First some disclaimers -- I'm in love with it, although it's a love with wide open eyes in that I can still see her flaws and love her despite them. I'm also fairly active in the amazing Spark community, which is at least a major reason that Spark is so wonderful. That community, which is managed on the Microsoft end by Mike Lescault, not only gives you support and encouragement but provides a hotline into the further development of Spark. Team Dakota (the actual Project Spark team within Microsoft) has shown they are more than willing to listen to their users -- they make user satisfaction a high priority.
Now that Spark is out in the wild, so to speak (although it's important to understand it STILL is in beta) folks are starting to react to it who are no longer under any NDA (no NDA in beta) and so we have things like this:
10 Things Microsoft Got Wrong
But the blogger himself got a lot of things wrong (and some right), so I prepared this response. For those of you interested in Spark (and if you are reading this, you should be) here's what you should know (the bullet points are the above bloggers, and what follows are my take on them):
- Setup is difficult (requires Win 8.1)
Um, move to the 21st
century? Complaining about needing the latest version of the world's
most popular OS is like folks who played DOS games complaining about
Windows when it came out. Yes, this is an MS product, it's going to
run on the Xbox One (which uses Win 8) and it requires Win 8.1 (a
free update to Win 8) to make it work. There will always be Luddites
out there, and folks who are afraid of Windows 8 (almost always
people who base their fear on reviews and have never actually tried
it) probably aren't a good target audience for Spark anyway.
Windows 8 is the best Windows 7 there
is. Get over it.
- Requires Windows 8.1
Hmmm – isn't this the same thing as
the first one? Yep, it requires 8.1. Guess what – the Xbox One
RUNS Windows 8. That's the OS it uses and it's not a function of
Spark. Again, deal with it. If you don't like Windows 8, you won't
like the Xbox and that has nothing to do with Spark. Either you are
the sort of person who can handle new technology or you need to keep
playing Pong. Swim or die.
- Bad UI
Yes, there are some definite issues
here. It's also beta, and hopefully there will be some cleaning and
pruning of unnecessary buttons and words. However, it IS right on to
say the editing buttons and functionality are a mess. “Edit from
Here” doesn't work – almost worthless (rather than actually
editing the world as it is, it only edits from where a playable
character is sitting – big deal). Loading your own level and only
having the option to “Remix” it unless you first play it and THEN
go to an edit mode is also clumsy and confusing (it also makes you a
co-creator even if it's only you working on it). Hopefully this and
other issues will get taken care of but they aren't show stoppers.
- Fonts bad
Um, not sure what the big deal is here,
unless the reviewer's graphic card isn't up to snuff. Fonts are fine
and not pixelated. Typography is a very personal thing, though –
one man's ES is another's UglyQua. They are readable and they work.
Do we need more fonts? Absolutely – and this is an area
where I hope the devs are listening.
- Graphics
Unfortunately as it comes out of the
box Spark doesn't have the best looking graphics in the world. They
are not ugly, they aren't awful, but they aren't the best of what the
game can do. The defaults, however, are just that.
Put some DOF and add in some beautiful
FX and Spark can rival the best of any video game out there. I have
to admit the first time I saw a game using some of these I sat up in
my chair and went “Whoa!”. As folks get more and more
comfortable with the game we will see better and better examples.
- Bad 3D Controls
Hard to get around this. Yep, they ARE
bad, clumsy and difficult to use. A lot of times “Center on
Player” just plain doesn't work but it's the tip of the iceberg.
I'm not sure what the reason for the controls to be so awkward and
unintuitive but they can use a lot of improvement. Again – this is
beta and we would hope by the time of release they have fixed this.
- Not much free content
Yeah, another telling criticism.
Indeed, if there is ONE major issue with Spark it's the lack of
varying style and content. We have exactly one baddie – the
goblin. We know there is one more coming but that's also about it.
All the characters are basically clones of a young male. And while
there are some content packs they are rather expensive considering
what you get.
On the flipside you DO earn the ability
to purchase all the content that is available, so unlike just about
any other game out there you really don't have to spend a dime to
play. If there is a lot more content available this could be an
issue, of course, but it's still cheaper than most full-games out
there. I don't think content in Spark is exactly expensive, just
extremely limited.
This may be the issue that turns off
more folks on Spark than anything. Nearly all the games, no matter
how well designed (see below) are starting to look so familiar it is
hard to imagine even 10x the content packs being released changing
this. Will Spark ever be able to do a realistic game like Grand
Theft Auto, or a Sci-fi game like Star Wars Knights of the Old
Republic? Or even just anything that doesn't look like Fable?
We are told that no outside content
creators will be allowed, and that it takes a LONG time to develop
content for Spark. None of this bodes well for a diverse and rich
universe of content to ever be available for it. Spark may end up
being one of those niche products that folks will think fondly of
when they think about game development just on this basis alone.
- Achievements are difficult
This has (mostly) been addressed with a
new server side patch that added new, easier to attain, milestones.
If an old man like me can reach the maximum level (50) in about a
month of using the game, almost anyone else can. It isn't terribly
difficult but it does require a commitment to using the game and
that's really the whole point.
Folks who just want to dabble with
Spark don't need to achieve any higher level, so this isn't really an
issue.
- It isn't fun
This is a hard one to quantify. There
are lots of fun games made by Spark, and there are lot of crappy
ones. It's hard to uncover the really interesting ones due to all
the crap, but this curation is being worked on by both Team Dakota as
well as the Community and may eventually work itself out.
Also, truly longer form games will need
some improvements that are planned. Level linking and multiplayer
are in the works and if they haven't come out yet they are certainly
high priority. They should make it possible to make games that are
fun for nearly everyone.
There isn't, yet, a “killer game”
or one that makes everyone sit up and say “this is something I
really need.” That will come – it's still beta. Given the
content issues (noted above) there is nothing other than level
linking and multiplayer that holds Spark back from creating just
about any game imaginable.
- Kode issues
Yep, another telling criticism. The
implementation of Kode is fraught with issues and it's all the more
troubling since this is the core of what makes games in Spark. So,
yes, the fact that the tiles are so incredibly huge (so you can only
see three or four lines at once on the screen) is pretty awful. So
is the inability to print out your Kode (which would mitigate that
issue), or import and export it (a very basic ability that should
have been there from the get go). Unfortunately, Kode here betrays
its' Kodu roots – except that Kodu was never designed to create
games this complicated.
The idea that you can't see all the
tiles (because they walk you through only ones that are available) is
admirable but flawed, because a lot of times you can't even see HOW
you can get to the tiles you need. Part of this can be fixed with
examples (as it stands now about 80% is undocumented, which makes
using it more of an arcane art that truly makes learning Spark a lot
like playing a video game like World of Warcraft – as you watch the
mage you will learn, young apprentice).
At the very least the resolution of
Kodu has to be improved, NOW. We need to be able to see at least 10
or 12 lines at once on a screen (so the tiles should be halved, if
not smaller). This would also help us get more than 8 or 9 tiles in
the circle at once (again, an impediment to seeing what is
available). But more than that, we HAVE to have external tools to
manipulate it (and relying upon third party solutions like the
terrible KodeShare is NOT an acceptable solution). There is really
NO excuse for not being able to print it out, in English (not a
screen shot) the Kode lines so we can read WHEN player DO move. And
we need the ability to import such an English language construction
as well. The development of Spark would be sped up, oh, maybe 10 or
12 fold if we had these sorts of things.
The Cure
Saying Unity is the cure to Spark is a
bit like saying building a home with real bricks is a good
alternative to using Legos. They are two completely different things
which, while sharing a bit of similarity and common architecture,
aren't even apples and oranges (but more like apples and paper
clips). Unity is a professional software development engine that
costs $$$ (the free version is VERY limiting and only really designed
to whet your appetite) for developers who want to create games for
sale. It takes months if not years to develop a game using Unity,
and no one who isn't going to make a career (or at least a major
commitment) is ever going to use it.
Spark, on the other hand, is for the
aforementioned Legos type individual, who wants to have fun and
dabble in game creation but doesn't plan on selling their games nor
taking months to make them. It's the difference between someone
making a YouTube video and someone having a film career. Spark could
certainly be a springboard to someone who wants to get into game
development, but Unity would never be something you could pick up for
an hour or two over the weekend and creating something your family
would enjoy checking out. There's no question Spark could be easier
and better, but it's still a beta and as long as the developers have
a plan in place for addressing the issues that currently face them it
can have a long future as the most fun most people can have with a PC
or their Xbox.
