b-random9's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Forgecore]

Nice balance of story and gameplay. I like how each area has it's own idea.

Also I imagine the core mechanic is quite good at catering to a lot of skill levels since you control how fast you go.

My biggest complaint might be difficulty. The first chapter goes on way too long for an introduction, I honestly thought I'd broke it. Then the difficulty ramps up insanely quickly. I just barely got by on the blizzard climb after trying again and again to the point where I feel like I missed something, and having to start from the very bottom every time grew tedious.

I do like that the blizzard changed as you went though. The story does feel a bit too formulaic and this was a nice exception. And whilst I think it was far too difficult, I do think being tougher than the rest suited the game pacing wise.

Honestly though, I gave up on the boss. A lot of the challenges just had me confused as to what I was doing wrong, like at first I though the guys who come and freeze you you'd have to counter by getting super hot rather than flamethrowering them, and I imagine someone could get hung up there. And the boss seemed like it was going to be the worst, weather of not I get hit just feels more random than anything. I'm sure there is a reliable way to dodge him, but figuring that out would take patience the game has already drained from me.

morazor responds:

First of all, thanks for all the kind words!
I'm sorry to hear that it became frustrating tho. Those two specific sections can surely get frustrating because the "win or die" mechanics, while the other levels can be approached in different ways (slow and safe or fast and risky).
Choosing how hard the game has to be was difficult, in the end I've decided to keep the game more challenging but to split it in short sections that could be done in a minute or two tops.

[IMP]

Nice concept and style, but got repetitive quite quickly.

[[BTNverse] Universal Thief]

I slammed the intern

adriendittrick responds:

poor intern didn't do nothin'

[Only One Tower]

It's a little janky. Like it's quite hard to tell enemy hp when it's so small and everything blends together, and the way it suddenly cuts to the ending.

That said, this was really good. Once the cannon guy got introduced and enemies started to cut lanes, it became brilliant. Having the boss fire a projectile at the tower was also a really interesting twist. The game became very tense at the end.

With that said, I do have some nitpicks. Again, the sudden cut at the end felt like a letdown, going from a tense environment to just suddenly a "you win" screen.

Another thing was it's quite hard to understand some stuff, I still have no idea how the bomb tower works, other than that I think you're meant to use it in small bursts. Then some enemies I wasn't really sure why I wasn't damaging them, like if I were doing something wrong or if the tower type simply didn't damage them. The game could do a lot to better convey this sort of thing.

Just noticed now the description "Bomb- Barely damages enemies, however can one hit kill some. Big radius." I find that really intuitive, since u'know, you'd expect a bomb to do a lot of damage.

Lastly, the continuous nature of the game was kinda exhausting. I'm sure that's something you want to a degree, but I think dividing it slightly would help the experience. If there are pauses already, have them feel like breaks rather than the game just being easy, even just some small indicator.

Again though, overall, great.

Stopsignal responds:

YES thanks, in depth reviews are always awesome and really helpful.
The sudden cut really sucks, i agree. In the downloaded version the screen starts to shake quite a bunch and it makes a bit more sense (though i think it should have a bit more, maybe make the units run away or something) but i had to cut the shaking because of HTML5 issues. Couldn't get it working again!

The bomb tower is also bugged and i have no idea why, as i checked the code. It suddenly stops attacking.
I absolutely should make some kind of effect to convey how armored enemies take no damage from bombs. It was even worse in the jam version- it slowed enemies and showed the hp bar, yet didn't damage them, which absolutely confused players. That was a learning experience!

It is really exhausting, specially the latter difficulties. I do actually like this, however! I mean, it is a 10 minute affair, a one and done thing, so i think it's fine.
Thanks a lot for the critique! this is really helpful. I want to give another go at this some day (i love tower defenses) and this helps a lot :)

[Cryomancer]

First off, very nice style. The color scheme is nice and I like the bounciness of the character.

As interesting as the core mechanic could be, I'm not a fan of how it's executed.

For starters, taking til level 5 to introduce it is unnecessary.

More importantly though, most of the challenge of the levels comes from tight precision and wresting with the physics rather than say puzzles. It's not particularly mentally challenging but slowly positioning boxes isn't very fun either, so you get neither the joy of solving a difficult situation you get in puzzles nor that sense of execution and flow a good platformer gives.

Sry but I really couldn't find the appeal in this one at all.

KanartStudio responds:

In the firsts levels, I just made sure to introduce one mechanic at a time, since they are small levels, I don't think this is a problem.

And yeah the game is all about precision, I made it this way, the description even says it's a “precision-platforming game” it's all about placing the blocks correctly in the shortest amount of time possible, I think you're expecting something else, and I don't blame you
Anyway, thanks for the feedback, I deleted the puzzle tag so people don't get confused :)

[Shelled Shinobi]

Only real criticism is that it's not much more than quick time waster, a fun primary gameplay loop with no story or structure or anything else surrounding it. But as for what it is, a simple platformer with a twist, it's done about as well as it can be. Flows incredibly well. But I think it proves there's only so much mileage you can get out of such a simple concept. Also a shame there's no kind of boss fight.

[Complex]

It looks nice but I have absolutely no idea whats going on. I press shoot and sometimes it shoots but sometimes it just says F? And enemies are suddenly flying at me out of nowhere without any introduction. It feels turnbased but isn't? Or Is? Do enemies just spawn randomly? It's so overwhelming.

[Mission Ammunition]

I really want to like this game, and there is a lot I do like about it, but after a while I can't say it's really all that enjoyable, which is a shame given how many cool and interesting ideas it has, as well as how polished it looks.

It's hard to figure out what my issue is, but my best guess would be how all over the place it is. One minute it's a quick reflex run and gun, then I'm in some underground room that has no threat whatsoever where I platform for money I don't need, then there's a bit where I have to go slow or I'll die to a rolling barrel I can't see among the explosion effects.
There's so many elements I can't take it all in, so I'm left walking down the flat levels hoping not to die.

I think the main problem is every and all ideas seem to have been thrown in regardless of weather they're relevant. The gun tossing is cool and in another game could work really well, but having to pause the run and gun action to toss my guns, jump up, get some money then come back is frankly tedious. I suppose gun tossing could work in a fast setting if there was a constant sense of danger, and as I feel some threat starting to overwhelm me I'm forced to make a tough decision between toss or live. Whilst there was one bit like that when a spike saw was chasing me (though i'm not even sure now guns slow you down and I was able to get it back quickly so I'm guessing this was unintentional), for the most part there's nothing of the sort. Tossing the guns isn't so much a choice so much as a tedious requirement, and there's nothing consistent long enough that such a situation arises.

Getting hit once and restarting the level, I had to call quits on level 3.

I'm glad I played this game for all it does interesting. It's not a bad game, but it feels like teasing me with a great game. There's no design here, it feels like it was all just thrown together.

[Contract Rush]

Really quite well polished platformer.

With that said, I do have some issues in mind. Mainly in regards to the lack of variety in enemies, instead falling back on bullet hell patterns. Once I got to the first big guy who shoots 3 bullets, it was quite a jump in difficulty to try and weave through the bullets (which is what it feels like should be the method to dodge it). This becomes less of an issue later once you have enough upgrades, but I still feel more thought could have been put into the enemy attacks. In terms of how you're meant to dodge them and in terms of just having more variety than "they shoot bullets".

The boss also felt like a bit of a jump in difficulty but honestly I didn't mind and quite enjoyed it. That said it has far too much health IMO, it forced me to master the fight to the point that it got a bit dull.

One minor nitpick, I think the big shooty enemies should have had some sort of pre-shoot animation.

Overall, it's quite a very standard platformer, there wasn't anything here that I found all that interesting. But it's still polished enough that it's fun. All it really lacked was creativity.