Great Journey - December 27, 2013

Edit history:

SDAVerification: 2013-12-27 03:33:00 pm

2013-12-14 09:36:51 am

Game Page: Doesn't exist yet

Great Journey (Any %) (Single Segment)

Decision: Reject

Reason: Play quality is too rough, even for a game this finicky

https://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/queue/verificationfiles/824/

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Thread title:

SDAVerification

2013-12-14 09:36:52 am

Run Information

Great Journey (Any %) (Single Segment)

Verification Files

http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/greatjourney/

Please refer to the Verification Guidelines before posting. Verifications are due by Dec. 28, 2013.

Please post your opinions about the run and be certain to conclude your post with a verdict (Accept/Reject). This is not a contest where the majority wins - I will judge each verification on its content. Please keep your verification brief unless you have a good reason otherwise.

After 2 weeks I will read all of the verifications and move this thread to the main verification board and post my verdict.

AlecK47

2013-12-14 11:46:50 am

A/V fine (looked like frames were dropped at a couple points, but nothing major), no cheating as far as I could tell

The run information page has this as a 54:37, but the video is barely over 50 minutes. It looks more like a 49:19 or so (control of the character gained about 10 seconds in, bad guy netted at 49:29).

This game looks like it's finicky as hell to run (point and click platforming? seriously?), seems to require some pretty precise cursor placement at times, and has a fair amount of rng. That said, even if a game is hard to run (no matter why it's hard), or obscure, the run still needs to be of a certain quality. The routing here seems good, but the play leaves something to be desired, especially in the boating and flying sections. Forgetting where an item is on Easter Island looked really bad too. The runner also seems to understate some time losses in his/her comments, and flat out misses a couple - not unforgivable, but certainly worth mentioning.

For the sake of clarity, I should make sure that a couple things are clear to those who haven't watched the run or played the game. First, if you get hit in a platforming section (or sink, in Antarctica's case) you are sent back to the beginning of the screen, which can cost a great deal of time and happens several times in the run - usually it happened while still on a platform (the objects fall between them, but they can still hit you close to the edge). Second, in the boating and flying sections you can get speed boosts, but if you hit something you lose the speed boost - this also happens several times in the run.

There are a few things I'm unsure of, though:
1. Are the boating/flying sections at all random? If so how much?
2. Is there any way to speed up or slow down faster in the takeoff or landing sections? It doesn't look like it, but I'm still not sure.
3. When throwing peanuts to the monkey, there were several instances where it seems like more peanuts could have been thrown between passes by the parrot. Is it actually not possible for some reason?
4. If you didn't get so close to the edge of platforms, could you avoid getting hit by things and still make the jumps?

Regardless, there are enough glaring and costly mistakes that the answers to the above questions wouldn't affect my decision. It's clear that the runner can do better than this, because there are quite a few sections that look really smooth. I definitely encourage him/her to do so! Unfortunately this run just lacks polish. Reject

A/V fine (looked like frames were dropped at a couple points, but nothing major), no cheating as far as I could tell

The run information page has this as a 54:37, but the video is barely over 50 minutes.  It looks more like a 49:19 or so (control of the character gained about 10 seconds in, bad guy netted at 49:29).

This game looks like it's finicky as hell to run (point and click platforming? seriously?), seems to require some pretty precise cursor placement at times, and has a fair amount of rng.  That said, even if a game is hard to run (no matter [i]why[/i] it's hard), or obscure, the run still needs to be of a certain quality.  The routing here seems good, but the play leaves something to be desired, especially in the boating and flying sections.  Forgetting where an item is on Easter Island looked really bad too.  The runner also seems to understate some time losses in his/her comments, and flat out misses a couple - not unforgivable, but certainly worth mentioning.

For the sake of clarity, I should make sure that a couple things are clear to those who haven't watched the run or played the game.  First, if you get hit in a platforming section (or sink, in Antarctica's case) you are sent back to the beginning of the screen, which can cost a great deal of time and happens several times in the run - usually it happened while still on a platform (the objects fall between them, but they can still hit you close to the edge).  Second, in the boating and flying sections you can get speed boosts, but if you hit something you lose the speed boost - this also happens several times in the run.

There are a few things I'm unsure of, though:
1. Are the boating/flying sections at all random?  If so how much?
2. Is there any way to speed up or slow down faster in the takeoff or landing sections?  It doesn't look like it, but I'm still not sure.
3. When throwing peanuts to the monkey, there were several instances where it seems like more peanuts could have been thrown between passes by the parrot.  Is it actually not possible for some reason?
4. If you didn't get so close to the edge of platforms, could you avoid getting hit by things and still make the jumps?

Regardless, there are enough glaring and costly mistakes that the answers to the above questions wouldn't affect my decision.  It's clear that the runner can do better than this, because there are quite a few sections that look really smooth.  I definitely encourage him/her to do so!  Unfortunately this run just lacks polish.  Reject

djcj

2013-12-14 01:55:33 pm

From me it's a reject too.

There are too many obvious mistakes, especially the ones that send you back to the start point of an obstacle path. I agree to everything that AlecK47 mentioned.

And two things I wonder about:
1. At the part where he throws peanuts at the monkey, I think he always waited a bit too long for the parrot to pass. I'm sure he could have thrown them a bit earlier.
2. In Antarctica, the snow path to the boat, I wonder if you could use the snow shovel to create one or two small shortcuts after leaving the boat.

Eternalspirit

2013-12-15 07:22:01 pm

I concur with a reject, just a lot of mistakes that cost a lot of time considering the length of the run.

playsihull

2013-12-24 10:26:48 am

Hello, I'm the runner myself. The quality isn't perfect cause I recorded it on my Windows 7 PC. Really weird things happen with this game on Windows 7 (jumpy framerate, flickering, crashing). I will try to re-do it with my Windows XP laptop if I can get a external hard drive cause my laptop only has 50 GB hard drive. Now some answers.
@AlecK47 1. These section have some random elements.
2. No.
3. This game has pretty bad hit detection. The peanuts can be far away from the parrot but still count as a "hit" it somehow.
4. It can be done in some places.

@djcj 1. As I already said in the previous paragraph, This game has pretty bad hit detection. The peanuts can be far away from the parrot but still count as a "hit" somehow.
2. The places where you can use the snow shovel are scripted. You can and have to use this only twice (as I did).

SDAVerification

2013-12-27 03:33:04 pm

Decision posted.