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[RF]

I want to practice my writing skills. I want to practice them HARD. What I also want is criticism from people who are capable of giving it. If I show these reviews to my family, most will look bewildered (my father would just laugh and tell me to carry on doing my MCSE) and my girlfriend would just pat me on my head and tell me how well I've done. So, I'm bringing this to you guys. I'm relying on you to genuinely criticise my writing style, my harshosity (that's a real word!) and everything else in this writing. Do you understand? Good, let's roll!

Spoiler: Dungeons of Dredmor (click to show/hide)

I hate myself. That's something I realised recently. It's the only thing that explains my addiction to roguelikes. My self-loathing has evolved into a masochistic torture of my own cognitive facilities in order to make myself feel better about some sort of inadequacy. I am a '90s TV star and roguelikes are my crack cocaine.
   What other genre of game has such a tedious, slow and painful learning curve? What other genre forces you to lose hours (or even days) of progress in order to learn one minor lesson every single time? Is there ANYTHING that comes close to the almost self-harming experience of playing a roguelike? I seriously doubt it.
   Which is why it amazes me when games like Dungeons of Dredmor come out and claim they're “more accessible” roguelikes. I admit that it's more accessible, in the same way that a drug dealer discovering you can pour coke into drinks instead of snorting it up your nose is more accessible.
   It's still horribly addictive, maybe more so. The interface, the point and clicking, the general increase in accessibility caused it to induce a trance in me, a transformation from being a normal happy gamer to “KILL-SMASH-GET LOOT RINSE REPEAT HAHAHAH LEVEL UP YOU BASTARDS”. It took me back to the dark days of Diablo, when I was a mere innocent type shoving fireballs up the rectums of any demons that looked at me wrong.
   And this is a good thing. The best of things, in fact, at least for the game's maker. I would happily pay for DLC for this game, and I absolutely despise that moneygrabbing bullcrap.
   The crafting is something I'd like to spend a little time on, too. I feel the crafting helps even out the gaming experience quite a bit. It allows players who've had a hard time finding decent equipment to get up to scratch with some crafting items (advice to developer: put in crafting dispensers) and doesn't feel like it's been forced into the game at all.
   There are, however, a few negatives with the game. Issues that show maybe making the game a lot more accessible has took up too much development time and caused a drop in variety and quite a lot of bugs. The bugs are being readily fixed, but the fact that a lot of the “special” rooms are the same regardless of level (except with, obviously, different monsters) is a bit disappointing. When I see two iron grilles, I'll know there's a vault behind them, about four traps and some water / lava and a path around. The monster vaults could do with artifacts placed in them and some “theming” (similar to the levels in DooMRL where they are fixed and unique per game), which would improve it greatly. Some of the skill trees are also kind of useless, but I'm sure that's something that will also get properly patched.
   Other than that, though, I don't really have any criticism. The game's art is gorgeous (and funny), the stat screen is informative despite (or perhaps because of) the sheer amount of jokes per item and it's seriously cheap for the amount of content you'll get. Nevermind the jokes all over the game and the amazing loot system. It's feature packed with WONDERFUl.
   My advice is that, whether or not you are a fan of roguelikes, you should buy this game. Immediately. It's a wonderful RPG that definitely could bring the roguelike to the masses.

Overall Rating: 8/10 (Sadly let down by some minor flaws in terms of replayability, the game is still really good.)
Value Rating: 10/10 (Cheap, good and long. Pretty much perfect.)

[Shadowgandor]

Well, I always like it when a review explains what the game is about and, while talking about it, already pointing out a couple of good and bad stuff.
Perhaps that's not the style you want to have, but I'd like it if you wrote more about the game

Also, why do you think the art is funny or gorgeous? Why is the stat screen informative? How does the sheer amount of jokes per item influence the stat screen? What kind of jokes are these? What is this amazing loot system? I wouldn't know that, never having played the game.

I like your writing style, although the review lacks a lot of information. Keep on practicing though! Writing good reviews is really tough

[RF]

Well, I always like it when a review explains what the game is about and, while talking about it, already pointing out a couple of good and bad stuff.
Perhaps that's not the style you want to have, but I'd like it if you wrote more about the game

Also, why do you think the art is funny or gorgeous? Why is the stat screen informative? How does the sheer amount of jokes per item influence the stat screen? What kind of jokes are these? What is this amazing loot system? I wouldn't know that, never having played the game.

I like your writing style, although the review lacks a lot of information. Keep on practicing though! Writing good reviews is really tough

Finally, constructive criticism! Thank you very much.

I was thinking it wasn't all that informative, so I'll try writing a longer / more in depth piece for my next review. Pretty much all Dungeons of Dredmor is is, "Awesome Scandinavian based roguelike". That's how easy it is to summarise. :p

[Dr. Johbson]

I'll bite, I'm going to be as critical as I can be while stile being 100% honest so please don't take offense. I respect that you want to get better at something. Also, note, this is coming from a reader's standpoint and not a writer's.

To start off, I'll bold the parts I don't particularly like, and comment in italics. This is kind of hard for me to read myself so if you want I can change the colour or something instead.
 

Spoiler: Dungeons of Dredmor (click to show/hide)

I hate myself. That's something I realised recently. It's the only thing that explains my addiction to roguelikes. My self-loathing has evolved into a masochistic torture of my own cognitive facilities in order to make myself feel better about some sort of inadequacy. I am a '90s TV star and roguelikes are my crack cocaine.
   What other genre of game has such a tedious, slow and painful learning curve? What other genre forces you to lose hours (or even days) of progress in order to learn one minor lesson every single time? Is there ANYTHING that comes close to the almost self-harming experience of playing a roguelike? I seriously doubt it.I don't feel this sentence is needed and just comes out as you talking and not reviewing the title
   Which is why it amazes me when games like Dungeons of Dredmor come out and claim they're “more accessible” roguelikes. I admit that it's more accessible, in the same way that a drug dealer discovering you can pour coke into drinks instead of snorting it up your nose is more accessible.Two drug jokes not connected in anyway so close to each other doesn't excite me
   It's still horribly addictive, maybe more so. The interface, the point and clicking,This could mean anything, more description here would be good the general increase in accessibility caused it to induce a trance in me, a transformation from being a normal happy gamer to “KILL-SMASH-GET LOOT RINSE REPEAT HAHAHAH LEVEL UP YOU BASTARDS”. It took me back to the dark days of Diablo, when I was a mere innocent type shoving fireballs up the rectums of any demons that looked at me wrong.
   And this is a good thing. The best of things, in fact, at least for the game's maker.I don't really understand what this means I would happily pay for DLC for this game, and I absolutely despise that moneygrabbing bullcrap.What does this mean? Why would Dungeons of Dredmor DLC be different from other DLC, and how?
   The crafting is something I'd like to spend a little time on, too.Crafting wasn't mentioned until this point, is not explained in depth here I feel the crafting helps even out the gaming experience quite a bit. It allows players who've had a hard time finding decent equipment to get up to scratch with some crafting items (advice to developer: put in crafting dispensers) and doesn't feel like it's been forced into the game at all.
   There are, however, a few negatives with the game. Issues that show maybe making the game a lot more accessible has took up too much development time and caused a drop in variety and quite a lot of bugs. The bugs are being readily fixed, but the fact that a lot of the “special” rooms are the same regardless of level (except with, obviously, different monsters) is a bit disappointing. When I see two iron grilles, I'll know there's a vault behind them, about four traps and some water / lava and a path around. The monster vaults could do with artifacts placed in them and some “theming” (similar to the levels in DooMRL where they are fixed and unique per game), which would improve it greatly. Some of the skill trees Same as crafting before, not mentioned not really explainedare also kind of useless, but I'm sure that's something that will also get properly patched.
   Other than that, though, I don't really have any criticism. The game's art is gorgeous (and funny), the stat screen is informative despite (or perhaps because of) the sheer amount of jokes per item and it's seriously cheap for the amount of content you'll get. Nevermind the jokes all over the game and the amazing loot system. It's feature packed with WONDERFUl.
   My advice is that, whether or not you are a fan of roguelikes, you should buy this game. Immediately. It's a wonderful RPG that definitely could bring the roguelike to the masses.

Overall Rating: 8/10 (Sadly let down by some minor flaws in terms of replayability, the game is still really good.)
Value Rating: 10/10 (Cheap, good and long. Pretty much perfect.)

I feel the review didn't touch on many of the important parts of the game and mostly described how much you enjoyed it, and not why. Skills are not explained, crafting is not explained, anyone who has never played a roguelike before will have no idea what you are talking about, what makes this game- which costs money- better than or at least comparable to any other roguelike which is most likely free, the humorous nature to the game is not explained, generally If you didn't label this a review of Dredmor I wouldn't have even been able to tell what you were talking about, even if I had played Dredmor (And I have, and yes it is awesome =p)

I do have other criticism but I think it would be best saved where it could be better explained in another review of yours.

Being able to write about something coherently for an extended period of time is in itself impressive, so I hope you stick to reviewing and you should get better pretty quickly. I wasn't bored reading the review which is indeed a plus, however that could be contributed to how short it was.


Hope I can help, again, don't mean any offense, really just trying to help the best way I can.

[hemmingjay]

I work as a writer, so I know how hard it is to dust off the skills and crank out something on a whim. I really enjoy your "voice" and the general tone but have a couple of notes for you. Modern writing allows for some traditional rules to be broken but it's not good to completely throw them out the window. Sentence fragments are powerful when used in moderation but when used together it becomes jarring to the reader and makes your whole piece disjointed. You start with three sentence fragments which almost could have worked were it not for the next line. Your next line was what I call death by thesaurus. Even if it is how you think, never use more than two 3 syllable words in a sentence. It doesn't flow and comes off as pompous, which I know you are not. The rest of your review starts to flow a bit better and your true voice becomes apparent. You have demonstrated knowledge on the subject matter and make your opinion clear. Overall, 6/10 for now and 8/10 if you addressed those issues. Nice start!

P.S. As Dr. Johbson pointed out the last sentence of the first paragraph was not necessary. However, I feel that most of the first paragraph would actually be better suited at the summary. One final note from every editor I have ever had; "Professional writers don't use rhetorical questions".

[RF]

Thanks for the criticism, you two. I really appreciate it. But the truth is that this was all an elaborate ploy designed to find out what hemmingjay worked as! Mwahahah! ;p

I think I'm going to try rewriting the Dungeons of Dredmor review before I try anything more and I'm certainly going to take your criticism into account.

@Dr. Johbson: The drugs thing was meant to be part of an extended metaphor, instead of mixing two metaphors together (originally, the first paragraph ended with, "It's like I'm an Irish housewife and roguelikes are my abusive husband" but I couldn't really fit that into the rest of the piece. Did it not really work?

[Denzi]

I'm not a particularly good writer myself, but there is one thing I've noticed. You use the word 'you' an awful lot in the review. It might be a good idea to rewite it without directly addressing your audience like that (I know you don't intend to speak to the reader with those, but you might find it will flow better if you don't rely on yous to explain things)

Mostly the whole you thing comes from a brilliant english professor I've known over the last few years. He would actually take an obscene chunk out of a paper's grade if he found a you in it (unless it was an argumentative piece, in which case he acknowledged speaking to your audience is important. Would count here in the review if you were trying to convince people to play DoD, instead of reviewing the game).

Another thing to note is you might want to... Oh I can't remember the term for it. Get rid of the apostrophe as much as you can. Which is to say stop using words like That's, It's, They're, I'd, Doesn't, I'm, and You'll. You might find you like the tone and flow a lot better when you keep the words separate instead of scrunching them together.

[Dr. Johbson]

@Dr. Johbson: The drugs thing was meant to be part of an extended metaphor, instead of mixing two metaphors together (originally, the first paragraph ended with, "It's like I'm an Irish housewife and roguelikes are my abusive husband" but I couldn't really fit that into the rest of the piece. Did it not really work?

It felt almost forced to me, or awkwardly placed. It didn't work for me but it could for other people, it might very well be a personal taste, as I don't like repeating words close to themselves in enclosed spaces. For instance, before I changed it, this post read,

It didn't work for me but it could for other people, it could very well be a personal taste,

but I didn't like the two 'could's' so close together. The more specific the word the farther away it should be from the last time you used it, unless you are trying to get across a point, I think. It just makes it more entertaining and easier to read. But, that covers writing and that's not something I'm good at either.

As for your original line, I do prefer it over the TV star/crack one, just seems like a calmer tone, and distancing itself from treaded territory I think it would have improved the second paragraph.