I want this to be an objective Review:
"Project Spark is a powerful, yet simple way to build and play your own worlds, stories and games." This bold, and opening statement laid out directly on the front of their website, I cannot agree with at all.
Powerful? - How so? With limitations such as 30fps; unusable metrics (that have to be purchased to be used) that don't present useful orI want this to be an objective Review:
"Project Spark is a powerful, yet simple way to build and play your own worlds, stories and games." This bold, and opening statement laid out directly on the front of their website, I cannot agree with at all.
Powerful? - How so? With limitations such as 30fps; unusable metrics (that have to be purchased to be used) that don't present useful or helpful info, just basic number counts; or the large set of brains, and characters that barely function and could easily be regarded to as lazy programming.
Simple? - Like the 1000 hours it takes to begin to understand how to Kode due to the complete lack of any sort of compendium of information regarding the language (unless you LOVE watching 10,000 hours of Youtube videos). With no one ever willing to help explain or lay out the aspects of what we don't see. Or how about the fact that every patch breaks something, and they don't tell you, they just hope you don't realize and as a result it's up to your best guess (or excellence with research) to know anything.
Games? - No, no one is making any games in Project Spark. That's never going to happen. And if it does, I have to say that person is a fool, or a paid fool. Neither of which anyone should aspire to be. A game is more than a few poorly programmed AI smacking a few other poorly programmed AI with absolutely no UI and over a dozen bugs at every corner. If you want to make games, please go learn what it takes to make a game. Please go learn actual programming languages. It will be easier, more rewarding, and your friends/family won't look at you as if you're just playing with some Children's Legos.
Project Spark was perhaps released a bit too soon. Considering Win8 isn't the most popular system, and with Win10 around the corner, I could even argue that it was a wise decision to release in October as they did, to encourage Win8 to further stomp out the issues to prepare for Win10. Or perhaps it was a result of desperation, it's difficult to tell since as we close in on February, a slew of game breaking issues have been fixed, but there still remains an enormous pile of simple tasks that have yet to even be touched. In my book, that suggests laziness. I hear excuses constantly "small team" "trying their best" well, I'm sorry, October to February, how long are we supposed to wait until Project Spark is actually released in any sort of manner that you continue to promise?
I'd have to say these people are obvious Amateurs. We as humans make mistakes on a daily basis, and a lot of the time we can't handle the reality that we messed up, or were lying. We continually try to justify every one of our actions with some kind of explanation. I don't care for that, I look for 1 thing, and 1 thing only, action. Action which I see very little from other than ONE Community Manager, SparkBrian. Who was only hired on near the end of 2014.
There is so much to slam this "game" for, but I only have 5000 characters max to express to you what I see.
Considering Project Sparks limitations (especially on PC), it still can't compete with the majority of top-end games out there, but it's not even in the same Category really, so we shouldn't be look at it that way. Compare it to game making Software like RPG Maker for instance, and it's a colossal step up, no doubt about that. And that's more of the category it fits in.
I wish Project Spark could've been more. It had promise, it had potential, but that's all clearly going to waste without me having to say anything. You can be delusional and pray for the best every day, or you can be realistic and realize there are much better things you can be spending your time on in a day, than Project Spark. If learning is your goal, learn something else, that's my advice. It will save you some regrets.
I've attempted to remain positive in this atmosphere for a long time (not an easy thing for me to do), and no where do I claim that I can do better than these people or what they're trying to do. I do however claim that I'm not dumb enough to try or pretend to.
What is Project Spark? A question 4 months I've been asking myself and still can't answer. It's not a game, it's not really a game making tool (since it's pretty haphazard, lacks a ton of basic tool functions, and provides no opportunity for anyone using it). The community managers struggle to keep the peace, but do so by squashing any doubt with baseless promises (he said she said), that and a lot of the community is young and lack knowledge.
If anything, Project Spark is a great example of "What not to do when creating a game" if there ever was one. As in, don't attempt to grab something outside of your reach without first taking whatever steps necessary to understand and know how to extend said reach.
If you have thousands of hours, PS has plenty of examples (and is itself one) of what not to do. That is what Project Spark has taught me.
Words of the Day:
Complacency and Delusion… Expand
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