OK! I'm back! Now time to read... uh... Spiderman? Really? That's the kind of behaviour I expect on the Allegro forums. XD
...ANYWAYS... So, I read the recent responses in this thread and I've done some thinking about how to proceed forwards with future ADG stuff.
Firstly... I'm still really confused on one particular thing: I VERY rarely touch on graphics or audio in my reviews, yet so far a lot of criticisms I've read suggest I don't know what I'm talking about when I bring them up (despite rarely bringing them up) or that I'm not bringing them up when I should (because someone's recognized I rarely bring them up but wants me to more often), so... I'm kinda at a loss as to what to make of that. Graphics and audio are extremely opinionated on any front, to the point where quality is only necessary when a lack or surplus of it actually affects how the game plays or is perceived, or if there's interesting technical aspects I want to comment on which are not related to how good or bad these things are, thus why I almost never touch upon them.
With Mega Man X in particular, I did indeed check to see if the music was any better in the more advanced modes and when I noticed it really wasn't, (yeah, had more fidelity but it still sounded like a mess), I decided to just stick with the FM synth. In retrospect, I probably should've clarified that I tested a whole bunch of audio modes. In fact, I actually DID clarify that in my first draft of the script, but then I moved a bunch of it to the stinger, and then made it just the Tandy music, so I definitely could've done better on that front. :P
In terms of nitpicking issues in relation to DOSBox, it's no secret that I exclusively use DOSBox for playing these games, and I know from past experience, in terms of playing DOS games on real hardware compared to DOSBox, that most of the time the technical issues I run into which I like to nitpick are indeed present on the real games. Now, in the case of games I've never played on DOS, I don't ALWAYS know this, but it almost feels like having a disclaimer before every video is a bit much and will just give everyone more things to complain about before the video starts. However, there are ways to recognize when problems may indeed be DOSBox screwing up and that's when the result of such a bug doesn't make sense from a RELEASE standpoint, IE: There's no way the game would've been released with that bug present. This is how I recognized the DOSBox-specific AI issues specifically found in Episode 3 of Traffic Department 2192 or the saving issues in Pinball Construction Set, and when I find bugs that give me this impression I start whipping out multiple versions of DOSBox to see if the bugs go away with different versions. It's entirely possible that despite this effort I may still mistake the rare bug as an actual game bug instead of a DOSBox bug, but that's why I have additional info and corrections below my videos because I know I'm going to make mistakes no matter how hard I try.
BTW: I should also point out, the nitpicking thing is a result of the countless hours of time I've spent both coding and testing, not just for my own sake but for the sake of other companies as well, so noticing minor issues is something that kind of just happens for me. I can't ignore minor issues, they stick out at me too strongly and bother me whenever they get in the way of my enjoyment. If an issue DOESN'T prevent me from enjoying a game then I'm usually not as hard on it, but when it does, I feel explaining why it does is a good way to reveal more of the "under the hood" type stuff. I don't want to remove the nitpicking because I feel that would be ignoring who I am and thus would negatively impact the identity of the show, but at the same time, I get why it can be bothersome.
I suppose what I can do is try to leave nitpicking for when I have actual technical information to relay and to just keep it to myself if it's more design-related and not really a technical issue. I also do try to mention whenever I wasn't able to determine if an issue was related to DOSBox or not, such as with some of the issues I was running into with Bubble Bobble... which actually turned out to be related to additional layers of copy protection I didn't know were there. :o
In terms of the analogies with chefs and game dev and such, I'd just like to remind everyone that between 2005 and 2008, a period of time when selling indie games was REALLY FREAKING HARD, I still managed to make a total of about $3,000 off of the sales of Super Minesweeper and PixelShips Retro... Yeah, that's really small potatoes, but it shows that there were people out there willing to put their money down for that stuff despite the extremely limited exposure. I've never tried to advertise them more recently due to them not really working 100% on modern Windows systems. (They were both originally developed in Windows 98 and use 256 colour graphics.) I'd rather just move on with new projects. I should also point out that I started learning to make computer games back in 1993 when I was 10 years old and that some of the freeware games on my website are literally over a decade and a half old! Plus, I have professional programming experience working for an educational software developer, Neufeld Learning Systems, for two years. These are all details which aren't really out there that well because of how limited my exposure has actually been, but it's also why I'm willing to call myself a game developer, designer, and coder. I would NEVER call myself a commercial dev or a AAA dev, because I'm not, but an indie dev is still a dev, regardless of how good or terrible their skills are.
...and also, you can have bad chefs too. You can have bad anything. You can have a profession attached to your name and still be terrible at it. I've made money on selling TWO of the games I've made and PixelShips, a freeware title, remains top-rated on the Allegro website to this day in the Space Shooter category ( https://www.allegro.cc/depot/action,space-shooter/ ) so to me, I feel that qualifies me to call myself an indie game dev. Whether that makes me a good or bad dev is up to everyone else to decide but it doesn't negate that I can do it. :B
Also, MobyGamer, I get frustrated with you a lot but it's only because of our very different attitudes. I know it doesn't show but I do appreciate the hard-line stance you have with me because you often know what's going on better than I do and sometimes I need that in order to see if I'm making a mistake or if perhaps I'm simply not expressing myself properly. You recently linked me to that speed testing program for use with DOS emulators and that's going to be an invaluable tool going forward... though using it still confirmed I wasn't bonkers about the spawn rates in Lands of Lore. It might still be a DOSBox bug, or perhaps related to the difficulty selection, but the episode's been up for over a week now and the views are tapering off so if there is indeed a flaw with my logic or more info comes to light later on when someone watches the episode and knows I'm wrong, I can address it then with a fresh mind and fresh ideas of how to test it out. :B
The last thing I want to say is I have ZERO tolerance for flat-out lies. I feel intentionally lying is one of the most heinous offenses anyone can commit because it can change so many perspectives so fast and very often not in a good way. Most of my friends and family would call me "honest to a fault" and it actually really bugs me when someone tells me that they're extremely honest, because often times I witness them casually lying, usually to strangers, and I just shake my head and realize, "yeah, no one says that honestly, so no wonder no one believes me when I try to tell people that of myself". If I see someone spreading lies which directly affect me, I absolutely will not stand for that... BUT, I also recognize the need to have facts ready before countering lies otherwise such a contest of words degrades into a shouting match which goes nowhere; You cannot win an honest debate with ignorance. :P
That said, if someone calls me a liar about something and they happen to be RIGHT, 100% of the time (yes, every time this has ever happened), it's not because I intentionally wanted to lie, but because I was somehow misinformed. I always check my facts whenever this happens and every once in a blue moon... yeah, my facts are wrong. In which case, I admit my mistake and report what I discovered. Curiously, the person who initially called me a liar often doesn't care and just wants to keep calling me a liar anyways, but I've already vindicated myself by owning up to my mistake so them continuing to spout nonsense is their problem. Or sometimes they rub it in my face that they were right and I was wrong, but that's fine too. I voiced a fact which was incorrect so I have to make amends for that; some people are just more vindictive about it than others. :B
So yeah, going forwards, I'm going to put more effort into only having technical nitpicks, not nitpicks which could be taken as a matter of opinion, and I'll try to make more of an effort to check if bugs and glitches are DOSBox related or not. I'll still primarily be using FM synth for music, but I'll make more of an effort to comment on if MIDI devices, when available, sound significantly better/different, and will make more of an effort to confirm the poor quality of those devices if the music as a whole is poor to the point where I need to comment on it. Graphics I'll almost never comment on, except for brief statements on how technically advanced they are compared to other games of the time, not whether they're good or bad, and as always, my focus will be primarily gameplay, because really, it's what I know best! :)