Luc Bernard Steamed Over Destructoid’s Review of Eternity’s Child

Eternity’s Child is a side-scrolling platform game based on a fairy tale created by Luc Bernard to be published by British games publisher Alten8, for WiiWare sometime in 2008. It was released by Luc Bernard and Silver Sphere Studios via Steam on July 31, and has been hyped as one of the games to watch upon release - what with the 2D marionette artwork resembling a Tim Burton love child and the whimsical idea of adding a level editor which means that the game can be edited by anyone who owns the game.

A small community has already started to grow on the Steam Forums, and there are also rumors of a website dedicated to the modification of the game. Eternity’s Child has been one many games looked forward too by gamers and the media alike for quite some time; that is, until just recently when it was panned by Destructoid and given a review score of 1/10.

The poor review score for the game comes as a bit of shock only because Destructoid and Bernard seem to have been on wonderful terms. So much so, that Bernard even included the Destructoid’s mascot in Eternity’s Child. Now, according to Destructoid, Bernard has removed the site’s robotic mascot from the game due to his project basically being called “the worst game ever played” by the Destructoid’s staffers. Afterward,  Bernard took the affront to the game personally, and made the unfortunate decision to call the reviewers out in the comments section for such a harsh review of his game. Visitors to Destruction then commenced to bashing Bernard to bits with many different forms of insults and obscenities.

Bernard was visibly upset by the hate mongering and the fact that Destructoid did not feel compelled to keep their community’s comments reigned in and stated the following in one of his many posts:

“Yeah guys just be calm 2 secs I’m a bloody human being too and I don’t think the game deserved something that low, that is why I’m going to put up a demo ok, so you can judge for yourself

Just let’s put it this way it’s easy to follow the crowd, but I put all my heart into this, this is like my baby and well it’s then destroyed, alot of people have enjoyed the game and of course it makes you guys feel better behind your PC to insult someone, but wait until you try a demo and it will be different”

The reason Bernard was upset over the review for Eternity’s Child was because he has asked Destructiod to wait until a patch was released for the game before reviewing it, and was upset when they failed to do as he asked. Destructiod’s reasoning for not adhering to Bernard’s wishes was because they wanted to review the game in the form that is currently available to gamers via Steam for $4.99. While Eternity’s Child is indeed still in progress and not near completion, Bernard has released a demo for it, and asks that the consumer make up their mind about the game. He stated in the comments section of Destructoid that issues with the game stem from an uncooperative relationship with his programmer, and any flaws in the game are not his fault.

It is always hard on a developer when someone is unkind to a project that they have put so much of themselves into, but they should never expect everyone to be pleased with their offerings - yet they should not expect to be treated as harshly as the D’toid community has treated Bernard.

However, the “f** you Luc” comments aside, developers should never go into the comments section of a review for one of their games unless they expect to be lampooned by some members of the reading audience because the majority do not have any sort of manners God gave a Tasmanian Devil. Unfortunately, Bernard learned his lesson the hard way, and I just hope that it has not broken his spirit.