b-random9's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[ping.]

Waited for like 15 minutes then lost before I could figure out the controls. Since the game lasted about 4 seconds I can't really give any criticism on it but I will say that having rounds end after 1 point means there's no opportunity to really get into it.

Edit: seems very odd that I can't see the opponent

[Taiga Escape]

Combining an auto scroller with sword combat is an interesting idea and some potential clearly shows. However, I think the game needs a fair bit of work before it's genuinely fun.

For starters, the combat is very awkward at first. Suddenly stopping and starting really breaks the flow. Then, actually fighting the skeletons is confusing. When I would just go up and attack it often felt random as to weather I got them or they got me, not to say it is but each time I'm confused as to what went wrong/right. This is exacerbated by the fact that Skeletons have 2 hp with no clear indication of it, so at first I wasn't sure why I'd always fail because I wasn't aware that I had to strike twice.

Credit where its due, after a while I learnt to fake out the Skeletons and go in for the attack and this did feel good to pull of an I imagine it's what you're going for, but to have a complex enemy be the first you encounter is quite overwhelming, combine this with having to use the awkward stopping and dealing with the 2 hp and it means most encounters became a repetitive fake out then spam click exercise.

I think there's a couple of things you could do to help this. For one, make it so you can't attack the Skeletons directly, and have that be very clear. Perhaps this was intended as a quick kill method for skilled players but for most it makes it confusing and feels like more of an exploit to kill them directly. Secondly, I'm guessing there's a reason they have 2 hp, so assuming you want to keep this perhaps have the player be able to pull of a combo. So rather than spam clicking hoping that one of my clicks lands as soon as the first strike finishes, maybe give a little window of opportunity where the player is still stationary but can be called upon for the second attack, or allow players to double click and que that second attack.

As for the sudden jolty stop start, some degree of sliding (acceleration and deceleration) may help here. I'm guessing you might have already tried something like this but if so i really advise you go back and try to working something of the sort in so movement isn't so stiff.

Finally, one other unrelated complaint is the vertical scrolling. It feels quite out of place. At one point I fell into a spike pit I didn't know was there because of the camera, even if I had seen it the spikes don't really stand out. I'd say maybe remove that weird grey box on the screen to give me screen space but I'm not really sure why it's there.

Complaints aside, there's certainly some cool ideas and the fake-out combat is quite amazing in how it uses the auto-runner nature to actually enhance combat. I just think the game needs a fair deal of polish before it reaches it's potential.

rgs-dev responds:

Thank's b-random9, for your feedback!

I'll keep make changes to improve the game.

[Detiled]

Really great game. A simple idea well executed with strong polish.

A couple of small criticisms. First, I didn't really ever get a feeling of progress. I think it would have been nice to have a sense of how far I am into the game, either through a standard counter, a mechanical shift, a visual change or perhaps some light story element.

Secondly, the was a number of moments where I wasn't too sure on weather a jump was possible, so rather than getting that "ah ha!" moment there was always some uncertainty. This was never a major obstacle but that uncertainty did take away a little from that logical solving element.

Overall though, well made with very little getting in the way.

[Rainbow Night: Extreme]

Seems good but I really can't get into it w/o sound. It seems a real waste to have an otherwise polished game lack any sfx or music.

Edit: It worked the second time I played this. First time I played I did load up another newgrounds game to check my sound was working and it worked fine so I know the issue wasn't on my end.

bloomgames responds:

Sorry for the bug, the sound should be working. I'll try to identify what happened. Thanks for the feedback!

[Super Maria Dash]

I think you forgot to reset the score. Unless this was intentional, in which case is there any reason to not die? Doesn't seem like it. Similarly, the super dash seems really pointless since the game doesn't seem to measure distance or anything.

Plays alright and looks alright but w/o any steaks or anything to work towards it gets dull quickly. Also I'm not sure a dash is the best fit for an autorunner, would often use my dash only to have an enemy quickly pop up whilst I'm sill air borne, hence I was unable to do anything which felt unfair.

emrys95 responds:

Hi there! This game is still very much in development so I do agree there's not much to work towards as an end goal, and it's more meant as a "snackable gaming," sort of game.

The score does reset but not the amount of Candies you gather. This plays into the 'Continue" button which only activates after gathering 50 Candies that pops up when you die. I shall include that in the instructions until I can create a better way to let the user know how it can be used. Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate it.

I'm hoping that players will realize that spamming your Dash whenever just to go a little bit faster does not always work out for the best, especially in a fast-paced game. It takes a little bit of strategy to combine these mechanics. Furthermore, the SuperDash mechanic greatly increases your score, even though the game is not based on distance but on time-ran.

[Gemeralds]

In short, what I played of this game was great. Polished, stylish, well designed, technically okay for the most part, sounds good, looks good.

The only real criticism I have (besides nitpicks) is that the game got a bit dull around Level 19 (where I stopped). The short explosives don't really do much to keep things interesting. It would be nice at this point to add something that changes up gameplay a little more than just a different bomb pattern*, perhaps have this hypothetical new mechanic come in the same time as the 2nd "area" (when everything goes sunset-y). As is the area change was welcome but something felt a little sudden and out of place about it.

*As for ideas, I've got a couple. Not saying the game's bad for not having them but I figured I'd throw them out there.
-Death blocks with gravity (not sure how you'd contextually differentiate them though)
-Mines (for chain explosions of some sort). Perhaps they exist in stages or perhaps they could only be placed in blocks.
-Boulders that get pushed back by explosions.

Nitpicks:

-Dragging the bombs feels so much more natural then having to click and release to pick them up. I'm sure this becomes useful when you're managing a lot of bombs so some degree of choice is this manor might help, but as is dragging felt more intuitive.

-Scrolling the level select with my mouse is incredibly slow. My sensitivity is fine, can scroll pages just fine, but for some reason scrolling this level select barley move it down for me, to the degree where I had to do 12 full scrolls to move down 1 row of stages!

-Randomizing the gems and rocks each time I restart feels...wrong. At first I thought the levels were randomized or something until I realized it was only aesthetic. But it gives the impression that something is changing even when it isn't.

-Bug where restarting as I'm about to lose and then winning results in a win and lose overlapping. I still won so its only minor.

-Bug where I can no longer place bombs! Not sure why, happened after being in level select though.

-Bug where after the above bug, I clicked level 1 and it gave and error and softlocked.

Think that's everything, great game overall.

[God Mode]

This may be an odd thing to start with but whats with the story? For starters it uses that weird method of story telling where text boxes are played over gameplay but the two barley interact (IE gameplay never really has an influence on the story nor does any story change up the gameplay). The exception to this is how the setting shifts as the game goes on which is nice, but it's still equivalent to just reading a book separately whilst I play. Then after a while it just stops existing.

Well whatever. The gameplay is what matters most in a game like this and it's good. I was a little confused as to how jumping off of blocks mid air works (still am), I'd assume I'd have to press jump again when a blocks below me yet I spring off anyway and I'm confused as to why, was it because I went in "god mode" holding jump or because I came out holding it? Either way, whilst a little confusing this is a really great mechanic. It feels like it evolves the concept in is done in such a way that doesn't make it a pain to do which is impressive.

My biggest problems lie with the challenge. It feels like easy sailing all the way and then suddenly challenge. The final levels were welcome for their difficulty but a nicer ramp up would be nice as the early game often felt boringly easy. Most stages didn't take too much thought and I still had boxes to spare! When I reached the level that required me to delete the platforms to make the red blocks fall I though "aha, I bet I have to delete them" and figuring this out felt great, finally it was a nice ramp up.

And then,

the game straight up tells me "oh by the way just a reminder of that core mechanic encase you were finally starting to actually solve the puzzles :)" ruining all satisfaction I got from figuring it out. I get this is a slightly new mechanic but it uses established rules so I don't think you have to spell it out to the player, I guess it feels condescending but I was really just pissed that I had the satisfaction of solving the challenge taken away from me.

Going back to the limited boxes thing, as I said earlier most stages, including the last, can be beaten w/o use of all of the boxes. Perhaps this is to accommodate struggling players but the levels already felt fairly easy. If you reward players for using less boxes that might make it feel like I'd actually earned something, else it can feel tedious.

Lastly, a few nitpicks:
-Arts alright, but isn't really nice to look at.
-Being able to jump offscreen and die sucks. Did it accidentally one level and since it hadn't really presented a challenge by that point I was tempted to quit.
-Level 18 was incredibly easy. I didn't have to use any of blocks at the bottom of the level and only had to use one of my two platforms.
-There's little feel or polish. No sound effects, no visual effects like sparkles when I pick up the key or anything like that. Restarting suddenly happens and feels disjointed. No fades in or out. Only polish I really saw was highlighting selected blocks and the door's glowing lock animation. Granted, besides the highlighting selected blocks this isn't the type of game where such polish is vital, hence why its only a nitpick, but I think adding that sort of flair would help the games feel.

Overall, whilst the difficulty is a little wonky, by the end it had introduced an interesting mechanic, built on it and finally challenged me. Technically I didn't notice any issues and as confusing as the block jump is it works well.

tareyza responds:

Thanks for spending the time to write so many comments, we appreciate your feedback!

[SubAtomic Particles]

This is an interesting idea but it feels like more of a proof of concept than a ready to be released game.

I think the most notable issue is the entire game just comes down to "wait for the electrons" then "click to shoot". You have the ability to rotate around the nucleus but why would you? The electrons just come to you anyway so this feels a bit out of place.

Something to work towards would also be nice, even if it was just a highscore tracker. Since the power doesn't regenerate in any way then making one little mistake early on can give that feeling of "why not just restart". If I had a goal I was working towards this would not only make the game more compelling but it might also alleviate this issue, though that's just speculation.

Finally a couple of nitpicks. The music doesn't loop properly which feels disjointed. Also having the text immediately fade that tells you how to play is a real pain. Granted, I figured it out but I had to keep losing on purpose to re-read the text and check I wasn't missing anything.

Overall, this could do with some work but the very basic gameplay is compelling and interesting, though expanding on gameplay whilst still keeping it accurate to real world physics could be a challenge.

[TheJump: Le Revenge of Marshmallow]

Game doesn't fit the designated screen box and clicking on new game or continue doesn't do anything. Tried pressing random buttons, nothing happens.

Literally unplayable. Did you test the game?

[Once A Time In Dark]

Darkness is something a lot of games have used as a 1 level gimmik but I haven't seen many platformers solely built around it so this was interesting. Control wise it was easy to understand but I could see some ways to improve it; slowy turning the light can become cumbersome (combined with the fact its so small/thin can make it feel slightly pointless), and whilst I can see why the light turns with the player, this too gets annoying after I spend the time to turn it around only to realise I'm facing the wrong direction. I can see using the mouse to aim the light as working much better (presumably WASD would then be used for movement and jumping), it would make sense too given how you already have lifts using the mouse.

Mechanics wise I feel the light could have been a bit better utilized. I stopped playing at level 5 because the gameplay really didn't change much, I think introducing new mechanics as you go would help this, I wouldn't really count the lift as a mechanic given how it doesn't really change up the gameplay/challenge so much as it does pad time between challenges. I did like the objects that become physics-y when you get near them mind.

The atmosphere was quite well done. It has a very distinct look that blends well with the music. That being said, having no art I think is a point against the game. The greyscale, music and rain all go towards creating an artsy feel but then the super simplistic black box look stands out as out of place by contrast. I'm not saying you couldn't keep the only-black style but combined with the lack of and context or shape and it just feels lazy, which is a shame given how everything else feels great.

As is, there's some interesting ideas here as well as some strong polish in certain areas but a lot of areas of the game feel neglected. It gives off this whole well polished and artsy feel but then presents a rather basic and generic game, bar a couple of interesting ideas. The stuff that's had effort put into it clearly shows, that level of polish just isn't consistent. I'd personally recommend tightening up the controls first and foremost, else developing new mechanics would be quite difficult.