Talk:Milkman Conspiracy/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Alexandra IDV (talk · contribs) 16:54, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I'll be doing this one, too--Alexandra^IDV 16:54, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Lead/infobox

• Like with the other level article I reviewed, level names should be written within quotation marks
• Players, controlling the protagonist Raz, enter this world. - kind of obvious that you enter the world. I would suggest incorporating the fact that Raz is the protagonist into another sentence in the lead and striking the rest of this.
• a phrase made up by someone at the game's director Double Fine sounds unnecessarily vague - if we don't know the person's identity, we could at least use the word "staff" (same goes for when this part is brought up in the concept section). I'm also assuming "director" should be "developer"?

Summary

• The Milkman is awoken and Raz is kicked out of Boyd's mind, who then assumes the persona of the Milkman and burns down the asylum. - A bit hard to follow. I realize the story is a little bizarre, but that means we should take extra care in explaining things clearly.

Concept and creation

• he was not trying to "punch down" (a term referring to mocking people less advantaged) Since the term "punch down" isn't used again and isn't a major part of the article, I think we can just say "he was not trying to mock people less advantaged" to make it flow more smoothly
• set in a "retro, '50s spy vibe" - can something be "set in" a vibe?
• Would recommend using 1950s over "'50s" as more specific and future-proofed
• Campbell specifically reminisced about the amusement he found with how conspicuous they were with their outfits and behavior, a bit vague, I'm assuming you're talking about the Spy vs. Spy characters?

Reception

• I would suggest mentioning that Escher is a graphic artist and that Burton is a filmmaker, for context.

Not mandatory for GAN

• As always, I will recommend adding alt texts to all images to aid readers with impaired vision.
• I will also recommend not hardcoding a definitive thumbnail size in pixels for the images, as this overrides user settings. You can instead make images relatively larger or smaller by adding the parameter |upright=, where the value 1.0 is the default size, 0.5 is half, 2.0 is double, and so on.

Outside of this, it looks good! I will put this review on hold for seven days; contact me when you have addressed the issues of if you have any questions. Thank you~--Alexandra^IDV 22:12, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi there! I thought I'd chime in with some additional thoughts, since this caught my attention. Feel free to ignore any of these, and if IDV disagrees, obviously go with her thoughts! Stray observations:

• Regarding [...] representing different images such as lawn chairs and children, things commonly associated with the setting, I don't think the article justifies this. Could you make clear how these are associated with the setting with a reference? It doesn't feel like it fits under Summary; it feels more like partial analysis.
• The opening line of Summary is a repeat of the first line in the lead. I don't think it needs to be stated again, especially with the same reference: The Milkman Conspiracy is a level in the 2005 video game Psychonauts.
• There is a lot of clunky prose in the article, and I think it would benefit from some GOCE assistance. A few examples (and some suggestions) are:

• This line helped unify various ideas converge for the game's director, Tim Schafer, about a conspiracy-focused level
• Design-wise, Schafer [...] ("In terms of design", maybe?)
• When it entered the game design stage, Schafer had lead designer Erik Robson come up with the gameplay ("Schafer recruited Erik Robson as lead gameplay designer. Robson was determined to implement adventure-style game play").

• There are others, but I do think a WP:GOCE or Peer Review could be helpful. If there's not enough time for that, I can find some time to assist. Obviously a lot of work has gone into this, and there's definitely a good article in here, I think.

Besides these, for Reception I think it might be worth trying to find material to put together a Legacy section. "No Russian" is a good model here. It attracted a lot of attention, obviously, but critics have often discussed its larger and later influence. There's a tiny bit of this in that article — the lead mentions the game's influence on Jazzpunk, We Happy Few, and Super Mario Galaxy – but that is simply repeated in Reception with no follow-up. I don't disagree that the subject level isn't notable; just that it could probably use some more structural development. As always, if Alexandra IDV disagrees with any of my suggestions, she is the authority here. I'm a trainee GA reviewer, and trying to get some feedback. Imaginestigers (talk) 00:30, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

These are things I agree on and would recommend editors to look into if the article were to be taken further, but not things I would hold against it on a GA level. GAN is a much lower hurdle and quicker process than FAC.--Alexandra^IDV 00:53, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

@Abryn: So what's going on with this one? I don't mind waiting, but I'd appreciate knowing.--Alexandra^IDV 09:39, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the improvements - I will promote this to GA level now!--Alexandra^IDV 05:33, 29 October 2020 (UTC)