Some Constructive Criticism for Luc Bernard

Filed in archive News on March 26, 2008

Luc-Bernard is the developer of "Eternity's Child," a WiiWare game that has received much attention due to its outstanding 2D art and the developer's iconoclastic interviews with the blogosphere. It also has outstanding music- a colleague of mine from my freelance music days, Sean Beeson, has wrote an extremely rich orchestral score for the game (it may well stand out as the best music for any WiiWare game in 2008).

However, a gameplay clip has the internets buzzing, so before we go any further, let's look at the clip:



Online Videos by Veoh.com

My impressions? Wonderful art, animation that makes sense *if* you understand that game's concept, and empty gameplay. The controversy surrounds the repeated jumping upon platforms that seem to go nowhere.

I'm not cynical so I just chalked it up to an early gameplay vid. Obviously all games in development, even the very best ones, are going to look like this before the developer has had a chance to implement the design. After all, the 2D game I'm working on now would look absolutely stupid if I put up a gameplay video of it today.

Yet the internet crowd isn't like me. They just aren't reasonable. So lots of people have popped up on blogs ripping the game. What makes a small WiiWare project like this different, however, is that sometimes it is one guy- and that one guy reads and responds to blogs! And Luc responded in nintendowiifanboy in this manner (from the comments):

"ahem guys, don't do so much random hate, unlike other wiiware games I don't have funding

so instead of well just random hating behind your keyboards, as you see well I listen to smart critics not childish stuff, and it's in progress and this is the first level

plus the animation is supposed to be like that, it's a storybook came to life...

anyway now I see why other devs don't bother listening to players if your reaction is this bad

I mean seriously what were you guys expected? this is a wiiware game"

So I guess what the takeaway from this quote is: I take criticism seriously, but not childish internet ranting. Fair enough. Allow me to offer my analysis, then:

First let me say that I feel your pain. Internet people (that is, the general teeming masses, though all my commentors here are wonderful!) can be rather idiotic. And they jumped all over you. I personally felt that the video was basically fine; I took it to be a short demo of the character moving about, it didn't personally bother me that no real gameplay was present yet. I trust that this is being implemented as I write.

So the game looks wonderful, and clearly has amazing potential to be a standout WiiWare game. However, it is important that the public does not perceive that this is a case of a talented artist making a beautiful game with no design. That has been the general "worry" over Eternity's Child since inception, and releasing a video like this pours gas on the fire. It wasn't a good decision to release this video. At the very least, the same level could have been presented in a video without the "bumbling and stumbling," maybe featuring the player character smoothly getting to the river.

It's the backtracking and falling off platforms that seems to draw the most ire. So the quickest fix is to recut the video without that. However, it is probably better to wait until more gameplay is implemented. As much as it is tempting to release stuff to stoke interest, one probably doesn't want to show things that are incomplete to the point of making the game look worse than it probably is.

Finally, I would definitely stay away from any comments such as "this is just a WiiWare game." It is important to present the image of a developer striving for the very best of the platform, as opposed to playing it off as if the platform is an excuse for something being unfinished.

Hat Tip to Nintendowiifanboy.com