You Have to Burn the Rope - December 20th, 2009

2010-01-27 09:08:11 pm

Hi there.

At first I went all "What's this all about?", minimized, went to play the game and more or less finished it in 38 seconds.

Then I went "What the fuck is this shit?" and was about to write angry messages but decided not to.

As silly as the game might be, I don't see why it wouldn't be accepted. There's obviously people who are interested in such games and there's room for improvement. The only difference is that we're dealing in the seconds instead of minutes so we might want to consider being more precise in the timing, but that's about it. Just stick it in either its own section or mark the game as being Flash in the list.

Personally, I'm more confused about why Clue was accepted in the first place than this, simply because the luck manipulation basically made the game something that should never be accepted - a click this button x3 to win game that can't be improved unless someone makes a run and picks something else than Detective difficulty that wastes half a second.

Shuda51

2010-01-28 08:18:37 pm

The Running Failure

My last word: We need a separate section for UNLICENSED NON-COMMERCIAL FLASH GAMES.

I highly doubt most people want to come here to watch YHTBTR or Replaying: the game. (http://armorgames.com/play/5115/replaying-the-game). Although the latter is pretty entertaining.

Any argument saying that a run is not interesting is immediatly invalid on the basis that i could find ANY run that you like that i don't think is interesting. It's all based on perception and taste, and some people like these short things.

end the freaking argument already.

Blubbler

2010-02-03 12:18:47 pm

Quote from Thanatos:

ok, so i can write a game on flash which has 1 screen, and 1 bump that you have to jump over to get to the other side to win, it'll take 2 seconds to do it.

will that be accepted as well?

or how about one of those reflex games, where you have to click just as a sheep goes off running, people have gotten some good times on there maybe it'll be accepted here as well.

i'm just saying, where do you draw the line? at least clue was a commercial game, i believe SDA should accept runs for all commercial games AND a few flash/ non-commercial games which excel enough to even be considered, (i wanna be the guy and N come to mind).

i held SDA on high regard, and the fact that they're even considering accepting a run like this shows that they still have some vital rules to work on.

YHTBTR does excel.
It was a finalist at the Independent Games Festival.
1.3 million plays on Kongregate, 300.000 on Newgrounds, unknown number on other sites
Google yields almost 3 million results for the title.
Wikipedia has a page, which at least did not get deleted within minutes.

[quote="Thanatos"]
ok, so i can write a game on flash which has 1 screen, and 1 bump that you have to jump over to get to the other side to win, it'll take 2 seconds to do it.

will that be accepted as well?

or how about one of those reflex games, where you have to click just as a sheep goes off running, people have gotten some good times on there maybe it'll be accepted here as well.

i'm just saying, where do you draw the line? at least clue was a commercial game, i believe SDA should accept runs for all commercial games AND a few flash/ non-commercial games which excel enough to even be considered, (i wanna be the guy and N come to mind).

i held SDA on high regard, and the fact that they're even considering accepting a run like this shows that they still have some vital rules to work on.
[/quote]

YHTBTR does excel.
It was a finalist at the Independent Games Festival.
1.3 million plays on Kongregate, 300.000 on Newgrounds, unknown number on other sites
Google yields almost 3 million results for the title.
Wikipedia has a page, which at least did not get deleted within minutes.

Lag.Com

2010-02-03 12:42:24 pm

sda loyalist

Popularity doesn't make it good. The only thing it excels at is being shit.

dballin

2010-02-03 04:48:02 pm

Balls jerky

4chan is popular too. Your logic is flawed Sir Blubbler.

Thanatos

2010-02-04 01:18:02 pm

Quote from Blubbler:

Quote from Thanatos:

ok, so i can write a game on flash which has 1 screen, and 1 bump that you have to jump over to get to the other side to win, it'll take 2 seconds to do it.

will that be accepted as well?

or how about one of those reflex games, where you have to click just as a sheep goes off running, people have gotten some good times on there maybe it'll be accepted here as well.

i'm just saying, where do you draw the line? at least clue was a commercial game, i believe SDA should accept runs for all commercial games AND a few flash/ non-commercial games which excel enough to even be considered, (i wanna be the guy and N come to mind).

i held SDA on high regard, and the fact that they're even considering accepting a run like this shows that they still have some vital rules to work on.

YHTBTR does excel.
It was a finalist at the Independent Games Festival.
1.3 million plays on Kongregate, 300.000 on Newgrounds, unknown number on other sites
Google yields almost 3 million results for the title.
Wikipedia has a page, which at least did not get deleted within minutes.

if that piece of shit game was a finalist then i'm heartbroken for other programmers who really take their skills seriously and truly aim to write great games and get no recognition.

[quote="Blubbler"]
[quote="Thanatos"]
ok, so i can write a game on flash which has 1 screen, and 1 bump that you have to jump over to get to the other side to win, it'll take 2 seconds to do it.

will that be accepted as well?

or how about one of those reflex games, where you have to click just as a sheep goes off running, people have gotten some good times on there maybe it'll be accepted here as well.

i'm just saying, where do you draw the line? at least clue was a commercial game, i believe SDA should accept runs for all commercial games AND a few flash/ non-commercial games which excel enough to even be considered, (i wanna be the guy and N come to mind).

i held SDA on high regard, and the fact that they're even considering accepting a run like this shows that they still have some vital rules to work on.
[/quote]

YHTBTR does excel.
It was a finalist at the Independent Games Festival.
1.3 million plays on Kongregate, 300.000 on Newgrounds, unknown number on other sites
Google yields almost 3 million results for the title.
Wikipedia has a page, which at least did not get deleted within minutes.
[/quote]
if that piece of shit game was a finalist then i'm heartbroken for other programmers who really take their skills seriously and truly aim to write great games and get no recognition.

Pootrain

2010-02-04 05:32:50 pm

train kept rollin

Wow this argument is still going. A run of this is just as if not more intersting then the 3 second clue run.

Blubbler

2010-02-05 11:51:33 am

Quote from lag:

Popularity doesn't make it good. The only thing it excels at is being shit.

So you say games should be allowed based on how "good" they are?
Well then what is a good game? I don't like strategy games, so these are off the list. I like YHTBTR so it's ok.

Popularity is a good indicator:
1. If it'd actually be too shitty, not many people would play it.
2. Popularity means a great talent pool for competition.
3. It prevents an endless stream of newly made games.
4. It's objective.

ShadowWraith

2010-02-05 02:23:37 pm

.

Popularity is subjective purely because it depends on peoples opinions. >_>

Zurreco

2010-02-05 06:54:46 pm

Just call me the cynicism machine

Here's a good litmus test: if a lot of people are actively against the idea of a game being put up on the site, it's probably not worthy of putting it up in the first place. I think this is one of the first (if not the first) times that people have been so against a game in general.

StrangenessDSS

Edit history:

StrangenessDSS: 2010-02-06 12:38:01 am

2010-02-06 12:28:05 am

Sleeping Terror

There are a lot of people for putting it up, too. Like me - and I don't even like YHTBTR very much.

All the people saying YHTBTR is a bad game are either completely missing the point of what it is, or they have very narrow ideas of what a "game" is. Sure, it isn't to everyone's tastes, and it's certainly not a replacement for more regular games, but it is very much a good game. It's a bit sad to see so many people upset over a bit of whimsy.

DoubleThink

2010-02-06 02:10:19 am

There's a word for that

An amusing game doesn't necessarily make for an amusing speedrun.

ZenicReverie

2010-02-06 02:33:14 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

Quote from DoubleThink:

An amusing game doesn't necessarily make for an amusing speedrun.

Well, the speedrun doesn't need to be interesting, it doesn't need to be amusing, it just need to be fast and without cheating.

People rail on the game for being barely a game, for being too short, but why can't a speedrun be hosted here even if it's only a few seconds faster than a normal playthrough as long as it is in fact faster than a normal playthrough? It's definitely not going to wow anyone, but entertainment isn't the point here right?

DoubleThink

2010-02-06 04:52:31 am

There's a word for that

I can agree with that, but that's not what StrangenessDSS was saying.

Lag.Com

2010-02-06 09:16:23 am

sda loyalist

No, it isn't a good game. It's too short, trivially easy, has boring graphics and sound and no plot. It's a bad game by any measure I can think of. It's also not fun.

ZenicReverie

2010-02-06 10:55:24 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

I wouldn't call it a good game because it's hardly one. It's more of an exposition on what's wrong with games lately that basically hold your hand and tell you exactly what to do throughout them. If all those instructions weren't there it'd be slightly more interesting, which is part of the point the creator was trying to make I believe. Exposition games aren't really fun to play, but are interesting to think about. I'd compare them to non-fiction books which have information, but rarely qualify as entertainment.

andrewg

2010-02-06 11:29:17 am

Hi! I'm andrewg!

Quote from Shuda51:

My last word: We need a separate section for UNLICENSED NON-COMMERCIAL FLASH GAMES.

^ This.

I think we should accept pretty much any speedrun (as long as they are fast). But I do think these flash games should be kept separate from the rest of the titles.

StrangenessDSS

2010-02-06 11:33:55 am

Sleeping Terror

See, it's a parody. It presents a puzzle boss where you have to do one specific thing to beat it without trying to hide what you have to do. You have axes, the boss has a life bar, but this is a false choice, and unlike a lot of games that present you with false choices, YHTBTR makes it obvious that it is false. It's easy because the games it parodies are easy, and being a parody, it exaggerates this further, demonstrating just what happens when a false choice isn't obscured. It's short because it doesn't need to be any longer to make its point (and it would likely be a much worse game if it were more drawn out).

Yes, it does different things than what most games try to do. If you judge it by the same standards that you'd judge more ordinary games by, it does seem bad, but to do so is to completely misunderstand what YHTBTR even is. It's like saying that a train is a horrible vehicle because it can't drive on roads.

(Also, it is somewhat reasonable to have Flash games as a separate category, since it's practically its own "console" already - just without any hardware, being a virtual machine. I'm sure this will be worked out if there are significant numbers of short Flash games submitted in the future. It's not very important yet.)

See, it's a parody. It presents a puzzle boss where you have to do one specific thing to beat it without trying to hide what you have to do. You have axes, the boss has a life bar, but this is a false choice, and unlike a lot of games that present you with false choices, YHTBTR makes it obvious that it is false. It's easy because the games it parodies are easy, and being a parody, it exaggerates this further, demonstrating just what happens when a false choice isn't obscured. It's short because it doesn't need to be any longer to make its point (and it would likely be a much worse game if it were more drawn out).

Yes, it does different things than what most games try to do. If you judge it by the same standards that you'd judge more ordinary games by, it does seem bad, but to do so is to completely misunderstand what YHTBTR even is. It's like saying that a train is a horrible vehicle because it can't drive on roads.

(Also, it is somewhat reasonable to have Flash games as a separate category, since it's practically its own "console" already - just without any hardware, being a virtual machine. I'm sure this will be worked out if there are significant numbers of short Flash games submitted in the future. It's not very important yet.)

feasel

2010-02-06 12:10:38 pm

difficult and stupidly random

Quote from StrangenessDSS:

Also, it is somewhat reasonable to have Flash games as a separate category, since it's practically its own "console" already - just without any hardware, being a virtual machine.

This ^ kinda makes sense. Making "Flash" a type of console. However this won't cover short/easy/crappy PC freeware games that are non-flash.

I'm still in favor of accepting runs for games like YHTBTR despite its short/easy/crappyness. Maybe a possible solution would be to make a new console type called "Freeware/Flash" and lump them together?

Dunno... just a thought. Plus i'd like to see this thread last forever.

StrangenessDSS

2010-02-06 12:12:28 pm

Sleeping Terror

There's plenty of good freeware, and we don't make separate categories for commercial games that are short/easy/crap, so yeah.

Zealie

2010-02-06 12:45:02 pm

Quote from stanski:

this needs to be on a seperate list in the back corner of this site where no one can see shitty games like this.

^
That

And yes that goes for all freeware/flash games, just for the sake of consistency then...

gia

2010-02-06 01:28:12 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Flash needs to be it own filter not because of whatever game you consider shitty but because of having the stuff organized. Now, organization is better left to the staff, being a programmer I'd organize by programming language, while others would probably want to make retail/freeware/*ware first. Probably better is to use flags that describe the data and improve the search system. The search could be done in the client with javascript mind you, so its not like you would have to lose the static html. But also, there's not enough games to warrant any change yet Tongue

StrangenessDSS

2010-02-06 01:33:38 pm

Sleeping Terror

Quote from gia:

being a programmer I'd organize by programming language

Now that's about the least relevant thing I can think of to organize by, and I'm a programmer too. You might as well organize them by what color the title screen is or what style of artwork they use. Plus, what would you do about games that are written in multiple languages, or ones where you don't know what languages were used?

Lag.Com

2010-02-06 06:03:56 pm

sda loyalist

Quote from StrangenessDSS:

parody

My problem with this is that it adds one to the number of bad games out there. As a game designer, this should never be your intention.

ZenicReverie

2010-02-06 06:42:39 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

Quote from ZaibirQuild:

Quote from stanski:

this needs to be on a seperate list in the back corner of this site where no one can see shitty games like this.

^
That

And yes that goes for all freeware/flash games, just for the sake of consistency then...

So, Iji should be lumped with flash games? Art of Theft? Cave Story?

I can see what you mean about separating PC games and freeware games, but what about games that were freeware that have commercial ports? What about indie games that cost money, but are flash quality like VVVVVV?

It's easier to put Flash games into a category, but if you're hoping creating a freeware category will keep low quality games out of the PC section, then that probably won't work.