Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Skill Test 2]

Well Done

Very nice presentation, and I like the way the buttons look. Very simple and minimalistic, but stylish. The scoreboard and charts also looked nice. The music was fitting as well. The gameplay was simple, interesting, and to the point, but a little too simple for my liking. This also brought out the liberal usage of randomization, which could make or break you if you're already in the top 5% of players or so (Personally I ranked in the best 18%). Certain things such as being able to replay certain tests and see other peoples' scores for those particular exercises would have been a nice add-on, especially as some tests were much more desirable than others.

[Nyan Cat FLY!]

Excellent for What it Is

The graphics remain mostly true to the original Nyan cat, the sound likewise. As for the animation, I really like the easing on the rainbow, and the customizable Nyan cat was very nice and simple.

The gameplay was simple too, but something about it kind of bothered me, although I'm not sure what it was. Partially it was too simple, plus I never got much of an explanation as to what each treat and vegetable did... Plus I didn't get the bar at the top either. But that didn't make the game any less fun!

krangGAMES responds:

There's no actual difference between the specific types of yummies and veggies - yummies = good, veggies = bad :P
As for the bar on the top, filling it gives you a big point bonus! The text along the bottom of the screen details the points

[4 IN 1: Story Generator]

Mad Libs...?

A bunch of simple shapes and Flash filters, a simple tween animation, and some equally simple script to implement inputs into a longer string of text? This is really old, and we've had stuff like this since before computers existed. Even the buttons are square-ish and look unattractive, same as the UI. The font for Lonely Hearts was also difficult to read and obnoxious. The stories themselves tend to be nonsensical, of course.

All in all I found this to be rather boring and samey, and it didn't entertain me much at all.

Little-Radiodemon responds:

Poor you :(

[Ultimate Physics Game]

Fun

I like the simplistic graphics and the music is nice, if repetitive. Plus the physics are pretty good... Except for the fact that the blocks appear to be made entirely out of rubber.

However, I didn't like the fact that you had to wait for the timer to finish checking if you knew you were going to lose. The refresh button doesn't work while the timer goes down! Not only that, but you put the timer in some categories that didn't even need it! The long ass waits made me want to give this a 6, but I realize this is a small game element. Besides, there should be a way to speed up the motion of the objects so that you see what should have happened in, say, 60 seconds, in three seconds. While statements come to mind, but I know that if you had a flawless setup you'd end up with a broken computer. Still, I'm POSITIVE there's a workaround that you didn't think of.

I also didn't like that the menu didn't show if a level was beaten or not. A check mark over or glow effect would have been a nice indicator.

As per individual modes... Collapsing made me frustrated because the blocks had way too much friction, and I lost in ways that would be impossible in real life. Building was easily exploitable by stacking things against the walls. Stacking got way too hard way too fast, and the way that balls rolled on their own was a small thing at first but became impossible to work with eventually. Moving seemed to require a good deal of bullshitting and cheap Jimmy-rigging. I didn't get to see too much of Exploding because I couldn't figure out how to beat 4, but I did manage to play at lest 6/7 of the levels in all the other categories.

This game DOES NOT present itself as fun. It presents itself as ANNOYING AND FRUSTRATING. It is possible to make puzzle games that do not fit into this category, but this attempt failed hard. I'll still give you a 7 for the presentation and the physics, which were nice, though the level design was not.

GroZGames responds:

Thanks for your input -- the time on the "checking..." is something to fix in the future and has definitely been noted. Sorry you found the level design too "flukey", it's hard to properly distribute the learning curve across levels without there being TOO many levels. We did our best.

Thanks again!

[Scooby doo falling stone]

Awful!!

The graphics are rather poor; Scooby Doo reverts back to facing right when he's standing still, and there's no sense of momentum; Scooby has running and standing, but no acceleration or sliding. The rocks are also way too big, making the collision detection much too sensitive. On top of that, THERE'S NO WAY TO KEEP TRACK OF YOUR SCORE! That means there's absolutely no point at all to this whole game. Not to mention the sound effects are obnoxious, it needs music, and the whole thing is way too short.

[The Tower: Heart in Glass]

Really Good

The graphics, especially the weapons and blocks, are simple in an extremely satisfying kind of way, and the animation and sound form a nice picture of what's going on. The sound effects get a little annoying and some are odd, but overall it's good. it could have used more diverse music, though. The gameplay was very fun! I loved customizing my own tower, and when it started out symmetrical it ended up becoming really wonky. The system of leveling up weapons and different strength blocks was simple and easy to grasp, and the gameplay was pretty raw.

My only complaints are that the game becomes really hard really fast, and that it's hard to browse the weapons to see how each one works when you can only look at them and purchased them during a wave. Also, it was kind of difficult swerving the mouse down to one section to select a certain weapon. Keyboard shortcuts would have been welcome.

I also noticed a glitch. At around the 43rd level, I was taken to the screen to prepare for the next wave while the previous wave was still attacking me! I couldn't attack back, since I was only able to place blocks, but I was able to win by successively clicking Next Wave until it said I had completed the last one. When trying to return to the main menu, though, I couldn't, and the winning screen kept popping up.

Despite the kinks, I really enjoyed this game and thought the system was simple, easy to use, and very tactical.

EggysGames responds:

2011 flashback

[Crazy Belmont]

Good For Its Time

It's pretty good as sprite Flashes go, and the animation and sound didn't have any quirks. However, the gameplay was way too easy! Since you can whip without stopping at all, I found it easy to just hold down one key and mash the whip while moving up and down. This also made the game somewhat luck-based as well, and it defeated the entire purpose of the Nitros. I easily scored over 4,000 by speeding in one direction.

Even if it has no point, the gameplay needs to be at least somewhat difficult.

[Crush The Castle 2]

Fun Game, Lacking in Strategy

It's really neat to see so much work was put into this, but it really could have been better. The 'storyline' was so bland and forgetful I forgot each sentence before I was even finished reading it, and I would have preferred none at all. However, the graphics, animation, physics, and movement were FLAWLESS and looked beautiful!! However, they did look almost tile-based when tons of the same animation played at the same time. A simple _rotation=random(360) would have made it look mush fresher, and it's a simple line of code, too. Although they did lag pretty badly, just watching it all was a treat, especially watching fire spread and decay the wood. The music was also catchy, high quality, and well-composed. Sound effects were very fitting and also high-quality.

The gameplay was where it got kind of hairy. I loved the first Crush the Castle, and this one was good too, but at the same time it left a lot to be desired. I would have liked a panning option that would have allowed me to survey the castle before launching my projectiles. This would have saved me many-a-shot. Also, the castles are way too weak. The gold requirements (or par, as I like to put it), was way too low for every single level. When every level can be taken down in 1-4 hits, there isn't a whole lot of need for strategy. Not only that, but you could go back to old levels and use new weapons on them. While this makes things easier in a good way, it also cuts out a lot of the strategy of annihilating people with older, more primitive weapons, and thus, much of the challenge is taken out of it. But if a castle took a dozen hits... Maybe even several dozen to take it down, it would get a lot harder. Planning which weapons to use when, and where to aim them, would be exponentially more stimulating. Of course, this would prevent lag, which brings me to my next point: MAKE LOW DETAIL OPTIONS! Being able to turn a complex, rugged piece of wood into a simple brown rectangle, and turning the complex explosions into an opaque red fading into transparent yellow would have made the game run very smoothly. Some of us prefer smoother gameplay through simple graphics, and you could have easily implemented this.

And when it came to weapons, I didn't like how you were just given the weapons in a linear fashion one after the other. A more complex system involving ability trees and unlockables would have suited my style more. Perhaps you could have gotten points for every castle crushed, with the payout decreasing each time you repeated an individual level, and you could spend points to get the next tier weapon (logs, stones, bombs) or for upgrades (triple shot). That sort of mixing and matching would have also lead to super powerful weapons to use, such as triple acid projectiles. But if weapons were made this powerful, you might want to add something such as 'platinum' completion, awarded for using weapons of more limited power.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is there are a lot of directions to go with this, especially if you had made the game less graphic intensive, and it would have given this hours more replay value.

Also, when it came to multiplayer, options for difficulty, rating, and plays would have been nice, as opposed to omitting difficulty. Time Fcuk used this feature and it was an excellent indicator, especially when inexperienced players marked down levels that were too hard. Other than that, I had no problem with the user-created levels, and implementing limited weapons was a great feature too. The level editor was also VERY, VERY, VERY slick!! The layout was very similar to Flash, which I thought was really neat, and the simple interface made it easy to make complex levels. All in all, I that bit was perfect and ran quite smoothly.

What you have right here is amazing, but it needs a few simple touches to reduce lag and allow for tougher, more robust castles, because as it is, the levels you get are spoon-fed to make you specifically use your latest weapon, and it needs more strategy than that.

[Maze Gen Challenges]

Very Neat Concept

Plus the fact that this is less than 20 KB, and programmed and published in 2004 counts for some big points as well. I really love the different shapes and also the diversity of random mazes. And unlike the first version, it looks as if you've tried to add in misleading paths more, due to the fact that certain shapes force 'choke points' on certain areas. My only complaints are the bland graphics (which still looked kind of nice), and the fact that the Move Count didn't reset when you started a new game. Also, a minimum number of moves would be cool, although it's too easy to move too many spaces in a direction.