Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Shadow Gauntlets]

I've found myself critiquing a lot of games in this Jam for having a low skill ceiling, but WOW did this game make me eat my words.

This felt easier than the first game up until a point. I nearly screamed at my computer on level 11, repeatedly trying and failing to make it up and over the little orange hazard. After over a year of this control system I'm sure you're used to it, but to me this game simultaneously feels too slow and too fast. The recoil isn't strong enough and controlling a swing feels spastic. I'm not sure I like the fact that where you grab a moving object can force it to tip one way or another, it just reinforces the feeling of not having anything solid to grab onto, and you already spend a long time slipping around feeling out of control in this game.

The silhouette art looks fantastic but I think your choice of colors could stand to be a bit higher contrast. Some of the pastel greens and pinks look ugly together.

Last, as was the case with the first game it can be frustrating not knowing where to go. Sure you can see the finish at the start, but a little arrow pointing in the direction of the finish (perhaps with an indicator of how far away it is) would be a real game changer.

[Amelia Dress Up Deluxe!]

In all honesty, most of the outfits are pretty lazy reskins and I REALLY wish you used button togglers instead of a click and drag system for the different items. On the other hand I can appreciate that you don't need to click a second time if you drag an item behind another item and release.

A bit too simple even by the standards of a dress-up game. The graphics are pleasant enough to look at but for the level of simplicity that went into them I would expect a bit more in terms of outfits. I didn't go into this expecting Dress My Babe 6 but this still feels quite dated.

[Dwarf Planet One]

This is super cool on pretty much every front and is far beyond what I expected out of this Jam. The animation could not be better, the visual effects are fantastic, the music is atmospheric, and the premise of a puzzle platformer with shifting gravity is really neat.

On the other hand it needs a lot more explanation and player guidance than currently exists.

You receive the flag but you're not told what the flag does. You get the hand tool but you're never told what THAT does. The levels are pretty big so you're not sure where you're supposed to go, and certain objects or enemies you encounter are never explained, which can be particularly daunting on levels where you've already done a bunch of work to reach a certain point and don't want to start over from doing trial and error with something that drains your health. Even the intro seems to have no real connection to the gameplay and this disconnect isn't addressed within the first half hour of gameplay.

I'd happily play through the entire thing if I knew what the heck I was supposed to do.

Emrox responds:

Hey thanks, glad you like it! As far as the lack of instruction - to some extent the "point" of the game was supposed to be that you see all this weird stuff and you don't know what it does and you kind of figure it out by interacting with things and trying out different things (like zelda 1, or something) but obviously that kind of design-aesthetic choice has to be handled well for people to not feel frustrated or alienated by it. I don't know how well I did on that front - I had to cut some stuff toward the end of development that would have guided the player better and made the "story" make more sense, and ultimately the game ended up being even *more* vague and impenetrable than I had intended! oops.

if it helps, the point of the flag is just for you to mark where you've been, and help you find your way around with the arrow. I might update the text to say that, so people don't think they need to put the flag on something to win the game, or something like that.

[Ricardo Goes To War!]

This is pretty fun. The graphics are nice (except for that horrid looking stop sign) and the sound design is functional. The gameplay is simple but fun enough to be worth playing several times. As to be expected from a 53xy83457 game there are a gazillion animations based on where you shoot someone which is a nice layer of polish.

A bit more complexity or length (perhaps different levels or a boss fight) would be appreciated.

53xy83457 responds:

All the animations for shooting people were TheAsterDood02's doing this time. I fucked up the helicopter pilot but that's about it. Now the lack of complexity and length, I'll gladly take credit for that.

[Skeleton Day]

The premise for this is absolutely hilarious. The last several games I've played I haven't been too enthused by the plot, but this one was really funny! Apart from that the art and music sound great and the controls, simple as they are, work just fine.

Regarding flaws... As you say it's very short and it's too bad there's no real gameplay, be it puzzles or combat.

TeamTamago responds:

Thanks! Hopefully after a couple of bug fixes I can continue the story and add some more "game" game to it

[Assassinating the Guards]

Well, it's a Henry Stickman tribute. I don't mind these, but the actual quality of the animation is very crude. Some actual frame by frame animation instead of just tweens (and some easing on the tweens) would go a long way toward making this feel more fleshed out, since the animation really is the cornerstone of the "choose your animation" genre.

There also isn't a whole lot in terms of branching choices but for a Game Jam game this is totally excusable.

anon0284750184820175 responds:

ty 4 the constructive criticism.

[Cottonball]

Cute and well-drawn but the first jump is the only hard one and the lack of features (especially some kind of difficulty curve) bring it down.

Nabella responds:

No arguments here. I made this in like a week.

Maybe Cottonball 2 will have second background, lol.

[The DEGENING]

This genuinely kept me engaged much longer than I expected it to. The art reminds me a bit of Amoeba Amoeba. The battle music was short and annoying and I wish you picked something else. It threw me for a loop that the arrows to navigate the map were all at an angle. Especially for the first section in the old folks home I found myself backtracking when I didn't mean to. The simpler level design later was fine though.

Balance-wise it's pretty simple - dump all your points into power for Orderly and Party Goer and into Energy for Priest and you'll be fine (though at first I was scared to use stat points because I didn't want to make a bad build on accident, especially since there's no way to level grind.) There's no real reason not to use your strong attacks first so the cooldown expires sooner, or to take on an offensive build so as to spend fewer turns receiving damage. On perhaps one occasion I noticed an enemy that had such high defense that I needed energy attacks to beat it, and seeing enemies that summoned more enemies enough times taught me to prioritize those.

That being said it was still complex enough that I had to retry a couple fights and learn the different enemies and abilities.

I didn't really understand the plotline. I saw that the enemies were furries and what looked like feminists, but it wasn't clear if there was an actual narrative or if the game was trying to make some kind of political statement, and it was particularly bad that you could acquire party members and not even know it until you entered battle.

Jin responds:

Very nice! Appreciate the substantial feedback! I'll use it to improve the game.

[O.S.W3 DARTS]

I suspect this would be a bit more fun if I actually knew the rules to darts. Regardless, this is functional and the controls feel pretty good, but it's missing a bit in the presentation. Either creating your own dartboard instead of pasting an image file into the background, or pasting a wood texture behind the dartboard would give this a more consistent feel (whether you wanted a cartoon or realistic aesthetic.) Music, sound, and some kind of UI bar (or chalkboard) to hold all the numbers (preferably in a more interesting font) would also bring this together a lot more.

Right now this is functional but nothing more.

[LOLympics 100m Flash]

It's good for what it's trying to be but DAMN is it frustrating (though as you say easier than QWOP.) I'm sure there's a certain shape to the mouse should be moving in but with no practice mode or any hints all I can really get is that an orbit that's higher on the left side and and lower on the right side makes me move slowly and consistently an every once in a while when experimenting I can make a huge leap forward (but not replicate it.)

The graphics and presentation are there but this feels actively difficult not just to play but even to enjoy.

AthleticDesign responds:

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, my intention was to include elaborate instructions of animated mice & corresponding running strides for basically every input parameter. But in the end, the hastily put together instructions on display had to do. If the complicated input stays, those elaborate instructions will eventually join :)

Actually, intricate shape parameters were removed from the final uploaded version. What matters is the average deviation from the straight line between two turns. A high movement during a forward swipe will lift the heel, which generally improves performance, and a low movement during a backward swipe will straighten the leg before ground contact (also generally advantageous). So an oval movement, like the one shown, works well. But easier said than done, especially after a while of spastic action.

But yeah, instructions are severely lacking.