Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Super Morse Code RPG]

Surprisingly fun. The graphics were pretty plain, but I liked how simple everything was. Since the morse code was a little cumbersome, simplicity was what made the game as good as it was. However, the fact that grinding was made mandatory and the fact that the order in which you were 'supposed' to attack enemies was never clarified, the game became very annoying due to the fact that grinding got repetitive, and I never knew if I had done enough of it or not. Running away screwed me over way too many times, and I hated starting over from the beginning.

Finally, I would have much preferred if enemies had been given random letter IDs instead of number IDs, so the control scheme would have utilized ALL of the letters.

[Live Puzzle]

Wow, I'm really impressed. Took me a good 30 minutes to beat this on my first time around. I really like these puzzles! The graphics look nice and simple and the gameplay is surprisingly original, although the music gets annoying pretty quick.

What I really liked about this were the different kinds of skills you used when solving the puzzles. The fish one was nice and easy and allowed me to map out the blue fish first, and then the other two soon after. The chess one went by so damned fast it was a blind rush between watching the preview and looking at the pieces. Some, like the spiral, could be solved using conventional methods, while the poker one had me piecing together parts and later putting them together. The ladybugs were by far the hardest, since you could never tell which ladybug was which and because sometimes they even moved in the same direction... Took me an entire 7 minutes to beat that one.

Overall a really great game! As far as puzzles go, this was not nearly as boring as it could have been.

[Doctor Rockso Soundboard]

Decent soundboard. Funny clips. Not enough, though, plus a lot of the buttons are useless. People who are piecing together sentences won't need repeats; they'll just keep clicking. Not enough basic words like "Hi" or "No", so I don't see myself making any prank calls with this.

[no-one has to die.]

Sorry, but this is actually pretty boring. You're tossed into a situation with four characters who you don't know, and have to choose between saving them. Why should I know who to save? More importantly, why should I care? Christina and Steve are over-dramatic and completely unlikable. Lionel is obnoxious. Troy has a tragic story but I still know nothing about the guy.

Frankly the game just isn't interesting. It seems to me as if the player is thrown into the climax of a story that should have started much earlier on. I'll also note that the graphics are very minimalistic, with barely anything apart from the character avatars, and the soundtrack is unfitting mostly because I never got to feel for any of the characters. The gameplay was pretty dumb, too. More than once I just wanted to kill everyone off for the heck of it. But there's really no gameplay to speak of. You just take your best guess at a level, which is usually close to what you need to do, and then you restart and adapt your strategy.

The time travel gimmick was interesting and I could see how some might like it, but to me the idea of there being an 'ultimate' ending or 'good' ending takes away from the gravity of your decisions as a player. When all of your decisions end up with you watching a single 'definitive' ending, it just makes the game feel a whole lot less interactive. I would have preferred to have all of the endings jumbled up and know that in the end you could only pick one. Of course, I would also have preferred if this game were a spinoff or sequel to another story, or if it had come with some background information before the events of the game.

[CrateRun]

I got to level 20, so I feel like I have a decent feel for the game. I must say that despite the simple graphics, you have a really nice presentation and a good working platform engine. The controls are a bit strange, but I caught on about variable jumps and changing direction in midair soon enough.

I like the simplicity of the level design. The graphics remind me a lot of The Impossible Game, while the gameplay reminds me a lot of Meatboy. The difficulty curve seemed a bit much at first and there were several points at which I considered quitting, but it was only when I hit the mine level that I quit. Nailing the same incredibly narrow jump several times is what turned me off.

Anyway what you have here is decent, and I like how unique the controls work, but they are still clunky as others have said, and as platformers go this really doesn't bring anything new to the table.

[The Impossible Game Lite]

Wow, really? Come on. I know you have to make money, but this demo literally lasts under a minute before sticking you with an ad. As I bought this game on the PSN for a dollar, I can review the full game but I refuse to give this demo more than a 2/5. If you're going to upload a demo of this game, I'll rate the demo.

The Impossible Game is definitely a good idea. Rhythm-based platformer? Sounds good to me. Tough-as-nails platformer? Sounds good too. But when you send a player back to the beginning for one mistake, it ruins immersion, and when the practice mode has its sound replaced with something entirely different, it doesn't help you practice and it defeats the purpose of it being rhythm-based. This should have either been more lenient, or it should have shed the whole rhythm concept. But putting both together drives you nuts as you listen to the first few seconds of a song OVER AND OVER.

Anyway, you chose some great music from well-recognized artists on Newgrounds, but that doesn't mean much if you never get to hear it. I also feel like the graphics were way simpler than they had to be. Attractive? Yes. But couldn't you at least add some customization options? Maybe an audio visualizer around the perimeter of the screen that can be toggled? Or a freeplay mode that makes the game more musical?

By far the most annoying thing about this game is that you really only have one button. Which means that you could use any kind of graphic to cue the player to press a button. Hell, this game could have looked like Vuvu Hero. In fact, you could watch a video with different graphics while playing this game if it were synced correctly. The lack of interaction between the player and the game is a huge issue.

[Segway of the Dead]

What score am I supposed to give this? As always with these April 1st games, the polish is impeccable but there's really nothing to do in this game except mash a few buttons (or press them as slowly as you please) and lose. I was hoping for something at least a tiny bit different from last year's Hunger Games tribute.

Really digging the music though.

[Kill Bubbles (ppg)]

I had to watch this on YouTube because the file doesn't seem to be working.

Anyway, this Flash has a very nostalgic feel to it, which makes sense given that it's over a decade old now. The graphics are pretty good for their time; in fact, the vectors look great, very crisp and colorful.

The music selection, in particular, Closer, also make this feel very stylized and fit to the time period in which this was made. The poor animation and sound effects could have been fixed, in my opinion. Frame by frame animation was possible with early versions of Flash, wasn't it? I'd say the sounds could have been better too, but I know online sound libraries weren't as big or high-quality in 2001 as they are now.

Overall this is pretty good. The over-the-top violence and bad humor, plus the shooting bit at the end, make this very reminiscent of the types of games that existed back in the very early 00s.

[400 Years]

Ugh, yuck! What the hell is this?

Alright, first up the graphics are nice, and I like the textures and landscaping, but the first issue here is the pixel art. Sure, it's not bad, but the style just does NOT work at all. You need to pay more attention to fine detail, and then add in a lot more background graphics and animations. Because of how slow the character moves, you need to awe the player and give them something to look at as they dawdle their incredibly slow way from point A to point B. The animation could also use some work. But most of all, you should not be using rectangles as water. Make sure the water is hugging the ground, otherwise it looks tacky and horrible.

The music is good, as most things by Kevin MacLeod are done well, but it gets so horribly repetitive, it would have been nice if you had interspersed it with atmospheric sound effects, like rustling leaves, harsh winds, gentle breezes, or birds chirping. Perhaps a different music track for every season would be nice, too.

Gameplay is by far the most flawed part of this game. The instructions don't tell you squat, which leaves you floundering in the dark, and if you screw up you're penalized by having to wait more... And more... And more! There's a difference between a slow-paced game and a stupidly tedious game. I've played through Vagrant Story and consider it to be one of the greatest games of all time, so I know what it's like to spend a lot of time learning a game and warming up to unconventional gameplay. This game is just done badly.

Overall, the biggest change this Flash needs to rectify its incredibly slow gameplay is a more detailed and immersive environment and atmosphere. On top of that, perhaps doing SOMETHING to speed up the gameplay might help a bit. I found myself stuck at the puzzles and at a couple points facepalmed when I looked up the solutions. I think it's because all of the waiting fried my brain. You could also hint a bit more at directions, or help cue players in on WHERE to wait, because a lot of the time I would end up waiting in the wrong area (and it seems like if I'm not in the right place, it won't matter how long I wait).

I guess the last reason this game ticked me off is because the ending is ridiculous. It doesn't explain anything, expand on any plot, or have any buildup whatsoever. Just 'jump down here and then you win'. Come on! You saved the world because you blocked an active volcano? Get real - even if a rock were able to block an entire volcano AND seal it (which is impossible), it would still only increase the amount of pressure and contain the buildup for a larger, more powerful explosion. Besides, lava melts everything except for diamond, and molten magma will melt even diamond.

Overall an interesting concept, but did you not test this AT ALL and realize how boring it is?

[Bloons Tower Defense 5]

Two steps forward, one step back... The graphics and overall interface are as they've always been: Attractive, simple, and functional, although somewhat less so now that you've come up with all of these upgrade paths and the experience bars. The gameplay is kind of frustrating to me, though.

I like the overall increase of upgrades. It puts a lot more emphasis on the strategy of the game, and allows players to make a lot of different choices. What I don't like is that you have to unlock these upgrades through experience meters... To me, this just seems like a way of making players wait longer, making progress more linear, and making that progress arbitrary. Although the system works, it has a certain 'feel' to it that I'm really not sure I like.

It feels a lot like the Bloons series has gravitated a lot more toward the mobile market, which isn't necessarily bad, but means that the gameplay is appealing to a different audience, which means that a lot of features have been added, but what these added features COULD have been has been dumbed down a bit.

Overall what annoys me is just how I feel like the game is holding my hand, giving me a pop-up every time I unlock a new feature, or flooding me with easy levels. I finally quit when I lost because of the lead camo level, which was just about one of the cheapest ways to get a game over. My overall response to this game is that it's reached a point where now it's just trying too hard. The game is still good, but the spark is gone now.