Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Cube Escape: Seasons]

Good for a while, then you just want to burn it. I got to the end of the fourth season only consulting the walkthrough one or two times, but after that it just went insane. The plotline and "four potions" made no sense and there was little to no attempt to explain the plot significance of them to the player. The numbers only made loose sense in context to the game. I accomplished a lot without ever even really understanding what I had triggered to advance the game, especially with stupid little things like that candle with Prozac in it. The game frequently was unhelpful in telling you when you did do something right, as was the case with the four potions not directing you to pick up the phone in the first season. Overall this reminds me of Submachine, where the beginning feels intuitive and the end-game feels unforgivably abstract and senseless. Nothing was explained at the end of the game either, which made all of the psychological tension feel tacky and irrelevant.

Aside from that, nice job on the pseudo-3D graphics and sound, it's an attractive game.

[Chaos Girl]

Way too basic, I think. The story is way too short and doesn't really have enough of any of the components that make a good visual novel. I couldn't really feel for any of the characters - the main character has no real reasoning behind his actions, so he's just a set of skin that the player puts on and wears. The girl and the main character's friends are generally rotten and selfish without much background to explain their own motives. Moreover, the 'take the bullet' choice is so transient because it doesn't really affect the plot outside of the predictable outcomes of who dies.

I guess it was nice enough that everything wrapped itself up quickly, but there just isn't any artistry here. After 10 minutes of clicking and reading I died twice and got a kiss on the cheek. Seems a little empty if you ask me.

[Love me, fast!]

Damn this is excellent. You brought the old-school offensiveness of Newgrounds and combined it with some new-school production value. The result is damn impressive, The dialogue is witty, the gameplay is funny, and the ending is even better.

My only critique is it should have different modes or something to increase the replayability.

[Coming Out Simulator]

A little preachy, but interesting. I liked the graphic style. The monochrome really went well with the style which seemed a little too silly and cartoony in your previous games. The presentation is overall nice and the speech bubbles work. It's also interesting how much decisions come back in the story, and how seamless the interactivity is, especially because of how believable the dialogue is. The canvas size was a bit annoying though - maybe it was meant to simulate a phone, but I had to downsize my screen like three times just to avoid having to scroll up and down.

The biggest turnoff for me was all of the altruism. Once you fall off the despair event horizon, it's really hard to give a shit about anything - family, friends, partners - in the end, all you really have is yourself, and it made me very uncomfortable playing as someone with values and interpersonal relationships. Most of the time I felt like the choices lacked the entirely viable option of simply leaving the conversation and listening to music. Maybe this game just isn't for me. Maybe what bothered me was that your character seems just as naive in the end as he did in the beginning. I guess it's really not important.

Oh yeah, and I nearly shit myself when the three choices for what you were studying where chemistry, calculus, and computer science. Those are the exact three classes I happen to be taking right now, this particular semester.

[Chain Reaction Shooter]

Definitely not just 'another bubble shooter.' I liked the physics and rotation. Could have used a little more than just different colors as the levels progress. Certainly got frustrating but a very addicting game overall. The one issue I have is that the luck factor is rather high and you still have to start over when you lose. It would be nice if you could restart from any given level, especially since it's not as if you can get into the leaderboard more easily when you're SKIPPING levels.

[A Driving Game]

By today's standards, simple. By 2001 standards, amazing. All of the cinematics have the trademark style to them of awesome angles and slow motion. You were early on the lens flare craze, and back then people didn't make fun of it as much.

More importantly, the game is just fun. There's a significant difference between the right lane and left lane, which makes the gameplay fairly realistic. I also like that the one level is the same each time - it gives players a chance to experiment with trial and error, and the really tough move at the end is a perfect little kicker to screw people up.

It would have been nice if this had an arcade mode with randomly placed cars, but that's really the only thing that would have made this better. Great game.

[Vector Killer]

Way too simple. I liked the concept. I liked the 3D vectors. I liked the physics and bouncing projectiles. The rest was just simple beyond belief. Easy, too - I only took damage in the last three levels, and never got close to actually losing.

The scoring system is a joke - either you hit the enemies or you don't. The multipliers can go up with a bit of luck, but with a laser penetrating the barriers you can falsely get a multiplier higher than it should be.

The barriers themselves were a bit of an issue too. The big red projectiles tended to get stuck on them permanently and vanish, and they were too small to really stop you from hitting a target. The enemies themselves never attack, nor do they even have unique movement patterns - the satellites move sideways, the rest just blindly rush you. Why couldn't enemies multiply upon dying, or dodge attacks? There should have been a boss that could only take damage from ricochet shots, too. That would be cool.

The shots were cool, but didn't hand enough control to the player. Powerups occur automatically, which can be disorienting and rather rude if you're working well with the powerup you already have. It would be nice if the player had some control over powerups, such as the ability to suppress a powerup to postpone its expiration, or to cancel it outright. I also felt like the controls were rather redundant, just shooting over and over. Some kind of stamina or power gauge would have given the game more depth.

You have a nice working game but it needs a lot of work to make it really pop.