Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Bouncy The Ball]

Too simple for its own good. The graphics look appealing due to having a nice, thick outline, which is the same reason people love the LocoRoco graphics. However, even with the simplicity I think it still could have had more, especially for the menus and such, as that wouldn't have interrupted the gameplay at all.

The music sounds great, but could have used some better sound effects.

As for the gameplay, I have to say it's a little annoying how boring and uninvolved it is. It's way too easy, and all you do is collect coins. Nothing too special there. The boss battle as kind of nice, but a lot of the levels were obviously the result of someone trying to lengthen the game by giving it something unique. The falling spikes and bomb are a good example of that.

[Fixation]

Stunning. The graphics, while simple, are a huge upgrade from this game's sequel. I would have liked an option to switch to low quality, though, since the particle effects have a tendency to lag really badly (I wouldn't have minded switching back to high quality to read the dialogue). Another thing is that I accidentally finished a bunch of levels too quickly, before I had read all of the dialogue, when boxes popped up just as I was about to beat a level. An option to reread dialogue would have been nice. Other than that this game looks great! The textures look spot-on and the sound effects are satisfying, too. Working your ass off for that satisfying clicking noise that means you just hit the right switch makes it all worth it.

The gameplay is excellent and reminds me a bit of Spewer. Implementing the mouse for both sprays and for smoke rings add a lot of replay value, especially with the whole teamwork thing. The difficulty curve is nice and smooth, albeit with a couple bumps, and I found this fun to play and experience.

One thing I'd point out (and I'm sure people will complain about this a lot) is the brutal difficulty. I think it might be nice to be able to skip certain levels (and see the dialogue so you don't miss out), and then be able to go back to it later. Perhaps a simple system like allowing one skipped level at a time would have allowed players to get better at the game in order to go back and solve puzzles on their own. As it was, I did have to look at a walkthrough for 5 or 6 of the levels.

I'd also like to congratulate Carney for composing great music once again! Both the original pieces and rehashes sound excellent and really drew me into the mood. You've got a brilliant storyline going here and this prequel did not disappoint. This easily deserves a 5/5.

FreeAsANerd responds:

What a nice reviewâEU"thanks a ton.

Yeah, I was a little iffy about letting people walk out on conversations, but I just made sure to not allow it for important story points (like at the end of the first chapter, for instance). In the end I figure that some people might decide to play it again because they knew they missed a few chat bubbles, and maybe in their second playthrough they'll understand more of the minor conversations in context and feel all smart about it and stuff.

Having a "level skip" button never seemed appropriate for this game, especially now that walkthroughs for Flash games are so common. After all, it can't be a story about somebody's hard times if it lets you skip the bits that are too tough!

[Colour my Heart]

Am I missing out? No, no I'm not. The background is really nice, but it's hard to get immersed in it, most likely because of the camera. Simply having the camera zoom in and out slightly at different points, or better yet, adding in a way to control the camera's zoom with two buttons, would have made the whole game more engrossing. On top of that, I found the animation to be rather minimalistic and the controls to be a bit slow for my liking.

You say there are hidden features and that this game is an experience, but there isn't really anything to do except sit and watch. Most games that are more of an experience than being objective use the interactivity of games to build upon the experience, rather than to deliver more still images to the player. flOw is a good example of how this can be done, and Silent Hill is a close follow-up as well.

I guess the part of this game that really annoyed me the most was how the dialogue was so poorly written. It didn't really touch on anything serious or intelligent, in my opinion. I remember playing Colour My World, and both that and this game have romantic themes that don't really dive into the depth or complications of what love really is, which I find particularly ironic given that the black and white them and music are supposed to be more somber and even melancholy. I'd also note that the music itself got really annoying, probably due to the lack of a bass line to keep the whole piece grounded properly.

Anyway, the graphics look great but I think incorporating them into a game was a mistake. There's a right way and a wrong way to draw a gamer into art, and this is definitely the wrong way.

[AN Escape Series #1]

Excellent game. I love the simple graphics and the cozy feel of being trapped in a small area, rather than a point and click where you're exploring huge environments. In my opinion the code, especially the number, is really obscure and it's not really fair to expect us to get how to beat it, but for the most part the difficulty was nice and even.

[Doom Triple Pack]

One hell of a port. Can't really say much since you didn't make this, but I can tell you that the graphic quality is completely intact, the game runs without any lag, and the controls are extremely responsive! What more can you ask for?

[Hungry Gamers]

Interesting. I guess you could say it's well done, even as a joke, but goddamn is it frustrating, especially given that you're supposed to get medals during this...? My guess is you just have to die repeatedly until you get the right medals, like the Cato one, but holy shit this is mean. You could at least give players an extra couple seconds before they die. Worse, I couldn't really tell who was who, and if I remember correctly, the tributes are supposed to be lined up in numeric order.

Cruel joke, but good job. Too bad all this art and music is going to waste.

[SOLID SNEAK]

Not bad. The graphics are nice and simple, the music is good, and the gameplay is nice and simple, but there are some serious issues here, the first being that the game lags horribly once you shut the lights off, and it seems as if the game plays the same with the lights out anyway! I would have loved a way to shut the lights off to reduce the range at which enemies could spot you, but as it is there's no reason to add that effect when it makes my computer freeze. Second, I noticed some problems with neutralizing enemies that made some levels impossible for me. Maybe you should look into that. Third, when the game turned into a 3D look, it became kind of hard to understand where exactly the enemies' lines of sight were falling, and that made this game a lot more frustrating than it should have been. And last, the storyline looks good but is too enigmatic to be enjoyable.

Great effort, but needs tons of work.

[Awaken: Front Line]

Almost unplayable.

This game has great graphics, a great sound track, and a great concept, only the control scheme is just so awful I can't give it more than a 3/5. Normally I would give more stars from the effort, but since it's obvious that you're a good enough designer to know better, I'm giving you my full wrath and docking two full points for this screwup.

The single largest issue with this game is that soldiers act on their own WAY too much. Automatically reloading, automatically attacking, automatically looting. It was unbearably obnoxious and it made it physically hurt to play the game due to the fact that playing this game was an almost entirely passive experience.

I get that automatically reloading is supposed to be a convenient feature, but I would rather have the character flash orange when they're out of bullets and red when they're low on health... Also making interactive objects blink when the grid is set to appear would have been nice. This all snowballs into its own little problem of its own: As a game designer, it's important to let your audience know exactly what's going on in a game. Blind spots, whether in an action, adventure, driving, or strategy game (or all the other genres I didn't mention) are extremely annoying and can quickly make a great game unplayable.

Also let me point out how ludicrous it is to reload from a supply box one bullet at a time. If you wanted to make the game harder, you should have made the zombies stronger. Certain actions like that, or like the stat system which would have normally given the game more polish instead felt superficial, unrealistic, and annoying. You're severely lacking in aesthetics here!

That being said, I think the whole tile-based real-time strategy concept is awesome, and I think it's a great way to stimulate to make quick judgments while also being an extremely realistic way to think of battle tactics. Part of the reason this game pissed me off so much was because I genuinely wanted to enjoy and get to like this game.

dovganovskiy responds:

Hello!
Some notes about AI :)
We listen to many testers and made THIS Ai after listening much comments from different people. And here are reasons for that.
Soldiers don't attack zombies , while they are busy/looting---- It is made to increase income ! Imagine if your looters will shoot at everyone... No profit... And almost no damage.
Soldiers don't shoot to zombies , who are eating his friends :) ---- Soldiers choose closest enemy . Pretty egoistic , but if they will cover others , not themselves - they will be dead too...
Soldiers suddenly go to top of the screen ----- They go to the closest reloading point . I need to explain why?
PS Also we made ability to player to aim soldiers , if you has no time to do it - just press spacebar! Good luck :)