Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Squirrel Squash]

Nice. I played this back in... 4th grade, was it? The speed factor in this game is really cool, and I like how you can fine-tune your runs with repeated laps of the same level. What I don't like is the needless utilization of left and right movement. This game is meant to be fast, and regardless of whether or not it helps your score, I never used the left key while playing this, nor did I ever lift up on the right key. You could have easily gotten by with a two button system for the speed burst and jumping.

Also, I noticed longer falls sometimes making me fall through the floor. Bro, what?

As far as actual gameplay goes, I feel like this game could have used more levels and just stood to be longer overall. I also didn't like that it was kind of tough to gauge how to get the best score. Yes, we see how much acorns and crowns give us. We don't see just how much MORE we benefit from getting a few extra seconds. Yes, it's nice seeing the score multiplier kicking in every second, but it's kind of cryptic and not really helpful when you're busy running your ass off.

One last annoyance was that the screens switched whenever you hit a border. This made it hard to predict just when to jump unless you memorized the course. A panning camera would not have been as stylish, but it would have made the game a lot more fair.

Overall a fun game and I love the speed, but there are several issues getting in the way of the replay value.

[Carve n' Share]

Nice drawing application, I like the art and the features, everything works really smoothly and the sharing feature works too, which is awesome. I only wish that you could zoom in to draw more precisely, as you don't actually know where your cursor is on the screen other than it being inside one of the pixels. I also wish you could half-carve to create a pale orange surface on the pumpkin. Otherwise really great.

[Billy Suicide]

I saw this on a website talking about depression, citing this game as potentially offensive, and I have to say I absolutely disagree. This game is a brilliant reconstruction of depression, and it really hits the nail on the head.

First of all, the player is immediately given a feel for how small the world is. Confined only two a four-room apartment, the variety of things for Billy to do are somewhat varied, but all done while inside, and it creates a very constricting, claustrophobic atmosphere. The fact that your financial and mental health are constantly decreasing also shows that just moving from room to room is difficult, expressing the lack of motivation someone has when they suffer from depression.

Most of all I love all of the bars and urges. The player is 'supposed' to finish every task, but at the same time is always under threat of some kind of timer running out. Whether it's the "Did I leave the ____ on?", an urge, or just the depletion of one of the gauges, Suicide Billy pressures you constantly and gives the player a feeling of being under stress. The fact that your financial and mental health is always a trade off, and especially that later in the game the bars seem to both be going down no matter what you do, instills a very strong sense of helplessness and futility in the player.

Adding onto the activities that Billy does, the fact that you see only a small animation for what he's doing makes the player feel very distant from the actual activities they're having Billy do, which is yet another accurate portrayal of what a depressed person feels.

Though the actual gameplay is quite simple, the variables (what Billy can do when he's drunk, on anti-depressants, etc.) are fairly complex, and literally every mechanic in the game is specifically designed to make the player feel what the character feels. This is further exemplified by beating the game, at which you realize you've gotten Billy through a grand total of ONE day after all of that running around. I also like that Tarah's 'reward' is his main motivation for getting through the day; it adds on to the whole thing about your world feeling very small when you play the game.

Onto the more aesthetic parts of the game, I really love the graphics here. The video animation works surprisingly well, and the environment is also very crisp despite looking like a bunch of photographs. There's a very distinct style here, and it works perfectly for what you're doing. It also reminds me a little bit of older Newgrounds fads, and makes me feel kind of nostalgic. The lines that appear over the screen are also a cool little subtlety that makes everything seem just a little bit less real.

The sound is absolutely excellent. The sound effects provide great ambiance, and despite not really being music, they're incredibly effective at making the player feel stressed, fatigued, and generally overwhelmed not only by the urges that pop up, but also by the activities that you do willingly. The little bits of music you hear while listening to music and playing guitar and bass are also really good, I'm surprised you haven't put the full tunes up on the Audio Portal (as I hear that you composed all of those clips yourself).

dlasal responds:

Thanks so much for your review. I'm always happy when I see that someone understands Billy Suicide, and that it still has some relevance even after so many years have gone by. Oh, and some of the music is available here: http://davelasala.bandcamp.com/

[Pico's School 2]

Good prank. You did a really seamless job with the graphics/music/dialogue - I can't tell that this wasn't done in 2002, it looks really authentic. Since I didn't play this on April 1st, I had absolutely no idea that this was going to be a joke (should have scrolled down).

Music is catchy and at least I got 150 free and easy medal points. I noticed I had to play the game several times before two of them would unlock, which is kind of a pain in the ass. And of course I'm mad that I didn't get to play an awesome sequel.

[Inner Vision]

Poorly done. First of all, pixel graphics are fine, but these are not. You could have created much more detailed sprites and worked with colors and shading; instead these look like they were done in MS Paint. The music is alright, but kind of plain, and there are no sound effects either.

One big issue here is having to wait for the text to show up on the screen. It was annoying having a reading speed faster than the speed at which the text shows up on-screen, and all of the boxes opening and closing were annoying as well.

There's also the writing - honestly it's just not done that well. The dialogue is unrealistic, and the options aren't that great. Worse, people will continue to say the exact same thing regardless of what you tell them, and worst of all, you don't even see the rest of the conversation if you blow your chances, so there aren't even really 'bad' 'endings.

This is simply an example of a game that was made poorly. Sorry.

LinusPrime responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I might revisit this game in the future and polish it up. After all, I did make it in one month for a game jam.

[Katawa Shoujo Lite]

Way too hard. I love the graphics and sound - it's a hilarious parody of Katawa Shoujo, and the Castlevania spin only serves to make it funnier. The biggest problem is just the way the controls work. Kenji moves way too slowly, his attack doesn't last long enough, and most of all you have to hold down the jump button far too long to get the full height out of the jump. I wasn't able to get past the first boss' second form and I'm not really interested in trying again. I'm sick of losing repeatedly in slow motion.

[Dungeon Deadline]

Excuse me? I really can't see the appeal in this game... The graphics are nice (not yours, obviously) and the general presentation likewise, but there's really no gameplay to speak of. You run around and shoot stuff for three second intervals. Jesus, did you seriously not consider what a pain in the ass that is? At least let me rewind the timer like Half-Minute Hero.

I also don't like that the upgrades are paper thin, the game is incredibly short, and nothing really has much meaning or purpose. After you beat the game, you aren't given a score or a grade for accuracy. You're running around inside a dungeon map, but as far as I can tell there are no Easter eggs. Come on, you can do better than this.

[Break the TV]

I know Newgrounds has seen other games like this before (Dynamic Systems), and this certainly isn't the best recreation I've played. The graphics and sound are modest, and the gameplay feels in many ways somewhat uninspired. The different devices seem just a little too similar to me, what with the birds, cannons, and guns having almost the exact same functions.

What really bothered me, though, was how the puzzle element of the game played out. I beat a lot of levels just by having a few mechanisms triggering and shooting at nothing. Other times I noticed that something like a falling domino might trigger a bird but not a cannon. Inconsistencies like this gave the game depth but seemed pointless and didn't make a whole lot of sense.

I will give you a 7 because the physics worked quite well, and because I really enjoyed some of the level design, which was mostly well-done. I got 15 levels in before calling it quits - perhaps if you'd allowed players to play sets of four or five levels, unlocking another set after beating the majority of previous levels, it would have been less frustrating to get stuck.

EggysGames responds:

Yeah you make good points, it was definitely not the most well executed game I've done. The game idea had some major flaws.

[Heli vs Tower]

Hmm, seems kind of like a cross between Tyrian and Pursuit Force.

Really good game, I enjoyed just about everything about it. My only real complaint is that you should be able to strafe by holding down the Shift key (useful for backing up and firing), and also the difficulty and different types of enemies should increase a bit more, the only new additions I noticed to later altitudes were tanks. Perhaps some kind of mobile enemies that try to dodge attacks would have been cool, maybe even some boss battles.

Also, the entire game does feel a little lacking. As others have said, more types of helicopters and items would have given the game lots of variety. As it was, the special was basically a matter of waiting for a bomb, holding onto it for as long as you could, and then clearing the screen. Ejecting was a matter of waiting until you were low on health and then ejecting straight into another helicopter. More variables in the items and helis would have deepened the gameplay.

EggysGames responds:

Never played them two games. Glad you liked it. Yeah for a suqual I'll definitely do upgrades.

[Dry Fire Reloaded]

This is a good concept, but it feels like there's a lot that could have made this better. The gameplay as a whole reminds me a lot of the turret minigame in Wpnfire, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but turns out to be in the end.

The two biggest issues with the gameplay are the small size of the screen and the panning camera. Much of my time was spent staring at the borders of the screen so that I did not accidentally click outside of them. It would have been nice if you could have just shown a zoomed out view of the screen so that my cursor never had to pan so close to the edges. On the topic of clicking, my Flash player actually crashed the second time I accidentally clicked the Stickpage logo. Was there NO WAY for you to simply remove it? Crazy Jay didn't even help make this game. The logo is hardly necessary.

Next, I appreciate the colored enemies, but because of how simple and easy switching colors was, I found the mechanic to be somewhat of a waste. I suppose if I had gotten far enough into the game for there to be four or five colors of enemies I would have appreciated it a lot more, but I simply quit at a certain point because of the above issues. Without that damned camera, this game would have been entirely different.

Last, I'll go into the shop, which I only visited once, since I didn't feel like restarting the game when Flash crashed. My first criticism here is just how damned long it took to get there in the first place. There are far too many waves between levels, and it makes the game pretty mundane. Second, the upgrades are frustratingly expensive. Personally I might have made the upgrades weaker and cheaper so that players could fine-tune their decisions a little bit more.

Overall I did enjoy the game. The graphics and music are also great, and stick figures once again save the day when it comes to eliminating lag. Just that damned camera...