use the right mouse button for inhalation; that’s very unfortunate, because I think that would be the ideal control scheme. Maybe you’re already doing something like this in the downloadable version.

judgespear: Just to be clear (which I thought I was), I’m not saying that everybody who dislikes this game does so because they’re spiteful, jealous, stupid or lazy. Just that there are reasons why somebody might not take it upon themselves to give a full and detailed analysis of every freebie game they play.

Paul’s spot on. i was never attempting to bitch about what one or 2 people said to me on the Internet… im saying its sad to see this coming from this site. a site that was made to SUPPORT indie developers. and im not at all just talking about this post, honestly ive seen much much worse and soul crushing comments made by people on here that are amazingly negative for no reason at all.

you need to understand to someone whos been doing this for a while these comments arnt as hurtful.. but to someone new to the scene blatantly non constructive criticism is very very hard to deal with and something you wont understand till you put your heart into something just to have someone tell you “it sucks”.

ive always viewed TIG as a safe place for indie devs to gather and support one another. it would be nice to come back to that feeling of community we once had.

Couldn’t agree more. The frontpage comments here and on indiegames have been horribly depressing recently. It’s sad. :(

PS To end on a positive note I thought that the game was really well done, very polished. The backgrounds were truly excellent and the physics for the vomit was pretty sweet, too. I’m looking forward to seeing what you do next!

I think the game’s a blast with that whole Kirby gone horribly twisted vibe. With some optimization for the slowdown (maybe Flash isn’t a good fit for this game if it can’t handle 100 particles?) this game would be fantastic. The platforming gets tricky enough without the performance screwing you up. Overall: needs some tech lovin’ but some really solid design going on.

Constructive criticism: not that hard.

I take some responsibility for the backlash against cactus and some of the other popular developers on the site – not for any of the shitty comments themselves, but because I realize that in trying to promote these developers, whom I genuinely care for and admire, I crossed some sort of line with people who don’t. i.e. “for every action there is…” I guess their problem with TIGSource is that it’s too instinctual and not as objective as they’d like or as in line with their own tastes as they’d like. Well, that’s never really been the point of TIGSource, but I’m always open to more voices on the front page, so long as you can take the boxing gloves off long enough to type a decent sentence or two. If you’re interested enough in the site to terrorize the comments, I’d advocate mustering up the courage to write an article instead.

Paul, I take what you say seriously at the same time I see criticism (even if it is one dimensional) as part of the process of releasing your work out to the public. However my real take away from this discussion is that we need to decide what sort of community/culture we want and then take active steps to encourage it. I think Derek’s comment starts to get to that, too.

Perhaps a second part of the solution would be to add some guidelines for commenting and to moderate the comments more aggressively.

It was fun, but sometimes just plain frustrating with the lag and the spike collisions. I got rather far but ended up quitting after getting to the level where you have to coax a pill out of the grates. If the game was speedier I think I might have kept at it.

“but am I allowed to say I like it better than Meat Boy”

No

I also agree with Paul Eres, and think that a little more positivity in the comments towards game creators is in order.
Gish was a really great game. Thank you Edmund, for giving us Gish.