Lootfest
July 20, 2011 16 Comments
3D Dot Game Heroes was a fucking awesome game. A loving tribute to the classic 2D entries in the Legend of Zelda series with some new conventions like level upgrading and swords the size of the screen.
On the flip side, Lootfest is a clunky, broken, unfinished piece of shit vomited out by a group of gamers who have about as much shame as a pick-pocket at the Special Olympics. The only positive thing I can say about it is the graphics do their job, IE, they look like they were lifted right out of the 3D Dot Game Heroes alpha build. Everything else is unrealized and unfinished.
In Lootfest, you play as a swordsman who must slay three boss monsters. The world’s map is randomly generated so on the off-off-off-off-off chance you actually find something of value here, you can play it as many times as you want and will have a different map to get bored with every time. There’s a small handful of enemies types that you can kill with your sword. They drop money, which you use to buy a bow necessary to defeat bosses. There’s also sword upgrades and shields. I found once I had the level 3 sword, which takes about five minutes to get the gold for, everything that followed was a cakewalk.
Since the game is entirely focused on combat, with none of those pesky puzzles or dungeons to explore like a real game, you would hope they at least got that right. Not so much. With only a small handful of enemies to deal with, you’ve pretty much seen the whole game after only two minutes. There are three bosses, but the first two more or less look alike and all of them are defeated in the same way. Your sword feels a bit on the clunky side, thanks to collision detection being a bit off. This applies to enemy projectiles too, as sometimes I would dodge a fireball and it would register me being shot anyway.
Finding the three dungeons is actually done in a novel manner. You purchase a hawk from a store and then release it. It flies in the direction of the next boss and you have to follow it. This idea worked, but with everything else being a miserable failure it’s like your child showing you his report card full of Fs with one B in the middle for P.E. I completed the whole game in about 45 minutes so it’s really short too.
Lootfest is truly a tragedy because they DID have something going here. While playing the game, I repeatedly told my boyfriend “I think I might recommend this one.” By game’s end, I realized that doing so would be a sin against gaming. Lootfest is an unfinished mess. Enemies get stuck in walls. Enemies can walk through walls. The sound effects are straight out of the Atari 2600, and you can literally see that they had plans for stuff but never got around to it. Upon completion of the game, a sequel is promised. “See you at Lootfest 2.”
Um, no you won’t. You couldn’t bother to debug the game the first time around before you kicked it out onto the marketplace. Why should I or anyone give you a second chance? The indie market reminds me of one of those families where the parents count down the days until their kids turn 18 so they can unceremoniously boot them out of the household whether they’re ready for it or not. Designing video games requires patience. You can’t just put something out there for sale as soon as you have a playable build working. Yea, I’m sure it’s exciting to have something that resembles a game that you created all on your own, or in this case thoroughly plagiarized from someone else. But it doesn’t mean you have to lose focus and put it out there for consumers to get cheated by while you begin work on a sequel. Stay focused, damn it! It makes me think every subscription to XNA should come with a free bottle of Ritalin.
Lootfest was developed by Gamefarm
80 Microsoft Points were left unfinished in the
Indie Gamer Chick 
What a shitty review. You’d think this game was $50 by the way you make it sound. It’s 80 fucking points you stupid bitch. People have to eat. There are plenty of people who enjoy this game. If people would support games with promise like this one has then eventually the developers will be able to make better games. Why do you have to be such a cunt just because you don’t like the game? Have fun running the worst indie games site I’ve ever seen you dumb fucking idiot. It’s 80 fucking points you retard. 80 not 800, not 1200, so shut the fuck up and put a dick in your mouth you dumb worthless whore.
There are 80 point games on the market that are not broken, work, and don’t suck. This game is in fact broken, it is in fact not fun, and it does in fact suck. Thanks for the kind comments though. Spread the word, I totally suck!
Such eloquence. Have you ever considered running for political office, Mr/Miss/Mrs/Ms Indiegamerchickisafatwhore? It would probably require you to change your inconveniently unwieldy name (Scandinvian ancestry perhaps?) but with stirring rhetoric like that, you could be a presidential candidate one day.
ah yes, the old “Indie developers have to eat off their earnings and you are killing their sales” thing. Untrue. Microsoft kills their sales by hiding indie games in the back corner of the game marketplace like a mutated child. Game Reviewers cannot review games based off of promise alone. That is like giving someone a Nobel Peace Prize for something they might do… Wait we already did that? Who is running that system?
Anyway, I will say this as nice as possible. The second a developer puts a game on the marketplace, their game is a product that consumers spend money on. No matter what the amount of money spent, people still spent time and money on it. With there being a few thousand indie games on the marketplace, and most for a dollar, it is no valid argument to say “support the developers and don’t complain”. If the developers were locked in a room until their games sold a certain amount of copies, sure, support the developers! If the developers are relying on below average games on a broken XBLIG system to eat then someone needs an intervention. Also don’t cuss like that, that just diminishes any dignity and respect you have into the negative range.
The developers who make AAA games have to eat too, but your argument clearly states that reviewing a $50 game in a negative way is perfectly ok. What makes AAA developers different from indie developers? Both need to eat, so by that standard everyone should buy every video game ever in order to feed developers and not complain. Why are you saying it is ok to rip on AAA developers then? OR are you saying all of that because someone reviewed a game negatively that you happened to enjoy, it is all out war. Yeah probably the last one.
A well argued response that is better than the original comment deserves.
I understand the argument that ‘indiegamerchickisafatwhore’ is making. It is an 80 point game on the market that is way better than 80% of games on the service. Is it unfinished? Yes! Is it buggy? Hell yes! There are also plenty of other games that have been released at alpha or beta that have done quite well.
It is a tough choice for a developer when they know that releasing means some income that may lead to other things, especially when the precedent for releasing games in Beta has proven to work for others… The standards ALWAYS change based on the scale of a release. AAA boxed games have a different checklist than XBLA and XBLA has a much different checklist than XBLIG.At the end of the day, the developer has to decide if they can stand by the product they are releasing. I thought lootfest was a decent title for a buck..
People have to eat? XD Yes, obviously you are going to feed yourself with the sales generated by indie games. You are going to feed yourself from the McDonalds Dollar Menu, to be exact.
Maybe you should make a good game, and then people will praise it!
Ah, am I not alone in thinking this articulate and persuasive diatribe was posted by the developer or a close friend thereof?
The only XBLIG developers I can imagine might be trying to feed themselves with their game sales are ‘them’. You know, those who shall remain nameless, of ‘push cat away from breakfast’ fame. They’re certainly not making that crap for the love of games.
if you ask me dissapointment no boss comes out for me EVER so 80 Microsoft points wasted
They don’t come out, you have to use a bird to find them.
Actually, Lootfest: Live Design is really fun, I haven’t played the first one, but the second one is a fun sandbox with zombie survival aspects, though they didn’t fix the hit boxes D:
I like how Kairi’s defenders conveniently ignore the vitriol, indecency, and outright chartelon-grade ignorance she wields in her awful reviews. Nothing about this review helped me judge the game; all it helped me understand is that it was written by a [hopeful] media whore hungry for shock-jock grade recognition. You lost me in the first couple sentences, when you attacked the developer’s ethics. Even jokingly, it’s bad form. Review the game, not insult those who do far more work to make them than it takes you to ingratiousoy garner ‘netfame’ from insulting them. If it weren’t for these less than perfect games, your views would be considerably less numerous.
Humble the fuck up.
This was way back during my first month. I’ve toned way down since then.
Three comments here:
Firstly, Kairi has developed into a better writer since ye olde days of yore.
Secondly, although this isn’t the way I would choose to review a game, it does serve the essential purpose of conveying that Kairi found the game lacking in enjoyment. You may not agree with the style, but it does convey her opinion on the game.
Thirdly, each and every reviewer can review however the hell they like. Kairi is free to be as ranty or otherwise as she wants to be. You’re not entitled to a particular reviewing style. I don’t know why people piss and moan so much. Go and read reviews you do like rather than wasting your time impotently griping.
Glad that I’m not the only one who liked 3D Dot Game Heroes.
Now that’s some serious abuse for a game review that is of course inherently subjective. It’s not verbatim simply an individuals somewhat structured view of a video game, agree or not with the reviewers verdict it does not deserve an expletive ladden personal attack. You don’t see Kairi verbally abusing the actual developer do you?! When she does comment upon the dev’s it’s entirely game related not insulting intellect or stating affinity with a sexual profession. There are plenty of other reviewers out there so if you can’t stand the heat get out of this particular indie xblig review kitchen.