The issues I have (in a nutshell - tl;dr):
- Repetitive mechanics
- No room for imagination, besides some perversion related to exploiting repetitive mechanics (e.g. lots of pigs, lots of gravestones, lots of X)
- Community consisting of people who like repetitive mechanics
- No end in sight
- No narrative structure whatsoever (besides the quite flat and elliptical "rook" narrative)
- You can actually DO EVERYTHING in the game (no tradeoffs)
- Gamification = BLECH
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What I like(d):
- Good graphics
- Complicated decision tree
- Side-quests at the beginning of the game
- Initially, most of the people I met were cool (now everyone I meet sucks)
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When I first signed up to play this game, I was intrigued by the fact that it was called "A game of giant imagination." After playing for a good number of hours, I was disappointed to find out that there was absolutely no imagination whatsoever involved in playing the game - that instead it consisted of a lot of long/complicated causal chains - e.g. Squeeze chickens -> Grind flour -> Make rolls -> Make sandwiches -> Eat sandwiches -> more energy -> mine -> grind ore -> etc. etc. etc. But the thing is, these chains are already laid out - there's no room for innovation. In fact, as far as actual gameplay is concered, there's no room to do pretty much anything that hasn't been plotted out for you.
I was initially excited by the game, however, as I played more, as I filled out my set of skills (now almost complete, despite my not having played the game for about a month), as I got all the stuff there was to get (besides meaningless items like cubinals, icons, etc.), I had this intense and growing feeling of: "what now?"
Seriously, what now?
Some people will answer: become part of the community.
Why would I become part of a community of people who are devoted to performing extremely repetitive tasks? What exactly is the lynchpin of the community, besides this? Presumably we can't find that big of a divide between the dynamics of the game and the people who play it, right? As in, the people who would be part of the community are precisely the people who actually like the mechanics, which I precisely do not like. Is there even a community?
Some people will respond: well, this game isn't for everyone.
Well, who is it for? Is it for people who like mindlessly clicking? Click click mine click click mine click click mine... (3 hours later) click click grind click click grind... (10 minutes later) click click create hallowed shrine powder (repeat all day).
I am also disappointed in the pervasive and obvious elements of "gamification" in glitch. Badges? Really? Quests which are of the form: "do X and Y and Z?" Really? Whose idea was that? Because that person needs to be fired. Gamification is soul-destroying. Gamification invites in the worst among us and rewards the basest of our values. Yay! I got a badge!!! Who cares?
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I will say that I'm in absolute AWE of what the team at Tiny Speck has been able to accomplish. In every dimension related to technical/design aspects of the game, it has been flawlessly executed. On top of that, the systems that constitute the game are well defined and rich.
However, what is missing from the game is the ability to make it matter to people who:
1.) Don't already have lots of friends who play the game
2.) Aren't interested in mindlessly clicking for hours for the ability to mindlessly click for hours in some other way
I guess I happen to be one of those people.
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I've been reading the forums for some time, and most of the feedback that I see is very positive - people excitedly pouring hours (days, weeks, ...) into doing extremely repetitive tasks (collecting hundreds of pigs, hundreds of pumpkins, etc.). I guess maybe it's the computer scientist in me, but I think repetitive tasks are for machines/computers, not humans. It's honestly BIZARRE to me that the feedback has been so positive. The game has good points, yeah, but where are the critiques? Does no one share this feeling of "what now?" that pervades the game?
I'm posting this because I expect there are a lot of people (like me) who don't like glitch, and don't like it for the right reasons. I'd love it if this game took a turn for the better, but in my mind this means that we need some dissenting voices, not just rampant fanboys who imported all of their cyber-friends into yet-another-chatroom.
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I am emboldened by Tiny Speck's decision to move the game back to Beta. Perhaps they saw active use drop off as everyone except for the least bore-able among us decided that it would be more fun to actually squeeze chickens and massage butterflies. I also like the fact that they're trying to take things in a direction in which we can actually use our imaginations.
However, I hope that the game doesn't just become another second life, or another minecraft, though admittedly that would be better than the pastel/bland/non-violent (though beautiful) WoW that it has become.