Major update is here! 

Might as well call it a release.

I am very happy to finally upload this new version of the review app.  "But what is a review app? Do I need it? Who is it for?". Let me go back a little bit and talk about the story, the roots and the reasons - this may answer your questions.

The Original

First version of the reviewer app worked fine for what it was. It was very simple - add a game to the list, and then review it. Just 2 simple screens, where everything was immutable, unchangeable and sometimes a bit convoluted.

I made it to be used during my Demo Day (a certain community's periodic game jam) streams, and I didn't expect anyone to be interested in it.

It wasn't pretty, but it worked, and it provided a fair bit of entertainment for the streams. Unfortunately those that tried using the tool experienced crashing on start, or not being able to interact with the UI, or having trouble adding games to the list.

And it was fine for a time. After all - I'm the primary and intended consumer of this product, and releasing it to the general public was an afterthought. Which was my mistake.  Lesson number one - "Don't release stuff that you never intended to release - it's not gonna work for other people".

At some point I started to get sick of the problems. Preparing for the stream could take up to an hour - download the cover, add the game to the list, relaunch the app after it crashed, check that the game is indeed added and reviewable. It was a huge hassle.

Another lesson learned, I guess - "Don't cut corners even if you're the only one who's gonna use the tool".

So it was finally time to fix all those problems. And by "fix" I mean - scrap the entire project and make it again. 

The New and Improved Jam Reviewer

I made an attempt to streamline the jam review and make it more user (streamer) friendly. All you need now is a link to the jam - the app will do everything for you - download the jam info and present it to you in an itch-like fashion. It can even download all the covers if you want the game selection to look prettier!

Gone are the hours of building a list of manually added games - now it takes just a couple of seconds to jump right into the game selection. With just a press of the button all covers will be downloaded and loaded.

I've been streaming jams that have up to 100 games submitted, and, as you can imagine, it's very close to impossible to stream all games in one stream, or even in a series of stream. So the app keeps track of a list of games that are to be reviewed.  You don't have to do that - you can pick games for review manually, but if you want to do something fun...

"Spin the wheel" is here to help you pick the game. There is one more randomizer available, and a couple more planned, but this one I feel is the most fun and visually pleasing. At least for now.

There is a short game overview for the game that you're about to review, complete with short description and links both to the game and to the developer.  I believe that game jam streams are all about the game presentation, so cover art and some info is also present at the stream overlay.

Most of this is configurable. The "Stream overlay" uses a solid color that you can filter out in your streaming software to use as an overlay, showcasing both the gameplay and the game info for those that are tuning in mid-stream. 

As I've found out - some games are longer than the others. Some take 20 minutes to complete, others are very close to release, so you could get hours of content out of them. Now, I prefer keeping things fair, so I use a time limit of 40 minutes per game during streams. This is configurable, of course - the settings are global, and you can get to them right from the main menu.

And, last but not least - the review itself!

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This part is... a bit disappointing, for now. Currently there's only one review type available - "The Scores". I've yoinked the idea from "Риса за творчество" ("Risa Za Tvorchestvo") - a russian music review community led by a great music reviewer and streamer Flomaster, The idea is simple - there are "Base scores", like "Graphics" or "Sound" on a scale from 0 to 10. Then there are modifiers, both positive and negative, that add multipliers to the score. And then there's one last flat score to top that rating off.

It's a great system that is surprisingly accurate. The configuration (or "the style" as it's called in the app) that I've been using is the "default" one, but you can (and should) make your own to add a bit more flair to your review.

I will be honest with you - this screen scares me too. It's very big, there's a lot of stuff going on. It most certainly works, and I actually quite like the way it works now, but I think I will make it a bit less... intimidating. That's on the roadmap for the future.

What's next?

More polish, more flair, more functionality, of course!

Polish

While I tried my best to test the app and iron out all the kinks - no doubt there's something still hiding in the shadows just waiting for the best moment to strike. For instance - I'm not 100% sure that I fixed the "app unresponsive if there's streaming software running". I managed to reproduce it and I fixed what I found, but I've never encountered this bug myself, so I'm not sure if the one I fixed is the one people encountered.

Flair

I also have an idea for 4 more types of reviews. I'd like to make this app fun, not nailed to a certain style of reviewing, so I'll definitely cover those bases. "Stars" review style is coming next! Maybe some confetti or fireworks with that? Who knows!

Functionality

One thing that I haven't ported yet is the "Export" function. You don't want the review to be stuck in the app, right? Why not post it on some forum or community? This is also a planned feature for the next update.

And yes, adding games manually to the list is also a feature that was temporarily scrapped. It will come back for sure, so that even if your jam is not hosted on itch - you could still do reviews with this app.

That's all for now!

I hope you enjoy using this app, if you choose to do so. Please do not hesitate to post feedback, it will be very appreciated.

Have fun!