Unlike you, I don’t dislike platformers on principle (though I do like your “jump over things” description as a wonderful reduction of the genre), but what I do hate are slow games. I was bored out of my mind. I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t give it a lot of time to grow on me; when I got to the second “book room” that started the second world or whatever the arbitrary labels for levels are, I shut it off. It reminded me very much of those awful prosey parts of Lost Odyssey that were, in my opinion, very pretentious. If the game play itself weren’t so slow I might have stuck with it. Yes, the music was nice, but I simply was not this game’s target audience.

I enjoy puzzles, it’s not the puzzle part that was off-putting, it was the stilted story telling, and the general dullness of the jumping over stuff parts. Honestly, there is a little flash game that came out a few months back called A Game About Game Literacy, which I’ve had considerably more fun with along with several puzzle games that have likewise been more fun (Red Remover and Continuity to name a couple off the top of my head). Braid, while I cannot help but respect the effort and the talent involved in making it, does not float my boat.

Maybe if it weren’t for the 11th grade creative-writing wish-fulfillment story line, I could get into it more. But it’s just so mopey from the outset that it started me off biased against the gameplay. Guy went through a break up and wishes he could change the past.. maybe he ends up learning that it’s better to live through mistakes and carry lessons into the future instead of dwelling on the past, I don’t know… maybe I’ll just go read about it. But the story and the slow game play make me really not all that interested in helping that guy sort out his relationship problems.

Yes, agree with you for most parts on this one, Juuso.
It also implies how to disagree without being disagreeable, which I find quite meritorious. (-:

I occasionally provide feedback for games on Newgrounds (http://zir0.newgrounds.com/), and while many types of games aren’t for me (like those casual, puzzle games; I don’t see what the big rave is about those, especially the ones with those fancy physics systems), that doesn’t stop me from giving constructive feedback, and when it’s obvious that the developers worked hard, and went the extra mile to put on the finishing touches.

The one part I don’t agree with, at least not entirely, is this:

“Your game is not about you”

This may just be me, but as an indie, some parts of my games ARE about me. This includes the music area, since I make my own music, which I really enjoy. Also, I make games that _I_ like, not games that I THINK others will like. If it gets lots of followers, then great. If not, so be it, but that’s not gonna stop me from making the types of games that I enjoy. At the end of the day, I still got a game done, and put out there.

Now, if I got lots of requests from people to make a certain type of game, or to add this, that, and what not, then that game might be more about them. ;-)

____________________
- Ziro out.