Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Ultimate Assassin 3 (New)]

I've been picking away at the missions over the course of several weeks and I have to say this is one of the greatest stealth experiences EVER. The randomization keeps things fresh and the different layouts are varied and fun. There are so many different ways to play and the achievements really keep you coming back.

After beating the last level on Professional I have to come back to congratulate the programmer on an awesome job well-done.

I have two suggestions for improving this game, but short of that I don't think it would be possible for this to get any better.
1. Make a mode where you can only see where your mouse is pointing. This way the guards aren't the only one with a limited field of vision. Basically the player would have to move the mouse where they wanted to look, and they wouldn't be able to look past walls or other obstacles. Guards' field of vision would not appear unless the guard themselves were also visible.
- Ideally, the above suggestion could come with a better system for using the speed and invisibility boosts. With WASD, you could hold shift while moving to dash, and hold shift while standing still to become invisible.
2. Make it so you can distract guards. Maybe clicking on the screen would allow the player to throw a rock which could fall or collide with any walls it hit. When used point-blank it could be the same as knocking on a wall.

Anyway this is a really amazing game. Full points for this!

[Super ShyGuy Universe!]

Holy shit, I had forgotten all about this. Man, what to say? The sprites are re-used way too much and could have at least stood to be more subtle. The frequent lack of backgrounds or utilization of pixelated, low-quality Bitmaps really brought down the overall visual experience. Picking one landscape with some light foreground and a consistent, fitting graphic for the platforms would have made the game look much, much better.

The physics are atrocious. The jumping is awkward and the character bounces gently wherever he stands. Frequently the only way to beat a level is to spam the jump button and force your way through a ceiling into the platform above. The level where you push blocks around to make it to the to is particularly frustrating, since you have very little control over which way the platforms are being pushed and it's just as easy to push a platform the wrong way.

The turn-based battles may be the worst part of this, however. Basically you have one or two attacks and a heal ability with limited usage, which you use when you are low on health. It's just like a game of chicken with some luck involved. Wait as long as you can, heal, and repeat. What's worse, it's the same for every goddamned battle! I eventually quit after the Kratos battle because the luck factor was just ridiculous, and I was sick of redoing the easy missile escape.

Overall what this game is missing most is coherent gameplay. No part of this experience is really challenging in a good way. There's really no way to get 'better' at this game, no strategy or skill that the player will develop, nor any way to customize the player. This is sloppy and unpolished. Titles like The Communist Pixel prove that superior PSP Flash titles exist.

[What Happened to Dad?]

What am I supposed to feel about this? The graphics, sound, and pretty much everything are wholeheartedly lacklustered. A slowly, simply told storyline is rather uninspired and even if it's a true story, this really isn't the way to capture it. This is the embodiment of a substandard art game.

Next time add in some actual gameplay. The music would be fine if it were a bit more varied.

[Interactive Buddy v.1.01]

All things considered, this is effectively a better pet sim than, say, Club a Seal. The different skins make it very easy both to want to care for and obliterate the 'buddy' you get on-screen, and the dialogue is also quite funny. I also like that this is a neat cross between physics games like The Torture Game as well as those pet sim games, which is why I originally thought of Club a Seal.

The items you get are quite fun to play with as well. The system of throwing objects is very easy to do, and the rate at which items spawn make it easy to simply delete and respawn an item rather than pick it back up. The items could stand to be a little more varied, however. There were a lot more weapons than there were things to entertain your buddy with, which is a strike against you. Variety is good. A dozen weapons that knock your buddy unconscious (and force you to wait for several boring seconds until he gets up) are not.

The modes are also a little gimmicky, though I'd rather have them than not have them. Certain things like the earthquake are completely unnecessary, while low gravity could be genuinely fun to play around with. The scripting engine access is the icing on the cake, although I don't know the names of any of the variables so I wouldn't know how to go about messing with the source code. Oh well.

Overall this is probably one of the best sim games out there, especially for when this was made. I think adding something like food would have been kind of neat, and also some different terrain rather than that one blank room (which Tom aptly notes is Matrix-like).

It might have also been nice if your buddy could interact with you more spontaneously, such as throwing the baseball back at the user after catching it, and the player having to catch it too. There could definitely be a lot more added to this game rather than just objects and a physics engine. I like that you can try and get a higher amount of money in one, three, or ten seconds, and I also like getting money too. Couldn't there be a better way to use money rather than one-time purchases? Maybe temporary consumable items that cost a certain amount, or special items that cost money for each spawn? There could also be some kind of challenge mode where you have to inflict a certain amount of damage within a certain time using certain modes, or some kind of more advanced baseball game. What I'm saying is that this game has high potential for some more involved gameplay but doesn't deliver.

Still, this is a really fun gadget and I'm glad I went back to reconnect with it even nine years later.

[Pride and Punishment]

It's... Unfinished. What am I supposed to say about this? You have the makings of a really good and attractive game, but there's nothing here! What gameplay is here is also rather slow. The bow could be drawn faster, the jumping could happen faster. I also noticed you spawn at the top of the screen if you hit the spacebar.

I don't know why you can't finish this game. If your FLA got corrupted that's one thing, but otherwise hell, I'd finish the damned thing for you.

glitchs2d responds:

This was for the Newgrounds Game Jam, and done in only around 48 hours. I'm going to release an update for the game soon once I get things working the way I want. Also the space bar is the way how it is for testing reasons I forgot to disable it when I uploaded, since i was so pressed for time. The new one will have a lot of fixes, and be much more of a game than what it is in its current state.

[Glitch Lab]

So lame... Graphics and music are unremarkable, and while neither of these are important, either could have salvaged this from being an overall bad game.

The gameplay is so gimmicky - almost like This is the Only Level, yet it claims to be glitchy. No, this isn't glitchy. Goat Simulator is glitchy. I noticed no actual glitches in this game, which is a real shame because glitch exploitation is actually quite fun. Invisible platforms and flashing colors, however, are hallmarks of shitty indie rage games, and I really don't appreciate that this is an imitation of those. To be fair, this game was neither hard nor frustrating, but I am really upset with the false advertising. The ending was also cheesy and fake as fuck, and not in a cool or funny way. Points for concept.

[Gap Monsters]

God I hate puzzle games like this but this one is so well done I have to give credit where credit is due. This is brain-bendingly difficult. How the hell did someone come up with this? I really like how there's a significant difference in difficulty between a star completion and a normal completion. The gameplay is simple yet clever and varied, and has the potential for both skill and strategy-based gameplay. The graphics and sound are simple but don't need to be complicated. What little physics do exist in the game are coded well.

I really can't think of anything that this game needs. Possibly more of a plot, different themes, or a better soundtrack. Other than that this is really amazing.

[Super Ninja Party Pooper]

Wow. What the hell Vince? Simple repetitive graphics, music, and gameplay. The one life system is annoying, but worse the fight isn't good to begin with. All you do is shoot, jump, shoot, duck, and repeat. I had to dodge the bear a grand total of once, otherwise it was just a really brainless exercise.

[Talk Head]

Fun to work with, but limited. I would have liked more faces and more detailed descriptions of the things the mouths can do - frequently I encountered sounds that weren't listed on the mouth positions. Overall easy to use though, and I noticed the syncing worked impressively well. Kind of annoying that the most viewed syncs are actually blank, but that's not your fault.

Add more faces and more graphics. Otherwise this is really neat.

Also major lol when I read you coded this in AS2.