BranMuffin's NDS Application Review~

[BranMuffin]

I'm going to use ArrPirate's template for DS reviews (out of 30 points). Just a fore-word, I excluded my application "myPiano" to be fair with the other applications.

EDIT: I fixed it to apply under rule 7 which limits the points given for DSMotion and Original Submission.

 

Ace Attorney DS:

I cannot believe that someone would make something so awesome. I've noticed a lot of popularity of this application on other websites, with lots of good feedback. I have to agree as well, this is a very decent application.

Effort: 9/10
Usefulness: 4/5
Creativity: 4/5
DSMotion: 1/1
Original Submission: 1/1
Total: 19/22

DSwiki:

I have to honestly say that this application is pretty bad. On an aesthetic view, no one will actually reserve 4 gigabytes of space for this (unless they're loco!). It's a very decent idea and application, but besides being a text parser, this is very unoriginal and weak.

Effort: 4/10
Usefulness: 1/5
Creativity: 1/5
DSMotion: -1/1
Original Submission: 1/1
Total: 6/22

Health Monitoring Tool Kit:

A very decent application that can be useful to a lot of people. Although I am not diabetic, it is very reasonable to believe that many others are.

Effort: 6/10
Usefulness: 4/5
Creativity: 5/5
DSMotion: -1/1
Original Submission: 1/1
Total: 15/22

HWOS2:

This crashes on my CycloDS, so I can't review it

Effort: 0/10
Usefulness: 0/5
Creativity: 0/5
DSMotion: -1/1
Original Submission: 1/1
Total: 0/22

DSision2:

Now this is a very decent shell for the Nintendo DS, and with it, I can play pretty much any homebrew I want.

Effort: 6/10
Usefulness: 5/5
Creativity: 2/5
DSMotion: -1/1
Original Submission: 1/1
Total: 13/22

Ands-PDF:

This is one of the worst applications in this competition this year. Loads slow, very bad menu and doesn't look like a lot of effort was placed into this.

Effort: 3/10
Usefulness: 1/5
Creativity: 3/5
DSMotion: -1/1
Original Submission: 1/1
Total: 7/22

Mario Paint Composer DS Paratrooper Release:

For some reason, the sound coming out of this application is very soft, I can hardly hear it. Probably a bug in the game? There is however, evidence of some effort in making it, although you wouldn't be able to pass this as a commercial game.

Effort: 5/10
Usefulness: 2/5
Creativity: 2/5
DSMotion: -1/1
Original Submission: 1/1
Total: 9/22

SutraDS:

This is just disgusting. I have nothing to say about this except that it's horrific someone would make an application for this on the DS. There isn't much effort shown in this either.

NO IMAGE SUITABLE FOR NEOFLASH FORUMS.

Effort: 3/10
Usefulness: 1/5
Creativity: 1/5
DSMotion: -1/1
Original Submission: 1/1
Total: 5/22

Wee Basic:

This is pretty obselete. Why would anyone want to develop on the DS when they can develop on their computers?

Effort: 3/10
Usefulness: 1/5
Creativity: 2/5
DSMotion: 1/1
Original Submission: 1/1
Total: 8/22

DSBash:

I visit Bash a lot and this is a very decent application for reading Bash. I can see this application to be very entertaining and joyful to use.

Effort: 5/10
Usefulness: 3/5
Creativity: 4/5
DSMotion: -1/1
Original Submission: -1/1
Total: 10/22

Ranking from best to worst:

1. Ace Attorney DS ( 19 )
2. Health Monitoring Tool Kit ( 15 )
3. DSision ( 13 )
4. DSBash ( 10 )
5. Mario Paint Composer ( 9 )
6. Wee Basic ( 8 )
7. Ands-PDF ( 7 )
8. DS Wiki ( 6 )
9. SutraDS ( 5 )
10. HWOS ( 0 )

[Cid2Mizard]

Thanks, you like or you don't like but it's not horrific SutraDS 

[ollipolli]

Hi BranMuffin!

Some general remark to your review: I think you are WAY too harsh to most of the applications. not just to mine. And in many cases, your choice of words is not appropriate either.

But anyway, here are some more specific remarks:

In my opinion, you (and also ArrPirate) put too much weight into the two 'original' and 'motion' categories. 30 points as a base are OK, but if I remember correct, I read an official post of a past compo, where it was stated that these categories may/should have a weight of 5% on the final score each. Not 16.7%. The older reviews were 30/1.5/1.5 (total/motion/original).

And, one serious problem with your review is sloppy math, you summed up wrong in two cases:

SutraDS:

Effort: 3/10
Usefulness: 1/5
Creativity: 2/5
DSMotion: 0/5
Original Submission: 5/5
Total: 10/30

Ands-PDF:

Effort: 3/10
Usefulness: 1/5
Creativity: 3/5
DSMotion: 0/5
Original Submission: 5/5
Total: 7/30

And WeeBasic was not labeled as 'original' in its thread (sorry for pointing this out):

Effort: 3/10
Usefulness: 1/5
Creativity: 3/5
DSMotion: 5/5
Original Submission: 5/5
Total: 17/30

Ciao

[leinad]

I read an official post of a past compo, where it was stated that these categories may/should have a weight of 5% on the final score each. Not 16.7%.

Yup. Having motion+original entry would mean 33% more points... thats way to much. Motion+Original is ment to be 10%

[St.Louis]

Yup. Having motion+original entry would mean 33% more points... thats way to much. Motion+Original is ment to be 10%

Huh? What I was told is that you rate a game 1-20, +5 for motion and +5 for original... Did I get wrong info?

[ollipolli]

Hi!

Huh? What I was told is that you rate a game 1-20, +5 for motion and +5 for original... Did I get wrong info?

That is even more extreme. I found the following official post of a past compo:
http://www.neoflash.com/forum/index.php/topic,5306.msg36725.html#msg36725.

Quote (the official answer was that part behind the three dashes):

7. Since "original" and "motion" are +5 what scale are the games supposed to be rated out of? For example:
80/100 +5 to make 85/100, here +5 is worth 5%.
20/30 +5 to make 25/30, here +5 is worth around 15%.  --- hum.... it should be worth 5% more, like x 1.05

So you make a total score that each program can get, without having motion support and being original. Call that 100%. The bonus points for each of the two criteria should make 5% out of that. Reading that, I see that even I miscalculated the percents in my review. Actually, every program can get point in the range from -18 to +18 (or 0 to 36 if you like). A bonus score of -1 or +1 (0 or 2 if you like absolute numbers more again), is worth 2/36=1/18=5.55%. But I think that is OK.
In your case, each(!) bonus category is worth 5/20 = 25%, way too much!

Ciao

[BassAceGold]

8 months of work and 37 recorded tweaks, fixes and improvements over the original release is not enough effort?(just check the readme) A little harsh and slightly discouraging I gotta say. 

[St.Louis]

8 months of work and 37 recorded tweaks, fixes and improvements over the original release is not enough effort?(just check the readme) A little harsh and slightly discouraging I gotta say. 

I think the effort parts in this review are a little randomly pulled cards here... How can a reviewer know how much effort there is in a project? I haven't done it that way in my review... I judged art (1/7) usefulness (2/7) stableness (2/7) how I like the final product/factor of coolness (3/7)
Yes, I know that's (8/7) in total, but I didn't really see that until I was done with my review 

Mario Paint Composer DS Paratrooper Release:

For some reason, the sound coming out of this application is very soft, I can hardly hear it. Probably a bug in the game? There is however, evidence of some effort in making it, although you wouldn't be able to pass this as a commercial game.

VERY few homebrews I've seen so far (Beup one day maybe, but I can't really think of another one) could ever become a commercial game.
The soft sounds isn't a bug, I've got normal sound.