Talk:Catechumen (video game)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Shooterwalker (talk · contribs) 14:14, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

I'll take a stab at this one. Hoping to get to it within a week. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:14, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Gameplay

• First sentence is decent, though I might combine it with the second sentence just for flow. "Catechumen is a first-person shooter set during the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire."
• "Christian in training" -> this sort of reads weird. Truthfully I didn't know what a Catechumen was, but there's probably a clearer explanation to be had.
• "Depleting the faith causes the game to end. " -> "The game ends when the player loses all faith."
• The statement about armor might flow more naturally from restoring health (as two short sentences about a related idea)
• "to proceed" -> you can put this before the "––", just to make for a simpler construction.
• "Hall of Fame level" -> is this an actual level? If not, the word "setting" might be more clear.

Development

• link Church of God in Christ
• " The company's founder and chief executive officer, Ralph D. Bagley, had become a licensed minister in 1992. He worked in this capacity at the Church of God in Christ in Medford and was the publisher of The Christian Quarterly, a small newspaper in the Western United States."

-> "The company's founder and chief executive officer, Ralph D. Bagley, was a licensed minister at the Church of God in Christ in Medford. He was also the publisher of The Christian Quarterly, a small newspaper in the Western United States."

• "Bagley said that, while he had been playing video games since Pong and Pac-Man, he found it conflicting to play "nastier" games like Doom and Quake after coming home from church." -> "Bagley had been a fan of video games since Pong and Pac-Man, and had mixed feelings about coming home from church to play "nastier" games Doom and Quake."
• "He felt there was a gap in the market for "quality alternatives that match the excitement of secular games while promoting Christian values – without the violent or sexually explicit content" and believed Christian video games would similarly rise in popularity like Christian music had several years earlier." -> "Seeing the increasing popularity of Christian music, he believed there was a potential market for Christian video games "that match the excitement of secular games while promoting Christian values – without the violent or sexually explicit content""
• "Around thirty people worked on the game. The core team of eleven developers—including lead programmer and lead game designer Kristopher Horton, lead artist Andy Anderson, and lead level designer Chris Perkins—worked sixteen hours per day on several occasions." -> "Around thirty people worked on the game, with Andy Anderson as lead artist, Chris Perkins as lead level designer, and Kristopher Horton as both lead programmer and game designer. On several occasions, the core team of eleven developers worked sixteen hours per day."

Reception

• This section is generally good, though the organization of the paragraphs and sentences deserves a second look.
• The comment about fan mail from parents is interesting, but doesn't belong with the other critical reviews. Perhaps it could be combined into a paragraph with its commercial reception? This could even become the leading paragraph of the section.
• "A.S. Berman, in his review for USA Today, reported it as a satisfying adrenaline rush. He also praised the environments as being "exquisitely rendered"" -> this can probably be summarized into one sentence
• The paragraph break doesn't make sense here.
• "Randy Sluganski of Just Adventure summarized them as not subpar, featuring dynamic lighting, fog, and other features, but not as advanced as those of Quake and Unreal. He still noted that colors were more vibrant than in similar games." -> Randy Sluganski said that the graphics were less advanced to peers such as Quake and Unreal, but praised the use of vibrant colors, dynamic lighting, and volumetric fog."
• " he said all other light was "well done"" -> there's probably a better way to summarize this thought, as it now reads as almost a complete contradiction. ("The game was good, except for the parts that sucked.")

Legacy

• " was developing a multiplayer game" - "began developing a multiplayer game as their next project."
• I'm not 100% sure about the treatment of this section. This isn't about the legacy of the game. This is basically a sub-article about N'Lightning Software and its history. An article about the studio or Ralph Bagley might make more sense, with a shorter summary here focusing on the impact of the game.
• This section is otherwise very well written and researched.

That's a good first pass, and the article is generally solid. Hopefully you can see what I'm saying about the Legacy section and we can figure out a solution. Shooterwalker (talk) 21:57, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

@Shooterwalker: Thank you for the review! I made some changes to address your points. I understand your angle on the "Legacy" section, but I believe that most of it is justified, since the sales of Catechumen tie into the creation of Ominous Horizons and the combined sales led to N'Lightning's next actions. A prospective article on N'Lightning would effectively be a carbon copy of the first half of "Development and release" plus maybe five sentences from "Legacy", which is not ideal. I also merged Ominous Horizons article here, although this has been reverted by another editor. If the Ominous Horizons article sticks around, I could imagine trimming some details thereof. IceWelder [✉] 23:24, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

I trimmed "Legacy" down to one paragraph. IceWelder [✉] 23:32, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

You've made good progress on this. Let's take another look, starting with the lead.

Lead

• "2000" is out of place, at least the way the first sentence is currently written.
• "catechumen" is too technical a term for most readers. It's worth describing this in simpler language.
• "found it conflicting to play" -> "had mixed feelings about playing"
• " Catechumen received mixed reviews, being praised for its pacing, while its graphics, story, and audio raised differing opinions. Catechumen received mixed reviews, being praised for its pacing, while its graphics, story, and audio raised differing opinions. Criticism was directed at the level design, puzzles, and artificial intelligence." -> "Catechumen received mixed reviews, with praise for its fast paced action, and differing opinions about its story and audiovisual elements. Its levels, puzzles, and artificial intelligence were widely criticized."
• The lead is otherwise solid.

Body

• "and must free their mentor and brethren from Roman captivity." -> this might work better as a separate sentence. It feels disjointed currently. (Alternatively, you can drop "before being granted access to secret meetings")
• "It can be increased by collecting scrolls of scripture. The Armor of God pickup provides additional protection." -> these two short related thoughts can be joined with a conjunction (e.g.: "and")
• " There are five difficulty levels—"Fledgling", "Easy", "Normal", "Hard", and "Impossible"—with the most difficult one unlocking the secret "Hall of Fame" area when beaten" -> " There are five difficulty settings — "Fledgling", "Easy", "Normal", "Hard", and "Impossible" — and defeating the highest setting unlocks a secret "Hall of Fame" area."
• When you mention the title evoking questions about its meaning, this would be a good time to maybe explain in more detail what a Catechumen is. (Though it's not necessary, and the short description above is sufficient.)
• Move the comment about the encouraging emails to after the sales figures.
• I see your point about the legacy. It wouldn't be the worst thing to duplicate some content in a more focused article about the studio, but this is concise enough without going off topic.

You've done a solid job and the article is very close. Shooterwalker (talk) 03:19, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

I've made a couple more changes. I don't think I want to re-explain "catechumen" in the development section as it will have appearead twice before, plus the source used there doesn't present that detail. As for the first lead sentence, the current format is the bog-standard way of putting the year into the first sentence, which is a requirement. The guideline was copied from WP Film, so I checked various 2000 films and most of them do it this way. IceWelder [✉] 08:41, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

That explanation makes sense to me, and everything else looks great. Congratulations on passing another WP:GA. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:10, 13 September 2023 (UTC)