Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[D-Pression]

Huh, had to look up a tutorial for the very last level and it would appear I took the long way around for the two 'blank' levels.

Anyway you did a really smooth job with the programming. I really like the slipping and sliding and the wall jump mechanic is just comfortable to use. The obligatory puzzle element was fun, although sometimes frustrating and a little gimmicky due to it having the whole physics flair going on - sometimes made things harder than they should have been.

You really could have stood to improve the graphics. They're simple, they're cute, but they're OVERDONE.

The real reason I'm docking so many points is because I'm sick of programmers dick riding The Company of Myself with these simple 'symbolic' puzzle platformers with crummy graphics, melodramatic and even more melodramatic one-liners scattered throughout the levels. At least The Company of Myself and Fixation had a plotline. This is just a bunch of drivel.

Another really big thing that bothered me is that with such simple games you really lose a lot out of the experience when it's just one level after another. There's a heavy puzzle element, sure, but it would be nice to see some new mechanics partway through the game, or even an open-world kind of environment.

This is not a bad game but conceptually it is the most infuriatingly jump-on-the-bandwagon game I've seen in a while.

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Thanks for the long review, Kwing! I agree with most of the criticism, and most of them can be explained by the lack of time I had when making this. I made it for the Stencyl Jam 2014, but I had my most important school exams in between :)

The programming is pretty smooth, but could still be improved, I think. Stencyl made it somewhat easy though (even if it took a lot of time for me). I'm glad you're happy with the movement though! The physics thing was probably too difficult for most people to realize for themselves. I should've hinted on it more, and made it a bit more obvious that you had to use friction :/

I agree with the graphics too. Then again, I was in a real hurry while making this! I finished this game in the last minute, but I still had time to make small updates later. There's still a lot that needs to be done, I think.

I actually had to make pretty much all of the "story" or text in the game in about 5 hours, and only 10 minutes or so went to actually thinking about what I wrote, as it was time consuming to place the text. If (when) I make a huge update to this game in the future, there will be a lot of changes :D

I would've wanted some new puzzle mechanics too. I originally wanted to make some levels where the "shadow's" movement was inverted from yours. I also waned to include some with many "shadows", and some with upside down gravity, to confuse the player. Alas, I had no time, as I earlier said. The only thing I had time for was to include two levels where the "shadow" couldn't touch you, but had a very similar room to yours, as you might recall.

Thanks again for the long review, I'm grateful that you took some time to write out your thoughts! :3

[Catch the Pacman]

I can't be the only person to think this... Why is the AI so bad? I see tons of the Pacman (Pacmen?) running back and forth in place while you casually stroll over to them and kill them. What is the function of those zombies? Why is the movement speed so slow? Why does the player rattle around inside the walls instead of fitting snugly between them? There's something seriously wrong here.

By the way, shouldn't there be several ghosts? This would be cool as a strategy game where you have to outsmart the enemy but this is just a slow chasing game.

sex92toso responds:

1.I agree with you with the pacman, since I started the game, I could been fix it yet.

2.The function of the zombies is to kill you. Maybe I should make them faster. I´ll see.

3. I do not understand what you mean by "player rattle"

4. I liked the idea of several ghosts, could you give me your opinion so I get an idea?

Thanks for the review, seriously.

[PLEASE REMAIN CALM]

I can definitely see the Binding of Isaac influence here. The one-resource system makes it easy to manage what with the coins and everything. It also keeps people interested in the coins regardless of their strategy, whether they prefer using coins for jumping or fighting. The powerups are few, simple, but powerful, making it very easy to keep track of what does what, a pitfall that annoyed me a lot when playing Binding of Isaac (you needed a Wiki of all of the items, honestly). The random item in the shop seemed a little gimmicky to me, since the game itself is so short.

Anyway this is a really great roguelike. Nice and short, much more casual than others. Like all roguelikes there are a shitton of cheap deaths, and that took away from the experience for me. The graphics could have also used a boost and maybe some different music as well.

Also, I think something could be done to make the final boss a little more fair. I've lost to it maybe eight times now, half of them due to grunt enemies. It's also way too easy to fall into him. Instant death is far too harsh of a penalty. No other game expects a player to cope with that kind of insanity.

[Man in Gap]

This is a really, really, really cool concept. It's incredibly simple but the nice harsh sound effect and music really make it fun to play. Since there are always two gaps, it would be cool to make a multiplayer mode where two players play at once and get bonus points if they end up in different gaps. Also maybe a button to make the platforms clash earlier, and/or a timer. I like how the gaps are randomly determined each time, too. The graphics could be given a boost too

[Disco!]

Kind of like a bullet hell fishy. Fun but a little too fast for it to be fair, and too dull for someone to stick it out for the tough medals.

[The Medal Game]

Decent for borderline spam. Kind of funny how you use the same generic button graphics. I like how you use Comic Sans, a plain white background, and that goofy ass music. Nice and sarcastic, medals are easy to get. What else to say? It's a below-par game that manages to be somewhat enjoyable anyway. Nice job protecting from Tab cheats as well.

[Color Pairs]

Kind of fun but also very dull. The time restriction is ridiculous and makes the game too short. Then again, it's simple enough that you really are getting the full experience in the time it takes to play the game once. Needs more everything, honestly. Graphics, sound, game elements.

[My Puzzled Friends]

I wish the screen size were a little better but this is really done exceptionally well. The rotating mechanic is very smooth, the dragging is very smooth, the picture quality remains high, the animation is smooth, and the snapping works really well. Overall this is just well coded and is fun to play. The one thing I would recommend is increasing the screen size, making more of the screen space part of the puzzle rather than having all the menu stuff, and maybe giving more space in general to put loose pieces.

Other than that this is really cool.

[Yaoi Game- Find Your Goy]

I just had to see how a Yaoi game got an E rating. Well, I guess now I know. Where do I even start? The characters are already mediocre but they need animation, too. Maybe some voice acting or a theme song. The dialogue needs to be cleaned up and grammatically correct - it could also stand to be better written and maybe also develop the characters more. But the biggest issue is that there's just not much content here. Beyond the minimal background work and characters, it's just a bunch of poorly written text with branches that send you back to the beginning if you don't make an advance on a guy and lead to a one frame kissing picture if you do.

If I saw some serious effort put into any one category of this Flash I would have been less strict but this just lacks everything that a game asks for.

[Goin Up]

Gave me a headache after a while. This is a really fun game - a lot more skill in it than Toss the Turtle, I'll give you that. I really like the whole Doodle Jump feel but with a more hop and bop twist to it. The upgrades were nice and the gameplay was fluid, with the physics feeling very balanced.

What I didn't like was all of the cheap deaths - it's really easy to be shot INTO another enemy, or for your fire chain to run out just before you hit something and die.