[PC] Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony

[icycalm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk7UERiO3t4

The way they are pimping the multiplayer feature is a red flag that the game probably sucks scoring-wise. I.e., it shows that they haven't realized that co-op in the vast majority of Japanese STGs, and especially modern ones, is gratuitous -- a joke.

Another thing that's a huge red flag is their proud use of the term "indie", of course. And all the "old-school", etc. fagotry.

And finally simply the overall smarmishness of the trailer's text.

[icycalm]

And moreover the title recalls an adventure game or CRPG, and is completely inappropriate for an STG.

[zinger]

From watching the videos though, it seems like there's only one score counter on the screen, so I assume that it's shared between two or more players. This could indicate that they have indeed realized that co-op in Japanese STGs are a joke, and also why they are a joke. Not that I have any high hopes for the game (the graphics aren't exactly bad, but everything that doesn't look like it's been copied straight from Dodonpachi looks very amateurish, and the enemy attacks don't look particularly good or interesting either), but I've always been curious about how score systems that are designed with co-op in mind would work. There are a few examples of older Japanese STGs that have a unique approach to co-op modes (if I remember correctly, you could link your ships in various ways in S.T.G: Strike Gunner), but I definitely don't mind seeing developers exploring this further.

[Recap]

Side Arms was the one which invented the linkable ships, if I recall. It totally ruined the mode since only player 1 could control the resulting mecha.

A shooting game is not only about scoring, though. Co-op shooting games are "a joke" because both players meddle with each other's play due to the genre's nature. Not being able to control the scroll horizontally (in a vertically-scrolling game) and the enemies which you don't want to appear thanks to it, or not knowing if an enemy is aiming at you or at your partner, for instance, is just pretty bad for the experience. Not to mention the concentration-related issues. But only because the numbers up there aren't meaningful a game has necessarily to be for-the-laughs material.

[icycalm]

I think you meant "hasn't" in that last sentence.

But yeah, I said the two-player modes are a joke, not the games that use them. And of course the evaluation of the scoring system is usually a secondary consideration when evaluating a game, so a bad scoring system does not necessarily ruin a game. I never said nor implied otherwise. So the single-player mode of Jamestown might still turn out good, of course. But then there are the rest of the red flags, so I don't have any confidence in this game.

[Recap]

The reply was made for zinger, who indeed implied that co-op modes are generally ruined because of the scoring. He has a point, nevertheless, when thinking that Jamestown may have solved --or tried to solve-- this if the authors, for once, have considered multiplayer as something else than a protocolary addendum, given that, at least, there's one single score counter for this mode(s). Hardly they've overcome all the other previous and more important aspects since they don't seem to have much (any?) experience, but if they've at least tried, that's more you can say about most Japanese pieces.

The 'design' resolution they've used is utterly dumb, so I personally can't care enough to find out, anyway.