Congratulations to iLikeHell!

Here is my critique for Hellknight's entry. The one for the winner is still being written. I will post it later.

HELLKNIGHT61 - Robin Hood's DOOM

I don't know what this scenario is. It's certainly an experience unique to it's author. You control Robin Hood as he fights through a big castle to close a demon portal. I made it close to the end of the 4th floor before I could not take it anymore and gave up. Then I edited the mod, gave all versions of Robin Hood more speed, more attack, and unlimited armor, and played the complete map to see the end. I have so much to say, but I will try to keep it simple by listing the good and the bad.

PROS:

+ Curious and engaging challenges
+ Special gameplay systems using taunts to sprint, potions, and special abilities
+ These systems are integral to the gameplay and are required to use with thought and precision
+ Good use of the included mod pack for the demons.

CONS:

- Unfair difficulty, with random unforeseeable death events that only serve to force reloads.
- Basic, uninspired map design with ZERO variety. Everything looks the exact same except the last area.
- Extremely repetitive gameplay and combat encounters.
- Laughably bad writing and story.
- Sound effects are super loud, and used so often they get repetitive. Sometimes they overlap so much it turns into earrape.

About the story:

The writing is atrocious. I am not going to talk about the spelling or grammar; they are terrible, and it is clear english is not the author's first language, so I got used to it and ignored it. But I will talk about the way the author chose to tell his story. As usual, he does so with extra repetitive phrases. Every character says a sentence 4 or 5 times. They also say things that are confusing and illogical.

The story is as follows: Robin Hood's family is murdered, he gathers companions and starts a rebellion against the Sheriff. The Sheriff's witch summons a portal to defeat them, but something goes wrong and they open a hell portal instead. The Sheriff and all of Robin's companions die, and now it is up to Robin to close the portal and save the world. All of this is told in the cutscene. After the cutscene, Robin fights demons and has hallucinations of his dead family and friends, haunting him as he gets closer and closer to a psychological breaking point.

First of all, NOTHING actually happens in the story after the cutscene, until you get to the portal at the end. It's just Robin Hood having demon encounters for 3 or so hours. There is nothing new to learn, nothing to find out, and no sense of character development or plot progression. And there is a super simple fix for this. Just don't have the cutscene. The cutscene tells the entire story except for how it ends. If you remove the cutscene, you can tell the story during the main scenario. Robin's hallucinations would not just be about things that we saw before: they would be revelations and that's how the player would find out Robin's backstory. It would not only keep the main scenario interesting, it would add a drive for the player: the more he plays, the more he learns about Robin's back story. To mind comes "Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice", not an AoE2 scenario but an indie game released in 2017, which does that exact thing and deals with many of the same concepts. The game was widely praised by fans and critics.

But there is something more to the story of Robin Hood's DOOM. At first, despite the bad writing, the story seems very serious, dealing with grief, guilt and the toll they can take on someone's mental state. But about halfway through, a major tonal shift occurs when Robin encounters Hellknight61 himself in one of many fourth-wall breaking dialogues. Hellknight, as well as a few other members of the AoKH forums continue to appear, referencing past contests and events from the forum. It doesn't take long for the story to turn into what I can only assume is a self-aware joke about Hellknight and his time at AoKH. The dialogue directly references one of the contests judges, as well as the criticisms Hellknight received in the past. The context here is that Robin Hood is self aware that he is in an AoE2 scenario and scolds the author for making it too difficult and for the ridiculous writing.

It's a strange thing to assess. Clearly, the author is aware of the flaws that adorn his work, but instead of making an effort to fix them he plays them off as a joke. Take that as you wish, but it was not enough to save the story or the scenario for me. It's like in the movies when characters say "This is such a stupid situation, how could this ever happen to me?" It's funny, sure, but it doesn't excuse the fact that they are in a stupid situation.

The strongest parts of the story were the psychological segments, even though they were mostly the same throughout. There were some good visuals as well in these parts, for example when hallucinations of Robin's dead relatives spawned and died on repeat and he was forced to watched them scream for help, over and over again. Terrifying and effective.

About the gameplay:

The combat itself is fine at first. Challenging, but not too frustrating. You use sprint to dodge projectiles and environmental hazards. Since Robin Hood does not regenerate, every hit you take is serious. The only way to heal is through potions found in rare pavillions. The issue is that this kind of combat is so frequent it stops being fun after some time. There's rarely much variety to it either, outside of more and stronger enemies spawning. Later levels turn into literal bullet hell, and I must admit it was fairly satisfying whenever I managed to evade them all.

The way the combat encounters are integrated into the scenario however are not so good. Every event is the exact same. You go to the next square. You get locked in. Loud jumpscare noises. Enemies or random death events spawn. Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat. This is basically the entire game; hours and hours of the same thing. Except for the beginning area where you learn about the abilities, every single palisade area has this event happening, and it doesn't take long to get lackluster and mind numbing. Here I can only urge the author to consider that sometimes, less is more. Don't do the same thing every single time at every predictable location, and maybe it will actually be surprising for once. Most people would rather enjoy 4 or 5 unique and memorable combat scenes than 100 identical ones.

Unfortunately, it only gets worse. Other than combat, the game features a lot of kill events; random explosions or moving walls that kill you instantly. I will not mince words here: they are all terrible, pointless and frustrating. It's impossible to forsee where an explosion is going to be before it kills you, so all it does is force you to reload. The only time these events worked was when they were timed and you had to pass them in an interval, when a wave of explosions rapidly began chasing you, or occasionally when there was a pattern to how an exploding wall moved.

There are also some MAJOR technical inconsistencies in connection to those events. The kill area of an explosion is never the same. Sometimes I can be close to one and not die, sometimes I can be many tiles away from one and still die. It just adds to the guesswork.

Like I said before, I could only finish the scenario by cheating and editing the .dat file. I gave Robin Hood unlimited armor, more health, regeneration, and faster attack to deal with enemies easily. I also increased his speed so I would not need to use the sprint function all the time (it gets really tedious having to wait for it to refill, especially because the combat encounters happen so often wherever you go.) Despite all this, I STILL died at least 100 times during my cheat playthrough just from instant kills. The last boosfights looked so insane I can not imagine having to play them fairly.

Hilariously, I actually almost ended up shooting myself in the foot when I cheated. At the end when you reach the first portal, you lose control of Robin hood and there is a cutscene when he is killed by some demon units. The game only progresses when Robin Hood is dead. I thought now I'm screwed, because they could not kill him due to high armor and regeneration. Turns out the enemies damaged me just frequently enough for me to ultimately lose one hitpoint every minute (I had like 500 hp). Thankfully, instead of having to wait for hours, I reloaded the bossfight and managed to take enough damage during it that I would somehow be able to start the cutscene with only a few HP, wait a bit and finally died a mandatory death to continue the game. This is not part of the critique of course, but I wanted to share it anyway.

The strongest gameplay parts were the ones that combined combat with timed movement, such as when the player has to platform across a bridge with disappearing segments, while also being shot at by enemy units. Unfortunately, parts like this are far and few between. When I died in these parts, it made me want to try again because I knew I could do better. In a good game, that is how all deaths should be. When I died in most other parts of this scenario, it didn't feel like I did something wrong; I just felt annoyed because I was instantly killed by something I couldn't have known would be there, or because I didn't micromanage my unit pixel perfect enough at the right microsecond to doge a super fast projectile. There can be a fine line between challenging and frustrating, and unfortunately this scenario missed the mark most of the time.

Enjoyment: 8/15
Balance: 2/5
Creativity: 3/5
Scenario Design: 6/15
Story: 2/10
Total: 21/50

Side note: I actually enjoyed the robotic voice lines in the cutscene. They might not sound real, but they still made reading the dialogue easier. I wish you had done that for all lines in the main scenario.




To close, I would like to make it known that I am not a fan of the way the points are distributed between the scores. 5 points each for Balance and Creativity is way too narrow a window. I thought iLikeHell's entry was better than Hellknight's in both balance and creativity, but I also thought 2 and 4 were too low and too high to assign to either. So mostly I settled for 3.

Critique for iLikeHell's scenario coming later.

[This message has been edited by Devious Dev (edited 01-08-2020 @ 12:08 PM).]

Hellknight, as well as a few other members of the AoKH forums continue to appear, referencing past contests and events from the forum. It doesn't take long for the story to turn into what I can only assume is a self-aware joke about Hellknight and his time at AoKH. The dialogue directly references one of the contests judges, as well as the criticisms Hellknight received in the past. The context here is that Robin Hood is self aware that he is in an AoE2 scenario and scolds the author for making it too difficult and for the ridiculous writing.

Well now I almost regret not powering through to this point. Any chance you (or Hellknight himself) could supply the dialogue here for us to read?

Lord Basse, some of your comments are frighteningly similar to what I have prepared... Sorry to be so harsh on you. I'm glad your were able to get such a comprehensive review written in the end.

iLikeHell, congratulations on winning the contest. I have to say though, the reply you sent me when I emailed my redacted comments on your entry was a little bizarre. Hopefully now that you've read Lord Basse's comments as well, you know that it is indeed not perfect? I felt that your entry was a solid concept with solid execution, and as such I gave it a solid score in all aspects apart from balance. With some more polish, it could be improved into a very good experience.

Hellknight, please don't be too upset by the low score the judges have given your entry. If you removed the instant deaths, or made them easy to avoid, the game would be much more enjoyable and we would see more of it. Unfortunately, I played yours first. I spent more than an hour trying to struggle through the opening cinematic, and I spent about an hour with the playable section before stopping. When I switched to iLikeHell's file, to see how it compared, I liked it more and kept playing for much longer because I could progress further.

As a creator, sometimes you have a strong vision about your art. But you need to remember to meet the player halfway. In writing, or music, or film, there's a set length to the work. But with a game, the ability to progress is locked behind completion. You need to help your player to complete your game.

---

Robin Hood's Doom by Hellknight61


Enjoyment 3/15

Early during the introductory scenario, an audio file of a woman screaming is played, while ""[SUFFERING AND PAIN]" is posted as a chat message. It's a very confrontational scenario, with a direct and melodramatic style. I'm not sure if parts of it are supposed to be funny, as it seems there is a language barrier between the author and myself. I'm ashamed to admit that I couldn't bear to continue past the first level. But honestly, I felt by that point I'd seen enough. Maybe the story gets good later on. Maybe Dev is just having us on for a laugh. I'll never know.

The same sound effects are used again and again. At one point I considered playing it with the sound off, because they are very loud compared to the game sound effects. It hurt my ears at times.

However, I kept with them for as long as I could. This scenario is, ultimately, a horror story. The use of sound is important to deliver some of the jumpscares. Which are used often, and some are genuinely surprising. With enemy placement being the main source of difficulty in the game. However, the process of playing becomes a routine of rote memorisation of enemy spawn locations. That tends to be the case with scenarios using a low number of playable units, but in this game style it became a bit tedious to reload a save a few times and think about the exact same enemies with the exact same movements.

Now, this is a unique attempt to transform Age of Empires 2 into a third-person shooter. You read that right. There is an extreme dependence on the player's reaction time, in order to hit the pause button and queue up tasks. This kind of defeats the "real time" aspect of play. There's never a danger of being overwhelmed and not knowing what to do when you can pause like this, but there is a novelty to the game.

Unfortunately, I just didn't enjoy playing it. The colour palette used to design the game is quite plain, and the combat is fairly repetitive. To proceed, you need to kill the enemies without taking damage in most cases, and there are hidden instant-deaths which are deployed without warning. I found it a bit repetitive, to be brutally honest. AoE2 wasn't designed to be a shooter.

Balance 2/5

I had to edit the playable scenario out of the campaign file.
It's very hard. It revolves around saving often and not taking damage. I was quoted "6 hours" as a length for the game. I didn't want to keep playing after 30 minutes, and stopped playing after about an hour. I felt I had seen enough to assess the quality of the entry.
The level of challenge for me is not appropriate for the level of enjoyment I got from it. Making the player slightly more durable, and reducing hidden instant-deaths would be welcome, and would make the file much more accessible.
Hellknight, you have to remember that you have perfect knowledge of how you made the scenario, but the player doesn't know where the traps or spawnable enemies are. They're hidden, so unless you give the player obvious visual cues, they'll just become frustrated and stop, as I did.

Creativity: 4/5

This is Doom in an AoE2 game. It's an RPG! Floor switches, bombs, ever-changing, labyrinthine corridors, and waves of enemies swarming at you.
Enemies are spawned into the map, their movement and attack speeds controlled, using advanced trigger mechanics.
The challenge is increased by the player-archer's minimum range of 1, and the fast enemy speed. This means that the player must prioritise which enemies to kill, or you will become cornered and lose quickly.
A sprint ability and stamina meter allow you to control the range between you and the opponents, but I found deploying it was very difficult on the recommended "fast" speed. Slowing the game down made it more viable to pause when I wanted to start or stop the mechanic, but not knowing how long you had left between sprints was a problem.
New unit graphics are included for bosses. The changes to global music, and menu graphics are very nice additions.

Scenario Design: 6/15

The use of text to speech for dialogue is really novel, but really jarring. Some dialogue lines cut into each other on the recommended speed setting, and the English grammar is not good. Sound effects used in the scenario are very abrupt and out of place, which at times felt overwhelming.

Terrain has not been mixed. The colour palette of the map is quite limited, almost entirely brown. Visually this does not make it very appealling, and although I can tell that is the point, some terrain mixing and the introduction of other colours would dramatically improve the attractiveness of the scenario.

Elevation has not been used to good effect, either visually, or to enhance the gameplay.

Some use of eyecandy in the visual design is welcome. The levels feel cramped, claustrophobic, which delivers the sense of horror into the level design. This instills a sense of fear which fits the narrative. However, this was achieved through unimaginative rows of fortified walls. Enemies approach the player in blocks, not a staggered, organic approach. It all feels quite synthetic.

Story: 2/10

A narrative introduction scenario was also included, but according to the rules of the competition it could not be considered in the scoring of the entry. It would have significantly improved the entry to have included it in the main map, as there was space, and it would have satisfied the competition rules.

A retelling of the classic "Robin Hood" character from English folklore, only there are demons now. The narrative introduction scenario ceased playing partway through, so I'm unclear as to why Robin Hood has been thrust into the plot of DOOM.
There is no apparent story in the section of the gameplay scenario that I completed. Some cues are given from the gameplay, such as chat messages indicating that you are in Nottingham castle. The tone of the story is less "fantasy" and more like horror.

The grammar of the narration and text-to-speech is quite poor.

One of the sound files had audible profanity, which I know is against HG's rules.

Total: 17/50

---

Birbo by Ilikehell

Enjoyment: 8/15

Music has been used to good effect. The sounds play properly and enhance the atmosphere. Care has been given to ensure the composition of the piece is pleasant and engaging. Sometimes the music for different areas overlapped when I travelled in a straight line.

It's an RPG. You spend a lot of time walking from place to place, and relatively little time in combat.
Unfortunately Age of Empires just wasn't built for random encounters, and static enemy units are easy to place, and require effort to improve on. At times, there is no direction about where to go. You are given a map at the start, but within the game there is no reference besides signposts about where to go.
A scouts section with a list of the major cities and their locations would improve this a lot.

Once you assemble your team of heroes, it really starts to feel satisfying. Drawing strong influences from the Final Fantasy series, you have to manage the different classes of character in order to overcome the enemies on the map.
Balancing range and melee characters is crucial. The pacing of the opening section does drag a little. It might have been improved with a cutscene, instead of a 45 minute trek around the map. More combat would be appreciated, and especially a way of healing out of combat.

I believe there is a broken sidequest in the northern corner, which is frustrating. Also, towards the very end of the scenario, my units kept getting stuck on rocks and mountains.

Balance: 1/5

There is challenge in the combat from the beginning. Elevation is used excellently and carefully, to modify the difficulty of the scenario. The difficulty revolves around carefully using the map to fight statically placed enemies. Once you can beat something, that's it beaten. Going back to safe areas can help, especially early on. The line of sight is used carefully to control the difficulty. But unfortunately, that means that knowing what to expect removes some of the challenge.

Or so I thought.

Then I reached the ancient temple, after passing through the dryad woods. The monsters there are too powerful to kill with the heroes, without cheating in lots of HP through the potion system. It's unfortunate, but I feel I have to mark down the scenario heavily in this category. I might be missing a method to kill them, but I don't feel I've been given the right instruction to find a way.

Creativity: 4/5

Modded graphics - a skybox, new buildings, new units - add visual flair to the map. Some units are visible in the fog of war! This is used to make a dramatic effect in the introductory cutscene. Graphical modification of the object outlines indicates quests with a gold star - a very cool idea!
Potions are used to give the player an edge in tricky situations.

Scenario Design: 10/15

Eyecandy used excessively to represent grass. A good effort, but executed poorly. Ugly "path" objects placed into the fog of war and map boundaries. White outlines visible around stone mines and berry bushes. But some modded graphics are used with the fog of war to produce a fantastic effect. The grass eyecandy looks much better when you're not there!

Terrain mixing has been used in part, but there is little thought given to contrast between greens and browns. Mostly just a mix of grass terrains. A little colour theory goes a long way! The later areas use a limited palette and modded objects to bring underground caverns to life. Some graphical errors were present, such as cliffs broken by elevation and water. Strange unnatural shadows were seen under some modded objects.

Story: 4/10

The dialogue's grammar isn't great. A little wooden, but it gets the point across. You're rescuing your kidnapped girlfriend, who it is hinted is of a higher social class than you.

Some of the place-names are written in Italian.

I actually found the story quite charming, in a way. It knows exactly what it is. It's not serious, and it doesn't take itself seriously. I genuinely did laugh when you're directed in a quest to kill a named NPC, and when you walk up to that NPC they reply "Kill me? Ha, I'll join your quest!"
And that's it. You get them as a companion.

The fantasy elements develop late on. Unfortunately, the story is mostly introduced as it unfolds, with little in the way of setup or conclusion. You see things unfolding as your characters beat up enemies. This style didn't really land for me, and I didn't develop much attachment to the characters. I don't feel that anyone changed over the course of the story. There was never a sense of existential peril, just a nearby danger. The characters weren't developed. Themes weren't constructed and deconstructed. The closest I came to immersion was hunting the beast of the swamp with my squad of team-mates, but immediately thereafter a squadmember leaves for no apparent reason. The character owes me his life, and has never shown any signs of cowardice before, yet they run away in order to increase the difficulty.

It's nice to get a call back to defend the world in the last act. But "The Hobbit" it unfortunately is not, and the ending feels a little bit rushed. And so I have to give it a middling score.

Total 27/50

Quoted from Lord Basse:

I recognized buildings and units from a vast array of modders, even some of my own. While there’s nothing wrong in using graphics made by others, it goes without saying that you should give credit to the people who did the actual work with the graphics. As things stand, it comes across as you’re claiming to have made all of the graphics yourself, which is unfair to the actual creators. A simple list of the people whose work you borrowed and a short thanks would go a long way.

This is absolutely correct. Plagiarism is not acceptable. The rules state:

If your scenario uses an existing mod (eg. Age of Chivalry or Tales of Middle Earth, please include a link in the file description to the download).

iLikeHell, please edit your download description to comply with this.

Quoted from Popeychops:

Sorry to be so harsh on you. I'm glad your were able to get such a comprehensive review written in the end.

Your comments were insinuating and hostile and seemed to come out of nowhere, hence my response. Apology accepted.

That was anticlimactic, but nevertheless, congrats ILikeHell!

=== MY ANSWERS FOR YOUR REVIEWS ===

- First of all I want to thank all of you because you gave me a great feedback by spending your time for my file.
- Devious's review is the best review. Because he finished my scenario. And he talked about every aspect of my scenario.
- Popey's review is too negative and prejudiced. Also he has too many information lackings about my scenario. Even he missed the cutscene.
- Lord Basse's review is the between of Devious's and Popey's. But he is much more positive and realistic than Popey's. At least he gave 5 points for creativity. But he also has too many information lackings.
- I learned from my mail about that you have sent some reviews for my files but I think that Moderators shouldn't approve it. Because according to the rules reviewers have to finish the related scenario to able writing a review for it. Also Popey sent a false review to my "Doom Episode 3" scenario as a mistake. Also their points are less than 3.0 so reviews will cause giving up to download them.
- I understood that people didn't like random death events. I thought that they can load a saved game. But people didn't think same with me. So I won't use them again in my next scenarios.
- My next scenarios will be easier and shorter. They will require less saving and reloading unlike this one. "Less is more..."
- My next map designs will be in open spaces or larger areas.
- By the way the main scenario has 3100 triggers if you want to know. But I understood that "less is more".
- Also my next stories will be more serious with shorter dialogues.

iLikeHell - Dwarves, goblins and wizards

In this open world RPG you play as Birbo, who must save his girlfriend from a band of goblins. This entry features many creative elements and great concepts, albeit with some clunky execution.

PROS:

+ Large and varied open world
+ Engaging combat that relies on tactical and intelligent use of your heroes
+ High fantasy setting brought to life by a large collection of mods


CONS:

- Basic story
- Most of the technical open world elements are far from fully realised
- Buggy and unpolished

There's not much to say about the story. Birbo's girlfriend is kidnapped, he goes on a quest to find and rescue her, meets companions, does side-quests for upgrades, and enters the goblin mountain to rescue her, and by extension, to defeat the evil that lurks there. It's mostly an excuse to feature gameplay, and the author himself freely admits how simple it is, so I won't be going on about it much.

About the gameplay:

The first half of the game has you trekking across the open world, looking for side-quests, upgrades and following a trail of clues to continue the main quest. Most of this is very sluggish, as you explore a mostly empty world with a handful of fetch quests and very few combat encounters. After you've gathered all your companions and acquired as many upgrades as you can, you enter the goblin lair to find your girlfriend. This is where the game picks up considerably, and the tedious exploration turns into extensive calculated combat sessions as you delve deeper and deeper into the unknown mountain. After finding your girlfriend, there is one last section where you return to the mountain one more time to defeat the goblin threat for good.

The combat encounters are generally well balanced. To survive, you have to micromanage your different units intelligently to get the highest damage output and take as few hits as possible. There were 2 encounters where there was a sudden spike in difficulty, one being the Profane Church that you have to destroy in the first section of mountain, the other being the Ogre near the pond just outside the cursed city. I had to fiddle a lot with the Profane Church to beat it; you are swamped with units and have almost no way of defending against them. The only way to beat it was to lock the magician behind the church while your main character blocks the path. This will allow him to fight the goblins one by one while the magician destroys the church. Even this required a few tries though, because the Goblins would sometimes go behind the church and kill the magician before he could destroy the church. At the end, it felt like I was only able to succeed due to AI behaving poorly.

The second impossibly difficult encounter was the Ogre outside the cursed city. I spent a lot of time trying to kill this guy. In theory, it's simple enough: distract him with your swordsman, who has high armor and speed, while the magician and the dwarf take him out. Unfortunately the Ogre doesn't stay on target, again mostly due to the way the AI works, and once he starts attacking either of your other two units, you are screwed. I only managed to beat him by expending a valuable potion, only to find out that the quest associated with him was broken and I could not get a reward. So I reloaded and continued without killing him.

The same applies to the Werewolf quest, although to a lesser extend. I went to great lengths to try and keep my crossbowman alive, only to find out he leaves anyway after you beat the Werewolf. I felt a bit betrayed, but I suppose that was the point. This would have worked much better if the crossbowman character showed signs of cowardice before this, and maybe warns the main character at one point that he may leave if things get too risky. Or he could have just fled at first sight of the werewolf, instead of after you successfully kill it. With a few tweaks to still make the fight possible, this could have been hilariously unexpected in a very good way.

After the first mountain venture, the last act begins when some time later, the heroes return to the mountain to finish the goblin threat once and for all. This begins with a large battle of goblins assaulting the fort near the mountain entrance, which was a bit annoying. You had little control over your heroes due to tons of enemy and allied units flooding towards each other in a crammed space. To make this worse, you can't leave this area and any character who accidentally goes back through the gate is instantly killed. The battle went on for way too long with no change or progression throughout, apart from occasional ogre units that you could easily kill with your magician.

The final area was a bit underwhelming. Nothing is as difficult or exciting as the previous mountain segments. The final set piece has you holding out against a horde of goblins for a short time before they flee and you briefly witness a battle between a summoned dragon and a demon. The heroes flee before this plays out however, so we are just left to assume that the demon was defeated. After they escape, the magician seals the passage to the mountain with rocks and all is well, which makes me wonder why he didn't just do that in the first place when the goblins were attacking.

I think the objectives could have been handled a bit better. There is some general lack of direction, so very often you're left with aimless exploration of areas while consulting the provided mapshot. For example, in the very beginning I had no idea where Birbo's house was supposed to be in the town, so I went back and forth through it many times before I finally found it in a very easy to miss spot behind the church.

About the design:

Though rough around the edges, the map design is detailed, varied, and well planned out. A lot of this is thanks to the vast collection of mods the author compiled for this scenario (as the other judges have pointed out, please try to give credit by including the names of the authors of those mods. They worked hard on them just like you worked hard on your entry, and you would also not like it if someone else stole your entry without giving credit to you). Some areas are abundant with detail, some are are a bit lackluster or just unpolished. For example the grass plains early on look great due to the tightly placed plant objects, but at the same time the way they are placed in perfect squares makes it painfully obvious how they were just map copied with no attempt to smooth them out after.

Unfortunately, barely half of the map is actually used for the game, and most of the cities have no gameplay elements. The mapshot provided by the author helps a lot here by distinguishing these areas from the important ones. However, even the important areas only have a couple of quests or so each. As a consequence, the gameplay content is spread very thinly across the main areas, which makes me wonder if it wouldn't have been a good idea to ditch the open world entirely and focus solely on the linear experience at which the scenario excels.

Sound effects and music are used moderately well to set the tone for each area. The world feels alive enough, with moving parts and some NPCs with dialogue, although some of it is unfortunately translated poorly from the original Italian version, or not at all.

A very welcome addition was the marking of quest NPCs with a star graphic. I could not imagine having to try and find them all without this. I also liked that the caves remained mostly dark even after you explored them. There are also a few other great set pieces, like one of the caves filling with lava after an earthquake, all of which show there is some level of ingenuity on display here.

I suspect this entry, like many of it's kind, was far grander in ambition but did not succeed in bringing the author's true vision to life due to time constraints. What it does succeed in however is show enormous creative potential, and I hope the author will continue expanding on his capabilities in the future.

Enjoyment: 10/15
Balance: 3/5
Creativity: 3/5
Scenario Design: 8/15
Story: 4/10
Total: 28/50

[This message has been edited by Devious Dev (edited 01-09-2020 @ 06:46 AM).]

Quoted from Lord Basse:

Any chance you (or Hellknight himself) could supply the dialogue here for us to read?

I have saves of just about everywhere in the game, so if Hellknight doesn't disagree, I can post some screenshots of my playthroughs.

I am really sorry due to this rude answer but if they want to see they need to play those areas like you have played.

Don't worry, that is exactly why I asked first. I respect your choice.

[This message has been edited by Devious Dev (edited 01-09-2020 @ 07:20 AM).]

My review of Hellknight61's entry is negative, but it is not prejudiced. Please do not accuse people of prejudice without evidence.

Quoted from Hellknight61:

Also Popey sent a false review to my "Doom Episode 3" scenario

I submitted the review in error because the link in Leif's news post directs to it, and it's called "... DOOM...". I noticed the error and removed the review before it was approved.

Please don't be petty. If you want to receive review scores above 3.0, spend your time thinking about how they player can enjoy playing them, not designing 3100 triggers.

I honestly can't recommend that people play your entry as it stands. My review is negative because I have a negative opinion of your entry. The three judges' reports are very consistent when you take them together.

Even he missed the cutscene.

That's not correct. The review does make reference to the cutscene. Frankly, by not elaborating beyond the comments I made, I'm doing you a favour.

I am really sorry due to this rude answer but if they want to see they need to play those areas like you have played.

That's not fair. The player has to be able to progress through your game in order to experience it. If you make progression difficult, they won't complete it.

Compare something like "Dark Souls" where there are always options for the player to take different approaches which might be easier. If it relied on fast reaction button mashing, it would not be accessible to all players and would not be as beloved a game franchise as it is.

My next scenarios will be easier and shorter. They will require less saving and reloading unlike this one. "Less is more..."

I think that would be wise.

[This message has been edited by Popeychops (edited 01-09-2020 @ 08:16 AM).]

@Popeychops

1-) According to the rules reviewers have to finish the related scenario to able writing a review for it. Because of this reason (not an another reason) Moderators shouldn't accept them except Devious's review.
2-) I didn't want to blame you. I only found your review somewhat prejucided. I wanted to remark my opinion about your review like you have remarked your opinion about my file. This is my opinion. You don't have to accept it.
3-) You missed most part of the cutscene. You watched only 16 minutes of 60 minutes cutscene. (30 percent) Because of this reason I wrote those lines. And it is true even if you don't want to accept it. But no problem... Because it wasn't in the review process.
4-) The scenario is really possible in first (Standard) difficulty. It is true that it requires many hours and many savings and reloadings but it is definitely possible. Also there are some short youtube videos for this scenario:

Video 1 --> https://youtu.be/K9mL1aFJah4
Video 2 --> https://youtu.be/_ZgHYAc62cY
Video 3 --> https://youtu.be/r8CYXfkbtis
Video 4 --> https://youtu.be/UPGgIrrR4Wg

5-) I don't recognize you very much. But I think that you are a little quick tempered but I don't recognize you very much. Maybe this is my prejudice about you. I hope that I think wrong about you.

[This message has been edited by HELLKNIGHT61 (edited 01-09-2020 @ 09:22 AM).]

Hellknight,

I understand the interest in making something difficult and challenging. I am a huge fan of the dark souls series and other difficult games.

The thing is you have to remember when the player dies, he/she internally asks himself, "what did I do wrong? What can I do better next time?" If the answer is "you couldn't avoid it", the player will quickly lose interest.

For example if I fight a boss in dark souls and Dodge an attack and then follow up with a heavy attack, and it's too slow and I get hit, maybe I decide next time to use a lighter quicker attack. If that still gets punished, I now know that there is no opening for me after that particular move. I need to dodge the first move AND the follow-up before I can get a hit in. I have learned something, so my next attempt when I dodge, dodge, strike, I feel really good about myself, and I feel like I made progress.

If a wall falls on my head and I die, maybe I notice there was a brief indicator before it fell. Next time I see that indicator I can move off the tile. Suddenly you have taken an awful mechanic and made it workable.

Players should die for failing to approach the problem correctly, not because the problem is unsolvable.

It is possible to avoid from random death events. You need to walk from opposite side of the wall. Or you must run away from the wall. If you encounter with sudden explosions try to memorize their places and load a saved game to avoid from them. But don't worry I won't use random deaths in my next projects.

[This message has been edited by HELLKNIGHT61 (edited 01-09-2020 @ 09:20 AM).]

Looking at the videos HellKnight posted, his scenario actually looks really interesting and innovative. Very, very unique and different take on an Age of Empires scenario.

Although I have not played the scenario myself, there seems to be a common theme in the reviews. I would recommend to HellKnight that he takes the interesting game mechanics ideas (the twitchy 3rd person shooter style, the taunt-based sprinting, etc.) from this scenario and puts them in a much smaller-scale, shorter, and more focused scenario (less than 1 hour gameplay time... maybe even 30 minutes). That will allow him to really focus in on the story and designing good set piece battles with the demons that rely less on the random deaths that proved to be so frustrating.

Also, fortified walls, road terrain, and rugs/torches get really repetitive so I would recommend switching the scenario to an outdoors environment. Will likely have to keep the same fixed, narrow corridors, but at least with trees, rocks, and other gaia objects, you can vary them enough to keep things interesting. For this, please take a look at some existing scenarios by other designers to get an idea of how to make interesting forest paths, mountain valleys, cliffsides, rocky gulleys, etc. I know the other scenarios were designed for more open gameplay, but you can see how objects get used together to make realistic-looking and beautiful areas that this scenario could really use.

Based on the videos, this scenario looks like it has an incredible amount of potential based on the unique gameplay style it has.


EDIT:
Just want to reiterate to HellKnight that the most important thing with designing a scenario is to ask yourself constantly, "If I wasn't the designer, how would I feel playing this part of the scenario?" By asking yourself that question always, you can start to formulate explanations for mechanics as well as a natural and easy to learn progression system in how you introduce these mechanics and new challenges to the player.

[This message has been edited by Filthydelphia (edited 01-09-2020 @ 10:00 AM).]

Hellknight61.

You're engaging in the logical fallacy "Tu quoque". It means "you also".

This is where someone criticises you, and instead of accepting or responding to their criticism, you find things to criticise about them in retaliation.

All three reviews have made the same criticisms. It is very clear that you prefer Dev's review because he got to an ending screen and he gives you the highest score, but he made the same criticisms as Basse and I.

Hellknight, just a general comment here first. You obviously have a huge passion for designing scenarios, which is admirable. Your problem, as I see it, is your attitude. When player after player tells you that the gameplay is unfair and not fun, you don't seem to realize that the problem lies with your scenario - instead you write hints telling the player not to be "lazy". That's just a garbage approach, especially if you want more people to download your maps and actually enjoy them. None of the judges who have played your entry are lazy. The fact that we did not finish your scenario has nothing whatsoever to do with laziness, and if you seriously think that then you are just deluding yourself. The chief problem, which just about everyone who has played this scenario has pointed out, is the random deaths. There is nothing fun about them. There is no challenge here. It is just a constant slap in the face. It actively ruins the parts of the scenario that actually are fun to play. You're just shooting yourself in the foot by having them there at all.

I definitely think you should take Filthydelphias advice here, because I do believe there is potential in your scenarios, and your dedication is obvious. The amount of work you have put into all these trigger systems is really impressive and, as Filthy said, you have something really unique going for you when all is said and done. What you have to do is channel all of that energy and dedication into something that players, not just you yourself, will enjoy.

Popey's review is too negative and prejudiced. Also he has too many information lackings about my scenario. Even he missed the cutscene.

You broke the rules by including the cut-scene at all, so you really should not be complaining.

Lord Basse's review is the between of Devious's and Popey's. But he is much more positive and realistic than Popey's. At least he gave 5 points for creativity. But he also has too many information lackings.

You need to look at the common theme here: not one of us enjoyed the random deaths, and consequently not one of us enjoyed the scenario, despite the good parts it did have. You are rarely going to get detailed feedback like this, so you really should take it to heart. At the end of the day you are the only one who can improve your scenarios, we can only help and point out the parts that don't work - it's up to you to actually change and improve your design. Keep the things that work, scrap the parts no one likes. Sometimes you just have to kill your darlings, as the expression goes.

I learned from my mail about that you have sent some reviews for my files but I think that Moderators shouldn't approve it. Because according to the rules reviewers have to finish the related scenario to able writing a review for it. Also Popey sent a false review to my "Doom Episode 3" scenario as a mistake.

The random deaths essentially make your scenario unplayable, for anyone but you who actually knows the exact patterns, so a review based on a partial playthrough is absolutely fair, I think.

Also their points are less than 3.0 so reviews will cause giving up to download them.

This is a total non-factor when deciding to approve or reject a review. It's up to you as a designer to create a map people will want to download. The specific goal of a review, from a downloader's perspective, is to show whether the file is worth their time or not. And I really think a lower than 3.0 review is fair to the downloader, because of how frustrating the gameplay is.

It is possible to avoid from random death events. You need to walk from opposite side of the wall. Or you must run away from the wall. If you encounter with sudden explosions try to memorize their places and load a saved game to avoid from them.

It's not that they are 100% impossible to get past, it's that they are unfair to the player. When you spend time and effort learning the mechanics of the scenario, being killed by sheer randomness just ruins the fun. If this happens once it's bad, but in your scenario it happens constantly. If I had not been a judge and had committed to playing your scenario, I would not have played more than 5 minutes of it to be honest. I think Matt put it really well: "The thing is you have to remember when the player dies, he/she internally asks himself, "what did I do wrong? What can I do better next time?" If the answer is "you couldn't avoid it", the player will quickly lose interest."

By the way the main scenario has 3100 triggers if you want to know. But I understood that "less is more".

You can keep the amount of triggers, as long as you focus them on the parts that actually work. Strip out every single death by randomness and you might actually have a good scenario here. Like I said in my review, there were parts that I really enjoyed and would have given an Enjoyment score of 11-12 or so. If this was the whole of the scenario, you would have won this contest handily.

Quoted from Filthydelphia:

the most important thing with designing a scenario is to ask yourself constantly, "If I wasn't the designer, how would I feel playing this part of the scenario?"

This.

MY NEW ANSWERS

- I agree that random deaths caused many problems. So I won't use them again in my next projects. (If I use I will warn players before the trap will be activated)
- I read your all texts carefully. I have already agreed your criticisms even before you had written your new messages. Also I haven't objected your criticisms until now. As I said here:

"- I understood that people didn't like random death events. I thought that they can load a saved game. But people didn't think same with me. So I won't use them again in my next scenarios.
- My next scenarios will be easier and shorter. They will require less saving and reloading unlike this one. "Less is more..."
- My next map designs will be in open spaces or larger areas.
- By the way the main scenario has 3100 triggers if you want to know. But I understood that "less is more".
- Also my next stories will be more serious with shorter dialogues..."

- I have already accepted your criticims. But Popey became very angry when I write my opinion about his review. So I think that he also needs to accept criticms. Am I right?

This was a more entertaining read than expected. Congrats to all the gladiators who participated in this years fantasy scenario contest!

A note on the reviews of Robin Hood DOOM.

I have approved the reviews, because they were written by official reviewers with a solid understanding of the review guidelines. As a blacksmith moderator, it's not my place to remove a review I disagree with, and the most I would do is suggest or argue against a review here, but I would do so as a fellow official reviewer.

Official reviewers have done enough reviewing that they don't need their hand held. If they choose to deliberately step out of the strict box of the review guidelines, they ideally are doing so with a clear understanding of their intentions and reviewing in general.

That all said, I see nowhere in the current guidelines that a player isn't allowed to review a file unless he finishes 100% of it. This is impractical, as many scenarios have alternate endings, side missions, optional dialogue, etc., and a person need not see everything to make up their mind. Indeed, reviewers for actual entertainment websites often review a TV show after only watching the first four or so episodes, and several reviews on games mention their completion percentage at the time of the review.

If there is a line somewhere in the current guidelines I've overlooked,
A) They are guidelines, not laws to be rigidly enforced.
B) the guidelines can be imperfect. They were written once a long time ago by someone who couldn't predict all eventualities. Eventually some of it was rewritten but still only to the best of a few forummers abilities.

So to sum, I have approved the reviews. If you feel portions or all of them violate the guidelines, I encourage you to discuss the reviews with the reviewers in the review thread. Perhaps they will modify their scores, but having them wholly deleted doesn't seem right.

That all said, I see nowhere in the current guidelines that a player isn't allowed to review a file unless he finishes 100% of it

If I could add something as just a gamer, the idea that you need to fully finish content before reviewing it is silly in the first place, especially when it comes to multi-hundred hour RPGs. I dont need to finish a 200 hour RPG to know I dont like it 15 hours in.

AoK is a game that has been designed to wrap up in around an hour or less realtime. Many consider a 2 hour skirmish map an unbearable slog and just want to get into the next one by then. Some good blacksmith scenarios take longer than that, but it is quite rare. Point being, if a reviewer plays a file for several hours worth that is more than enough to establish a very clear idea of the file's contents.

But they missed most of my gameplay ideas:


=== THE THINGS THAT WERE MISSED BY THEM ===

- Hallucination Unit Events: They missed Hallucination Unit events that are belong to Robin's family and friends. There are many unique Hallucination Unit event parts in this game. These units sometimes attack Robin and sometimes use psychological pressure events against Robin.

- Monsters: They missed most of Doom monster types without fighting against any of them even for only one time.

- Weapons: They missed most of Robin's weapons without using any of them even for only one time.

- Jokes: This scenario contains many references to forum members with scripted events.

- 2 Different Boss Fights: They missed Cyberdemon and Spiderdemon boss fights in 2 different portal areas.

- Platform Puzzles: They missed many platform puzzles.

- The Rest of The Story: They missed the rest of the story. There are unpredictable weird events in the story that also includes Robin's new attitude and HELLKNIGHT61 character.

Not going to argue anymore beyond this post, but you're missing the point, Hellknight. Even if all of those ideas were good and well-executed, you have made all of them inaccessible to the player by making the first few hours of the gameplay unfair and frustrating. You have an interesting concept and tons of intricate trigger systems, some of them really fun and challenging - but it is just impossible to enjoy them due to the scenario's negative aspects. You basically have a 4.0+ scenario bogged down by a thousand random, unfair death events, and pretty much no one is going to sit through all of that to get to the ending. Giving a review that reflects this to potential downloaders is absolutely fair.

Quoted from Cata:

If I could add something as just a gamer, the idea that you need to fully finish content before reviewing it is silly in the first place, especially when it comes to multi-hundred hour RPGs. I dont need to finish a 200 hour RPG to know I dont like it 15 hours in. [...] Point being, if a reviewer plays a file for several hours worth that is more than enough to establish a very clear idea of the file's contents.

This.

I would say that a Blacksmith review is a bit different from a regular game review, because AoKH is a community rather than a market with clearly distinct roles for consumers and producers. So it is a good rule of thumb that a reviewer should try to finish a scenario/campaign/whatever to give the creator constructive feedback. But it would be preposterous to treat this as a hard rule, especially with scenarios that are just impossible to finish, for exactly the reasons you bring up.

Maybe I can remove all random deaths in this scenario by updating it. Also my next Doom scenarios (Doom Episode 4-5) will never have random deaths.

Also my next Doom scenarios (Doom Episode 4-5) will never have random deaths.

I think this is a good idea. If I were you I would focus on making the next scenario better, rather than remaking this one, but that is completely up to you.