Talk:Chocolate Castle/GA1

GA Review

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GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

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First off, good job on getting this article off of AFD!

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   • Lead needs improvement and cleanup. Try to follow the guidelines at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Newsletter/20080409 and at WP:LEAD. Something like this could use a three-paragraph lead, but it also needs to be organized as such. It also looks like the last couple of sentences in the lead could be better summarized or otherwise removed to the Reception section.

   Good.

   • White designed Chocolate Castle as a platform for further puzzles, the game includes an editor for players to create their own rooms and lexaloffle's website holds player created rooms.

   • Looks like a run-on sentence. In either sense, it doesn't read very well. Also, make sure the company's name is capitalized.

   Good.

   • Gameplay section needs cleanup, as I cannot quite tell how the game is played after reading it myself. The basic gameplay description reads like it's out of order. It's good to describe the object first, but after that, describe what players must do to complete the room.
   • There is also quite a bit of passive voice (i.e. The amount of animals within a room is predetermined as part of the puzzle.) throughout the article. Try to change as many of those instances as you can to the active voice.

   Both are good.

   B. MoS compliance:

   Corrected one link after checking via WP:REFTOOLS, all external links check out. For future reference, please look at the copyediting corrections I have made MoS-wise. The biggest thing was WP:PUNC (particularly quotations) and WP:DASH.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   Players can select any room they wish to attempt, allowing them to leave puzzles which they cannot solve for the time being. → needs to be backed up with a source as the first citation following it does not contain anything about this statement.

   Looks good, now.

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   It does not look like either the blog post from IndieGames.com or the site itself are considered reliable. See [1] and [2]. Unless something comes up establishing the reliability of this source, it needs to be removed. Also remember, while not a reason for failing 2b (possibly MoS/1b, but easily corrected by myself), that if you are using the same reference for multiple statements, just place one reference at the end of them instead of at the end of every sentence (unless you're at the end of the paragraph, then place one at the end of the paragraph).

   Good after clarification provided below.

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   There is room for some expansion for this look at another post by Simon Carless at GameSetWatch here and another little review by PC World here.

   B. Focused:

   It seems like the Development section goes into the history of the developer to much as opposed to the game, causing some undue weight to be placed against the article's subject. I suggest cutting out some of the details behind White's developing strategy and focusing more on how Chocolate Castle was developed.

   I'm asking for a 2nd opinion on this.

   I asked VanTine84 to take a look at that section, and unfortunately he agrees with my assessment (see reply on his talk here). Unless you can find other reliable sources that cover the development of the game itself, I cannot, in good faith, pass on this criterion.

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   Remember to use the smallest possible filesize (while trying to maintain the same low-resolution) of the images when possible. I reuploaded smaller versions of the two images into the article.

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

   Good use of captions.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   I am putting the GA review on hold for right now to address the issues I have mentioned above. MuZemike 21:50, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks for your time MuZemike and for your helpful suggestions. Some of these are going to take some time, but there's a few which can be discussed now:

• I've tweaked the lead, but I'm really struggling to split it into three. What should be the first paragraph consists of one medium and one short sentence, even with the infobox they don't take up a single line on my screen. The newsletter suggests merging the first and third paragraphs if reception is light, but that's the one area of the article which has plenty of material.
• The development section reflects that the only two interviews I could find discussed White's past rather than any particular game in detail. Literally all he says about Chocolate Castle is that it was developed alongside Jasper's Journeys and that it's a platform for additional puzzles to be created. Given the choice with having no development section to speak of or at least giving the reader some background I chose the latter. I can certainly see why you brought this up and would do the same, but it is all it could be.
• Indiegames.com is part of a group which in turn is a shard of a FTSE250 company, which specializes in industry-level video game coverage. I'm puzzled as to why other members of the project have shown so little enthusiasm for the site. Gamasutra is a sister to Game Developer Magazine, making it highly usable and regarded, these other sites are sisters to Gamasutra, like specialized sattelites. If Indiegames doesn't have an editorial procedure page then I expect it's because it doesn't need one, Tim W. is the driving force behind the site and he just gets on with it. The other thing highlighted is that Think do not have the site in their laundry list. Well, it's a much less commercial site anyway, but GameSetWatch (the group's central gaming blog which reprints articles from all the other sites and has original articles too) lists them as the next site on the top of their page and right in the middle of their vertical sidebar (scroll down). It's not like they're trying to hide it. Also, Tim W. writes a weekly round up which goes on Gamasutra. Regardless of whether or not the site is listed on Think's page it is distributed via the larger sites as legitimate journalism, and I think we need to add all of this group of sites to the reliable sources list.

I'll do my best to work on the issues you've highlighted. Someoneanother 23:43, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for clarification on the Tim W. part. That source should be fine squarely on the basis that an expert is making that post. Whether the site itself is reliable can be discussed (again) elsewhere. MuZemike 17:50, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to take another look at the lead when I get the chance. I have a class in a couple of minutes, so I have to get going. MuZemike 14:47, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I cleaned up and added additional information to the infobox as shown here. I also cleaned up the lead rather extensively to try to make it more concise and focused. I see what you mean by using just two paragraphs, so I kept it as such. I also removed the statement saying Lexaloffle is owned and operated by Joseph White, who began programming games at the age of 10 and released his first game at the age of 14, as I don't think that's relevant to the lead section. I've also intentionally wikilinked Lexaloffle as a redlink to possibly encourage creation of that article. Let me know what you think about it. MuZemike 17:12, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

That's looking good, thank you for that MuZemike. I've tried to remove some redundancy from the development section. I double-checked for any interviews and came up with multiple links to those two already in the article, they seem to be it for Lexaloffle. There's no additional information relating to Chocolate Castle, but at least the section is more punchy and comparitively less of it is now about White as opposed to the game. Someoneanother 18:36, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, saw your note, the information isn't there to take, so please fail the GA. Thanks very much for your time on this. Someoneanother 21:34, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to hear that. You should still be (and will be if a barnstar suffices) commended for bringing the article up from the jaws of deletion, though. Though not a GA, it is still a decent article, and I would personally vouch to speedy keep any subsequent AFD made on this. Nice job for the work, even I enjoyed working on it. Hopefully more stuff comes about the game that it can be included as a GA in the future. MuZemike 05:33, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The GAN does not pass for not meeting Good article criterion 3b. The article is not give due weight on the development of the game itself, but instead gives the history of the developer. It is not focused enough on the topic of the article. MuZemike 05:39, 23 April 2009 (UTC)