Engine features - genre & topic combination

[Mig1985]

Is there any relevance between the features you implement and the genre / topic?

What I mean is like Character Development and branching Stories are more important for RPG´s and Adventure games then they are for Simulations.
Is this considered in the review?

Maybe its not called RPG and Adventure in MGT2 its been a while since I played, but Im thinking about giving it a shot again.

[Kyouko Tsukino]

Both the short and long answer to this is: No.

However, you're thinking about Gameplay features, as engine features are divided in graphics, sound, AI and physics.

Gameplay features have two functions: The most important is giving stat points to your game, and the second is to fill a hidden (but easily guessable) "counter" on how many gameplay features you have versus how many gameplay features you should have compared to your game's size. The best bet is to include as many gameplay features you can, within those that give you the most points, and disregard any feelings of what would "realistically" be needed. This game is very selectively realistic, and that's fine by me. Way too many years of magical girls/boys shows and "fun before realism" games to start caring about it now.

And yes, those genres are called what they should be called, and the game has a distinct lake of fake genres compared to other games of it's type. No "PUBG is a genre LOL!" dumbness going on in MGT2, thankfully.

Edit: Reviews are based on these things (not in order of importance.)

1- Sub-genre. Non-fitting ones decrease review score. Not having one will also decrease review score past a certain point (somewhere between 1980 and 1990.)
2- Topics. Non-fitting ones (for the main genre) decrease review score. Not having a sub-topic does the same as sub-genres.
3- Engine features. The more recent they are, the better
4- Gameplay features. The more you have, and the more stats they add, the better.
5- How many stat points you have for each of the four stats of your game (Gameplay, Graphics, Sound, Tech/Control) compared to a hidden value that increases every year, and which seems to be (I'm almost entirely sure they are) different from genre to genre.

And, of course, there's a random factor added in, because modern developers love randomness. In fact, you cannot get 100% review scores by your own effort, just 98%. The last two percent of a review is left to randomness.

[Mig1985]

thats the disappointing answer I was expecting....
Thx though

[Admod, the Equivocal]

Originally posted by Kyouko Tsukino:

And, of course, there's a random factor added in, because modern developers love randomness. In fact, you cannot get 100% review scores by your own effort, just 98%. The last two percent of a review is left to randomness.

Nah. The last 2 percent are those players that refuse to enjoy things that are popular. Those contrarians in society that just refuse to like something because everyone else likes it.

Think of the review scores as metacritic.

[Kyouko Tsukino]

No idea what Metacritic is like, since I haven't really cared for "professional" reviewers since the mid-nineties.

But that 2% being "those players" makes zero sense, since the reviews are done in-universe by a magazine, like in the old days of gaming.

Heck, the marketing option that can give up to 3% extra review rating should be able to let you hit 100%, since that's how "10/10" reviews 'used to' work, game developers (or publishers) paid the reviewer a "little extra" for a perfect score.

However, that two percent could be blamed on those gamers who are enamored with the idiotic nonsense of "randomness equals difficulty." They're almost as bad as "realism before fun" gamers. Almost.

[Floydy]

So the marketing 3% doesn't bridge the gap from 98% to 100%?

I havent perfected my game enough yet to get above 96% (been enjoying my first full 'blind' run through with a lot of mistakes made early on!) so assumed the marketing trick had been added to cross this last gulf?

[Kyouko Tsukino]

Unfortunately, the developer is someone who apparently believes leaving things to random chance makes a game harder, or that people feels better about getting lucky than about earning things the right way.

[The Met4l God]

I got a 100% rated game once or twice playing on Normal difficulty. It is possible, but I think everything has to be right. I have read some people's comments about how the development points generated when working on the game needs to align with the major design focus percentages. The green gameplay features are mandatory whereas the yellow features can be used to add development points and/or justify making a larger size game.

One thing I suspect also is that your game is judged against other games being released. My reasoning for this is that when I play multiplayer with my friend, he struggles to get over 70% if they we make the same-ish game while I get 90%+.

I also don't know how applicable this is to outside of Legendary difficulty, but your experience level with everything also has an impact. A game made with a bunch of 0 star components and features will always perform worse than a game made with 5 star components and features.