Hero Project: Redemption Season News and Discussion

I can’t speak for the other beta testers, of course, but I don’t believe I was negligent. My job as a beta tester, to my mind, is to play through a game and note what does and what doesn’t work for me, and to report any bugs or typos that I notice. It is NOT to tell the author what I think might or might not work for you, or for others - that’s why games have more than one beta tester. (That’s even something an editor might cover - but I wasn’t editing.) We each bring our own perspective to the games we test.

I tend to play ‘squishy’ characters, to borrow a term from @JimD’s Safe Haven thread (at least, that’s where I first saw it). I don’t leave much feedback there, because most of the people who play don’t want to play a non-violent MC, especially one with a background in something like music, which is not directly pertinent to killing zombies (well, I suppose unless you smash them with your cello case). But sometimes I do leave a comment there, because having different perspectives is, I hope, helpful to the author.

With Redemption Season, I enjoyed the story and the action (even on re-reading, I still rather liked the climactic fight towards the end, even with its flaws, even with Miss Boss and the consequences, even though fights are my least favourite part of any game.) And that’s okay. I’m allowed to enjoy the game, its characters, its story. It’s okay that I didn’t find the game boring at all.

I sent feedback regarding several issues that I noticed. That’s what beta testers do, right? I’m only a person playing a game, and sending in a list of suggestions and thoughts according to my own lights. I can only give my own observations to the best of my ability.

And beta testers are generally volunteers - at least, all of the game, and even program, development I’ve ever beta tested for has been volunteer work. I love it, and I’m happy to do it. But please don’t issue a blanket statement that we beta testers are all negligent. We’re only able to beta test according to how we see things, and give feedback as best we can.

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True though considering the issues with this game apparently, the most serious of which seems to be some misleading advertising, one can’t help but wonder if that might have been caught with a larger and/or more diverse pool of beta testers.

Thanks @poison_mara and @P_Tigras btw, your reviews (and an above average case load) actually saved me some time and money here.

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The beta testers don’t see the advertising (at least, I don’t think I ever have). I believe it’s added later.

I also have no idea how many beta testers there were, or what the others’ feedback might have been.

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I was just disappointed about the romance option because my hero he romance Weaver and the romance really didn’t go no where. same with the others and I know her reason into not wanting to get “involved” with me hero. But I was expecting romance like how it was with Black Magic where the romance was intense, but here it’s just like whatever. I mean I know it’s going to be a part 2 but I wanted some romance to hang me over for next year probably when part 2 gets put out.

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I honestly dont see why everyone say the game almost dont include heroes.

You are playing a “mutant” hero in a WORLD filled with heroes. They already told that heroes being a part of everyone everyday life is normal. How can they show this more? There is heroes, there is villains, there is justice and injustice. How can they make this a hero game more? A game can be multiple genre and themes.

I think the criticism is that you don’t feel like a hero. You feel like someone fighting for social justice. And fighting for social issues is fine, but we bought a game advertised as a superhero game, not a game advertised as a social issues game where you happen to have superpowers.

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But who really is a super hero when everyone is? Thats something they are approaching. See it how you want, its the issues in this world just like we have our own issues here. It just show that in this world, heroes can be just as biased as peoples in our world. Ultimately heroes are still humans.

Don’t forget the time we spend doing heroing is abismal shortly, while the time we spend with the discrimination issues…

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Isn’t that a kind of hero, though? I mean, do you think that people’s general issue is that the type of powered hero is too defined compared to the games’ advertising, and previous expectations borne of the earlier trilogy?

I felt more like a hero in this game than I did in the original. In the original, I felt like a hot-headed, self-serving, incompetent, hormonal teenager with a power set, no matter what I tried to do. I don’t think the original is a bad game, and I know it’s quite popular, I just didn’t connect with it or enjoy it much.

This game, though, was much more enjoyable because I like the type of hero-ing more. I also don’t mind a hero game that’s mostly about the hero’s life, rather than the career. And I really felt like the hero part was woven through the game very well. How am I a hero in JK’s eyes? What about the teams? What about the cameras? The producers? The viewing public? The general public?

And again, I played without ever having seen the adverts, so maybe that is part of why I view the game more favourably.

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We’re on a tv show, we’re not on the street like the original MC, the show is the new MC way to reach their goal. It was said that the character would be on a tv show, not heroing on the street.

On a TV show doing hero things, not discussing societal problems.
Just look at the second game, we had a lot more time going against Cullic and then we had the fight against the Cabal.

Now? The first fight against the Splice Circle is cut short for your team to lose and only the fight against the disenbodied villains can give the feel of a true fight, and even this fight is plagued by the “DISCRIMINATION!!!” problems of this game.

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This is only the begining though. I can already see a few way the next episode could make this more interesting. The first episode seemed to be mostly developping your MC, the story and the characters. A lot of peoples seem to ignore the fact that another game is coming that does show different possible paths. I wont tell them but the end did leave a few hints that something is coming and that our opinion is beginning to matter weither we are selfish or not.

The forums have always been highly critical of Zachary Sergi’s games. It’s easy to forget that we’re actually a minority of the audience, even though we’re also a very vocal, extremely passionate part of said fanbase. The Heroes Rise games are some of the most popular, best-selling Choice of Games, yet we’re usually highly critical of them on the forums.

The forums for those of us who play the games, first and foremost, not for the authors.

It’s a strange thing, games we love here doing not so well, other games we find so many flaws in, doing extremely well. We know Jason’s reading everything here, and I think we just need to trust in Choice of Games, and Jason, to pass on the feedback that needs to known, while also ensuring that one of their best authors spends his time writing more games (and thus earning money) as opposed to reading and answering all of our feedback individually.

Not that I’m dismissing what people have to say.

I fully support Zachary Sergi’s desire to write the sort of stories that mean something to him. It’s so common to have discrimination themes in the superhero genre, why can’t a game be about both things, when the comics certainly are?

I love how Choice of Games gives a voice to different authors, allowing them to tell the sort of stories they want to. Stories that matter to them. Most stories push an agenda, we generally don’t question it though.

There’s articles on the Choice of Games blog that speak of the ability for interactive fiction to teach others. I know that games are such a wonderful tool for offering people insight that they might not ever have.

I think, if the story touches one person, like it did @Jenna_V, then it’s worthwhile.

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It is a weak begnning, the first Heroes Rise had a better reception and that final fight with Prodigal was epic, now this ending? It’s very weak.
The end didn’t give me any hopes, with the “Those guys aren’t really bad, they are victims of the society, you should not hate them, instead you need to help them!” and the “it doesn’t matter what you choose, you character wants to be a icon for societal change!”.

The PC didn’t develop, he is always saying the same thing about “DISCRIMINATION!”, even if you don’t want him to say it. And you are punished if you don’t want him to say anything about it.

We cant know what will happen in the future, we are reviewing this game. Hopefully it will be better, because if it is PROPAGANDA: ANTI DISCRIMINATION THE GAME 2 instead of HERO Project, I will not buy.

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Maybe its a weak begining for you but I personaly found it good enough. In the end its your choice but I dont think this serie should be put aside so fast just because you didnt like the MC feelings right now. Its not unreasonable to assume that they would feel guilty for betraying their own kind but the choice to create a new world order benefiting you and using social justice as an excuse to do this is possible and again, its not really punishing to give less legend point because it really is not very noble to do so. Right now its you and your sister but you dont lose the game if you end up with a bad relationship with her.

Right now its to benefit you and your sister but if you really do end up hating her who say that this wont change for benefiting you alone? She might even end up fighting you!

That is ok that you liked it, never said you couldnt, but I didn’t and the majority of people in this thread didn’t like it too.
The PC didn’t betrayed his “kind”, in fact I don’teven know who this “kind” is.
I don’t think you undestand the problem of the punishment, if you think It’s ok to not be able to save Miss Boss because you don’t care about society problems, then we don’t have anything more to discuss about this.
Or the fact that having high Personal stats means you must betray StarSoar while being societal you can not betray him, continue in the game and gain legends points.
Or that you can be eliminated by having high Personal stat while you will not be eliminated by having high Societal stat.

Lol, it even seems like a joke, the writer is not even pretending to balance the stats.

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But again, its a TV show. A personal character dont want to share stuff about themselves or society, they have to betray starsoar because the public wouldnt care about them. The MC kind are the three most oppressed groups, you know, animorphs, disembodied and stuff. If you pass their only opportunity to have a role model in society you are hurting your kind.

You seem to be attacking this without thinking about the future. Only that you dont like being restricted but the mc is being restricted by everything all the time because of their kind so again its not unfair to assume that they would be cast off if they are from an oppressed group and dont even try to catch the public attention. If you’re not interesting then why would anyone care? Our main fanbase are our kind after all if I’m not wrong. You can decide to end this conversation but you cant deny these things either.

I definitely think an author should be able to write what he/she/they feel most connected with and I think Zach did that very well. It’s just, like you said, comics do the same thing. They’re going to have a plethora of social issues underlying all of the basic plot elements of their story. It’s just that, you have things as successful as X-men and Civil War (comics so far) that you’re always going to look at those and want to compare it to anything similar.

My beef is that I just wish the game’s issues made me feel what it’s trying to pervey rather than actively tell me, “This is what’s going on; this is how this character feels; this is how your character feels.” And I know that’s not how a lot of people felt playing the game and I’m just one person with an opinion.

And a game like this, and any of the games prior, it’s a popular game made by one of CoG’s most successful writers. That’s grounds itself for wanting to criticize and not because we hate the game but because we’d like to see it get even better. And the fact that it’s a popular game means more voices that wanna be heard.

I’m definitely still here despite not liking the game as much as I wanted to and I’m still very excited about the second installment. Plus, any feedback is good feedback as long as the criticism and praise is constructive and conducive to helping the game and the author get better.

I think a lot of people on here have said that the game isn’t bad, but it isn’t good either. I thought it was alright and I’ve already said my piece on it; I just thought Sergi could have done better with weaving theme and plot together.

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Lol, Personal stat is different from Private stat. And as you think It’s ok to punish the players because they dont want to play the game as the writer wants, we have nothing more to discuss.
And you keep talking about the future, but I don’t care about it. I care that I didn’t enjoy THIS game, as several other people in this thread.
You will not convince me this game is good.

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I’m not trying to convince you that the game is good. Just that some points you use to critisize this game dont make that much sense when we think about it. If you dont want to talk about it its your choice but I’m not saying I’m in favor of punishing personal players. Just that it would make sense that they would be in real society. Take it how you want but you’re taking this whole thing as if it was the author obligation to balance stats to make the game fair while the whole point of the game is to call out injustice.

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