Talk:TowerFall

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:TowerFall/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jaguar (talk · contribs) 16:15, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I'll leave some initial comments within 24 hours. Thanks. ☠ Jaguar ☠ 16:15, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose is "clear and concise", without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Has an appropriate reference section:

   B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Initial comments

Lead

• The lead is summarised incorrectly, the opening sentence currently reads "TowerFall is a 2013 archery arena indie video game created by Matt Thorson where up to four players use arrows and head-stomps to fight in a battle royale". Usually VG open by saying who developed/published it, what platforms it was released for and when. You could restructure this to something like TowerFall is a 2013 archery arena indie video game created by Matt Thorson and was released as an Ouya microconsole exclusive on June 25, 2013. It was later ported later ported to PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X in 2014 or something similar?
• Why is Bushido Blade not linked?
• "guided by feedback" - what does this mean? Was the game improved from the feedback given?
• Other than the opening of the lead, the rest of the lead (including the reception paragraph) summarises the article well.

Gameplay

• "The game's parameters can be customized and saved for future use" - what are the parameters? Are they like gameplay settings?

Development

• "and TowerFall was his first full game" - just curious, what is the difference between this as a 'full game' and his previous game Planet Punch?
• "The player-characters" - would you prefer the use of protagonists?
• "a majority of the porting work was handled by Sickhead Games out of Dallas" - how about "based in Dallas"?

Reception

The reception section is written well and can't find any problems here, though I think that some of the criticisms could be brought into the lead.

References

There are no dead references and all the citations appear in the correct places, so this meets the GA criteria.

On hold

Overall this is a well written and comprehensive article. The only problems I found with it are some structuring issues in the first paragraph of the lead and some minor copyediting issues that could easily be addressed. The references are also in good standing. I'll put this on hold for the standard seven days and once all those issues have been clarified then this article should have no problem passing the GAN! Overall sounds like an interesting game. ☠ Jaguar ☠ 20:09, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Hey @Jaguar, appreciate the review. I think we talked about this in a previous GAN, but I don't believe the first sentences of ledes are standardized as you described. It is my understanding that the lede can be phrased however desired as long as it conveys the main points of the article, which I believe it does. It's an indie game, so "created by" is the same as "developed and published" without assuming an unnecessary formality. There also shouldn't be an issue with not including the launch console in the first sentence. Many articles don't do that. Anyway, I think there's more flexibility there. "Protagonist" infers some kind of plot-based conflict, which the game doesn't have, so I prefer p-c. I believe the criticism is already given due weight in the lede, and that everything else has been accounted for—take a look? czar ♔ 02:55, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Close - promoted

Thanks for the swift response, Czar! I've just looked through the article and it already meets the GA criteria. I agree with you regarding the lead, it doesn't interfere with the GA criteria and is usually the norm for some VG articles. For some reason whilst reviewing this I completely forgot you nominated it! Anyway thanks for telling me some of this, I'm still learning about indie games (perhaps our video game taste is different). ☠ Jaguar ☠ 18:46, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Castlequest

Can we explain in article why this is linked in the see also? There is no mention of TowerFall on the Castlequest one. Do they have similar gameplay? Ranze (talk) 02:44, 4 April 2015 (UTC)