RichPowers says:

“Well, except the Linux Format one, but fuck’em.” Ha. Cool story about Introversion, too.

Anyway, this article would be OVER 9000 times greater if you embedded this image at the end.

August 4th, 2008 at 11:25 pm

Lorc says:

I’d have sympathy for him if he hadn’t used the abominable construction, “would of”.

August 4th, 2008 at 11:50 pm

Alex says:

The first thing I thought while reading this post was “.. oh god no.. don’t comment on the review.. step slowly away from the keyboard..”.

He didn’t step away, not even slowly!

Although it could’ve been much, much worse – this reminds me of the recent Denis Dyack (of Silicon Knights/Too Human infamy) blowout on that 1up Yours podcast (direct download link!).. where Dyack actually brought along pages of notes to deliver one of the most frenzied, tangential essays I have ever heard.. and that wasn’t even about a review, it was about forum posters and the effect their forum postings have on the real world. He started with posters at NeoGAF and then blew up his theory to encompass the global internet community (if there is such a thing). It was insane.

Dyack may be a name creator, like Kieron mentions, but that was just acutely embarrassing.

August 5th, 2008 at 12:02 am

Noc says:

I’m drunk and why i take things personally is because its my baby

There is a lesson, here.

I have a hard time mustering distaste for this guy. He’s not a scumbag, like the Limbo for the Lost folks, and he’s not lashing out at the reviewers so much as he’s lashing out at, well, comment trolls. And I don’t like comment trolls either. I’m left, at the end, with the impression that he’s simply over his head: he’d probably work fine in the world of low-circulation free indie games, but the wide world of commercial releases where people demand to get their money’s worth is much harsher.

There’s another lesson here, I think: your first attempt at anything isn’t going to be very good. Pouring your heart and soul into a single project isn’t a good idea, because that project will likely be terribly flawed, and you’ll need to learn from those mistakes in order to make something you can be proud of.

So, yeah. I can shake my head at this fellow’s ineptitude, but I feel bad about it afterwards. Huh.

August 5th, 2008 at 12:10 am

Alex says:

Yesterday I started Steam up again and I got the pop-up announcing this game was coming and I just stared at the picture.. I couldn’t for the life of me decipher the font the title was set in.

August 5th, 2008 at 12:22 am

LionsPhil says:

Ah, drahmah. Gods Bless the Internet, and all who sail in her.

August 5th, 2008 at 12:30 am

Mike says:

It’s true, composure and image is even more important for Indie devs because we feel more connected to them as people. For all of Will Wright’s fame, I think we feel more distanced from him than from CliffyB or Introversion people. This is… not good. Especially when he’s relying on this sort of internet crowd for sales.

Bad review, sure, but talk about diggin’ that hole, eh?

August 5th, 2008 at 12:42 am

fearian says:

this is pretty spot on, and to be honest I would have thought that an indie dev would have a better understanding of the internet and how to take the higher ground – but I think here (and I hate to use the phrase) he nees to…

lurk more, noob.

August 5th, 2008 at 12:59 am

Pace says:

In general, the controls are more loose than a five dollar hooker the morning after shore leave ends.

That’s from the review, not the comments! Yeeks. And honestly Luc Bernard seems only barely literate, judging by his comments. Hopefully English isn’t his first language. I don’t think I’ll be visiting that site again any time soon.

August 5th, 2008 at 1:26 am

Robin says:

The only valid response to having a game reviewed on Destructoid is to laugh at the thought of Destructoid’s staff of creepy self-righteous manchildren assuming that their opinions have any authority.

August 5th, 2008 at 1:39 am

Kast says:

I bought this on Steam today without hearing anything about it before hand. Quite frankly I feel a little bit dirty.

August 5th, 2008 at 1:53 am

Gregory Weir says:

I only ever read Destructoid anymore for the “Hey Ash, Whatcha Playing?” videos, and even they are fleeing the sinking ship. I can’t even comment when Jim Sterling acts like a douche about the latest controversy, because you need to make an account to comment.

August 5th, 2008 at 1:57 am

Sum0 says:

While I’m all for taking people down a peg or two if they deserve it, taking the piss out of someone on such a scale is not funny, it’s moronic. I sympathise for the commenters on Destructoid who have tried to put this view across, only to get a “fuck u lol” for their troubles.

Thankfully we’re a sensible bunch on RPS. I just weep for the day when the internet is overrun by those who think spamming memes is the way to win arguments.

August 5th, 2008 at 1:57 am

Noc says:

Also, it occurs to me to be thankful that RPS comment threads don’t allow image macros.

August 5th, 2008 at 2:05 am

Jonathan says:

I can understand his feelings of spending at least a year of his life working, possibly full-time, on a game selling at about £3 Then watching it get royally shagged by one of your favourite indie review sites. I mean as long as the game runs I don’t see any justification for a 1/10 score for any game, especially seeing as the reviews and comments were laced with compliments about ideas and the art style. Guess it shows how important that little number at the end really is to some people.

OK Kieron how would you respond to the review of Phonogram on Undress Me Robot,

There is actually a glossary in the back of the book for them, preceded by writer Kieron Gillen’s admission that no one will actually understand half the jokes. They’re just for him, I suppose, and everything in this book seems to be exactly that: about him. It’s like watching Gillen masturbate over and over again, thirty pages at a time. In fact, in regard to the final nail in Phonogram’s coffin, I think I might have actually rather looked at his dried spunk than flipped through the book’s pages.”

Personally I’d put it on the cover of the second issue. The authors photo in the back would show me slightly hunched, grinning and covered in sweat. The mini biog below would explain how I was currently working on the third issue.

August 5th, 2008 at 2:57 am

Mo says:

@Jonathan:
Obviously, I can’t answer for Kieron but …

Clearly that quote is a bit nonsense. I’ve read and enjoyed Phonogram. The whole thing was perfectly understandable, even with my so-so knowledge of britpop. When the reviews are that negative, I don’t think you have any choice but to ignore ‘em.

A more personal example, I had a person tell me that it was appalling that I was selling Smiley (my game) and that “asteroids was made 20 years ago” and that I’ve done nothing new. What do you want me to do? Reply saying, “oh fair enough then, I’ll just close shop. Sorry to bother you with my horrible game.” Of course not! I ignore the “haters”, take the compliments I get in a humble manner, and listen to the criticisms I get from the reasonable/well balanced reviews (such as the one Kieron did for RPS). As I said above, if you let them get to your head they’ll destroy you. All creative people need to be able to just “let it slide” regardless of how much you love your baby.

August 5th, 2008 at 3:42 am

Ambermoon says:

This game has been kicking around at least five years (originally as Angel’s Eternity, I think), I think more like seven, on indie game sites — I think I first heard about it years and years ago on the old Pixelation site. From the getgo, Luc was remarkably self-aggrandizing and obnoxious — it wasn’t just that he was making a game, it was also going to be a movie, and a book, and so on and so forth. Since indie game sites are full of comparable blowhards, no one took him very seriously, although his art, which has changed very little, was well-received.

Now it turns out he actually made a finished, beautiful game; no one else on that forum ever finished anything. At all. Does the game blow? Yes. But still, he said he’d do it and he did. I’ve gotta give him a little credit.

It also sheds some light on his continued posting habits. The important thing for him was always to get his name out; even in a bad way. The more publicity, the better. Even as a bete noir, he’s a celebrity.

August 5th, 2008 at 5:54 am

Naseer says:

My biggest problem with Lucs response is actually this:

“question, did you play with controller or keyboard?

because controller is unplayable”

Becuase when you as a developer know about this, you fix the problem before releasing your game. Or you just cut out controller support – since there isn’t any anyway.

Other than that, I’ll try the demo before having an opinion of my own.

August 5th, 2008 at 8:56 am

Duncan says:

I feel sorry for the guy TBH – it seems like he was already an active member on Destructoid so it must feel like a stab in the back for him… but at the end of the day, if you’re going to work that hard on your first (or first commercially released) game and invest so much personal pride in it, you really really REALLY have to make sure the basics (i.e. the controls and basic gameplay) are as solid as they can be before releasing it.

And when the game I’m working on gets released, I might scan through the odd comments thread to get a feel for how “the internet” has taken to the game, but I sure as hell wouldn’t get involved and sure as hell won’t start throwing poo-poo at reviewers or trolls. That way lies madness.

August 5th, 2008 at 9:21 am

Diogo Ribeiro says:

And drunk to buy it, too.

August 5th, 2008 at 9:57 am

Dustructoid says:

That was the first and last time I’ll visit the destructoid website.

The review seemed justified, but the outraged rabble below turned my stomach.

August 5th, 2008 at 10:23 am

Oddbob says:

Cliff, bang on. I have a golden rule that no matter how tempting it can be at times never to comment in comments sections on my own games unless it’s to say thanks to either the posters or someone who’s spotted a crippling bug in some way.

Of course, I read them all anyway but more often than not, rabid detractors make me laugh or just shake my head depending on the insanity of it all. It’s all a larf.

I’m not sure releasing a game for cash is wise if you haven’t got a thick skin or a level of nutter-ness to cope with it is a good idea.

I also wouldn’t make Destructoid my first choice as a place to promote something if I didn’t want the world of shit that comes with such a move. But that’s just me.

Sorta back on topic, the game did look *really* guff from the video on Steam.

August 5th, 2008 at 11:28 am

Raff says:

@Paul
Underneath that naff (IMO) facade Minter’s games tend to have a lot of hidden depth (for arcade games) and often have a some very clever design elements. Space Giraffe’s score keeping system, for example, is genius.

August 5th, 2008 at 11:42 am

Hexx says:

This just reminds me why I dislike Destructoid.

I remember seeing screenshots of this when it was destined for XBLA. I remember when he didn’t get approved for XBLA he made an excuse about size limitations and then announced a Wii version. At that point I knew the game probably wasn’t that good.

I think I may check out the Steam demo though and do a comparison of that keyboard vs controller thing he’s talking about.

August 5th, 2008 at 4:12 pm

Teknohed says:

This is veering a little off topic, but a few other kept the Minter sub thread going so I wanted to give my $0.02.

I think Jeff Minter needs to be respected for what he’s done in the past. Tempest 2000 for Jaguar was pretty amazing, as was Hoover Boover and Grid Runner.

I have never been on board with his lame Lamma fetish. Since his jaguar stuff I’d say the only thing he’s done that I’ve liked is the visualizer on xbox 360 music player (not as good as win amps…which also has a lama fetish…hmmm).

I felt embarased for Minter after he posted responses to the bad reviews. But i also felt bad for the idiots on Destructoid who were like “who the fuck is this guy? who the fuck does he think he is?” I mean he’s basically like the Eugene Jarvis of the UK. Of course Destructoid readers would then go “Eugene who?” There knowledge does not exxtend farther back than PS2, with the exception of Nintendo franchises and JRPGs.

I’m rambling…I just had those thoughts about Minter that I always wanted to share…seems like a couple of people in this thread might actually know/care/agree/know enough to disagree, so I couldn’t resist.

August 5th, 2008 at 5:54 pm

Teknohed says:

I guess what I was trying to say is that to many people Jarvis is someone with a respectable body of work. But since a lot of his games were relesaed on UK based micro computers he’s not as well known as someone like say…oh who’s a good example…Al Lowe? Ron Gilbert? in the US…What I was getting at is that he has a predilection for Jarvis style “shooters” and his games have more notoriety in the UK.

See, already this thread is the most interesting back and forth I’ve had in a long time.

August 5th, 2008 at 6:20 pm

Gotem says:

It’s not as if you couldn’t take advantages of comments like:

This game sucks and everyone who likes it sucks and it’s as funny as somethings that’s not funny at all.

August 5th, 2008 at 6:57 pm

Sharpless says:

As one of the more active Destructoid community members (#18 on their “leaderboards,” which shows you how much of a life I apparently have), I figure I ought to pipe up with a little damage control.

First of all, yes, the community does have a lot of douchebags. Some of the responses to Luc were a little over-the-top, but I think the community was justified in giving him one big, unified “fuck you.” The man insulted the site’s staff because of their opinions. This seems “fuck you”-worthy, in my book. However, try not to judge the Dtoid community too harshly. We’re just a bunch of goofy fucks. Put on your thick skin, get to know us, and maybe you’ll find we’re not so bad. Sometimes.

And as Jetsetlemming mentioned, Luc had been on the site for a while. Essentially, he showed up, started blogging about the process of making Eternity’s Child, and now he’s whining because he made a bad game. Frankly, I’ve always felt he was just using the site’s community (definitely one of the tightest and most devoted of any gaming site) to advertise his game and get attention, but that’s probably just me being a judgmental dick.

Anyway, I can’t deny that I’m a little bothered by the harsh comments about Destructoid in this comment thread. The staff are wonderful, down-to-earth people, and the community is second to none. We’re just gamers, guys. Why so serious? :) Either way, I also love me some RPS. So, friends? Hug it out?

August 6th, 2008 at 1:00 am

Robin says:

Sharpless: I’m fascinated by this sort of apologist attitude. Destructoid is an advertising blog which proudly admits to its rank unprofessionalism and ignorance, surrounded by a sycophantic ‘community’ of the sort of people who leave YouTube comments.

It’s awful to think that there might be people out there who use it as their main source of news and opinion for games, never having known anything better. Like Fox News, it’s tarnishing the world in a subtle but persistent way. So yeah, that’s why so serious.

August 6th, 2008 at 7:08 pm