As I was looking at "Apostolic Game Designers" youtube video about speedgames, i noticed he didnt seem to understand how the "Christian Message" part was meant to be interpreted when thinking if game had a Christian Message or not in it, that one way would be that it would come through mechanics. When I thought about it more, i came to conclusion that this is true even in other categories too, and i found it very helpful to listen what videos thoughts were about them games to bring me some new thoughts about how i should rate some categories.

This brought me the thought that there should really be some sort of guidance that voters could read about categories, since especially the best christian message category clearly is not understood the way it have been said in one of the competition instructions, for to use Typer Hero as an example, it was rated as 7th and its aaverage score on that is only 2.6. Taking into consideration that i gave it 4 or 5 stars (dont remember which, since i was bouncing between those two which one to give),  that means that rest of the voters basically gave it very low, especially if burnerknight gave it high number too.

For I can easily see how some random voter who havent really got deep into this can miss what is the purpose in this competition. For lets take another example, the "hope" which won the christian message part, then if literally translating what that category says, then indeed, "hope" was a best presentation of chrsitian message, but to my understanding, that is not the point, but idea is that we are trying to figure out new ways of presenting christian message in game contents, and christian message doesnt necessarily mean sharing actual gospel, but can mean just one part of it, like game could be teaching good parenthood, without mentioning anything regarding salvation, and that would still be a chrsitian message, since part of christian message is being a good parent. And when it comes to hope, message was loud and clear, but presentation wasnt very innovative. From christian point of view, problem was that it seemed more like you were walking to next place to see next random christian message. If you would have needed to choose which tract to give to the person, that would have already been much more fun. Also another thing was that as i was thinking that it was better as street preacher simulator than as a game, then even as simulation, all those people were too willing to take the gospel, hence once again taking away even in that sense.

Then when we would come to non christian player, it is very hard for me to imagine non christians would enjoy playing that even as a simulator in sense to learn about christian living, similarly as we could be interested in examining some buddhist monks living, but i think non believers would feel like they are being forced to take that word inside them.

Hence I dont think it was very good presentation of christian content in that sense. I think I gave it 3 stars in the end, mainly because i enjoyed it as a simulator, from game point of view i would have dropped it to 2.

Then we get to Typer Hero, he had put the message very naturally in to the game in practical form. Encourage each other, and here both the game maker was encouraging players to go forward, as well as asking players to send encouraging messages to each other. He have figured out a new idea, using Mii World kind messaging for encouraging each other, and all this is in such way that you could put this to any non christian game without people being offended, and at same time probably becoming bit more christian in their actions, in sense that if they learn that encouraging from game and start doing it in real world too, then world is bit more christian again.

For these reasons, I regarded Typer Heros christian message part very high, unlike rest did.

I think main point with typer hero getting so slow score is, that people dont think the christian message part that wide, and it would be my guess that especially in christian message part there is great difference between opinions on what matters and what doesnt, since basically there is only 1 point difference between first and last, and it seems at least i was giving lower scores to those that did better, and was giving higher score to those that didnt do well in the end, making it seem like perhaps peoples thoughts are exactly opposite on these and hence there are lots of 1s and 5s on each others ratings.

From this I get back to main point, which is that I think we shouled write some sort of guideline to those who are going to vote that they can read and expand their thoughts about each category. to get this done, I think it would be good if people would share their thoughts about how each category should be rated upon, since I remember myself too when i was first year in speedgame, when someone said he was going to put the message in to mechanics, i was wondering how is that even possible, and now i fully understand it, but i dont think someone who isnt in these speedgames is able to figure that thought out.

Here are my own thoughts about categories and how i think when i rate them:

BEST CHRISTIAN MESSAGE

This I already talked before a lot, but I am here recapping things better and wider. First of all, I see it important to give a lot of rope on this one. For after all, what sets speedgame apart from the rest is, that it is a christian game competition. Therefore one of the functions of speedgame in my opinion, is to boil new ideas that others can use.

For this reason, when someone is able to put the message in to for example mechanics, even if it doesnt really come out, I see it valuable in itself, because then someone else can take that same putting into mechanics idea, and be later perhaps able to actually make it come out of it. So while you could say that a game like that fails to get the message out, I think half of the success is being able to put it into a mechanic at all, wether it comes out or not.

Then I am also looking at how naturally that comes out. In case of hope, it is very easy to get it out naturally, since its story was surrounding about spreading gospel. Therefore a game like this and other kind of games, i review with different criterias.

One way is also in putting the christian message in to practice, like Typer Hero did. "Encourage one another" and this is what Typer Hero was teaching people to do. This is also one way to make the world more christian behaving, since if people learn that behavior and start doing that in practice too in real life, then that means the world is bit better place (also in christian sense) to be. Therefore this is completely valid approach in my opinion.

Now naturally if the christian message does come out loud, clear and natural, it is more valuable than just having been able to create a mechanic that doesnt come out. I also keep looking if game is able to say some message through, like if you get lots of passages during game, then are those passages connected and make some sense together? maybe even reveal some teaching? HanClinto had this great idea one year, didnt really understand the chrsitian message part until you reached the very end. For you were this warrior who had this ball that was following him. During the game the warrior would keep talking to him various things and planning. Ball would always answer with "..." making you think it was the way it talks. But actually, in the end you found out that this ball could speak with regular text as well, and it reveals that warrior was always asking his advice for everything, but never listened what he had to say. This ball was of course representing Holy Ghost and warrior us, and it is so true, so many times we keep asking Holy Ghost to help in this and that, but do we actually stop and listen what He has to say to us? No. that rarely happens. 

As last, I also look at if the game is targeted to what audience. If it is aimed at christians, or at non christians, then criterias on showing the message is also different. If it is aimed at christians, then there basicaly should come some clear teaching, why when talking about non christians, then it is already good to get a seed inside them, regardless how small it is.

BEST GRAPHICS

This is something I only this year after thinking about these categories realised I have been looking too narrow, and I am also wondering if there is maybe still a lot more i havent thought about.

First of all is naturally the looks. If it looks good, then the graphics are good. This is the main criteria i use.

However, thing i realised after thinking is, that it is not enough to be just good looking graphics, there is also the question of how functional are those graphics. Are they helping the player to understand what is happening in game or not? It does not really help to have mind blowing good looking graphics, but have no idea where you are supposed to go. In that case, the graphics are not as good as they seem, since they dont work their function.

This before mentioned, also partially gives some answer to next dilemma I have been often thinking about.

For thing is, how about when someone uses ready graphics? You take real good looking picture from somewhere, and you get full score from graphics, when anyone could have done the same. But then again, they do look good?

I remember in 2014 when i used RPG Maker, i was wondering how does this go, since i didnt make own graphics (well there was one or two characters made with character maker) but was just using those stock graphics that RPGMaker used, and yet, i reveived very high ranking on graphics they told me. That was actually slightly disappointing to me even to realise that the year when i did nothing for the graphics, i would receive good graphics ranking, because RPG maker has good graphics. I was even thinking myself more of not having very good graphics, since when I thought that my graphics that year should have been about how i used those ready tiles to build the maps, instead of how the tiles looked.

But then again, if someone cant make graphics, and he can only use ready graphics, then should he be punished from that either? It is a dilemma I havent found an answer to.

Then another dilemma, once again from the graphics is that taking my own entry this year, AIBOT. I made those cutscenes to the game. I knew they wouldnt look too good, since i was making them black and white comics. But basically I think had i left those cutscenes out, or replaced them with text only, I think people had rated my graphics higher than now. This is another dilemma again.

If someone puts more graphics that are bad, isnt it still better than no graphics at all? But then on the other hand, the graphics arent very good then. Basically I myself figured that while it might (will) affect graphics rating, it would add to the overall rating of the game to have cutscenes. However, I am not sure, perhaps it affected even my overall rating, which had been pretty bummer since putting more content to a game would result in getting lousier overall rating, just because more contents graphics arent good. That is bit problematic again and i try to think them case by case basis.

MOST ORIGINAL

The obvious and biggest emphasis on this one is on wether the game is unique in nature or not. However, on top of that I also look for original origin, by which i mean that did you for example make the story yourself, even if it is basically just yet another copy of star wars. Similarly about graphics, did you take stock graphic or made them yourself, were characters original/unique, and how wide those characters were, that did they actually have personality etc. Same with levels, were levels original/unique etc.

Most points i give from Uniqueness, but i also give points from things originating from you.

More difficult is when trying to compare small or larger game together.  As example the follower. It had original unique idea, but then again, all those games like that have similarly original unique idea, or there is no point in making them. Hence you could say it isnt so original, and you could also say that it had only one unique idea and nothing more, hence lower points. But then again, the genre he is making, cant fit any more ideas inside it but just one. So just because he chose a genre that cant fit more than one idea, should i then punish him from doing it anyway perfectly? This is very hard question to balance that I always find difficulty in deciding.

FUNNEST GAME

In this one, the main emphasis is on wether I had fun playing it or not, but also on the scope of game. Like once again follower. It is very short game, therefore it is also fun. If it had lasted longer, it wouldnt be very fun anymore. So basically he can get away with lousier idea, (=shorter lasting idea) because he made a small game, but thats how it is i guess, cant really punish him from not having an idea that can last an hour long game, when the game clearly was made to be only two minutes long. Sort of unfair agaisnt bigger games, but would be unfair against smaller ones too to do it other way around.

Second possibility is that i know I am not the target audience of the game, and in this case i try to figure out if that game is good for its target audience. This is always difficult in sense that since you are not the target audience, there is always a chance that you think it is good for them, even it is not. This year Encourager fell on this category. I didnt personally like playing it very much. It was okay to try once, but I am not going to be sepnding my time playing it anymore. But I dont think I should be the target audience either, target audience in my opinion, should be preschoolers. And I think for preschoolers that would be a blast. Hence I think i gave it either full 5 stars or 4 although personally i would have rated it only 3, max 2 stars.

In addition to these, I also look if there are things to make the gameplay last longer, like is there replayability value in this game? Of course there are games that are not meant to be played more than once, but if you make a shooter game for example, then one question is if there is some replayability value in that game, or are there other things to do in it that would make the game last longer. If there is, I might give more stars based upon that. That while game might be only 3 stars fun, if it has good replayability value, then i give it 4 stars, if on top of that you can do even something extra on it, maybe say, a level maker, i could give maybe even another extra star if i think it is worth it, however, I think reaching the fifth star through extra stuff should be difficult to achieve.

BEST BUILD (MOST STABLE)

This is actually a category that dont seem to make too much sense anymore. It seemed to me that only very few games this year had any actual problems, and hence i dont remember if it was 3 or 4 stars the lowest number i gave. However, I have expanded this to include bugs too (and i actually think that is what the rules said too), with this way i was able to use some excuses to lower ratings from 5th star to 4th star, but even then, it seems most games were fixed so well, that it didnt really make much difference.

Maybe change this into most polished or something that would include stability inside it, but also have more stuff in it.

Basically when i look at stability issues, crash takes out one star. However, even if game crashes on several places, but issue is always the same, I take only that one star away, since basically it is only one issue, although it appears in several places.

One thing to take into consideration with bugs and especially crashes is, that it can affect the rest of the categories in sense that they are harder to estimate. For example, it isnt very much fun when game crashes in middle of a game. However, in this kind of situation i try to look funness and stability as separate issues, since what would otherwise be the point in having separate stability category at all. This means that i try to look about the funness in sense of, how much fun had it been if there had not been a crash.

BEST OVERALL

This could be thought as summing up all the previous points and then taking the star value, but no. I dont feel this is the same thing. Some game could have a great total ranking but failing in such places that it would make only 1 star overall, and on the other hand some game could have some real low numbers but still be overall great game.

I would take my own game AIBOTs cutscenes here. While those cutscenes would lower the overall graphics rating, it would in same time in my opinion however increase the overall rating of a game as having more content in it.

You could say that in this overall i look several different things. I am looking what would the target of that game be, would it be a game that is distributed free, or a commercial game, or part of some commercial game (examle, encourager i thought as one activity in perschool game), then i think for example how well would it go in there, that would it be believable that this game would be commercial for example, or with how much more effort. Did i enjoy it, did it have everything it should have etc.

Also depending upon how big the game is, i would review them bit differently, like bigger game having more space for faults, while smaller game needs to be right in more places. This also partially has to do with the difficulty in making it in 2 weeks time. Smaller game needs less work, while bigger more.

So these were my thoughts on how to vote on different categories.

How do you think of different categories?