Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Larry And The Gnomes]

Epic!

GOOD:
I loved the way the controls worked. While the level design could have used some work, the engine itself was very solid! The stamina system made the game a lot like a real-time version of Final Fantasy Tactics, much like FFT's system of using CT. The rage meter worked a lot like overdrives from RPGs, yet the gameplay was real-time. Combining the best of RPGs and fighting games really made this game enjoyable to me. Another thing I loved was hacking through levels and looking through all of the weapons for a better one. The only thing that pissed me off here was that I wasn't sure what the special parts of the weapons were. Obviously green meant poison, periwinkle slowed down the enemy, but I wasn't sure what some of the other ones were. The music was great, although it got repetitive at times and I would have preferred if it had been more loops than songs. Overall the music was good, but it didn't really stand out. The voice acting was really good, though! The sound quality was amazing, and you got a really good idea of who the characters were based on the voices! Larry is a punk, but I really like his character! Some of the humor at the end was kind of stupid, but it wasn't enough to ruin the story. However, one thing that did ruin it for me was you never found out why the gnomes were attacking or where the fire came from. Last I'll review the graphics. The animation is good, the graphics are good... The layout and presentation is very professional but not overly fancy. One thing that stood out was that the whole game stuck to a very well-established art style, which made it all fit really well.

BAD:
There were some things that bothered me. One was that with all of the dead bodies laying around, it got hard to see weapons or which weapon you were about to pick up. It would have been nice if there was a display that showed the weapon you would pick up if you hit E. Sometimes there were tons of weapons and I would try and pick up one and end up picking up the other. Another thing is that after a lot of boss fights, it was hard to grab your old weapon and continue fighting with it. This made the levels after the boss pretty hard. Lastly it was really easy to end up surrounded by bushes or the spinning blades and end up completely trapped. If the player had more recovery time, it would have been much better and more fair. Also the traps with the spikes in the ground sometimes got covered up by dead bodies, making it extremely hard to spot them, and sometimes impossible. I also would have liked customizable controls and maybe have the camera zoom out more the faster you were going. I also hated the sprinting controls. I wish it had been something like holding down Shift while running as opposed to the double tap. Also, when you pause, the health dots keep bobbing up and down. A simple healthnode.stop(); would have fixed that. On top of that, sometimes I wanted to run back to an earlier part of a level only to find out that I couldn't, or my momentum would drive me into the end of the level and I would be unable to turn around fast enough to break open a vase or crate. I also hated the final boss. It was set up so that you could get into position to unleash a huge combo on him, or he would end up hitting you, and as you were recovering he'd unleash 2 or 3 more attacks on him. It was all about luring him to either the upper side or lower side of the screen so he would only use melee attacks. It was really bad. Another thing that ticked me off about the boss battle was that it was easy to accidentally collect a health pack you didn't need. Not the normal ones, but the glowing ones. Also, the final boss had a jump attack that was way overpowered. If you were still recovering while he did it, it was very possible for you to die with over half of your health. I was also upset you couldn't replay specific levels or look at a compendium of all of the weapons you've collected, and how many there were total.

Some of the flaws really seep into the gameplay, but overall I loved it!

[Moovlin PC]

Wow!

GOOD:
Gameplay is smooth and the controls work great. Each has its purpose, and the controls are simple and none of them are worthless like some games with pointless blocks or weak attacks. The graphics have a unique cartoony style to them, but with gradients. The animation for the game and a some cutscenes are good too. My favorite cutscene was going into Sunshine Plains; there's combat at the beginning, and then the hilarious dialog with the trees. The menu is easy to navigate and understand, and I like how it supports keyboard and mouse control, although I would have liked keyboard control for the pause menu. The music is expansive, fitting in most levels, and dramatic. The choices in making the selection were great! One of the best soundtracks ever! The pictures and hats provided a fun distraction, and it was fun to fight Safuma Poll with an afro. Some of the levels are really fun, too, and it's also convenient how your scores are automatically submitted. My favorite levels were the second Sun Station level, Missile Madness, the first two Lavarious levels, both of the ice levels, the Robot Factory, and Parliament. The Parliament especially was an unspeakably fun level to play. It had tons of traps, and beating it without taking damage was a huge challenge. I loved every minute of it.

BAD:
The graphics aren't that good. The two biggest things I noticed were that you used the same ground Movie Clip over and over. For the glass you broke, for the platforms that electrocuted you, for Cheeseworld, Sun Station, and a few other ones, too. Even circular platforms had the same Movie Clip as a support beam. The second one is that you use too many filters. Sunshine Plains uses a not-too-subtle bevel effect on the ground. Bevels like that are scattered all over the game. Another thing is the cutscene animation. Some of it was good (like the scene where Moovlin enters Sunshine Plains), but some (like the scene before the Truff battle and before Lavarious) had poor easing and movements. For Sun Station, you can ground pound on a little platform and fall through it. For Selia Desert, the three 2-sided platforms are almost hard to clear without taking damage, especially while rotating. I've done it, but it's stupid-hard, not fun-hard. Doodleworld has a glitch where you can fall through the floor if you have enough momentum. Mooviball doesn't even roll or support loops, and has a bad principle of momentum. Sunshine Plains is annoying during the flights, and the level goes by so fast you have to memorize it. Gears are worthless. You move slowly in the water level and can't dive. The gears work pretty badly in the Robot Factory, and Midnight Carnival isn't randomized, so if you memorize it you can get an infinite score. Lava Survival is both easy and luck-based. The Truff battle is so methodical that you get bored, and the Safuma Battle isn't long or hard enough. For the multiplayer modes, you roll in the same direction regardless of which direction you're rolling in, and the camera for the collecting game screws up. There's also no confirmation button on the Erase File button. Another gripe is the cutscenes for the game have some really bad jokes (although some good ones as well). The storyline was bad, despite the good dialog. Not much happens throughout all of the levels; most of the levels are excuses for gameplay. Some scenes could be skipped and others couldn't be. Some of the voices are pretty bad, too. Truff and Polypiscis (who also had terrible dialog) were bad, and Bobby's voice was mediocre. When Pamela is introduced, the sheet Moovlin sleeps under is starched. It moves like a solid object and not like fabric. On the topic of Pamela, the boobs are bad. The sound effects were bad too. I liked some of them (especially the bridge in Cheeseworld and the breaking glass) but some, like taking damage, were annoying. On a last note, the menu buttons are very bland and could have used a makeover. Some of them don't even change when you roll over them!

Overall, this game was really fun to play and make, but it's not perfect.

Psychofig responds:

Hah, that's Kwing for you. Of course, no game is perfect. Except Mario Galaxy 2 and Battletoads. But that's beside the point. I'm glad you liked it, and I had a real great time making it with you!

I'll keep all those things in mind if we ever get together again and make a sequel!

[Color Catcher!]

Alright

It needs tweaking though. The gameplay is tedious and too simple. The square is extremely slidy; too much so. I recognize you made it for momentum purposes, but make the deceleration a little quicker. Also, it's strange that there are different colors falling. I would have preferred that you had to collect, say... A certain number of a certain color without touching any other colors. Something like that would have been a bit more fun. On top of that, the mines were just annoying, and I didn't get the point of the different colors. An even better idea would have been implementing a timer, and then at the end, giving you a score based on your longest streak of hitting the same color in a row. Two elements that would have spiced up the gameplay a lot.

And of course the graphics have to be worked on. Maybe you're more of a programmer than an artist, as am I, but you need to practice becoming a jack of all trades, at least to some degree. Give the circles some texturing, make a SIMPLE background, etc.

[Last Egg Alive]

Very Fun!

The game got confusing, what with all of the egg collecting while dodging and peripheral vision. However, I thought it was strange that eggs stayed there until you collected them. You could ignore the eggs for a long time and then do a suicide jump that would allow you to collect a dozen eggs that had just been places in positions by chance. The graphics were good, especially the animation... But the original concept eluded me for a while. I started off avoiding blocks entirely until I saw the spikes, at which point I started jumping on the blocks and I finally got the hang of it. The game doesn't let you in on a whole lot. Maybe an animated tutorial would have helped.

[Battle Egg]

Fun

The graphics were only okay, and the layout definitely needed some work. Some alpha gradients and glazing would have been a really nice addition to the interface, which was otherwise very plain. The graphics were otherwise pretty good, but the lighting seemed a little off... Or maybe the art was too precise. It could have used some kind of blurring or lighting effects to make it look more realistic. At some points it looked almost pixelly. The music was so plain I forgot it as soon as I closed out of the game, but the sound effects were very nice and almost satisfying in a way.

The gameplay was fun, but it needed more. It was near impossible to dodge attacks, even with jumping, and there should have been more upgrades. Another thing I noted is you can intentionally fail an early level over and over to get tons of money and get a huge advantage. The levels were also very short, but fun. I liked the change in how short levels were.

One last criticism is that the game seemed to end at a certain point, with no "you win" or anything. It just didn't go to the upgrade screen.

EggysGames responds:

Thanks Kwing :)

[Xiao Xiao 9]

Okay

The animation is good and the gameplay is the best yet, but I had some serious issues with the gameplay. Let me first say, though, that although the sounds and movements were repetitive, they were good and the animation was smooth.

That being said, the game is an annoying button masher and it's luck-based. You basically want to run to the far end of the wall so everyone else has to approach you, and then you push them into the corner and they're helpless. If you get surrounded, just use Protect. If you only can sustain one more hit, spam Protect and you can keep using it forever. It's just so damn repetitive I couldn't stand it. It would have been nice if there were some switches or levers only activated by certain attacks, or certain enemies weaker to certain attacks.

My only other gripe is the final boss. While hard, it's so repetitive and obnoxious I couldn't stand it. All you do is fly kick to win on and on for ages before he goes down and if you screw up, you can't do anything to evade an attack... You just lose like 1/4 of your life. I couldn't stand the final boss... So repetitive, unforgiving, and un-fun.

[Xiao Xiao No. 6]

Cool

I liked the intro but it would have been nice if you could skip it. For instance, if you accidentally close out of it you have to sit through it again. The gameplay was kind of bland as well. The animation and movements were nice, but there was no competition until the prison cell one and the last one with the spamming... And I think the second to last one was luck-based. It was kind of boring and not worth the loading time.

[Xiao Xiao No. 4]

Good Effort

The game was pretty fun. It would have been nice if there were different endings depending on how much health you had left, though, or how many times you reloaded. As it was I was able to clear Hard mode pretty easily (although I took some damage) by spamming the gun and reloading at the same time. The background was very simple but I loved the 3D effects, and the ending boss fight was a nice reward.

[Xiao Xiao No. 2]

Fun

The game itself was alright... Could have had English subtitles, the background was kind of plain, but overall it was a good interface. The gameplay could have used some work, and definitely some guidance on what you were supposed to do. All you had to do was hit the spacebar at the right spot, but that's not exactly obvious. The animation was definitely the most prestigious part of the game, but the stick figures were oddly lanky and had a tendency to resize during the animation. Some of the moves were unrealistic too, but that was only in the final level. Overall good effort, but could use some more presentation.

[Platformer (same One)]

Good

The graphics were nice. I liked the platforms and background, and the animation had nice easing, except for the player and the coins, which were animated rather sloppily and didn't fit the style of the rest of it. The spikes looked too similar to the ground and I tried jumping on them once only to lose a ton of health, and the font and overlay didn't fit the style of the rest of the game. Also, Coins should have been replaced with Points, or else each coin should only be worth one "coin". It could have used some sound, too.

The gameplay wasn't too good, I'm afraid. There was no momentum or acceleration, the gravity seemed almost wobbly, and there wasn't much work put into the hitTest. I do like the ingenuity of making the VCam follow the player slowly, and then resetting the player if he touches the VCam. That was interesting... But fallible. I noticed falling infinitely several times. I think you were overdoing the hitTests, and you might have gotten away with something like if(player._y>soandso){ or similar.

Overall the graphics are nice but that's about all that you have going for it.

FlashChickBoom responds:

Thanks for the review kwing :). sorry for late reply but i agree with everything said here, like i said barely any work was put into this so its not very good, i can do better graphics, animation and so on but this was just a start, like a test. Ill be sure to make my next game more awesome.... I am making it with you after all :D