b-random9's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Wave Run]

The first think that struck me about this game is how disorientating it is, right now I feel quite dizzy just from playing for 5 minutes. I think this comes down to a number of things.

Firstly, early on there's bunch of very short quickly beaten "levels" which combined with the panning camera become incredibly nauseating.

Second is the very floaty controls. I never really felt in control of the character, probably due to how much momentum is carried and how floaty the game is. What I do like is how some of the challenges do make good use of the momentum and I can certainly see why you went this direction in order to aid the jetpack. However, as is, intentional or not, it still doesn't feel quite right and when mixed with the scrolling camera it's easy to see how this game becomes headache inducing. Perhaps having zoomed out non scrolling levels could fix this.

Edit: Does the camera also pan behind rather than lock to the player just in general? I think this is probably a really strong reason for why it feels so vomit-y.

I think third is the very "in your face" music without any sound effects. Sound effects provide feedback for the player so without them its very easy to become semi-disconnected which I think may be part of the reason the controls don't feel quite right. Also, could really do with a mute button to click. If you're not sure on how to approach sound effects, perhaps check out BFXR, it's a free software that basically generates sound effects for you so you can just choose the best and mess around with their settings. It's a very basic software but I think for this kind of game it could work.

Couple of other points. The wall jump doesn't need to be there and more to the point, I think the games much worse because of it. First comes hitting a wall, as soon as I hit a wall I'm flipped around. This can be incredibly awkward if I'm trying to use a wall to position myself or just clip a wall and then BAM, zooming off into spikes. This is made worse by the fact that I can't really tell which way I'm facing at a glance. Then there's the jump itself. Too many times would I attempt to jetpack upwards before being launched into spikes behind me. You have a dash and a jetpack so I really don't see the point of the wall jump other than to screw me over for touching a wall. I'm curious to hear why you added it. Perhaps if you plan on keeping it at least have the player need to be holding a directional button against the wall.

The other thing that I find confusing is the level structure. Each segment is clearly it's own thing so I don't see why they're all part of the same level. Not only does this create the scrolling nausea, it also makes the ranking system confusing to track as I only see my results at the end (I think? I may have missed something with the checkpoints cos I felt a bit out of it).

My final point is there doesn't seem to be any difference in the areas. Would have been nice to see some more variety.

Also minor nitpick, having R reset you would be super helpful.

All in all, whilst I found the game to be very disorientating, there are certainly elements that that stood out. I enjoyed some of the segments where it really felt like the challenge was built with the floaty momentum controls in mind but they kind of clashed with the more precision platforming parts. As is I didn't enjoy the game but if polished and the levels were more strongly built around the mechanics I think this game would be quite fun.

[BLUMAN]

The idea of mixing platforming with breakout/pong is a novel concept and I think it's done fairly well. Perhaps better entwining the mechanics would help to take this idea even further. I'd recommend seeing this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5C1Uj7jJCg) for a better idea on how you may be able to do that. Making the jump the means to shoot the ball was a nice start and having the ball take out the enemies added to this, though I feel in this instance it wasn't as rewarding as it should have been relative to how much luck is required.

Visually, the game is great considering the tiny resolution. The simplistic background works well and the sun's eyes following you is a really nice touch. Only minor nitpick is the small resolution. I'm not saying it shouldn't be small and pixely but if you edit your game the newgrounds allows you to display at different resolutions, I'd recommend trying to double it.

As interesting as the game is, it quickly becomes kinda boring. I think the reason for this is the lack of impact. The game feels quite slow and bland which I don't think is a core issue, it just need's a bit more game feel polish IE having the blocks flash when hit before being destroyed. This would help to add feel as well as convey info. For example, the dark purple blocks I'm still not sure if they take multiple hits or if they're just glitched or something because they don't do much besides occasionally moving when hit. Additionally, these wasn't much indication for the player being hit so it felt as though I was just being pushed along even though I knew I'd took damage. Perhaps a sound effect and flashing would help this, I noticed he becomes a slightly lighter blue but I only noticed this by going back and studying the damage effects. If you're interested, I'd recommending checking out (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy0aCDmgnxg) to get a better idea of how you could add feel/juice. I wouldn't say do everything but I'd suggested picking some of the things that you think would suit the style of your game, perhaps experiment.

Overall, I think that's everything. I hope I don't come across as too negative because it is an interesting idea, I just think it needs some more work to keep people playing. Hope this helps.

[Duke Dashington Remastered]

Whilst I've seem this concept done before in Blitz Breaker, this game clearly has enough of it's own charm to still stand out.

Starting with what little story there is, it was quite charming, though I do have a couple of nitpicks. For starters, the writing fairly bland and under-characterized which makes me wounder why it's even there in the first place, the game really doesn't need it. Secondly, I get what you were going for with the "same thing happens every time" story but it just gets dull after a while, it would have been nice to see it subverted more or having the trails Mr Dashington faces be taken to a ridiculous degree. I know story isn't the focus of this kind of game but it's still a part of the game and it could have been improved without needing to add any more focus to it than already exists. The flying fish at least did somewhat hit upon this which was nice.

As for the menus, they're quite nice and I like the feel of the buttons, the whole "buttons being actual buttons" thing is always quite appealing. Couple of issues though. Firstly, having the SFX icon be a speaker is very unclear, saw it and assumed it was a master volume button. Secondly, having the music auto stop when I'm paused would really help, particularly when writing this review. Finally, if Escape is the pause button please tell the player. I'm always scared to press it encase the game closes or something.

On to what matters most, the gameplay. As I implied earlier, it's very good. Not only are the core mechanics solid, each level mechanic manages to build on/compliment it. You can clearly see that everything in the game is designed around this one idea. Most level mechanics are well done as well, there's quite a variety and they're merged together where appropriate to make things interesting. I do think that the sine wave patterns on some of the mechanics such as the spears was awkward but it didn't ruin them. The only mechanic that really stood out as bad was the rising water. With the running water it made sense I couldn't dash horizontally because I was already moving that way and that really added something, but here, having to keep dashing up to dash left/right was so tedious. However, giving how many mechanics you use it doesn't overstay it's welcome.

The different areas were a little generic in their theme, but each one managed to stand out from each other and the mechanics did a good job of building on top of the themes.

Only thing that's left is a few nitpicks:
-The periodic screenshake made me feel sick after a while
-I think a smaller sprite would have worked better to give more leniency in some parts
-Occasional secrets would have helped vary the pace
-The bottomless/s could have been signposted, though it's still fairly clear which path is correct so I suppose it's not a big issue

Overall, whilst it feels a bit shallow in places there's no denying it was fun and the mechanics are executed well.

[GAMAZ 1.2 Fix]

I'm not sure what you intention is with putting this out there but since it is, expected to be judged just like any other publicly available game, I'm not going to give it sympathy points if you put it out there with the rest of the games on NG.

For starters, the paddle is the same colour as the background. I imagine this wasn't the case when you were developing it but rather the result of putting it on Newgrounds. However, you can test games on the site before publishing and I really doubt this was a hard fix.

Other than that, it's just pong. The game seems function but it could do with some more feel, I'd recommend this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy0aCDmgnxg) video to get an idea of how.

Having notifications pop up to inform you of winning, losing ect isn't a good way to handle that sort of thing, feedback should really be in game as dealing with notifications is annoying and requires taking myself outside of the game. Also, if I'm not fully scrolled down the game keeps playing so they're popping up as I write this.

Overall, it's what you'd expect from a first game I guess. Everyone starts somewhere so of course with enough work and commitment you will improve. It's good that you were able to actually finish a game as well, that's a good habit to get into as well as putting your games out there but perhaps try and include something unique at least in your next game along with some polish.

ZYEV responds:

Okay, in the next version i'm fix this. Thanks for review.

[FL!P]

Overall, pretty good. Took a simple idea and managed to expand upon it. The way you're able to literally build upon the idea of the clones makes for some interesting scenarios, though I think having so many elements to control vs so few possible actions can lead to situations of trial and error over considering your options.

Whilst the core idea does hold some potential, it does bring in the issue of being able to simply "mash buttons to win" which was my strategy for the final level (bar the boss) which suffered from a large difficulty brick wall IMO. All in all I didn't have too much problem beating any level and when I did I found it so overwhelming that button mashing was just the better option.

Still, I can say that I understood each of the mechanics, though rather than constantly increasing the difficulty and adding new mechanics, perhaps introducing the mechanics, doing some puzzles with them and then introducing new ones plus toning down the difficulty would be a better way to handle the interest curve.

It was nice to see an actual boss in this sort of game as I think it's rare to see more puzzle bosses. I do think it could still be improved, perhaps if it somehow better fit with the core mechanics, the whole "shoots out timed bullets" thing didn't really pose any challenge nor did it compliment the existing challenge so something that affected the puzzle might have worked better; perhaps turn blocks on or off to block/reflect projectiles or something of the sort. Also if after you damage the boss the first time there's some kind of twist that changes up the puzzle slightly I think this would have made it feel more climatic, though having it fire more often was nice at least.

[Not To Scale]

I really love how you took something as traditional as a jigsaw puzzle and managed to use the virtual medium to innovate upon it. Great job.

The presentation is so lacking but that doesn't even matter too much. In fact, if it were visually polished, I think the resolution stretching would just look out of place. Still, a little more in the way of polish might have encouraged me to keep playing.