Shit Game Time: Carver (Amiga), middle fingers to the poogrammers!

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

It seems quite bizarre to request "perspective" when the point you're making is sorely lacking just that. The picture you paint is some sort of binary Hollywood scenario, where the work of savant programmers triumphs over "crap" from the lazy dumb ones.

Not enough for you to say that, demonstrate where my point lacks perspective.

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Meanwhile, (as you yourself should know best) the reality was much more mixed up and not one-dimensional. There were duds from celebrated teams/devs, good games from rubbish ones, and everything in between.

I looked at the title of the video and concentrated on the game it was discussing, or are you suggesting that because other crap games exist, we can't discuss this one?

I'm sure Zeus will get around to having videos on other games from big name developers, but I don't see what that has to do with THIS game from THIS video.

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Some decisions were certainly motivated by greed, others by economics of industry survival. Somebody asks you to do a complex arcade port with little resources and a tight deadline, are you going to say, "No, sir, I do not believe my young and inexperienced team is up to the task, so I have to refuse."? I doubt it very much. The devs themselves might've had various levels of skill, but that doesn't automatically make them all rubbish or having bad intentions.

All absolutely irrelevant to the discussion about this particular game, and for the record, anyone can release a game to any level of quality they like, that was the beauty of the Amiga, but those releasing games have to understand that in the category of game they are releasing, they absolutely should expect it to be compared to others that came before and currently, and that ultimately should influence whether they delay a release and improve in areas it lacks.

Carver released in 1987 would have been no better or no worse than other titles of the day, Carver released in 1991 has 4 years of progress it appears to have ignored.

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I also doubt anybody here knows what the real story behind Carver was,

Again, irrelevant. Successful games on the Amiga had also been done entirely by 1 man bands, or 2 people. The fact is, when releasing a game on any format where you expect to be paid by customers, you need to be aware of the market you are releasing into and especially competing games.

Originally Posted by dreadnought

yet people have no problem to dump on it in very po-faced fashion (the lightghearted one is fine, but we're past that). To me it seems like a mediocre but ok little game, clearly a bedroom coding project not meant to compete with big titles, which doesn't take itself too seriously (the intro trick is quite funny).

None of that is relevant. Carver as a free PD title, would get very little push back from people, but this was released commercially, so it absolutely does get to be criticised, ridiculed or loved by anyone and everyone for whatever reason people want to.

How the game came into being is irrelevant, whether there is a great story about how the guys who made the game came together (such as Babylon Twins for instance) is irrelevant, how the end product turns out is the only relevancy.

Originally Posted by dreadnought

It's a much more honest product

No such thing. Games are primarily written to make money, thats the honesty behind any product.

If it wasn't, then lots of Amiga titles would have simply been released for free and not commercially.

At some point, these small teams realised they had the potential to write something of commercial quality, and that is why they did it. The mistake the Carver team made was thinking they had that same potential

Originally Posted by dreadnought

than a real turd from big publisher and its programmers do not deserve serious scorn. They were as much part of what made Amiga great (a people's computer, accessible to anybody) as coding celebrities.

So nothing was bad on the Amiga, everything was great?

It's a harsh reality, but it does not matter one bit, not even a tiny bit, that it doesn't matter how hard someone works on a game, if the end result doesn't quite come together properly for the buying public, it absolutely will be criticised and people have that freedom to do that, irrespective of your objections to it.

The Speris Legacy released by Team 17, over 2 years of hard work was put into that game, lots of great ideas, music was good, graphics were good, programming was good, damn, just most things about it were good, but when it came to the final product, something wasn't quite right about it, it didn't meet with universal approval, everyone agreed that it looked and sounded nice, but there was something wrong with the way the game played, and they were right.

It sold poorly as a result, and was easily one of the least successful Team 17 games, developed by a small team much like Carver, no-one in that team before Speris had any commercial games experience whatsoever.

Do I feel sorry for them? Nope. Does their 2 years of hard work deserve criticism? Yup. Do I object to that criticism? Nope, because its peoples opinions of playing the game.

Take it from someone that was involved in Speris

[ross]

Please select where you belongs to:

[jotd]

Ross intro/trainer is clearly the best part of this release. Wasted if you ask me. I'll tick the 3 first categories personally.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by ross

Please select where you belongs to:

Mmmmmmmm, that logo........

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Not enough for you to say that, demonstrate where my point lacks perspective.

I believe I have already shown that quite sufficiently. If that's "not enough" for you then me elaborating wouldn't help at all. Besides, you demonstrate it yourself again in your entire reply, which consists of the same tunnel-visioned narrative: everything is black and white and there are only winners and losers. I consider it a rather reductionist view, hence my objection.

Alas, I don't really do the "internet fighting" you mention anymore - nothing more tedious than that, and just looking at your reply which is full of predictable sophistry, I know we'd be in for a few pages of yawn-worthy back & forth. So, if a lack of me providing a half-page quote-by-quote rebuttal means I'm conceding the point, it's perfectly fine. I'm really only posting in such threads to provide some sort of counterpoint for future lurkers, not to try to convert the faithful

And to recap: is it okay to take a piss out of any ol' Amiga game which isn't from the established canon? For sure, can be fun. Is it ok to make sweeping generalizations about their makers, and paint them with one overtly negative brush in a rather serious manner, and in a very simplistic context*? Nope, that's quite lame.

*not directed at you solely, Galahad

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I believe I have already shown that quite sufficiently. If that's "not enough" for you then me elaborating wouldn't help at all. Besides, you demonstrate it yourself again in your entire reply, which consists of the same tunnel-visioned narrative: everything is black and white and there are only winners and losers. I consider it a rather reductionist view, hence my objection.

Alas, I don't really do the "internet fighting" you mention anymore - nothing more tedious than that, and just looking at your reply which is full of predictable sophistry, I know we'd be in for a few pages of yawn-worthy back & forth. So, if a lack of me providing a half-page quote-by-quote rebuttal means I'm conceding the point, it's perfectly fine. I'm really only posting in such threads to provide some sort of counterpoint for future lurkers, not to try to convert the faithful

And to recap: is it okay to take a piss out of any ol' Amiga game which isn't from the established canon? For sure, can be fun. Is it ok to make sweeping generalizations about their makers, and paint them with one overtly negative brush in a rather serious manner, and in a very simplistic context*? Nope, that's quite lame.

*not directed at you solely, Galahad

I think you missed the required "I'm sure you'll reply so you can have the last word"

"I made statements, I couldn't back them up."

That was the reply you should have gone for instead of feverishly scanning a thesaurus for impressive sounding phrases.

[rothers]

Loving this 'shit game review is shit' loop this thread is in.

Please keep making shit game reviews.

[alkis21]

Originally Posted by ice8629

Just wanted to ad my 2 cents for what It's worth.

That does put things into perspective, thank you.

[ZEUSDAZ]

Originally Posted by rothers

Loving this 'shit game review is shit' loop this thread is in.

Please keep making shit game reviews.

Not sure if that's a compliment or not

[saimon69]

Carver may not be technically poo but problem is that indeed a proper game testing seemingly did not happen, and despite i was not involved in that project however know exactly why: because developers were very likely ALSO the sole testers of their own game.
When this happen a weird vicious circle start: they implement stuff, they test it, they become good, get bored they put A BIT more difficulty and so on... and that happens more than expected; in example Powder is another victim of that.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by rothers

Please keep making shit game reviews.

That deserves a medal, lol

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by saimon69

Carver may not be technically poo but problem is that indeed a proper game testing seemingly did not happen, and despite i was not involved in that project however know exactly why: because developers were very likely ALSO the sole testers of their own game.
When this happen a weird vicious circle start: they implement stuff, they test it, they become good, get bored they put A BIT more difficulty and so on... and that happens more than expected; in example Powder is another victim of that.

Shadow of the Beast absolutely is guilty of that lol

[gimbal]

I am loving the box art:

https://hol.abime.net/3759/boxscan

[malko]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

[...] Your argument would work better had Carver been a game from 1987, when the first developers were getting to grips with the hardware, it would have been a game of its time that reasonable people could say "It wasn't the best in 1987, but it was comparable to other games of its time."

However, it was released in 1991, and things on the Amiga had moved on quite a bit since then, even the lamentable Tiertex, whilst still bad, had clearly improved over time. Carver was a game that had 1987 aesthetics, released 4 years too late. [...]

As size, time does not matter...
Even so we are in 2022, knowing that I am not a game coder, if I can achieve a "Tiertex" level with my first game, I would consider myself as the king of the world . Even if I use a good game engine as Scorpion, I am not a musician, nor a gfx expert, so I would still consider my work as good even if others think it's crap
So I think that experience and skills are most relevant here than the time when the game is made.
As a gamer it's more easy to compare and criticize but even gamers tend to forget that they were bad when they played their first game... Same rule applies for coders.
So a better question, before saying a game is shit or not, would be to know how much experienced the team behind the game was/is.
I don't know the team behind "Carver" so could be interesting to know.
Maybe something Zeus can more put in perspective in the beginning of his video ?

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Mmmmmmmm, that logo........

Agree. Sad I was too busy to give him a hand on this one

Originally Posted by ross

Please select where you belongs to:

3+

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Shadow of the Beast absolutely is guilty of that

No way

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by gimbal

I am loving the box art:

https://hol.abime.net/3759/boxscan

Instead the BACK box art is hyperrealistic
Vor Carver = BEFORE carver
Nach carver = AFTER carver

[jotd]

they must have coded that the very same day because they didn't change their clothes.

Or maybe they didn't change their clothes during all development.

[BippyM]

I genuinely don't understand why any member would be offended by a video. So what if the OP has something neghative to say about the programmers.. It is a 30+ year old game and we are all entitled to our opinion, and to express that opinion. Anyone bashing the OP for his video is no different to the OP bashing a game he didn't like.

There are games I think are great, and massive games I think are shit (Chaos Engine anyone).. Do I need to do a video to rip the game to pieces, no of course I don't, and I am sure I would refer to the Bitmap Brothers' other games to emphasise it isn't their talent as developers.. The Bitmpas are often slated for Magic Pockets in the community, and I am sure some would slate the developers as being lazy or whatever (Xenon 2 anyone)...

Let it go, it's an opinion and you don't have to agree with it...

[jotd]

I love Magic Pockets and Chaos Engine. Go figure

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by jotd

I love Magic Pockets and Chaos Engine. Go figure

... Chaos Engine? Perhaps you meant Chaos Engine 2

[BippyM]

Originally Posted by jotd

I love Magic Pockets and Chaos Engine. Go figure

I love magic pockets..