G’day all

2012 has been a big first year for Game Club. We’ve made the transition to a community run event, and we managed to squeeze in 14 games, and 5 dev chats.

To get a better understanding for how people have enjoyed Game Club, and to get some thoughts about how we might approach 2013, we’ve put together this 18 question survey. All responses are anonymous, and results will be posted here at the end of the month.

A big thanks to everybody who joined us last year, and thanks especially to Greg, Syd, Fireflower, Mimness, lietu, jfrisby, Arthur and everybody else who has helped organise and run Game Club

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDQyU3c0NGkxN1N4YXJoQzRhQWtraVE6MQ

One thing we didn’t include in the survey, but would still like feedback on, is whether or not people find it worthwhile to have chat logs and stream archives available.

Great work on the survey!

Cheers

It’s interesting to see some of the data that’s emerging so far. It looks like people are interested to explore playing things other than adventure games.

I was one of those people. I might actually get involved in the game club if I was more familiar with the games in it.

Leroy Octopus - 11 January 2013 08:01 PM

I was one of those people. I might actually get involved in the game club if I was more familiar with the games in it.

Neat. Are there particular games/genres you’d be interested in (we’re probably going to need to run another survey).

It’d be nice to be able to explore some more of Double Fine’s catalogue.

I’m really into platformers and I think some of the Ratchet & Clank games would be a good choice. I’m also really into JRPGs, but a lot of those would probably be a bit too long for something like this. The problem is I only have internet on my phone right now, so its hard for me to watch live streams. Would it be possible to upload the stream footage to YouTube?

Console games would be difficult for us to do because it requires a capture device, which not many people have, as well as the necessary console to run the game. Unless someone that’s able to stream console games steps up to the plate, it’s likely that we’ll be sticking to PC games.

Leroy Octopus - 11 January 2013 08:11 PM

I’m really into platformers and I think some of the Ratchet & Clank games would be a good choice. I’m also really into JRPGs, but a lot of those would probably be a bit too long for something like this. The problem is I only have internet on my phone right now, so its hard for me to watch live streams. Would it be possible to upload the stream footage to YouTube?

That’s definitely possible (we don’t have a Game Club YouTube channel set up, but Twitch.tv has options for automatically archiving streams to YouTube).

I’m wary of putting too much emphasis on the streaming though - to me, Game Club is about bringing keen gamers together to discuss/critique games, and the streams are a side thing so that people who don’t have those games can still feel involved/have something to talk about (when Greg started Game Club originally, it was to get DFA backers to explore what they did and didn’t like about adventure games, perhaps as a form of market research for Reds).

My dream for Game Club is that we’d end up producing insightful reviews/editorials on the games we play (for 2013, I’d like to establish a Game Club Rating System thingy that we can use to assess titles on story, mechanics, presentation, UI, etc.), but as Game Club is a community thing, I’m happy to facilitate its growth in whatever directions people are keen on

The poll said to comment why we said a game was our favourite.
Even though Sissy’s Ponycorn Adventure is freakin’ awesome (“Aww yeah!”) I voted for Gemini Rue because it’s so beautifully hard-boiled and has an engaging storyline that explores interesting themes.  Not to mention the gorgeous art style - so atmospheric.

My three favourites from 2012 would be:
Favourite familiar: Sword & Sworcery (a great modern interpretation of the adventure game genre, stands out as being a tragedy - something very rare these days, wonderfully subtle and epic at the same time, fantastic visual aesthetic)
Favourite new (to me): Gemini Rue (amazing atmosphere, well structured and paced story, great production values)
Favourite that-I-haven’t-yet-played: Ben There, Dan That (this game’s tone and humour are totally pitched at me - I’m both happy and sad that I was stuck doing other stuff during our sessions, and I’m looking forward to playing through on my own)

Cheeseness - 11 January 2013 08:40 PM

My dream for Game Club is that we’d end up producing insightful reviews/editorials on the games we play (for 2013, I’d like to establish a Game Club Rating System thingy that we can use to assess titles on story, mechanics, presentation, UI, etc.), but as Game Club is a community thing, I’m happy to facilitate its growth in whatever directions people are keen on

Yeah, that would be cool.

Just a bump to remind everyone that I’ll be closing the survey tomorrow. I’ll have some results and discussion up pretty soon afterward

Syd - 11 January 2013 08:35 PM

Console games would be difficult for us to do because it requires a capture device, which not many people have, as well as the necessary console to run the game. Unless someone that’s able to stream console games steps up to the plate, it’s likely that we’ll be sticking to PC games.

What if you, like, ran the English translation of Mother 3 thru a GBA emulator on your PC? Even something like the classic Square RPGs like FF 4 (known as II originally in NA) would be easy to capture in ZSNES or something - there’s even a capture function within the program itself…

Call me Squinky - 01 February 2013 03:57 PM

What if you, like, ran the English translation of Mother 3 thru a GBA emulator on your PC? Even something like the classic Square RPGs like FF 4 (known as II originally in NA) would be easy to capture in ZSNES or something - there’s even a capture function within the program itself…

Emulation could work for older games, but I don’t know if any of our current streamers would be interested in streaming JRPGs. We try to stick to games our streamers have an interest in, so they don’t feel forced to play through something they don’t particularly like.

That is not to say that I don’t like JRPGs (I’ve actually been working through Chrono Trigger lately), but it’s not the sort of game I’d want to stream for an audience.

Syd - 01 February 2013 05:06 PM

We try to stick to games our streamers have an interest in, so they don’t feel forced to play through something they don’t particularly like.

We may move past this a little as we get more streamers onboard and the workload becomes less intense, but as Syd says, I’m not sure how well a JRPG would translate to our format. Perhaps we’d need to play through key parts during a session (or pre-record and edit?) rather than trying to do the whole thing live.

I’ve just closed the survey, and here are some initial results!

How many Game Club Sessions have you attended?

How did you hear about Game Club?

How do you feel about the selection of titles played by Game Club in 2012?

What do you find to be worthwhile aspects of Game Club?

Do you play Game Club games prior to the session?

What era would you like to see Game Club focus on?

Would you be interested in seeing Game Club play other genres in addition to adventure games?

Which games have you participated in Game Club sessions for?

How would you feel about narration/commentary in Game Club streams?

How do you feel about the frequency of Game Club sessions?

How do you feel about the frequency of Game Club games?

Would you be more likely to attend Game Club if it were in a different time slot?

Have you participated in any of the previous Game Club polls?

Would you like to see more open planning for Game Club?

Are there any aspects of Game Club that you would be interested in assisting with?

Suggestions of titles we could play included:

* Ace Ventura (7th Level Interactive)
* Book Of Unwritten Tales (King Art)
* Broken Sword (Revolution Software)
* Day Z (Dean “Rocket” Hall)
* Gray Matter (Wizarbox)
* Gretel and Hansel on Newgrounds.com
* Indiana Jones (LucasArts)
* Maniac Mansion (LucasArts)
* Day of the Tentacle again (LucasArts)
* The Dig (LucasArts)
* Zak McKracken (LucasArts)
* Monkey Island 2, 3, 4 (LucasArts)
* Tales of Monkey Island (Telltale Games)
* The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
* Sam & Max (Telltale Games)
* Back To The Future The Game (Telltale Games)
* Jurassic Park The Game (Telltale Games)
* Hector: Badge of Carnage (Telltale Games)
* Wallace & Grommit’s Grand Adventures (Telltale Games)
* Strong Bat’s Cool Game For Attractive People (Telltale Games)
* Bone (Telltale Games)
* Puzzle Agent (Telltale Games)
* Putt Putt (Humongous Entertainment)
* Journey Down Chapter 2 (Skygoblin)
* Little Big Adventure (Adeline Software)
* Lone Survivor (Superflat Games)
* Ratchet & Clank (Insomniac Games)
* Simon The Sorcerer (Adventure Soft)
* Space Quest (Sierra)
* Quest for Glory (Sierra)
* King’s Quest (Sierra)
* Leisure Suit Larry (Sierra)
* Ico (Team Ico)
* Shadow of the Colossus (Team Ico)
* The Last Guardian (Team Ico)
* Teenagent (Metropolis Software House)
* Stacking (Double Fine)
* The Cave (Double Fine)
* any adventure game coming out of Kickstarter campaigns

Since it looks like there’s enough demand for us to consider non-Adventure titles, I’d be keen to see us play Another World (Eric Chahi), Trine (Frozenbyte), the Amnesia Fortnight 2012 prototypes.


Additional comments were mostly offering thanks for and congratulations on a successful 9 months of Game Club (in return, I’d like to say thanks to everybody who’s shown up - without you guys, Game Club wouldn’t happen).

We also had a suggestion that future giveaways should involve a participatory activity (such as giving away stuff to people who submit fan art), and a request that if we bring in other genres that we alternate between adventure titles and other genres so that we still maintain a high adventure game focus.

Before we start making decisions about outcomes, what does everybody think about the results? Any comments about particular aspects? One thing that stands out to me is the number of “not sure” responses regarding pursuing other genres - I think if we do go down that road, it should be treated/presented as a trial at first rather than a change in direction.