However, I repeat: look at High Voltage Software. They are a classic case of a company the spews out a ton of licensed shovelware. All of it completely forgotten in the wake of one potentially good game that hasn’t even been released yet.

But i’d go as far to say DDI and these Dummy guys have no intrest at all in making a quality title, budget or not.

Perhaps this is the wrong attitude, but if a game is going to be bad, it might as well be cheap to make. No use putting effort into something that will get destroyed by both reviewers and sales charts, as expencive and bad is a much worse combination than cheap and bad.

But I’m no game designer, nor am I an expert. I just do too much research in my spare time. And from what I gather, I don’t actually expect Twelve to ever make a game I would be interested in. The only way I would ever be interested in twelve is if they were to do something similar to High Voltage, and at some point make a big budget, well polished title.

But buisness practices for “shovelware” is something I do not understand, as I have only kept up with the big titles, an exceptionally bad company (DDI), and another bad company that is making a very promising title (HVS).

And ninjabread man! when you get to the second last level the game just returns you to the title screen.

Although I am actually curious; does he think his creation, CID the Dummy, is better than Klonoa?

Unfortunately, as a consumer, I am inclined to buy the better game when no IP nor established license is present to mess up my perception. I’ve played klonoa, but I haven’t played CID the Dummy. If this game isn’t as good as Klonoa, it doesn’t really matter what the review score is, it still isn’t as good as the best possible option. It’s the reason why if you make an indie game, it can usually only be successful if it is unique, as a bigger budget leads to a better alternative.

However, if you really want to make money on a small budget, look into Data Design Interactive’s techniques. Your creations will be bashed just as badly and gamers will avoid your games at any cost, but you’ll turn a profit using their buisness model. Thus, you’ll have funds to eventually work on a bigger project and a better game. In the same manner as High Voltage Software.

The problems listed may not stand out as much to younger people, but they are still there, and they still hamper the experience.

If this was one of the games I first played back when I started gaming it would have turned me away from the hobby completly.

Summary: Kids deserve good quality games too.

I should add that budget doesn’t come into the equation. DarkZero has awarded some very high scores to independent and relatively unknown titles in the past. Last year Braid was awarded 10/10 and we were one of the first sites to sing its praises prior to release. Braid was also voted second in our Games of 2008 list. Other appropriate titles that spring to mind are Mr Robot (9/10, 2007) and Rolando (9/10, 2009).

The lives system is a terrible idea in a game aimed at children, especially ones who never grew up with classic 2D platformers. This game is much too hard for the age of child it appears to be aimed at. Again, it seems you ignored the fact that children can get frustrated even easier than adults. With their short attention spans, no child will have the patience to keep trying a level over and over again.

I HAD to play this game, and even then it was an effort to keep dragging myself back onto it. If a child has a choice between playing this game, or reading a book, watching TV, staring out of the window etc. there’s going to be no competition.

Maybe next time instead of trying to release your game on many platforms, you concentrate your budget on making a decent game on a single platform?

A small budget is no longer a good enough excuse for a terrible title, as so many small developers have proven it’s possible to make fantastic basic games. Maybe look into the downloadable market?

We intended to use no motion control but the publisher insisted we added a feature in order to do better with the critics and have a unique selling point. The response from internal testing was very positive and you’ll be hard pressed to find a better gun animation in a 2d game that we have programmed. We tried to go back to old school 2d platforming with faux 3d level design the lives system was benificial to that, the game was not marketed towards you but to children who never had a super nintendo or a sega console. Studies have shown 2d games are more appealing to children.

I understand Dark Zero’s edgy journalism style but this review was filled with pointless and childish metaphors about sex and violence.

A poor review.