Talk:Marienbad (video game)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Indrian (talk · contribs) 19:59, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Early video game history by PresN? That must mean I am doing the GA review! Indrian (talk) 19:59, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Haha, it is traditional. In the interest of clear disclosure (though you already know this), this one is a co-nomination with Coin945‎, who did his usual impressive job of finding obscure and non-English sources and writing them up. --PresN 20:25, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I was out of town last week, but will have this reviewed shortly. Indrian (talk) 00:26, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Lead

• Is Mr. Witold Podgórski notable enough that he should really have his own article, and even if he is are there enough English-language sources to provide one? If yes, that's fine; I just want to make sure the red link is justified.

• I don't think so; his notability is entirely for this game, as far as I can tell. Delinked.

• "and an ancestor of the modern Polish video gaming industry" - I know some of the sources go there, but is this really a supportable statement or just mere puffery? It seems to me from the minuscule distribution that it had there is no direct line between this game and any future developments in Polish games. I would go so far to say that not even a solid indirect line exists. Its okay to keep the mention in the legacy section since its a quote from a scholar, but it seems like something to leave out of the lead.

• It's puffery; it's summarizing statements from an RS but that was puffery too. Maybe "precursor" would be more accurate, but that's just another way to say first. Dropped.

Gameplay

• "The game allowed for a single player" - The game could only be played by a single human, right (or at least a single human side, I mean technically an unlimited number of people could take the side against the computer)? Therefore, we need a better limiter here, as "allowed" does not on its own identify the game as exclusively one player.

• Agreed, reworded.

Development

• Having first heard about the existence of "electronic brains" in 1955 - Do our sources say where or how he first learned about them? If not, its no big deal.

• The quote is "My contact with IT began in 1955 in high school. Hearing about the existence of "electronic brains", I designed a binary doubler on the relays and I chose the Communications Department as the field of study. This name, based on the USSR, was later changed to Electronics." ("Mój kontakt z informatyką rozpoczął się w roku 1955 w szkole średniej. Słysząc o istnieniu „mózgów elektronowych” zaprojektowałem sumator dwójkowy na przekaźnikach i za kierunek studiów obrałem Wydział Łączności. Ta wzorowana na ZSRR nazwa, została później zmieniona na Elektronikę.") So I've added the high school bit, as it's relevant to note that he was young, not an older guy who went back for a masters, but he didn't way how he learned about computers.

Legacy

• "Garda's paper claims, however, that regardless of its simplicity the game has importance as one of one the earliest computer or video games that did not come from the United States" - I would leave this out as its really badly inaccurate. The five earliest known digital computer game implementations, Bertie the Brain (1950), Nimrod (1951), Dietrich Prinz's "mate-in-two" chess program (1951), Christopher Strachey's draughts program (1952), and A.S. Douglas's tic-tac-toe program (1952) were all developed in either the United Kingdom or Canada. Swedish, Norwegian, and Australian computers also hosted nim variants in the 1950s. The claim just does not hold up to scrutiny.

• Agreed, I've changed it to "first in the region", but that's stretching the source a bit so if you're not cool with that I can drop it altogether.

And that's it. Relatively minor issues here, so I'll go ahead and put this review  On hold as these concerns are addressed. Indrian (talk) 19:20, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

• @Indrian: Alright, responded inline and addressed all your points. Thanks for reviewing! --PresN 02:31, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• @Indrian: ping. --PresN 02:43, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

• Everything looks good. Promoting. Indrian (talk) 13:41, 10 August 2018 (UTC)