Phew! The Bloggies are over this year, and the winner was a piece from Explorer’s Design called The 1 HP Dragon. It’s a good piece! Well earned.
Given the history of who has run and won the Bloggies the past few years, the Indie Game Reading Club did very well. We earned second place in their ranked-choice system, which I have to say is pretty dang good. In a straight four-way vote it looks like we actually “won?” But I’m not great at math, and ranked-choice is a great way to really take the temperature of the voting public.
We’ll keep on the keepin’ on. And Clayton and all the rest better keep on as well. It’s truly a golden age of sharp thinking about gaming across lots of categories.
Bloggies host Sachagoat asked the gold winners for acceptance speeches. This was mine.
Reviews – critique, really – is the thing everyone says they want more of but nobody wants to support. Tough gig. Lonely. You don’t make a lot of friends doing it until you give their favorite thing a glowing report.
I’ve been a proponent of play-informed personal critique for 20 years. There’s just no way to really understand what a game is doing without seeing it in action. You have to feel it sloshing around in your own mind, watch other folks work with it, read and re-read and take notes and just sit and ponder. Where do the rules stop and my experience starts? How much lifting am I doing? Is the game fun, or smart, or inspiring on its own merits?
Critique exists in a three way conversation with creators and players. It’s gratifying to hear someone engaging with your work seriously, but growing from that engagement is what separates the pros from the wannabes. So a note to the creators out there: engage with the critic’s work as seriously as we engaged with yours. Share it, for good or ill. This is the only way the conversation can continue.
I hope more folks will consider getting into the critique game! The only way to start is to start. Be humble. Learn things. Consume everything you can get your hands on. Sit with it, chew on it, feel out how you engage with the work personally and not just write a thumbs up/down to eager buyers. It’s not your job to market for the creators. It is your job to take it seriously.
