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The Poem

Actually, there is a rest game link too...

I made my game for intellectuals, not for people who give up frustrated because they can't figure it out. I don't mind the rating though, just shows what a elaborate riddle I have created.

I take it that you have no idea who thequiller is.

There's nothing wrong with making very difficult puzzles. It just needs to be balanced out with the motivation to solve the puzzle, and I apologize if my comment came off as childish, but I just wasn't invested enough in solving your puzzle to put in more than the twenty minutes I already spent staring at the poem and scratching my head.

For comparison, I spent weeks trying to find the hidden ending in Kiel's puzzle game GOLAD, because the storyline and the characters were very compelling and provided the driving force that made me WANT to solve the puzzle.

The logic mistake of teenagers everywhere: "They don't understand me, that means I'm smart."

Hate to break it to you, but even after beating your game, I still didn't really like it. The issue isn't the difficulty, it's that I didn't find the poetry or the riddles entertaining. ( The general narrative writing wasn't compelling, either, and the ending didn't feel like a reward for the effort.)

I can't blame Quiller for not getting invested. If asked by any of the readers who had trouble solving it or gave up on it because they couldn't be assed, and wanted to know if they should go back? Honestly, I'd probably shrug and say they weren't missing much. You have a text input mechanic. Great. I'm sure that took a lot of effort on your part, but it was the only thing about your game that I felt impressed by, and it was over-used. Besides, impressive is not the same as 'fun.' :\

By contrast, Betaband's story was sinfully easy, damningly short, and does not even belong in the mystery/puzzles genre (though it still meets Seth's requirements, since a riddle / puzzle just needs to exist in the story) ... and I still found it way more likeable. Bucky is correct in that your goal is, ultimately, to entertain your readers.

Remarkably true, on all points.

Hmm... I seem to remember you telling me' "Just focus on yourself and making the best game you can make, and then it won't MATTER what anyone rates it, because you'll have a game you can and should be proud of."

I am proud of this game.

And I don't care if I didn't entertain you or Bucky or Quiller. I entertained myself by making it, I entertained my friends who tested it for me, and if you weren't  entertained, that's your problem. I believe my riddles are clever and very fun to make.

You seem awful defensive, for someone who doesn't care.

And you think me giving my opinion of your game (after you not-so-subtly insulted your reviewers) is me going back on that statement? Mizal has a point, you do sound defensive. You posted in a public place, you have to expect criticism, especially if you're going to enter a contest, because you specifically submitted it to be judged. If people are going to rate you poorly, at least one is going to say why. You don't have to take anyone's critiques to heart, obviously. I essentially said the important part was working hard and having fun, and it's true. Focusing on that, and ignoring negativity as a means of not getting too discouraged or to avoid feeling hurt is a good plan.  

It doesn't mean your critics are wrong, and insulting is not ignoring, lol. Constructive criticism is key to improving, but you didn't seem to have the skin for it back then because you gave up on quality entirely at one point. 

I fully expected criticism, but a good tip for you would be to learn how to effectively give constructive criticism. Just the way you go about telling me my game sucks, I dunno, you just came off as rude. You can criticize and still be respectful. Try watching this.

Weeellll...my original comment on the game, which is what I assume inspired this whole thing...may have been not quite as constructive as I usually try to be.

That was after I tried about 14 different answers that ranged from different words in the poem to combinations pieced together by skipping letters, reading parts backwards, et cetera, all to no avail over the course of half an hour, then got the endgame page that said "Did you truly interpret the puzzle, or did you just guess?" I was rather irritated, to put it mildly, and that probably came through in the tone of my comment.

So I apologize for that.

But Beardon - you can't expect everyone to put in the effort of writing up constructive, structured feedback, especially not when they didn't get to see all the work you put into the game, and when your game essentially just insulted their effort.

@Beardon87 , look at this shit. You just insulted the literal nicest person in existence. Seriously, you could stab this guy and he would apologize for not dying quickly enough.

XD & offer constructive criticism for future stabbings.

Quills, you have nothing to apologize for. Your comment was absolutely respectful enough. 

Eh. I'd say even then, but the very small amount of Asian blood in me might be from the snarkier side of Asia... :P

Right. Because I literally said "your game sucks" and then I'm sure I added a "trololol" and an appropriate text emoji.

You don't take respectful criticism well, either, and considering your comments toward your readers both in-game "did you just guess?" and out "I made this game for intellectuals, not (the people who played it, apparently)" I don't think you really have grounds to complain.

You did say this: "it was the only thing about your game that I felt impressed by, and it was over-used."

Your other statement may be true, and I may need to work  on that. However you don't seem to take criticism well either. I tried showing you a video on how to be better at criticism, but you just ignored it.

Quiller and Kiel's comments were both useful and perfectly respectful ones.  What are you even basing a complaint like 'Just the way you go about telling me my game sucks, I dunno, you just came off as rude' off of? Anyone can read the thread or click the game and see what was actually typed, and how what you're saying doesn't even apply, you realize?

But since your answer to both was to 1.) insult their intelligence for not 'getting' how great your game is and then 2.) condescendingly explain how they're giving feedback incorrectly, the impression I'm getting here is that the only way for readers to not get any grief over essentially doing you a favor is just to rate and move on without leaving any review or explanation at all.

Except you'd probably come to the forum and get upset about that too.

And I hate to break it to you, but even if the comments HAD just amounted to 'this sucks', you still wouldn't have any right to complain or tell people how they're supposed to give feedback. You put a story up, people read it and give their opinions. That's how it works. You're not entitled to certain kinds of comments only, and to insist you are is treading dangerously close to the territory of...yeah, the kind of thing those very special authors of that very special type of story that's not allowed here anymore would always do.

Oh this was amazing. Get absolutely fucking wrecked, Quiller. You make a polite and accurate criticism of the game, he criticises your criticism and tells you to stop being a dick. Jesus Beardon, he's politely criticising. If he had said you were a piece of shit who made terrible games, then your complaint would be accurate. But he's not, he's just criticising. Stop being so defensive.

You can be proud of your game and be open to criticism at the same time. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

There are clearly people who enjoyed your game, and if those are the people you were writing for, then great! Or if you were just writing this game for self-satisfaction, that's also great! You're all set, and you shouldn't let any negative feedback get you down.

But I'll be blunt. Writing for the sake of self-satisfaction is a beautiful idea, but most writers, myself included, crave praise. We don't always get praise. In fact, I remember a long period of time where the stuff I wrote got publicly mocked and ripped apart for being pretentious, overdramatic, cliche, and just plain bad. But processing that criticism, accepting that my writing had room to improve, and then putting some of the constructive suggestions into practice is how I (hopefully!) got better.

So ask yourself this: are you satisfied with the fact that you created a game you're happy with, no matter what anyone else says? Or do you want even more people to like your game and play it and have fun? Because if it's the second, then feedback is the best tool at your disposal for improvement, and you should never take it for granted, no matter how bitter it might be to swallow.

^ Well said.

Ugh. I hate this idea, that a game/story just needs to be something youre proud of. Thats not it. It also needs to be something good. Otherwise, keep it to yourself. If you made something for your friends, and don't care what others think of it, then dont share it with others. 

A good game isnt something youre proud of. It's something people like. You could be proud of your shit all you like, but it won't make your shit good shit. 

I agree, but I do wonder if the definitions of what is good on this site is changing, somehow I feel the overall ratings for games are deflated now compared to a few years ago, i.e. what would have been 7/8 then would probably be rated 6/8 overall now. Indeed, when was the most recent 7+/8 game published? 

I do wonder what the cause is - whether there are so many good games on the site now that new efforts are always being compared to Homo Perfectus or whatever the user's favourite game is, or if the recent slew of demos/unpolished games has caused the general readership to be more cynical. Of course, it's also quite possible that the best of CYS is firmly planted in the past and that no other story will ever match the 8/8 rating of 'Homo Perfectus 8'. 

The most recent... 5/23/15. I was curious. (And it was Will's game, Hunting the Ripper.) Everything new since then has topped out at 6, since I can't reasonably count myself republishing TOW once I'd completed it, as it was already a 7/8. I am not surprised if people are more cynical after the crap that's gone down here in recent memory. Hell, I wasn't exactly all sunshine and rainbows myself, but things are improving.

My definition of what's 'good' has always been a standalone one. If you're reading a book, it's good if it's well written and entertaining or thought provoking enough to keep you reading and enjoying it. The same goes for a story here, whether or not you're comparing it to any of the other stories.

I've noticed it too though when just randomly browsing the archives, that older stories, some of which have major flaws or are just poorly/lazily written do seem to average higher ratings in a way that wouldn't fly today. I don't know if I'd call us more cynical, but not wanting to give lower ratings to avoid hurting feelings or whatever may well be a thing of the past, and I think the community has less tolerance for lazy writing, lack of proof reading and all of that now. Which is a good thing IMO. If there's cynicism at all, it's in being so used to bad stories that we're willing to give out an extra star just for a story including things like 'proper punctuation', which in any other situation where we were reading a story would just be an expected and taken for granted thing.  I don't read reviews on Amazon that go 'excellent book, I appreciate that it didn't have a bunch of spelling errors' or whatever. It's the content and the plot, characters, etc. that are the focus.

Anyway, inflated ratings or not, the top stories here are still excellent by any standard, though it's true that 8s and even 7s seem rarer in stories today that IMO are just as good.

This is a really helpful post, now I feel confident that I have a greater than 0% chance of writing an amazing story for this site, and know what I need to work on for when I do write my next CYS story. Thanks!

HP8 has 8/8 for the same reason Kill Amans Mustache is a 7/8. No one who doent enjoy the game will reach the endgame link. 

I think that ratings will naturally go down simply because quality stories are no longer godly. Like, the Tower by 3J was a feathred story. Parplanic was a featured story. But now youve hot a bunch of really good  storygames coming out consistently and if you give lots of stories high ratings, youll feel that youre giving too many. So everything gets bumped down a notch. Like, I gave betas game a 4, even though Id usually give it a 5 last year, since there are more games that deserve fives, so Im naturally deflating my Numbers. Itso prolly a good thing

Yeah I guess ha ha

It's a decent display of scripting though~

Anything that manages text input is impressive on a technical level, yes. But designing the game to immediately end at a brick wall for anyone who doesn't guess the answer is a major misstep IMO; for most players the game is going to consist of two pages with no way to progress past them, so it doesn't matter at all how good or interesting the rest of them are.

If anyone here plays old school interactive fiction I'd compare it to a 'guess the verb' situation, only one that immediately kills the player with an air of vague condescension if they're not reading the author's mind. And then of course any players can come here to get more direct insults from the author himself. Really adds that personal touch.

Gues the verb is fun. Press 16 buttons that take forever to load an then get nothing isn't. XD

Yeah. 4letters is the max. Qnd even that I hate.

Just to clear something up, I never criticized quiller. It was trying to refer to Kiel Farren, and how he likes giving a lot of constructive criticism. I was just trying to help him improve with the video. Sorry to you, quiller.

However, I suppose I will make a better ending for you all. I suppose it is a bit mean to give no reward for it. I'll wait for the voting to be over first though, changing the story sounds against the rules. I know rhyming poems are much more fun, but due to the nature of the riddle, it simply won't work. Maybe if I emphasize a life or death scenario, people will become more interested.

And about the sixteen letter system... I need it to be long. Sorry but that's not gonna change. It took me to much effort to do that, and it would require me to completely redo the game if I made it shorter. 

One last thing:  Kiel Farren, did you beat my game with or without the walkthrough?

Dude, come on ... don't lie. Not when the proof is at the top of the very page you're doing it on, at least.

"I made my game for intellectuals, not for people who give up frustrated because they can't figure it out." <--- You criticized everyone who got frustrated and gave up on your game, implying they were less intelligent. Quiller was very clearly one of those people. And just 'cuz  you take my critiques more personally (in spite of saying you don't care) doesn't mean your ire is justified.

Don't worry about improving me when you've got enough of your own issues to work out. 

I have to laugh while replying to this, though. I originally thought maybe your in game question of "did you truly interpret it or were you just guessing?" was just you taking on a cocky narrator tone. With the benefit of the doubt, maybe even genuine curiosity. But you really don't think people on here can solve that thing, do you? Lol.

Roman numerals, poems, Latin, and typos as clues are not unique to your game, you know. Shocking though this may be, I actually played The Poem -before- you posted a walkthrough, but I held off rating or commenting on stories in the competition that I was on the fence about. I waited on a walkthrough to be sure I hadn't missed something important and evidently... nope. 

Did you at least watch  the video? I didn't lie, I wasn't directing that towards quiller.

If you're going to have a YouTube series to tell you how to handle social situations, there was also a video about taking criticism. 

I watched it, and it told me to make sure I respected the person giving it, sooooo... Just  kidding. I still have some respect for you due to your skills in writing, but I still don't really like you. If you didn't notice, I brought up a few points you made that I said I would fix. 

*shrug* ... Ok? Sure. I don't like you either, but then, I don't really know you and you don't really know me ... and that's totally irrelevant. It has nothing to do with how I review your work or whether or not I'll call you out on things like this.

(Technically, you brought up two you wouldn't fix, one you would, and you gave yourself a vague suggestion. Anyway, GL.)

I have a strong suspicion I won't be winning this contest...

I just summoned Albert Einstein to play your game, to test the general belief that he is an intellectual. I had to teach him how to use the computer, but being a genius and all, he got the hang of it very quickly. He says he's glad there wasn't something like that around in his time, as he liked being the only one who could work out everything. 

I'm pleased to report that he managed to solve all your riddles, however it was not so easy for him. He was tossing and turning at one point trying to figure out the answer to your hardest riddle. It only came to him when an apple fell on his head as he was gesticulating above a tree. 

He rates the story a 16/8, for what it's worth. When I asked for an explanation of the rating, he explained the story 'had a beauty beyond words...'.

PS He's also wondering what that thing is around the dog's neck in your avatar...

I forgot to mention, the poem itself was so intriguing...there were so many meanings that could be read from such a fascinating piece. I think the poem alone was a splendid example of model writing. I think it was so fantastic that you should write some of your forum posts in poem format. I'm sure they would provide great inspiration for those non-intellectuals.

If no one can figure out your riddle, that doesn't mean you're smart, or it's a good riddle.  Literally anybody can make a riddle that can't be solved.  

(The Poem isn't unsolvable by any means: anyone who plays cryptanalysis games would immediately see the solution.  It's just that anyone without much cryptography knowledge has no idea where to even begin.)

That people got frustrated and gave up doesn't show you made an elaborate riddle, it shows you made a riddle no one really cared about solving.  If it were in the middle of a story with characters, more people might have tried to figure it out, or if there were side puzzles that could be solved in order to get some sort of hints or clues.