Talk:Silicon Dreams

This article was selected for DYK!

(not a stub any more! A project member should rerate it IMHO). ++Lar: t/c 13:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

About the revision done in September 9, 2007

The most important change is the merge of the trivia sections into the article. Some things had to go, though.

Snowball 9

• The entry about the game being text-only was removed because it's made clear on the Return to Eden section. The rest of the information, while of some value, seemed unnecessary and was removed, too.

• The "colorful treatment" descriptions were replaced with another passage of the game because the Crash magazine review (found on the external links section) used the same descriptions in a similar fashion. I changed it to avoid trouble.

The Worm in Paradise

• The line: "The Worm in Paradise carries a large dose of social commentary, relative to other games of the same genre and era" was removed because it's a personal opinion rather than an encyclopedic study. If you can provide a way to validate it, feel free to add it back.

• The Knight Orc entry was removed because it would be best to mention it on an article about that game (which doesn't exist at the moment.)

MetaManFromTomorrow 23:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

GA fail

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

   a (tagged and captioned): b (enough images: lack of images does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Comments

This article is a good start to a Good article, but still needs a lot of work. The prose in the article is pretty clear, there doesn't seem to be any WP:POV issues or original research, which is good! I'll go over some of the major problems I saw:

• There were many problems with regard to the manual of style. Some are as simple as putting a reference before a comma or period, and some are more conspicuous as subheadings being undescriptive ("About the game" doesn't tell me anything about what the section seems to actually be about - development). Although I like the header to the article, it should be less like an introduction and more like a stand-alone summary of the entire article. See WP:LEAD for more information.
• Also related to the manual of style, the article should have more wikilinks. All sections could use more, but some (such as the second game) don't have any. Go through and read the article as if you don't know anything about it. Which words would not make sense and would you want more information about?
• This ties to the fact that throughout the article it is assumed that the reader knows what the article is talking about. Even though I am a huge video game fan and user, I was lost at various parts in the article. Simply in explaining the stories it is not always clear what the section is talking about. There also may be consistency issues: when I read "it was the first game of the trilogy to feature graphics" about Return to Eden and I looked up and saw the graphics screenshot of Snowball, it didn't make any sense.
• The references used in the article are at least satisfactorily verifiable, however there are various parts of the article that lack appropriate citations. First, all quotes should be cited immediately after the endquote. I found at least a few instances where this was not the case. In addition, claims that may be controversial (such as "Snowball was noteworthy for including over 7,000 locations, more than the average adventure game of its day, when most games were played on home microcomputers with small memory capacities") also need to be cited. In general, if you can find more citations it is always good (but not necessary for all sections in this article).
• The article is not as broad as it could be. I suggest looking at some of the other video games Good articles to get an idea of aspects of a video game that are important. I suggest including more information about the development of the game, such as budgeting, pre-release information, beta information, and social impact. I was impressed with the info that was included in this vein in the About the game sections, but it could be expanded more.
• The three images in the article do not have fair-use rationales. The images are useless without these descriptions.

Overall it is a solid article but needs more work. I think if you address these concerns you can swiftly renominate the article and be well on your way to Good article status!! -- Noetic Sage 16:14, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

VG Assessment

This is in regards to the request at the VG Assessment page. I'm rating this article as Start-class, Low-importance. Here are a few tips to improve it!

Most everything got covered in the GA review just above, so I'll just leave the review at that. --PresN 03:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

New images

As part of my effort to bump this article to GA, I added the fair use rationale to all images. This made me upload new versions of each one, because the rationale--while not demanding it--advises the use of low-resolution images. Rather than crop and resize the old ones, I took new screenshots from saved games and uploaded them. It was easier for me. If anyone misses the old screenshots, then crop, resize and re-upload them, but I must say I like the new ones better. Furthermore, given the fact that the new ones are small, I didn't see the point of displaying them as thumbs. Thus, they're now shown at actual size on the article. It looks better to me.

MetaManFromTomorrow 01:34, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Unnecessary blockquote

I reverted the first blockquote (the one that says: "You are floating in a flexible transpex tube..." on so on) back to an inline citation because it takes less than four lines. For more information, check Wikipedia:Manual of Style.

MetaManFromTomorrow 05:50, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:VG assessment

A good read, though I don't think this is quite B-standard yet, primarily because it's lacking essential sections. Here are some ideas to improve the article:

• Two of the most important sections for video game articles are Gameplay (detailing the gameplay mechanics and such) and Critical Reception (what sort of reviews did it get?). I can understand that getting enough information for a substancial Reception section may be difficult, considering the age of the game. Have a look at Ninja Gaiden (2004 video game) for a basic idea of how to lay out these sections for three different games.
• This article is lacking references, which is another obstacle in getting it promoted. I'll acknowledge that, given the age of the game, this could prove difficult, but references are still incredibly important. WP:CITE.
• "Citation error 8: No text given." Might want to fix that.
• I fixed the lack of plot subheadings myself, but the sections only appear to give a back-of-the-box-style summary, rather than the usual full synopsis.
• Is the quotation starting "The lid above rises, a light comes on and a low voice murmurs" in the first Development section really necessary?
• One- and two-sentence paragraphs are to be avoided like the plague.

More refs, the expansion of the plot sections and the inclusion of Critical Reception and Gameplay sections would probably bring you up to B. Una Laguna^Talk 07:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Whoops, sorry, I assessed the title at the top of the archive section instead of the new requests section. D'oh! Ah well, enjoy your free assessment... Una Laguna^Talk 07:14, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Silicon Dreams trilogy/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

---

This article is in decent shape, but it needs more work before it becomes a Good Article.

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   There's some significant problems with in-universe perspective. The setting section, for instance is entirely in-universe. It needs to be reworded to at least portray it from a real-world perspective, as described in WP:WAF (ie, in the present tense). The Kim Kimberly section in particular is far too in-universe, its simply a reiteration of the backstory. From reading that section, I have no idea what the character's role is in the story and why a section has therefore been dedicated to her. I can only presume she is meant to be the protagonist; the role and significance of the of the character should be put forward. There's also a few instances of spelling errors, such as "United Sates" and "instalments" in the intro. Go through the prose to get rid of these errors.

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   Again, some significant problems here. The primary cause of this is mass overlinking. Do not link common words or terms, and link only when contextually necessary to do so. There is an excess mass of blue in this article, links to things like Literal and figurative language, Settler, disaster, taxes and vocabulary are but a few examples from this article of things that really should not be linked.

2. Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):

   C. It contains no original research:

   I remain very reluctant to pass an article that has entirely unreferenced sections. The setting section and plot sections should be referenced, even if only using the {{cite video game}} template and primary sources.

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

   Although I acknowledge that this is an old game and thus reception information isn't that easy to come by, I must ask if there is the possibility that the reception section can be expanded. If not, then what we have is fine.

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   If the statements above can be rectified, I will pass the article. In the meantime, the nomination is on hold; I'll check back in seven days (or sooner if you think you've dealt with all the issues). Good luck with improving this article! -- Sabre (talk) 13:27, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

S@bre, just wanted to thank you for a very thorough review. I have been away on business for a while now and needs to catch up, but I'll get back to your concerns when time permits. --Frodet (talk) 18:42, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Very well. I'll have to fail the article for the immediate moment, but when you've got the time to address these issues, feel free to relist it and contact me, and I'll do another review for you. -- Sabre (talk) 11:10, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Sinclair QL

The QL-version is listed in the user manual. I haven't found any supporting information that it was actually released, but there is very little information in general about QL releases. Is there any supporting information that it was never released? --Frodet (talk) 19:35, 9 September 2010 (UTC)