I've been confused by a lot of reviews this time around. A lot of people write their "reviews" sort of like a presentation of the game for somebody else to read, almost like a youtuber introducing something to his/her audience. Take my game for example, I've recieved a lot of reviews going something like:
"This is a game where balls fly at you from all directions. It gets progressively harder and when you finally fail you get to publish your score to the online highscore list. Neat!"
What confuses me is, who is this for? Surely the reviews are for the developer of the game? Then to whom are you presenting what the game is about? Because I definitely know.
There are some lengthy reviews as well, describing what the game looks like, how to controll it, what your choices are etc. Simply stating how things are without adding any suggestions or thoughts about them.
"It's a fast-paced game with instant death and instant restart". When I read this I think to myself: "Yes. Yes it is...?".
These are nobody's reviews by the way, I made them up but they share the same structure as the real ones.
I'd say give it to several people if you're having a hard time deciding. I'd vote for K-BitCRUSH, not because he did everything right but since I think video reviews are infinitely more helpful and I'd like to see him continue with it and make even better ones for the next jam. My suggestion there is to record the first-time playthrough. Not seeing how people tackle your game when they first boot it is a HUGE waste, as it's the by far most important thing you could possibly show me.
I understand your point, and I agree with it, most of reviews (including mine =p) may be not that helpful for the people who made the game.
But I do it in that way, personally, for 2 main reasons, first it is time, it is pretty hard to give a decent, deep and useful review for 40-50 games, that would take an amount of time that unfortunately I dont have.
The other point is because, in my humble opinion, game jam games are made all with so short time and limited team members and everything(especially the 48 or 72 hours jams, like this) that only the fact of submitt a playable game it is already something to "celebrate" and be proud of.
So I dont like kinda of roast a game, and say that this or that did not work or should have been this way or that way. Even why I believe that many of the things that people will not like in a game jam game the developer already know what it is, and he probably did not do because of resources of time or etc =p (but anyway I agree with anyone who argues that I should not presume what the devoloper already know or not)
Of course that a constructive criticism is always welcome, but I like to focus on what I liked and highlight what worked well, and if there was something that really bothered me I may give a suggestion or a tip that I think it could make the game or the development process improve in the future.
Anyway I understand(and agree) those who dont like shallows reviews
