Project Spark

 Xbox One
User Score
6.9

Mixed or average reviews- based on 161 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 93 out of 161
  2. Mixed: 31 out of 161
  3. Negative: 37 out of 161
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  1. Cyan
    Oct 7, 2014
    6
    A really cool platform that is gorgeous to look and and with so many possibilitys it makes my head spin.

    It is a fFantastic tool that i would particularly recommend to children, however there are still painfully bad framerate issues that persist everywhere. Not just in usermade levels, but in the levels made by Team Dakota themselves and even in the games menus. It frequently drops down    A really cool platform that is gorgeous to look and and with so many possibilitys it makes my head spin.

    It is a fFantastic tool that i would particularly recommend to children, however there are still painfully bad framerate issues that persist everywhere. Not just in usermade levels, but in the levels made by Team Dakota themselves and even in the games menus. It frequently drops down to single digits and is really immersion breaking.

    Also, items are locked behind levels. For creators this is infuriating. I want to buy the lightning effect. I have enough credits for it, but i cant because im only level 6 and its locked to level 20 - For no good reason at all.

    Telling us we can create whatever we want and then locking it behind some kind of arbitrary leveling system is just ridiculous. Levelups have no place in a creation engine.

    It is also still rather difficult to look through the games and existing levels.

    These issues keep it from getting a higher score. It is however free, and has lots of potential to get better in the future. Keep an eye on it.    … Expand
  2. Kawooster
    Jan 18, 2015
    6
    To be honest, I didn't even know the game had come out until I was browsing in store. Not to mention, I wouldn't of thought that the xbox one edition would receive a physical copy.

    Since there isn't really an in depth user review, I thought I would do it so people know the ups and downs. I did not expect much of this game, and I was actually quite blown away. But be warned, it's a    To be honest, I didn't even know the game had come out until I was browsing in store. Not to mention, I wouldn't of thought that the xbox one edition would receive a physical copy.

    Since there isn't really an in depth user review, I thought I would do it so people know the ups and downs.

    I did not expect much of this game, and I was actually quite blown away. But be warned, it's a very steep learning curve, and if you don't have the time nor patience, then you won't be enjoying this game to the fullest.

    I'll start with what's great and work towards what's not. To start off, the graphics are very nice, it has a few frame rate issues, but you can't deny it's beauty. The tutorial is very informative, so there is no need to worry about having to figure out everything on your own. The tools are very powerful, it includes shaping tools, so you can shape the land to what ever you desire (once you figure out how to use it to its full extent.) You will find yourself spending many hours figuring out what game you want to make and how you are going to approach it. The "programming" part has a lot of options, and you can make different things do all sorts of stuff. There is an option to create with a little help from "Pre-programmed" material, which is what I used often and would change a couple of things to my liking. Searching through community built games is fun, and it's exciting to try out people's games and it helps you know what things you could eventually do. There is I'm sure other great things the game offers, but for now I would like to move onto the not so good.

    To start, I would like to mention, that this is all from personal opinion and having played the game for at least 30+ hours.

    The one thing that annoyed me, was the developers of this "game" or building "tool" which ever way you see it. Made it out to be this revolutionary thing, which you could create and make any game you want. Which is completely not true, at all! It is still very limited, you definitely won't be seeing the next big game come from this. Which brings me to my next point. The controls are very awkward and can get extremely annoying from time to time, making it difficult to do things you want.

    The world is nothing too exciting either. At first glance it feels like you have a lot to play around with. But the more you build, the more you will start to realize, the land you have runs out very quick. They tried to make the "programming" part easy, in game it's called the brain. I couldn't help to scratch my head that they decided to go down that path. I could think of better ways to do it, just off the top of my head.

    Finally this brings me to what I thought was the main down side. Everything "good" and I mean literally everything, is locked behind a pay wall. Sure you can level up and unlock this stuff, but it takes a very, and I mean a very long time to reach that. By then you'll be giving up and buying it with your hard earned cash. If I'm paying for a game, I would like to be able to experience at least almost the full thing. more than half the stuff is locked behind a pay wall.

    After playing this game for 30+ hours it doesn't feel like it's as powerful as the developers made it out to be. I remember playing forge on Halo Reach, and that felt more powerful than this, not to mention the land was much bigger. And, that was only a bonus you get with purchasing the full game.

    With that aside, I did enjoy this game and still do enjoy it at times. If there wasn't so much of the game locked behind a pay wall, it could very well be an 8/10. But for me I have to give it a 6. Thanks for reading my review.    … Expand
  3. Visko
    Jan 24, 2015
    5
    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 or    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 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
  4. subsided
    Oct 7, 2014
    5
    This is a pretty bad game :(...if you can even call it that...no doubt just a massive $$$ investment in the long run to purchase new items, etc. I guess a positive is that it is technically free so everyone may as well try it....It's not like my Xbox One is getting any games in the first half of 2015 and i'm not a racing fan so I guess this will have to occupy my time until i get a PS4.
  5. CaptainFalcon
    Nov 16, 2014
    7
    Good gameplay and a cool art style, different characters, make your own story but you need to buy some many different things. Buy characters, minions, enemies, environments, time of day, buildings and in the story, you need to buy the second mission.

    I would love this game if it was a free to play, pay to win but not free to play for the first mission, then pay to play.
  6. LoseCryBlame
    Mar 16, 2015
    5
    I was looking for a way to introduce coding concepts to my kids but this title ended up being less intuitive than teaching them from a text editor. This game has a good amount of free drag&drop props and playable characters but it seems to be directing you toward in game purchases from the marketplace. The problem I see with paying for more usable content is you cannot do much with yourI was looking for a way to introduce coding concepts to my kids but this title ended up being less intuitive than teaching them from a text editor. This game has a good amount of free drag&drop props and playable characters but it seems to be directing you toward in game purchases from the marketplace. The problem I see with paying for more usable content is you cannot do much with your finished project. If you take a lot of time and create a rich game in Spark, say spending significant money on new prop objects and characters, you have no chance to reclaim your investment. Hopefully some of what you learn while playing Project Spark will be transferable to real game design.

    If you want to make video games I would say the learning curve for Project Spark is about equal to that of most free game engines available on PC/MAC. If you have a personal computer I would recommend looking into Unity3d instead. Purchases made from their marketplace are yours to use in your own sell-able games. Even if you are making a free game just for fun, you will still be able to share it with more folks than those who play Project Spark.    … Expand
  7. Watty9923
    Apr 7, 2015
    7
    I originally gave the beta of this a 3. But I have played the full version now after 10 month hiatus and I am impressed. There is a lot of content in this game. You can just jump in and play others or team Dakotas creations or you can tackle the level editor which has a fairly steep learning curve but it's intuitive once you get used to it. I look forward to seeing this game improve evenI originally gave the beta of this a 3. But I have played the full version now after 10 month hiatus and I am impressed. There is a lot of content in this game. You can just jump in and play others or team Dakotas creations or you can tackle the level editor which has a fairly steep learning curve but it's intuitive once you get used to it. I look forward to seeing this game improve even more over time. I would score higher if it costs money upfront instead of paying for everything in game.… Expand
  8. Jellyfish-Games
    Aug 12, 2015
    5
    This game is really fun at first but the extremely long and boring intro can get in the way of the fun. Not only that, it is very difficult to earn silver in order to unlock more creative options for the game. I resorted to purchasing gold which is overpriced. Even then, I could barely afford to buy something. After a few days I was just burnt out on it.
  9. JustAr3v13w3r
    Aug 17, 2015
    6
    One of the few games that can live up to its potential... That's if you can get past the massive paywall, The first 24 hours will likely be spent paying hundreds of dollars on Tokens so you can buy SOME of the DLCs, there are a ton of DLC, some are really small and ask for 1000 Tokens ($12), and this was like this since early beta!? Also, it takes you a bit to learn how to make an advancedOne of the few games that can live up to its potential... That's if you can get past the massive paywall, The first 24 hours will likely be spent paying hundreds of dollars on Tokens so you can buy SOME of the DLCs, there are a ton of DLC, some are really small and ask for 1000 Tokens ($12), and this was like this since early beta!? Also, it takes you a bit to learn how to make an advanced game, but when you do manage to get all the DLC, learn how to build games, you will have a fun time. This game does have multiplayer, for creating games, and playing games (if programmed), if you want to create a game over multiplayer, make sure he or her is as good as you, or you will have a hard time. But the multiplayer on games is fun! Also the episodic adventures can be summed up in one word... Boring. Even Conker's Big Reunion is boring, your only collecting these bundles of cash called Fajos, and the sequences you do to get them are boring and slow and bland, not as exciting as Conker's Bad Fur Day was. The only thing that's defining is the games you can create, it feels like Kodu… Expand
  10. storygamer
    Sep 4, 2020
    7
    Project Spark is a very unique game. It gives the player the choice to be the creator of his or her very own game experience. Innovative and fresh you think? And here come the micro-transactions. The whole freedom is spoiled thanks to greed. It could have been a high class game...sad!
  11. ZackH25
    Mar 28, 2023
    7
    This game had so much potential. The first time I played this game it certainly impressed me. The first mode I played was essentially designing your own campaign/ story ie. you can choose whether your story will be set in a desert and what character you want and what are the villains in the story. It was very fun at the time. Also other people made some quite fun worlds, so there was lotsThis game had so much potential. The first time I played this game it certainly impressed me. The first mode I played was essentially designing your own campaign/ story ie. you can choose whether your story will be set in a desert and what character you want and what are the villains in the story. It was very fun at the time. Also other people made some quite fun worlds, so there was lots of stuff to do on it. However this game handles its business poorly, a lot of the content is behind a pay wall and instead of giving you stories it should have expanded on making you create your own stories as it was such as great part. Also they should of made this a paid game rather than a free game as no one would buy the paid content. Therefore since it was making no money it was unsupported by the developers and went downhill quite fast. Overall good game but could have been a great game.… Expand

Awards & Rankings

45
#45 Best Xbox One Game of 2014
34
#34 Most Discussed Xbox One Game of 2014
28
#28 Most Shared Xbox One Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
73

Mixed or average reviews - based on 26 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 26
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 26
  3. Negative: 0 out of 26
  1. Games Master UK
    Dec 21, 2014
    78
    A creative and inventive bag of tricks with plenty to keep you occupied despite its limitations. [Christmas 2014, p.70]
  2. Gaming Nexus
    Dec 18, 2014
    80
    Project Spark won't have you churning out incredible games like a development powerhouse. It will, however, provide you an accessible set of tools and assets to begin the process of bringing your dream games to life. This won't happen overnight, so plan on spending a lot of time here if you are ever going to make something memorable.
    Read full review
  3. X-ONE Magazine UK
    Dec 2, 2014
    50
    Project Spark's good intentions are undermined by mechanical and economic shortcomings. [Issue#118, p.68]
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