Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Company of Myself]

Somber

Wow, where to begin... The menu is very nicely done, very easy to navigate, and has great music to it, although sad. The text for the game thankfully isn't in the same font, which would have been too extravagant. I love how the text isn't frustratingly vague, but revealing either. It just makes me crave the next line. One thing that annoyed me was that I accidentally skipped over a piece of text and wanted to re-read it. Instead of a Continue button, a Level Select button would have been nice. The graphics were good, although the cartoony style didn't fit with the storyline. On that topic, a few of the earlier lines in the game seemed like comic relief, but it just didn't fit the theme. While comic relief would have worked had you incorporated more characters, and had the comic relief been further into the game, it would have worked, but it just distracts from the overall scheme where you put it. Another thing is that the text near the beginning and end had different colors, which kind of vexed me and had no real reason behind it. The gameplay is almost an exact repeat of the console PSP game EchoShift, and there are several games that are like the few levels with Kathryn. The gameplay overall isn't original, but the level design is. They were just about the right difficulty for me, with the exception of the last level which I had to look up a tutorial for and seemed really cheap to me. It was a fun puzzle game though. Another thing that confused me was why he was running through these levels in the first place? Is he inside his own head or what? That would be a total ripoff of your game Reverb. And then there's the really... Er... Nasty twist at the end. They don't explain why he did it, or anything like that. I liked the story better when I thought that Kathryn's death had CAUSED the hermit's insanity. It was a lot more poetic. But from what I can tell about the story, he was mentally unstable the whole time. Some minor storyline alteration would have made this so beautiful I would have been left in tears... Which reminds me just how great raindrop effects are. If you could have added a simple drizzle of rain throughout all of the levels (or some specifically chosen levels), I think it would have enhanced the game a lot.

Overall, this was a fun game with a very sad but beautiful storyline. This video game is a work of art, although I will say the gameplay is a COMPLETE RIPOFF of EchoShift. The storyline is great though, and the way it's presented simply blew me away.

Eli, you are one of the most underrated Flash authors out there. I look forward to seeing more form you in the future, and I really hope you can get the publicity you deserve someday. You have a great history of game-making and I bet you have a great future ahead of you!

[Reverb-Part 1]

Wow!

Graphics are good, although the sticks are simple. Animation is smooth, easing is well-done and realistic, the music fits PERFECTLY. The gameplay is interesting during the battles and the puzzle sequences are intriguing and don't get boring. The biggest part, of course, is the storyline! I found the storyline to be very captivating, and I was hooked from the beginning! Bravo!!

Now all it needs is voice acting!

[Kock Kombat]

Decent

Really not that great though. The graphics are decent pixel-art... Well, actually pretty good. The sound and SFX are bad, though. The gameplay is bland, as you only have one attack, the enemies only have one attack, and the field you're fighting on is completely plain. I would have preferred that you had spiced it up just a little bit. Another thing that annoyed me was there was a background behind the player's health bar but not the enemy's. While you could see the amount of health your enemy had, you couldn't see what percentage of it you had taken away from attacking. Lastly, add more players. All of the players are the same as it is, which is misleading and obnoxious.

[Adventures of MikeMan 2]

Ah...

The graphics are pretty bad. While this is a 2005 game, some elements just shouldn't be there. I wish you could continue the cutscenes by clicking anywhere on the screen, for instance. Another annoyance with the graphic design/layout was that somethings, such as the fireballs, had black outlines that just made it look worse. The buildings looked like gray waffles, and I wish the water would have moved. The gradients would have been really bad, except for some reason they suited the style. The poorly animated character sprite, however, did not.

The music and sound effects got repetitive, although it fit the style of the game. The dialog was really bad in my opinion. Boring and not worth reading.

The gameplay was fun at times, and at other times not. The first big flaw is you start every level with one out of three health hearts. It made it absolutely essential to grab the rest of them. Another thing is the levels flowed badly and there was no principle of momentum. A third thing that got to me was how method the boss battles were. A couple were fun, but as a general rule they were really bad and just required quick reflexes. The layout of each level was rather poor, too. While I liked how you saw an overview of each level through the introductory text and picture, the font was just wrong and should have looked better,

Overall a good effort, but doesn't come close enough.

[Tax Time!]

Wow Haha

The music was great, the graphics followed a really good 8-bit style, and the concept was funny too. Unfortunately the gameplay was bad and it was too short. The choice of the Russian National Anthem really got me. I've been obsessing over that song for months now. I got a good laugh out of it too.

[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 :)