Talk:Flow (video game)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: J Milburn (talk) 01:58, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Gonna take a first quick look now-

• "flOw" Perhaps bold that too?

• Bolded. --PresN 10:33, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• "microorganism" or "micro-organism"?

• Microorganism. Fixed. --PresN 10:33, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• "creatures of different sizes; as the player's creature approaches it automatically attempts to devour these creatures.[2] The majority of these creatures" repetition of "creatures"

• There's basically no good synonyms for creature, but fixed nonetheless. --PresN 10:33, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• "Planes may also contain aggressive, multi-segmented creatures as well," redundancy

• Very much so, fixed. --PresN 10:33, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• "The snake creature gained the ability to move faster, while the jellyfish" These are referring to the player characters, I assume?

• Yes, tried to clarify a bit. --PresN 10:33, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• "The creature type could now be selected at will" Odd phrase, odd tense

• I've noticed recently that I really seem to like to use these backwards sentence constructions. Fixed. --PresN 10:33, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• "where a person doing an activity fully immerses themselves in a feeling of energized focus" Clunky phrase, and it's not clear what it means?

• Tried to clean up. I think it makes sense now; it's basically being "in the zone". --PresN 10:33, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• "PSP version of the game took a different view" Comma after "game"

• That may be the first time a reviewer has told me to add a comma rather then remove them. Fixed. --PresN 10:33, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• Refs 11 and 18 need italics

• Right, fixed. --PresN 10:33, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• The rationale on the screenshot could do with tightening up a bit.

• I can't even blame the uploader in this case. Tried to work it up a bit.

• Some of the categories seem a little redundant to one another?

• Mmm, a bit. Pulled some of them. --PresN 10:33, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

This is a really nice looking article. The prose is generally good, the sourcing's great and all the questions are answered. I'll take another look through once you've smoothed over those little issues. Are you going to be aiming at FAC with this one? J Milburn (talk) 02:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• I can't believe there's already a review here; I was just coming here to give it one myself. Anyway, I agree with J Milburn that you've done an impressive job. I really appreciate your work improving thatgamecompany-related articles, as I find the group fascinating. I assume that you're shooting for a Good or Featured Topic; if you're ever looking for a copyeditor to help you get one of them featured, drop me a line. With that, though, I'll get out of the way of this review. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 04:01, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Replied to JimmyBlackwing on his talk page, but to J Milburn- yes, I was definitely planning on taking this to FAC. Thanks for the review on this, I'll get right on those concerns and reply in-line. Double thanks, actually- your comments last year on the Flower GAN about taking that to FAC are what gave me the confidence to take whatever I want to FAC, which lead directly to my current thatgamecompany project. --PresN 10:12, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Done, comments are in-line as stated. --PresN 10:33, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I do honestly think this is ready for GA status now, but I'll add some more thoughts in view of the FAC push.

• "in a given plane the player can see a blurred version of the plane below" Not the smoothest phrase

Done.

• In the playstation version, do you have to run through the game several times before you have unlocked all the creatures? It's not particularly clear

Done.

• "could now cause a vortex that sucks in small creatures. The player could now" repetition

Done.

• The moving up and down planes thing is unclear- is this done at will, or is it down to when you eat the certain things? Do they follow you around? Easy to find? See what I'm getting at here?

Done.

• "which Chen believes his DDA theory gives the player so that they can reach that state while playing" rephrase? It makes sense, it just doesn't read that well

Done.

• "Flow received 100,000 downloads in its first two weeks," this is the first two weeks on the PlayStation Network, presumably? Presumably PS3 only?

Done.

• As you did with Flower, I'm wondering if there's any chance of a section on the music? By no means essential, but it's something to think about?

Nope, as much as I love music sections/articles there just weren't any sources; Wintory didn't have long interviews with Gamasutra like Diamante did. I'll look around again though.

• Is the Game Audio Network League worth a redlink?

I've been meaning to write an article on this...

• As ever, I'm sure a copyeditor may be able to smooth it out a little.
• A thought to consider is the use of two non-free images- they're rather similar, and as it's a downloadable game, the concept of "box art" is alien to it. If you're looking for more images, the pictures you have of Chen are rather nice.

Yeah... I'm going to fight for it- PSN logos are the equivalent of digital boxart as they are what you see in the online store. We'll see if I win.

As I say, it's mostly very well written anyway, and I don't think much more work would be needed before it went to FAC, as long as you're sure you've exhausted the available sources. In the mean time, I'm happy to promote this to GA status. J Milburn (talk) 12:16, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks! I'll go through these, get a copyedit, and take it to FAC then. Marking them off as I go for my own benefit. --PresN 19:46, 13 January 2011 (UTC)