Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Tracie's Pursuit]

It looks like the game has a glitch, I was able to "fill up the affection meter" with one heart and IM Pico, he said his backpack and locker were open when they weren't. I assume the two endings are getting blocked and getting friend zoned?

For two weeks this isn't bad (especially seeing as you did everything yourself) but it's obviously quite short. It's really lacking things to do - even the quest items just help you fill up the affection meter which triggers the next scene, so there's no real problem solving or item usage to speak of, just collecting. It's also bizarre having what imitates a dating simulator but only getting one choice at the start of like three conversations you can have with Pico.

None of the components (art, gameplay, music) are bad, but nothing stands out, either. Many Game Jam games flop because they overscope and a half-finished game is released, it feels like this had the opposite problem with a fully functional end product but not a lot going on in it.

StormyDew responds:

Thank you for your in depth review <3

[Homecoming]

The animation here is really fantastic and I'm really rooting for this to win best animation with interactive elements because it really does look stunning. For the length of the Jam it's also a really impressive quantity of animation to produce at this quality.

Story-wise I found the choreography and dialogue good, but I didn't really understand why it started and ended when it did. From a narrative perspective we begin with the status quo of "protagonist alienated from family," then a conflict where she's forced to engage, and that arc is resolved by the character removing herself. The funeral and eulogy don't tie into this original arc, and we don't even get to hear the eulogy. The story also starts a little slow, it's not until the argument with the mother that the conflict came to the surface and I felt really engaged.

I suspected this was nonfiction so perhaps there are privacy reasons for the actual eulogy being omitted. If this is true, it also makes sense that there's no catharsis or conclusion because real life doesn't get wrapped up like that and as Bojack's writers would say, you can't have a happy ending because there's always more show. But Coming Out Simulator is a great example of how you can take creative liberties or even just break the fourth wall to make a story feel like it actually has an ending.

Bleak-Creep responds:

It’s not quite non-fiction. While the characters themselves are based in truth, the story itself is entirely fictional.

The funeral and trying to navigate all these complicated feelings surrounding her father are really at the core of what I wanted to do with the project. The conflict is meant to mostly be an internal one; what is she supposed to say? It’s all about balancing the expectations of others with her own experience. In my eyes, the speech is in the events preceding, having one at the end would only feel redundant.

Thank you for playing and all the kind words! :)

[Orphanarium]

The visual and audio presentation here is great. All the essential ingredients are here.

Gameplay-wise it's simple and linear but it plays really well. There are really only a handful of places to go, once you've explored things, and as a scaled down Metroidvania it's pretty obvious where to go when you pick up a new item. The platforming is generally pretty easy and this is probably the biggest gameplay issue.

I think my biggest frustration with the game is having to restart after every ending. I only got the Devastating ending and having to redo everything for a new ending is a real pain. You could circumvent this either by allowing save files, or by having a checkpoint you can go back to before making story-relevant decisions.

Veinom responds:

Yeah, I see what you mean, and it is something I had in mind. What I did about it, is giving each ending a Reward that can make the next playthroughs easier. The Devastating ending is the most easy to get, and tells the player how to go further as Evil Ucogi. I thought that this would have been a good incentive to retry. If you do retry, there's another ending that tells you how to get all the first 3 items.

Perhaps you are right, the Devastating ending would be a better fit to give the 3 items, since up to that point, the game is linear, and there are no other endings before getting the 3 items. I will try to fix this.

Edit: The Devastating ending now gives a shortcut Reward. Thanks for the feedback!

[Sport Dungeon]

It's a neat concept but it's missing a lot. The movement speed is just slow enough to be frustrating, and it looks like the attack plays an animation of a single projectile instead of using attachMovie, which means that bullets vanish if you restart the animation.

The whole game is one boss fight which is pretty easy since the attack animations don't target the player, have blind spots where the player will never be hit, and the hands and head don't have to be targeted separately to win.

The animation is pretty good but like the rest of the game feels a bit too slow. I wonder if it would help to just increase the framerate of the whole game?

fmdavid responds:

Thank you for taking the time to play and give your opinion, I'm glad to hear it, I'll take all those flaws into account for a future update (when the competition ends permanently).

[Dwarf Planet One]

This is super cool on pretty much every front and is far beyond what I expected out of this Jam. The animation could not be better, the visual effects are fantastic, the music is atmospheric, and the premise of a puzzle platformer with shifting gravity is really neat.

On the other hand it needs a lot more explanation and player guidance than currently exists.

You receive the flag but you're not told what the flag does. You get the hand tool but you're never told what THAT does. The levels are pretty big so you're not sure where you're supposed to go, and certain objects or enemies you encounter are never explained, which can be particularly daunting on levels where you've already done a bunch of work to reach a certain point and don't want to start over from doing trial and error with something that drains your health. Even the intro seems to have no real connection to the gameplay and this disconnect isn't addressed within the first half hour of gameplay.

I'd happily play through the entire thing if I knew what the heck I was supposed to do.

Emrox responds:

Hey thanks, glad you like it! As far as the lack of instruction - to some extent the "point" of the game was supposed to be that you see all this weird stuff and you don't know what it does and you kind of figure it out by interacting with things and trying out different things (like zelda 1, or something) but obviously that kind of design-aesthetic choice has to be handled well for people to not feel frustrated or alienated by it. I don't know how well I did on that front - I had to cut some stuff toward the end of development that would have guided the player better and made the "story" make more sense, and ultimately the game ended up being even *more* vague and impenetrable than I had intended! oops.

if it helps, the point of the flag is just for you to mark where you've been, and help you find your way around with the arrow. I might update the text to say that, so people don't think they need to put the flag on something to win the game, or something like that.

[Ricardo Goes To War!]

This is pretty fun. The graphics are nice (except for that horrid looking stop sign) and the sound design is functional. The gameplay is simple but fun enough to be worth playing several times. As to be expected from a 53xy83457 game there are a gazillion animations based on where you shoot someone which is a nice layer of polish.

A bit more complexity or length (perhaps different levels or a boss fight) would be appreciated.

53xy83457 responds:

All the animations for shooting people were TheAsterDood02's doing this time. I fucked up the helicopter pilot but that's about it. Now the lack of complexity and length, I'll gladly take credit for that.

[Skeleton Day]

The premise for this is absolutely hilarious. The last several games I've played I haven't been too enthused by the plot, but this one was really funny! Apart from that the art and music sound great and the controls, simple as they are, work just fine.

Regarding flaws... As you say it's very short and it's too bad there's no real gameplay, be it puzzles or combat.

TeamTamago responds:

Thanks! Hopefully after a couple of bug fixes I can continue the story and add some more "game" game to it

[Cottonball]

Cute and well-drawn but the first jump is the only hard one and the lack of features (especially some kind of difficulty curve) bring it down.

Nabella responds:

No arguments here. I made this in like a week.

Maybe Cottonball 2 will have second background, lol.

[The DEGENING]

This genuinely kept me engaged much longer than I expected it to. The art reminds me a bit of Amoeba Amoeba. The battle music was short and annoying and I wish you picked something else. It threw me for a loop that the arrows to navigate the map were all at an angle. Especially for the first section in the old folks home I found myself backtracking when I didn't mean to. The simpler level design later was fine though.

Balance-wise it's pretty simple - dump all your points into power for Orderly and Party Goer and into Energy for Priest and you'll be fine (though at first I was scared to use stat points because I didn't want to make a bad build on accident, especially since there's no way to level grind.) There's no real reason not to use your strong attacks first so the cooldown expires sooner, or to take on an offensive build so as to spend fewer turns receiving damage. On perhaps one occasion I noticed an enemy that had such high defense that I needed energy attacks to beat it, and seeing enemies that summoned more enemies enough times taught me to prioritize those.

That being said it was still complex enough that I had to retry a couple fights and learn the different enemies and abilities.

I didn't really understand the plotline. I saw that the enemies were furries and what looked like feminists, but it wasn't clear if there was an actual narrative or if the game was trying to make some kind of political statement, and it was particularly bad that you could acquire party members and not even know it until you entered battle.

Jin responds:

Very nice! Appreciate the substantial feedback! I'll use it to improve the game.

[LOLympics 100m Flash]

It's good for what it's trying to be but DAMN is it frustrating (though as you say easier than QWOP.) I'm sure there's a certain shape to the mouse should be moving in but with no practice mode or any hints all I can really get is that an orbit that's higher on the left side and and lower on the right side makes me move slowly and consistently an every once in a while when experimenting I can make a huge leap forward (but not replicate it.)

The graphics and presentation are there but this feels actively difficult not just to play but even to enjoy.

AthleticDesign responds:

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, my intention was to include elaborate instructions of animated mice & corresponding running strides for basically every input parameter. But in the end, the hastily put together instructions on display had to do. If the complicated input stays, those elaborate instructions will eventually join :)

Actually, intricate shape parameters were removed from the final uploaded version. What matters is the average deviation from the straight line between two turns. A high movement during a forward swipe will lift the heel, which generally improves performance, and a low movement during a backward swipe will straighten the leg before ground contact (also generally advantageous). So an oval movement, like the one shown, works well. But easier said than done, especially after a while of spastic action.

But yeah, instructions are severely lacking.