| Hey all! I'm starting threads to give feedback to all of the entrants to this year's CCN Speedgame contest. Everyone did some good things this year, and I wanted to make some threads to give encouraging comments and constructive criticism. This week, I'll be making threads for 3 games each day, so as to hopefully not bump all of the other discussions off of the main page, and give everyone some daily-focused-feedback on their games. Feedback is an important part of the CCN contest, and I hope that we can give a big "thanks!" to our entrants by letting them know how they did! I don't think everyone should necessarily give numbered ratings like I did -- just some words of feedback and encouragement would be fantastic. Light of God (by team Double Destruction: Kevin, Justin and Kwentin)
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Xian: 6 (I like the visual example of staying in the light, and it's a very poignant reminder of our own tendency to run headlong off a cliff into sin. I didn't quite get the connections to the preachers and angels)
Fun: 5 (Creative and unique game mechanic is fun to try, albeit a bit repetitive and difficult to control -- it's easy to get characters that walk back and forth on edge with no chance to get into the light)
Orig: 7 (Very original concept, with a creative game mechanic that I haven't seen elsewhere)
Gfx: 7 (VERY good use of effects, particularly with the lava and the sparkling circle of light -- top notch! The models were very nice -- were they original? If so, nicely done for two week's time)
Stab: 4 = Tried to play twice, but game crashed halfway through both times with a hard reboot of the system -- not good. Nice job on dual Mac/PC builds!) Summary:
A fast-paced action/strategy point-and-click where you guide people in their Christian walk. Herd the flock to keep them centered on the light of Christ and do what you can to keep them from falling to sin.
Feedback:
Hey guys! First off, welcome to the CCN competition, and congratulations on your entry! As anyone who has entered the speedgame can tell you, creating anything playable in just two weeks is a *big* job. Not only did you make a game, but you are one of the few 3d games, and that's a notable accomplishment in and of itself!
I liked how you guys created both Mac and PC builds of the game -- as a user of both, that was refreshing to me. 
I was able to get through about 20 saved, but had a hard time doing much better than that. Of the three times that I played it, two of them hard-crashed my system and caused it to reboot (eep!). I decided I didn't want to scandisk my machine any more than I had to, so I'm going to hold off trying to beat your game for now. Regardless, I had fun while playing it, especially in the early levels when I was able to manage the flock of people and keep them under better control. As they got faster and faster, it quickly degraded into me hopelessly seeking to keep a hold of just a few select believers until everyone was gone (it seems that they stop coming back after a while).
I found a few of the graphics to be beautiful -- particularly the light effects of the circle, and the flaming lava around the cliff. I could sit and watch that light shimmer for quite a while -- it was very nicely done. I don't know if you created those people or if they were taken from somewher else, but being able to create fully rigged, textured, and animated humanoids in a week or two is nothing to sneeze at.
I wasn't entirely sure about the connection to angels and preachers being a reward for saving souls, but I really liked some of the spiritual depth in the rest of the game. It was a really poignant reminder of our own tendency to want to run headlong off of a cliff into our sin, and the game was a very good (and memorably funny) way of reminding us of that. I also liked the visual example of the straight-and-narrow walk that tries to center itself in the light (as He is in the light) -- those were two very nice mental images that I got from the game and appreciated.
I also saw that you worked as a team of three people -- I know that it can be tough sometimes to coordinate multiple people all trying to work on the same thing with different ideas of how it should turn out, and I wanted to mention that I recognize how hard team management can be.
All told, while lacking a bit of polish, it's still a very good game and I'm very glad that you three entered. Thanks so much! We hope to see more of you (plural) on the Christian Coders Network.
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