Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Flower (video game)/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Karanacs 21:39, 12 February 2010 [1].

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Flower (video game)

Nominator(s): PresN 20:24, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

• Featured article candidates/Flower (video game)/archive1

I am nominating here Flower, an indie game for the PlayStation 3 that involves flying flower petals across a landscape, enlivening and brightening the world around you. It's had a successful GAN, I've tried to copy-edit it with a fine-tooth comb, I've checked external links and dabs, and all of the images have fair-use rationales and alt text. The game itself is only an hour long, but I think that the article gives a fair treatment of everything about it. --PresN 20:24, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Note: This is a WikiCup nomination. To the nominator: if you do not intend to submit this article at the WikiCup, feel free to remove this notice. Ucucha 15:51, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Comments by MelicansMatkin

Very nice article! As you say, dabs and external links check out, and the fair-use rationales all seem to be fine. I'm not exactly an expert on alt text, but it looks like you've got that covered too! I think that the prose could do with one polish in places; I did a minor copyedit to the lead so I apologize if I changed any meanings, but the sentence beginning with Flying towards flowers causes petals to follow the lead petal strikes me as being a little off; I'm not sure if its just me, but that sentence I think could do with a quick re-write/polish. Insofar as I can tell (game articles aren't really my speciality) all of the sources check out (though you might want to archive the online sources in case they are taken down later; use |archiveurl= and |archivedate=). Save for criterian 1a) (the prose), I think that it meets all of the requirements. My only quibble (and a very minor one at that) is that I think Development should be above Gameplay (if the Wikiproject generally has Gameplay above Development, then I'll be happy to strike that)? Switch that and a prose polish and I'll be happy to support. MelicansMatkin (talk, contributions) 05:44, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the review! For video games, the typical flow is gameplay->plot->development, per WP:VG/MOS. I agree that the "flying" sentence is a bit off, I'm just not sure how to say it cleanly. You don't have to touch the flowers, but you do have to get really close... I'll try to think of something. --PresN 05:55, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I've struck that; thanks for pointing me in the direction of the VG MOS. I'll try doing a little more messing around with the sentence, but please revert me if I accidentally remove or alter the meaning. There are a couple of other prose inconsistencies I think spread out across the article; perhaps asking somebody at the VG WikiProject to do a quick copyedit could help. MelicansMatkin (talk, contributions) 06:00, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Reworded to Flying close to flowers will result in the player's petal being followed by other flower petals. A gain in the number of petals following the player may have side-effects on the game world, such as bringing vibrant color to previously dead fields or activating stationary windmills. I think this makes it a bit clearer and preserves the original meaning, though it is a little more wordy. MelicansMatkin (talk, contributions) 06:06, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I've done a copyedit which i think has addressed most of the uncertainties I had with the prose; since I can't see anything that I object to, I will support. While you wait for input from other people, I encourage you to review another featured article candidate. MelicansMatkin (talk, contributions) 19:21, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

• Leaning support pending further evaluation. Images look good. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 20:35, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
• Further: Looking at the article I'm concerned about prose, mostly redundancies and awkward, repetitive wording. I think it needs an experienced copyeditor to give it a one-over. Below are some examples of issues I found:
  • "This focus on emotions was sparked by Chen, who felt that the primary purpose of entertainment products like video games was the emotions that they evoked in the audience, and that the emotional range of most games was very limited."-spot the overused word?
  • "transforming dead grassy areas to vibrant green fields"-this is a tad too close to the wording used in the lead, especially with the doubled "vibrant" that sticks out; we see vibrant used three times in relatively close proximity, and I think adding in synonyms would be helpful.
  • An example of cutting redundancies: "The development team commissioned two pieces of music that they felt would inspire the right emotional tone for the game before beginning development work on Flower.[8]. They created a number of prototypes, including concepts focused on growing flowers and based around human consciousness. The team eventually decided that a prototype centered on petals floating in the wind best captured the emotions they wanted to evoke. [awk, rw: They kept their design focus on keeping the player in a peaceful emotional state, removing elements that frustrated players such as petal collection requirements to unlock levels and game mechanics that were too traditional and made the players too excited.][10] The team also tried to not use any guidelines in the game[using "the game" excessively is an issue I see in this article, as with many others], allowing the player to go anywhere in an open world, but they realized that without a few [synonym? guides], such as the camera focusing on new flowers or segmenting the levels, players became confused and frustrated."
  • A pet peeve, but I prefer using critic's names in addition to the publication. While generally the critic does represent the whole editorial opinion of a site, it's still just one reviewer's point, and we can't really ascribe certain actions to publications (IGN wrote, IGN felt, IGN said). Also, can we find a reliable source for the game's price point? Since it's actually mentioned as a criticism, knowing at least how much it was in the territory the reviewer was discussing would be helpful to the reader.
  • I'm not really sure how much info there might be in archived newspaper coverage, but since the reception section's fairly light, send me an email and I'll reply back with sources from a LexisNexis/ProQuest search if I find anything useful. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 23:05, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I've fixed the specific redundancy issues that you raised; I'll go through the article when I have some time for the rest of it. I'm leaving off the reviewer's names for now as I've emailed you about the print sources and assuming you find some I'll be rearranging the reception section anyway. --PresN 01:06, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Alright, added in some print sources from what you emailed me to expand the reception; I think I'm close to the limit of what can be said there without just saying "sources X,Y, and Z all agreed and said the same thing". I also added in the names of the critics, the price, and tried to copyedit the article again with an eye towards redundancy; please tell me if you see any more. --PresN 20:55, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

There's nothing necessarily wrong with saying that everyone agreed on some point; it's certainly less weaselish to say "X, Y, and Z considered AA" and, if necessary, point to a single critic's comments to more thoroughly explain (for example, in Halo 3: ODST I group critics who fell on either side of considering the game's $60 excessive or not.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 21:09, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Support I see no problems in the article at all. GamerPro64 (talk) 23:54, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Source comments Everything fine. RB88 (T) 00:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Comments leaning to support:

• As a non-gamer, i have no idea what a "credits level" is (first line of main text)
• "A single play-through of the game takes approximately one hour" - i read this as meaning all levels. If so, that's fine; if that isn't what was intended, please amend.
• "The beginning of each stage is near the end of the previous one" - this sounds clumsy and ambiguous - be more precise: does this mean each stage begins in a location in the virtual world close to where the player was at the end of the previous stage?
• The "levels" are explained in terms of the narrative arc. I associate the term with stages of increasing difficulty. It isn't clear from the article that there are any greater challenges as one progresses through levels. If that is correct, then the terminology might be a bit misleading. But if "levels" is the term used by the game developers and in the reviews, then that's OK. Do any of the sources make any statement about there being / not being increasing difficulty or similar?
• Development: the second para of this section begins with a sentence about composition of music. This leads the reader to assume the next sentences will also be about the music, but they seem not to be. Something needs to be done to make the lead sentence consistent with the subsequent ones. One possibility might be simply to move this sentence to become the first sentence of "Music", and leave everything else as it is.
• Reception: "which added to its short length" sounds odd - perhaps "which offset / balanced its brevity".

Otherwise good, and made me wish i had an opportunity to check it out! hamiltonstone (talk) 22:45, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

• Alright, fixing your problems- credits now linked to Closing credits, I hope it makes sense now; yes it's an hour for the whole game; tried to be more precise; they are called levels in reviews but they don't really get harder, so changed to "flower dreams"; I don't think those pieces ever made it into the game, they were just for the development team to have a focus to tune their efforts to- I've reworded it to emphasize that it was the first step in the design process rather than the start of the music creation process; adopted your wording. --PresN 02:43, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

• That'll do me, thanks. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:56, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.