Risu2112, on 19 January 2011 - 07:03 AM, said:
If people use the theme heavy it seems like we should be somewhat critical of how the theme is used. 50%+ awarded for saying "violence" in the introduction text, and then painting half of the board red
I know you elaborated more on IRC, but just the text you posted here is pretty disingenuous. That's not all that game did, and you know it. Moving on to the bigger point, though, I'll explain the arguments for the board members.
Your first point, which I can give the biggest leeway to, is being upset at the general idea of higher baseline scores (in the 65-75% range) for theme than for other categories, with respect to the theme/heavy sheet. Much of this exists due to prior applications of the theme basically being a test to ensure that people are playing by the rules and making a relevant game first, and excellent craft second. The scoresheet separation makes this less of an obvious intent, but due to some of the ridiculous hand-waved topics of some games and mashed-up engine games that are submitted, it still makes some sense to approach even the theme-heavy sheet with some of this.
Your second point, related to the first, is your contention that just mentioning the topic or doing a single thing related to the topic requires huge amounts of statutory points to be awarded under a higher-baseline system. The example you listed was a 10-second cut scene of a guy shooting someone getting 70/100 points on theme. I'm sorry, but there is no way that'd get past even 25, for several reasons: 1) no thematic gameplay; 2) no rationale; 3) no substance. Judges have a lot of discretion over how to interpret the categories, and often dock plenty of points for reasons that make sense but don't directly fit under the aegis of any given category. Sure, pi's plot was a throwaway paragraph, but it is reflected in the gameplay (rudimentary and unimaginative as it is). The game didn't turn into a stealth game or a game where you ran away from demons or anything else that could give a textual reference to VIOLNENT DEMINS and still have related gameplay, you fucking shot them. To death. And you always die in the end.
Your final point is that allowing a higher baseline effectively punishes the people who try to give the best thematic interpretation. Generally speaking, people who try to give the highest interpretation to the theme score will necessarily end up getting higher values in the story and/or gameplay fields than average as a consequence (save for extreme issues like a really broken game or a total word salad of a story, in which case they're going to be "punished" appropriately anyway). Explain to me how a game can be thematically very strong without paying any special attention to story or gameplay, please. Story ratings especially take internal hits whenever it doesn't mesh with the theme.