Land sliders game of the year, lost socks: 4 star review. Toucharcade, where are you going? "Only the most hardcore gamers should play this ..." This is definitely one of the most awesome games ever, and the major ios gaming website is literally telling people not to buy it. Toucharcade, this is not the first time you are disappointing me, (hell no!), but it's the worst case for sure. IOS gamers, please don't get scared away! This game is made with so much love, and it's so much fun to play! And it's not too hard - it's just challenging. That's part of the game, and an important one at that. You need to memorize the whole level to free all three prisoners, and sometimes to get the gold star, but when you finally managed it, you'll open your window and let the world hear your "boooyaaa!!!". Yeah, you'll stuck sometimes, but wouldn't it be boring to just run through a game like this? While you progress you'll get new weapons, each with it's own skill and sound, that will help you to move on. Or to come back to get some particulary tricky gold star. I'm right in the middle of the game, and I have a nice feeling of progression, having all 4 stars until 2.4. And anyway, there is so much kaboom! dash! open the hidden passage! pew pew pew action, including slow motion sequences, making you feel like being in the middle of a hollywood blockbuster, that you will keep constantly grinning like a moron even when you die. Especially since you'll learn you'll make it eventually! I'm pretty sure it must be hell to sell a game for five bucks these days. In the german app store there are only three feedbacks at this time, two of them one star, complaining that the game is unplayable due to "too much buttons". The developers could have easily gone the f2p route, but they decided to do a full premium game, the thing we all want, reportedly. And hell yeah, they delivered premium! But instead giving them all the love we can gather, people get told not to buy it. I'm really sorry, but Are you friggin kidding me?! Anyway, I don't think these devs will do this mistake again, not least thanks to this "review". Well done. I'm definitely not a hardcore gamer, just a gamer, as in I love ios games, a thing I miss on this platform lately. But maybe you are bound to loose the fun when you do things as a job for years. In fact, while reading this I thought Carter probably had the same fun with this game I would have if I had to read all seven Harry Potters within three days, standing on a bus stop in the middle of new york. Please, please, please don't let this guy befool you! This game is pure awesomeness! Just get it, make sure you got your headphones on and have fun! And while still looking at you, toucharcade: THIS is a goty! ----------------------- These are the lines I wrote under the review of your game. I'm really sorry about the four stars and I can absolutely see that you are mad now. But please don't change anything. I confess I stuck at 1.7 for a while, but it was so cool when I finally did it. And yesterday I came back to 1.7 to get me all stars, and it was just purely fun. To me this game feels like you need to learn it better before you can progress, like you need to learn a person better before you can be real friends. A lot of games are hard in a way that I call futile. They are hard just to be hard, if that makes any sense for you. But this game isn't that kind. You just need to learn how to do it, and it's always fair and possible. In fact, that's one of the things that make this game so special. It wouldn't be the same if you made it easier. What I actually wanted to say: I love autorunner, I love platformer, I love comic style shooting games. I played Rayman Run and Shellrazer to death, and of course tried loads of other games. Thing is, good games are rare as hell. In shooting games you usually just go from left to right, say on a road. Boring within minutes. In platforming games the platforming is most often very badly done, even if the game has a simple and plain design. And then there are games that just do something stupidly wrong, like the endless respawning in A-Max. But even though this made me crazy, I downloaded and tried the game like five times, 'cause I wanted to run and jump and shoot in a good looking game so badly. To cut it short, there was always a hole in my gaming live, but now there is lost socks! Seriously, it's like I always waited for exact this very game! Please let me just tell you how much I admire the love you put in this game. The level design! All these switches and mechanics and hidden passages and eploding stuff. The weapons! The weapons!!! I mean, that's exactly what I'm talking about when I say "love"! The different things they can do and the sounds of it! The sounds! The graphics! The ... fkin everything!(Did I mention I love this game? ) Damn, I have a grin in my face every second I play this game, even when I make noises like whaaa! in the middle of the rampage. I'm still not sure about the way your combo system works, (looking at you, shuriken challenge ), but fuk it! This is one of the best games ever, not only on ios, and it's definitely a milestone in ios gaming history. So, again, please don't change anything! As for my part, I will buy this game for at least four friends of mine, and these of course will be five star ratings too. But please don't stop your awesome work! Please do not let the "review" of some bored party pooper spoil the fun you had and hopefully still have in making unbelievable great games. And please tell your whole team how much love for lost socks is out there! Keep going!
What a super mature attitude, personally attack someone because they don't share your opinion. Personally I think this is a 5 star game, I love it. But I (and every single person in this thread, I should add) are absolutely not the majority of the iOS gaming market. Sure, I can definitely appreciate trying and retrying a level until you finally nail it, and that great sense of satisfaction that brings. But the general mobile gaming audience will not have that level of patience. They also probably wouldn't buy the game in the first place since it costs money, but I digress. The point is that we are a website that targets all walks of mobile gamers. As incredible as the game's production values and everything are, it's not a great mobile game. It doesn't feel designed with mobile gaming in mind. And that's fine! There's an audience of people who straight up want gamey games, myself included. But it's a small slice of people. I think another good example of a game that's in the same boat is Heroes and Castles 2, which we also gave 4 stars. That is a top to bottom fantastic game, but not a fantastic mobile game, do you see what I mean? "It's an awesome game but you'll have to replay levels dozens of times and it's highly questionable you'll even make it past the first ten levels" is a massive caveat when recommending this game. The bottom line though is that Carter liked this game but thought the difficulty dampened his enjoyment, and that is reflected in his review text and in the score. Him feeling that way shouldn't and doesn't ruin your own enjoyment of the game if you feel differently. I'm also utterly confused on how a score of 4/5 or 80% is "literally telling people not to buy it."
Well, PG gave it a 7/10 for almost the same reasons. Yes, it's just one person's opinion. I guess it just sort of goes against a lot of people's opinions wanting more hardcore experiences on mobile. So when we get one, to read complaints in reviews saying it's too hard for a mobile game, kind of feels deflating to our "crowd." Yes, I can't say anything about Carter or PG's opinions because they are just that. If I were to review it, I would have given it a 5/5 with a warning that it isn't a typical casual mobile experience. Just my opinion. Maybe there needs to be a hardcore mobile gaming review site! Also, while a 4/5 is a good score, I think many of us see this as an iOS classic so that's where the bone of contention comes into play. I certainly hope this game still gets a spot on TA's GoTY list.
Not every mobile games has to have "the general mobile gaming audience" as its target audience. It's like criticizing that nice vegan restaurant for not offering meat because "most people will want to eat meat". There are enough mobile gamers that catering to niche audiences is a great option for indies. And liking super hard games is not even all that niche. I get that you disagree with all this, but I notice that Downwell was GOTY runner up and that was a super hardcore game, and unashamedly so. Out of the 130.000 people on the leaderboard, only about 3000 finished the game. I completely sucked at that game, I never even finished the first "world", my max combo is 11, and that still put me at the top 25% of the highest combo leaderboard. That, sadly, describes games like Downwell and Mos Speedrun 2 too. That was not what was literally telling people not to buy it. Saying "Only the most hardcore gamers should play this" was. By definition almost nobody will consider themselves to be among "the most hardcore gamers". Even people who like difficult games (like myself) do not. So, I did not buy the game based on that review. The quote didn't say that it was telling everybody not to buy it and it was definitely telling people like me not to buy the game.
I didn't say that they did? I agree? And don't think I ever said anything to that effect? Downwell is great! One of my all-time favorites. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything! Although, I will say that I don't really think comparing a randomly generated game that you play over and over because it's difficult is the same as playing a highly scripted game like Lost Socks over and over because it's difficult. I enjoy both but I have a far higher tolerance for the former. But really, they're two different types of games. Two of my favorite games! So did you buy it anyway, and do you like it? I honestly have no problem with a review saying only a very specific type of person should play a game. I do that all the time. Some people do not like super difficult games. Do you disagree that this game is super difficult if you've played it? If I was potentially thinking of buying this game and read a review of it, and it DIDN'T mention the difficulty, I'd be pretty pissed off. Carter liked the game a lot, but its difficulty made it "4 stars" fun for him. For other people, it's "5 stars" fun despite the difficulty, or even because of it. Still others would absolutely think it's "1 star" fun because they hate masochistic games like this, or Geometry Dash, or Super Meat Boy, or whatever. I don't understand everyone's problem with this! It doesn't diminish how much you like the game that someone else didn't like it as much.
Well, The reason of why this discussion is taking place is very simple. Reviews are considered to be impersonal(since they are giving an absolute rating) and they try to be so. But let's face it, they are subjective. And it is totaly okay. Everyone should have their own opinion and everyone agrees at this point. But when we go from saying this opinion through words "This game looks fantastic and it is really hard" to judgements "this game looks fantastic(it's good) and is really hard(it's bad)", that's the point where everything goes wrong. The thing is that the part of "looking fantastic" is more or less a common oppinion in terms of our game. But the part of thinking about hardcore as something unpleasant is equal to saying "every player is a casual player". So this review is targeted to casual players only. And therefore please don't expect from midcore and hardcore players to be satisfied by it. Although I personally think that's it totally ok to get a 4/5. I'm only sad because the reason of this rating was our target audience. You wouldn't give dark souls a 4 because of it's hardcority, right? It's a fantastic game targeted to VERY hardcore players.
I got the impression that your argument was that TA reviews games with a general audience in mind, and that if a game does not appeal to a general very wide audience, then it's not a great mobile game and it will not get a perfect rating. I noticed that games like Downwell got great reviews and lots of praise, despite not being made for a general audience of mobile gamers either. But I see that I probably misunderstood your point. I agree with that, you're right, they're not comparable. But Mos Speedrun 2 is also not random, and you have (well, I had) to replay the same level over and over and over. But then again, I didn't mean this as a gotcha, and I recognize in myself too that sometimes I stick with a hard game and sometimes I don't, and it can be hard to put a finger on why. No I didn't. I'm really not the most hardcore of gamers so I'm not the target audience for this game and that's okay. I'm glad the review warned me about the difficulty. Generally, if even professional game reviewers say a game is too hard, I know to stay clear. But I was intrigued enough to check out the thread and a bit surprised about the discussion here. I think it's great that so many people are passionate about a game. I much rather have a lively discussion, even if people are disagreeing, than apathy and no discussion at all. It's always depressing when one of your favourite games ever gets ignored. So, to get away from the meta-discussion, I did notice that the game description said that the game is for hardcore players and casual players alike. I wonder if the devs (or maybe other players) have any opinions on that? The thing that made me pause most was that the review said that you have to basically master the game, that just finishing levels is not enough. That seems at odds with the description that says that casual gamers will enjoy it.
Hey there! If you search through this thread back, you can find that some reviews from players that are not considered to be hardcore, they are more likely to be just average players. It is harder for casual players TO START the game and to get to the point when they start liking it(bacause it's harder for them to learn), but our game rewards player for being bad. He recieves more money than pro gamer would have. And therefore he upgrades his weapons earlier and it's easier for him to play further. But if you are still to scared, please keep an eye on our game. We are going to release a major patch which includes some adjustments to make this game easier. Although hardcore gamers will still be delighted. There is a task system, which is designed to entertain them, but it isn't very popular now
One thing that I think will become apparent if you read TA for a while is that it's NOT a monolithic review generating machine where all reviews have the same criteria and point of view. Rather, it's a collection of individual reviewers who each have their own preferences, biases, gaming abilities, and writing styles. Some reviewers' tastes might happen to coincide more with more mainstream iOS gamer tastes, and other reviewers might have more niche tastes, and that will be reflected in their reviews. Once you've been reading TA for a while you get to know different reviewers' biases and interpret their reviews accordingly. Personally I wouldn't want it any other way. I do appreciate it when reviewers attempt to look beyond their own reactions and make some attempt to evaluate a game objectively, but most of all when i read a review I want to know how the reviewer felt about it. Case in point. If you've read Dotson's reviews for a while, you'll know that he pretty regularly criticizes games for being too hard or frustrating, including games which a lot of TA readers think are great. He just seems to not enjoy certain kinds of difficult games as much as some people. I think that assuming he's an especially skilled gamer just because he writes for TA is a mistake. This is a case of what I mentioned above, where you just need to get to know the reviewers. It means something different if Carter Dotson says a game was too difficult compared to if Shaun Musgrave says it. If you read through this thread, you'll see that a number of posters have said they don't consider themselves especially hardcore gamers and they didn't find this game especially frustrating. Personally, I'm not done with the game, but so far I find it hard, but not nearly as frustratingly hard as say Wayward Souls.
Well, that's a pretty nice point of view on the problem. I like the idea that readers should be acquainted with reviewer's personality. And thank you for telling what you think about Dotson's reviews. In fact I think it would be nice to have a small review about each reviewer on TA
Our reviews aren't targeted at anyone in particular. That was simply Carter's opinion of the game. Nobody is saying that there aren't people out there who will find the difficulty as a positive thing, in fact he says it right in his review. For him the difficulty just wasn't as enjoyable as others have found it. That's all! No, what I meant was that everyone seems to be saying that this game getting 5 stars was a foregone conclusion, and the fact that it didn't meant that something was wrong. It really just came down to Carter, who isn't a casual gamer by any means, thinking the difficulty put a damper on some of the fun. Not all of it, but some of it. There's no math equation to assigning a rating to a game, I think the same exact review text could have supported a 4.5 or even a 3.5, it just kind of depends. I think people put far too much stock into the number of stars rather than the tone of the review, which is why my #1 wish in life would be to stop having ratings altogether, but we sort of can't do that. Yeah I'm the same. I have to be in the right mood to pound a Mos Speedrun level against my head over and over, but I absolutely love that game all the same. I also think it's awesome that it's a nice, challenging game to simply complete, but not necessarily "speedrun" complete. That option remains for those who want it but others can find enjoyment just beating the game at all. I 100% agree with everything you say here. It can be frustrating when people get all bent out of shape about a review score, but it definitely shows how passionate people can be about games the enjoy and it more often than not does lead to an interesting discussion. As for you getting this game, that's tough. I followed the Mos Speedrun 2 thread so I remember you being hesitant about that one too, and then followed along as you sort of fell in love with it I absolutely think something similar can happen with this game, but like you said before sometimes a game grabs you and sometimes it doesn't, and it's hard to pinpoint why. I mean, in the grand scheme of things? It's just five bucks and it's most definitely a high quality game, and I think you'd get your money's worth of enjoyment after just the opening cinematic. But yeah I think a big problem with this game is you're sort of stuck with having to 3 star levels you've already completed before moving onto the harder stages in the game. Ideally a game should be beatable without having to 3 star everything, and then those 3 star goals are there for the more hardcore to go back and work on 100%'ing. However, I also feel like that fairly strict demand forces you to improve your actual skills in this game, which is essential for later levels. So I wouldn't necessarily call it imbalanced, though it sort of feels like it. Anyway, if you pick it up, of course let us know what you think This is what I was trying to get at, but said far better than I could have. Thanks. Eh I take exception to this. Carter is great at games, and plays a ton of games everyday. We all do, I wouldn't say any of us are "bad" at games, and that's one of those super weak arguments I see thrown around often with games like this. "You just suck at games so you didn't like it!" Gaming skill really has very little to do with your palatability of super hardcore difficulty, IMO. ---- Sorry to derail this thread so hard with all this talk, but I do think it's a nice discussion to have
I think you may have misinterpreted my intent, though in retrospect I can see how my statement could be taken the wrong way. I didn’t mean that as a dig at Carter, or to imply that he’s “bad” at games, or to try to use that as an argument to discredit his review. I was simply responding to the statement by the person I was replying to saying “if even professional game reviewers say a game is too hard, I know to stay clear.” The implication there seemed to be that Carter is especially skilled compared to average gamers, so if it’s hard for Carter, it must be really hard for normal people. My point was simply that the fact that Carter gets paid to write reviews doesn’t mean he’s better at playing games than any other avid gamer who doesn’t get paid to write reviews. I’ve read several reviews now from Carter where he found a game to be frustratingly hard in a not fun way, and when I tried the game I didn’t find it frustrating like he did. I don’t think that makes him a bad reviewer or bad gamer. It’s just a piece of information I use to calibrate my understanding of his reviews. I now know that if Carter says a game was frustratingly hard, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to find it so. There are similar filters I apply to all the reviewers on TA, since my own tastes and abilities don’t completely align with any of them.
Nerf Team Respect Carter,TA We will correct all defects we believe that well-deserved 4 stars P.S Respect TA Team
You don't have to excuse yourself, it is a really interresting discussion. And I personally think that it is dirctly realted to our game. We have understood that trying to bring console-style game (which I think Lost Socks is. At least I love playing it on my TV) to mobile world IS an action that will face some troubles and arguments. Especially when the game is made by unknown company (I'm not criticizing reviewers. It's always easier to get a 5-star with a known title) So this discussion is defenitely something i wouldn't like to miss. We defenitely can learn something here.
