Let's see how IGN rate their own concept :p .

If they're attached to their integrity they'll declare conflict of interest and refuse to review it but that would send people to other publications so it's unlikely.

i can't wait to hear the podcast tonight as they talk about it.

i bet some intern nobody cares about will review the game not Matt, Craig, Daemon or Bozon.

LiT does sound like a cool idea.

Like Mr. Vega said, I think they will get someone else to review it. Its still a game, just because it was made by some of the staff members it doesn't mean they can't criticize it like any other game in the market.

But what I am curious about is how they will react if they see their creation bomb and fail to attract audiences. For years now, Matt and Bozon have criticized games and written articles about how they could make certain games. Now that they have been given the opportunity to showcase their talents if they fail, well, they could lose some of their credibility because after years of criticizing poor game concepts they can't make one of their own.

I believe the Penny Arcade guys went through this when their XBLA game was released. They joked that after years or bashing game sites they might finally get owned by bad reviews of their own game.

Luckily for the Penny Arcade guys, their game rocks.

No one at IGN worked on Lit, but Mark Bozon's brother is the creative director at WayForward, so you can assume they talk to each other about the game, and you can also assume that relationship had something to do with IGN getting so much coverage of the game.  I'm sure Bozon won't be reviewing the game, but Casamassina could.

I have high hopes for Lit, as it's a great concept and seems to have impressive production values compared to most other WiiWare titles.

Careful there. A concept can sound great on paper but fail in practice. I know any gamer will have great SOUNDING concepts, if they didn't sound great they wouldn't consider them good ideas.

You don't have to tell me... I had to review Sigma Star Story.

Btw, here's IGN's review (written by Craig Harris):

http://wii.ign.com/articles/952/952808p1.html

Craig is a great guy, but we disagree quite often on games.  I think I'll wait for a couple more opinions before I dole out my 800 points.

Yeah, same here.  I've been burned on WiiWare before (Lost Winds), so I'm very cautious now about casually purchasing games on the service (even ones with good critical hype).  I still have 1000 Wii Points left over on my account from when I picked up Mega Man 9 around Christmas, which I've been saving for if (heaven forbid) particular SNES or N64 games hit the VC (Earthbound, etc.).  But it seems they're not coming as the VC is currently mired in obscure Genesis and Master System games I don't care about, and my Wii hasn't seen major use outside MM9 (and a little Warioland Shake It) in about 8 months.  Every once in a while I feel in the mood for a good puzzle game (I'd buy World of Goo if I wasn't 500 points short), and LIT looks fairly promising (if a bit basic).  I'm curious how long the game is, though, and just how much story the game has (the trailers seem to indicate there might be one but the gameplay just looks like puzzle gauntlets in identical-looking rooms).

I don't know...if even IGN can't pretend it's a fantastic game that doesn't bode well for it.

Check the IGN Nintendo podcast thread to see what the team thinks about it barring Bozon since he's a developer insider. Bozon only commented how fast the turn around time is from NOA about if the game is approved and they assign a final release date on the spot of the approval.

For the lazy here's the summary of the LIT segment:

Lit
-Likes the concept
-Frustrating implementation
-Inconsistent mechanics like you can't do specific things in a specific level just because the game says so and it can cause frustration
-Ultimate definition of trial and error in a puzzle type of game
-Very repetitive and you might reset the games many times
-Recommended buy, hate the control scheme and be prepared for wonky design and to get frustrated
-Took a couple weeks to wrap up the final version and to put it up on Wiiware, quick turn around
-Submission process in Nintendo is generally fast and they issue a release date once Nintendo approves the game, Bozon(who was technically a developer insider) was amazed how fast the whole process is

That buy recommendation sounds very weak...

Well, I decided "what the hell" and went and downloaded LIT anyway, since the reviews seem to be averaging about a 7 or so and I could use a good puzzle game after the hack-and-slash wonderland that was the Kingdom Hearts game I just completed (the PS2 remake).  Well, I'm on the 17th floor (of 30, not counting boss floors) I'd say the reviews have this game just about nailed: it's good, but it has a lot of problems.  While most of the early puzzles are rather intuitive and you generally have a good idea how to start a room, it's pure trial-and-error to get beyond that.  Often times what the game wants you to do is the exact opposite of what you'd think you should do, so you end up taking out windows or turning on lights in the wrong order.  The game also has a wierd sense of logic when it comes to where you can and can't go when it comes to the darkened areas: most times, if you so much as step a foot off your safety path you instantly die.  However, there are times (usually involving a placed flare) where the game will allow you to walk over darkness patches so long as they're small and you quickly run over them.  Also, if there happens to be an item or lamp inside the darkness but near enough to trigger your context-sensitive icon, you can reach out and grab it with impunity.  This is not true of doors, however.  It can also be very hard to keep track of the path you're running on, especially if the path is towards the back of the room and away from the camera.  You see, not only do you have just a small sliver of ground to run on most times, but the path isn't constant.  Yeah, where you can step doesn't change, but the darkness occasionally oozes over the moonlight to obscure your view of the path.  The sheer number of times I've died so far from accidentally running off a path when I was dead sure I was running a straight line...

Oh, and thanks developers for putting an explosive item in the game (the Cherry Bomb), and then designing levels so you have to be extremely exact where you throw it (9/10 so far away from a window that it's just barely in the blast radius) so you don't take out any nearby lights that you can't see in the dark.  It also took me several levels to notice that your character faces whatever direction your Wiimote cursor happens to be pointing, a vital thing to know when it comes to setting flares properly that the game doesn't bother to explain (hell, there's not explanation of anything, including this "story" the game seems interested in).  No, the write-up in the manual doesn't count, because it's not actually in the game.

Bosses are REALLY trial-and-error based, as the game gives you no indication how you're supposed to deal with them and very little time to study the situation to form a plan (I just dealt with these two demon doll sisters, and the way you dispose of them is very different from the previous 2 bosses).  As soon as you start the process of taking down a boss, you pretty much have to keep moving through the motions until you've disposed of them...which is easier said than done.

Overall, it's a clever puzzle game with very good atmosphere and sound work, though the girlfriend on the phone's starting to get on my nerves with her cheesy acting.  Still, there's good use of the Wiimote microphone for those one-way conversations ala No More Heroes.  And finally gettin a puzzle right is suitably satisfying.  So yeah, I'd say 7//10 on average is a fair assessment: it's an interesting experiment, but the actual product is very rough and needed polish (which oddly the developers themselves admitted to the IGN crew).