Sometimes I’ll see a user review on Steam or backloggd by somebody who has developed their own custom mathematical system for review scores, one that feels like a nightmarish or possibly kafkaesque extrapolation of the “objective” review scoring of 90s/2000s games crit to the extremes of granularity. And as they proceed to assign a “0” for “tutorialization” and a “0.4” for “completion time” to a 99 cent indie game while holding over a maximum of 1 point (out of a total score of 10) for “personal impressions” I think about how common but also depressing this mindset about games is. How applying a generic one-size-fits-all framework of “consumer technical product” in a vain and fleeting search for an objectivity that doesn’t exist coldly cuts you off from the much more interesting and valuable relationship you can have with games as expressive art and your own subjective relationship with them.
Anyways catch me scoring my favorite novel out of 10 using categories like “length” and “simplicity of prose”, as well as “story” and “bookfeel”
Okay so I totally thought the term "bookfeel" was more widely in use but it turns out it isn't, so I need to credit @kaybee for coining it sometime last year to describe the floppiness of Picador's Roberto Bolaño paperbacks 🙏 I'm so sorry Kay I didn't realize I was stealing your joke, also yes those paperbacks are very floppy