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> In general the controls are too sluggish... other stuff He made this in a week. It's a demo of what you can do in a week. You're reviewing it like it was a s

> In general the controls are too sluggish... other stuff He made this in a week. It's a demo of what you can do in a week. You're reviewing it like it was a serious game. > giving critique has sometimes been discouraged on HN Bad critiques are. Yours is not a bad critique, I just think you're critiquing the wrong thing.

baddox 13y ago
I don't see why having made the game in a week is relevant. Presumably this guy's goal isn't to never spend more than a week on a game. I interpret this criticism as "if you were to spend more time on this game, or if you ever make another similar game, think about these issues."
sillysaurus3 13y ago
Actually, input is fundamental to a game, because there's no way to make a game without input. It's one of the most important aspects of any game. Making HTML 5 a serious gamedev competitor is one of the most important tasks facing the future gamedev industry, which means lessmilk is doing important work. It's important to call out the roadblocks so that the roadblocks get solved. It would be extremely valuable if someone were to do an analysis as to why the input is laggy so that future gamedevs can avoid that pitfall or that Mozilla/Chrome can fix their issue.
- sid6376 13y ago
  Not only is it fundamental to a game. Its fundamental to becoming better as a developer as well. So I appreciate you critiquing it the way you did.
amartya916 13y ago
Regardless of whether he made it in a week or not, the criticism by the OP was constructive. Just being nice and saying that "this is fantastic", wouldn't help the developer learn either. *Input lag is something Carmack et al. keep hammering home for game developers.
stonemetal 13y ago
To me it depends on what the goal is. If the goal is to learn the programming side of things, then fixing up the controls / adding touch is a good goal because it would highlight figuring out how to get those things right even if it meant next week's game was this week's game + touch controls. If the goal is to explore gameplay ideas then input being a little sloppy is only as bad as its effect on playability.
w0utert 13y ago
I think he made some really good and instructive points though, these are really relevant if you want to get better at game design. But I also agree that you have to look at this game as a demo and not expect it to be perfect in any way besides being a nice showcase of what you can achieve in just a week. I'm impressed by what I've seen on lessmilk up to now by the way. Not in terms of coding (all of these games are almost trivial to implement), but all the more by the thoughtful game design that went in of them. Literally all of the 9 games so far have been fun to play, if only for a few minutes. I think it's much harder to come up with a new game concept every week, no matter how simple it is, and executing on it, than it is to actually do the coding to implement it. So thumbs up for that!

baddox 13y ago

I don't see why having made the game in a week is relevant. Presumably this guy's goal isn't to never spend more than a week on a game. I interpret this criticism as "if you were to spend more time on this game, or if you ever make another similar game, think about these issues."

sillysaurus3 13y ago

Actually, input is fundamental to a game, because there's no way to make a game without input. It's one of the most important aspects of any game. Making HTML 5 a serious gamedev competitor is one of the most important tasks facing the future gamedev industry, which means lessmilk is doing important work. It's important to call out the roadblocks so that the roadblocks get solved. It would be extremely valuable if someone were to do an analysis as to why the input is laggy so that future gamedevs can avoid that pitfall or that Mozilla/Chrome can fix their issue.

sid6376 13y ago
Not only is it fundamental to a game. Its fundamental to becoming better as a developer as well. So I appreciate you critiquing it the way you did.

amartya916 13y ago

Regardless of whether he made it in a week or not, the criticism by the OP was constructive. Just being nice and saying that "this is fantastic", wouldn't help the developer learn either. *Input lag is something Carmack et al. keep hammering home for game developers.

stonemetal 13y ago

To me it depends on what the goal is. If the goal is to learn the programming side of things, then fixing up the controls / adding touch is a good goal because it would highlight figuring out how to get those things right even if it meant next week's game was this week's game + touch controls. If the goal is to explore gameplay ideas then input being a little sloppy is only as bad as its effect on playability.

w0utert 13y ago

I think he made some really good and instructive points though, these are really relevant if you want to get better at game design. But I also agree that you have to look at this game as a demo and not expect it to be perfect in any way besides being a nice showcase of what you can achieve in just a week. I'm impressed by what I've seen on lessmilk up to now by the way. Not in terms of coding (all of these games are almost trivial to implement), but all the more by the thoughtful game design that went in of them. Literally all of the 9 games so far have been fun to play, if only for a few minutes. I think it's much harder to come up with a new game concept every week, no matter how simple it is, and executing on it, than it is to actually do the coding to implement it. So thumbs up for that!