b-random9's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Goose Hunt]

That was so f**king tense and it's a game about shooting a goose. Nice job.
Also, disagree with the guy below, the goose being awkward to shoot works for the character IMO.

[Z-termination]

Releasing a flash game on Dec 31, that's a bold move...
Some nice style to the art, but the lack of terrain boarders combined with the backgrounds using the same palette makes the whole thing feel quite messy.
Also having the camera scroll vertically but keeping the player at the very bottom feels very off, like I never know what's below me.

[every wall]

Love the core mechanic for how it manages to be mind bending but intuitive.

That said, the ability to not walk on the ceiling felt so arbitrary. Don't get me wrong, the game itself makes it clear why it's there, but given the way the player rotates it feels like you should be able to climb on the ceiling....I guess that might be the point. We're meant to feel in line with the character, but I as the player never felt a want to climb on the ceiling, just an "oh yeah" every-time I couldn't and a wish that it was more clearly broadcast. I feel I'm being overly picky but with a game so minimal, a minor incongruity can have more of an impact.

The one thing that I'm more confident felt off was the ending. The poems go off about how all challenge has been removed and such but it would have been much more impactful had I been given an actual level to feel that way; when the poetry is talking at every turn it feels less like a level and more like a scripted sequence, that sense that the game had become too easy never had a chance to blossom for the message to resonate.

[Gargolite]

Really great game. Love how the core gameplay loop works with modifying your environment.

I'm not a fan of how the gems freeze the game for a couple of ticks when you pick them up, feels really disjointed, plus they could do with some kind of glimmer effect. I only bring this up because the circle transformation is done great so the gems lacking effects contrast it slightly.

Some form of progression and broader strategy would be nice. As is, the circles pretty much just formed naturally, rather than me trying to manipulate them one way or the other. Plus, after a while, it kinda felt like "So do I just keep going?"

Overall though, great!

[BLUE BOY (ブルーボーイ)]

My biggest problem with this game is the arbitrarity. When the blood drops spawn is so disconnected from the players moment to moment actions that it feels almost random. This comes to be a particular problem on the last level when there's so little riggle room that I have to hope everything lines up. I know you could say that "but its meant to challenging", but it isn't. Grabbing the coin and navigating between multiple layers of platforms is fun because it actually challenges the players skill, hoping the dots line up is just a test of patience. Perhaps if there was some sort of sound que when the blood drops so players get a sense of the timing, then it might have a fun rhythm to it.

Overall though I did really like the game. It shines when I have to plan/navigate my way through, that's just lost when there is no room to navigate.

I also really like the atmosphere thanks to the music and art.

plufmot responds:

The player bleeds every 600 milliseconds. I'll play around with some sort of cue for the sequel, I think an audio cue would get annoying real fast though. Thanks for the feedback!

[Machine Minds Preview Demo / Prototype]

What on earth is happening?
I swipe up at start, immediately see the words "game over" before "build phase".
Ok so do I click to build?
*Clicks on middle of screen on nothing in particular*
"Battle phase"
What?
"Build phase"

All of this happens in the span of about 20 seconds. Meanwhile the clocks spinning round like crazy.

I press arrow keys an the screen scrolls at insane speeds.

Finally, after I game over we go back to the title screen but I can't do anything on it.

My guess is this is a bug such as delta time not being properly incorporated so the game runs a lot faster on good computers.

Based on how flashy and polished this looks I'm guessing there's something of a good game here somewhere but right now I have literally no idea what's going on and it's completely unplayable.

I'd be happy to take another look if the major bug is fixed and I can grasp some semblance of what's going on but RN I can't really give more than 1 star if I can't play the game.

KiiraGames responds:

I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy your experience with Machine Minds! I'll update the game promptly with fixes for the bugs that you've experienced.

I'm taking from this, that the scrolling speed is too fast without much control.
The clock actually has two hands (one of them rotates completely after four ticks, or 15 times a second) and is used for finer control of gameplay. It seems that it's presence is simply confusing, so I'll just delete it.
The other clock hand (the bigger one) rotates once a second, and doesn't rely on delta. Enemies move in Tiles Per Second, and Towers shoot once per second. This system would allow the player to track the amount of time to let pass before towers act (shoot, for example, which would use resources). This is the crucial part of the clock.

Not enough time passes between Build Phase and Battle Phase. This has been acknowledged and will be corrected in the next update.

I'll notify you of the update and I hope you'll let me know what you think when it is complete. :) Thanks for your time and consideration! I hope you'll enjoy the game more as it's being updated.

[BUBBUN]

The way everything bounces and rotates, it's rare to see a game on here with such a strong sense of feel to it. Combines well with the sound effects as well. I think entering a door felt quite jarring and the level fades...didn't fade at all which felt strange given how polished everything else was but overall it's a really strong feeling game.

Mechanically, I like the core mechanic, having the player be able to create platforms is nice for creating those suspended danger periods, but there's not much to say beyond that. Mechanically it got very dull after a while given it's simplicity and not adding any new mechanics except the switches. I'm not really sure the switches added anything either, since they only exist in safe spaces, they don't really change up the gameplay in any way besides giving the illusion of non-linearity, when in truth it's still going from point a to b to c ect. Plus there not so intuitive when I have to hit each individual one to find out what it does, though I suppose since there more of a non-presence this isn't really an issue.

Also not sure about the game being a "speed running puzzle platformer". Nothing about the game seems particularly suited for speedrunning; the controls feel kinda floaty and the mechanics are so simple there's little room for innovation. There's not enough variance to the core mechanic that I could see any speed run strategy really forming.

All in all it's 5am, i'm tired and as a result probably being overly critical. Its got a nice core mechanic with strong polish throughout, I just felt it was spread very thing with little to keep me engaged. It's like the stages felt like filler to connect the interesting parts but those parts didn't exist. For no story of any sort, no new platforming mechanics and no music it's quite surprising that it lasts for 23 stages. But still, it's good.

[Parallel Space]

Quite a strong core mechanic, though I feel more could have been done with it to really challenge the player. As is, there was very little thinking involved so it pretty much came down to just going where I haven't been.

I think a good puzzle is one where the obvious path doesn't work, there's some catch or trick to it; like at if some point I had to go back on myself to progress. I'd recommend checking out (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsjC6fa_YBg) for more on the topic.

I like what's been done with the aesthetic/contextual elements. The voice is a bit cheesy at times and combined with the music there is a bit of sensory overload but all in all there are some nice ideas here that I think compliment the mind-bendy core mechanic well.

My last criticism is with the controls. Using WASD or arrow keys in an isometric world feels very awkward which combines with the stiff movement to be the most challenging aspect of the game sadly.

All in all, quite interesting but could do with work to bring out its full potential.

JelleVermandere responds:

Thanks for the great advice, you are right, I should make more (challenging) levels. This insightful review really helps! I didn't really think about the unintuitive controls, how are these things normally done?

[My Mini System]

Interesting idea. This could be quite fun but RN I think there's too much of an issue with conveyance for it to really be enjoyable.

For starters, I can't see any hp bars that were mentioned in the text dump. Am I missing something?

Then there's the hitbox issue. The wave is quite large but I'm not sure if all or only the center can damage the planets. I'd assume all but whenever the planets go hit there was no feedback like a sound effect or anything to indicate damage. The whole "slowing their rotation" thing is confusing as well, I missed that you can hover over them to rotate them first time round, but now I know I'm not even sure what purpose it serves.

Then there's the issue that it feels fairly random. An asteroid could spawn next to my outer planet and hit it immediately or it could just glide by without me doing anything. Perhaps you could still deal with every threat w/o consequence but this randomness combined with the constant waiting around makes it feel as though there's no challenge present.

I think there's a few surface issues that could be easily fixed. For starters, if all the planets orbited a little closer, so the farthest planet wasn't right next to the edge of the screen, and everything was balanced in accordance with this, then I think it'd help the challenge a little.
Secondly, the game could do with being faster. This would mean I'm not constantly waiting around but also quicker play sessions allow players to experiment more easily.
Finally, info should probably more clearly conveyed, though a big text dump probably isn't the best way to do it.

Overall, a novel idea that could do with some work in order to bring out that ideas potential.

konozabulldoza responds:

Thank you for the critiques, everything was greatly appreciated.

Yea, just realized I didn't communicate about the window in the top left corner you can click to see the health. Also realized I didn't communicate that the planets rotation is like a shield that protects the planets health. Once its gone your planet starts to lose life and you need to rotate them to generate their shields again. Something I added to add a little more challenge to the game.

But thank you again, and I will look into incorporating your critiques.

[Entropy]

Feels incredibly pretentious for a rather standard space shooter.

"This is not your story.
You are simply a part of it.
You are insignificant."

Interesting idea to explore, but rather than directly slapping player in the face with this message I feel more could have been done to subtly deliver this message to the player through the mechanics. Credit where it's deserved, the idea that there are other space ships playing the game along with you is at least slightly interesting, but given that they're completely incompetent and have such a little impact compared to the player it kinda undermines the message. If it's not my story why do I even look distinct and have a score?

There's a pretty good atmosphere and feel given the simplicity.

I'm also not really sure what the objective is. Shooting asteroids isn't really any fun. That's not to say every game needs to be "fun" in the traditional sense but without anything captivating it's not really gona draw me in.

Also not sure the screen warping really fits the "infinite" space theme for fairly obvious reasons. I can't feel vast an overwhelmed in such a small field.

Overall its alright. It's nice to see an attempt at making a game that can more so be considered art but I feel enough wasn't done to reach the ambitions presented for us. Perhaps it would be better if the player wasn't outright told "THIS IS HOW YOU'RE MEANT TO INTERPRET IT" and just left to actually...interpret. Still, it's good to see something so experimental.