Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Tower of Greed]

Amazing

This was one of the best games I've ever played. It looks like you're hiding behind the style of nostalgic 90s games to appeal to players that grew up around that time, but you really don't need to. Even if this game had modern-looking graphics, the simple gameplay would still easily annihilate the competition.

Graphics were pretty good. The pixel art is way better than I could do, but the lighting on the ladders looked kind of weird. You might wanna think of polishing that up. Also, I don't know if the little white guy you control was a tribute to an existing character, but if not, he needed more detail.

The music got kind of repetitive, but I actually liked the sound effects (even if they got repetitive too). I'd personally suggest adding more songs tacked onto the current one, maybe with a random playlist or something to spice it up. Kraftwerk and Nullsleep are huge recommendations here, although you might also consider Nine Inch Nails if you're appealing to the demographic into the whole sprites, big headphones, 8-bit, etc.

The gameplay was pretty interesting. Tower of Greed is a game of risk and reward, security and insecurity. While you had a sense that everything could go down the drain instantly, you also got immense satisfaction from locking in a medal. The player moved great; I loved how fast he could move. Also, the gems were placed pretty well. It was usually just out of your way to lure you on a long chase.

There were a couple problems I had with it, though. For one, a few diamonds or items were extremely hard to pick up without getting killed, when diamonds and items with the exact same value could often be obtained by easier means. To remedy this, it would have been nice if you had an extra kind of gem (like a red ruby) to rectify the strange learning curve. It would have made it easier to give better rewards for harder maneuvers.

Also, the jumping enemy and stair-climbing enemy were pretty unbalanced. Sometimes they'd jump right off the screen, but sometimes, either at a low level (like 4) or a high level (like 40), one of them would literally stay on top of me to the point where i couldn't shake him and I kept getting hurt until I died. This is a very, very serious problem that can slash a player unfairly.

The shield powerup was a bit useless, meaning that 1/4 of the time you picked up an item it was fairly useless. I also couldn't see the difference between survival and arcade.

Lastly, it would have been nice if you had an adrenaline mode where the stage moved a bit faster. I found myself craving action sometimes and being denied it, but would have loved something where you could barely keep up with the pace of it all.

[Bounce (Platformer) -SG-]

Needs Lots of Work

It's decent, but it needs a lot more. For one, you need to learn how to draw. Give the character some lighting, and maybe make him a bit more than a ball.

Second, the ground needs way more texture. Just create a Group over your current ground and make it artistic. You could draw lava over the red spots to make it look more cinematic, or maybe grass over the ground or something, or polish up the yellow sunbeams. That would have made tons of difference.

It seems like you might be using copy/paste tutorials... The engine at the beginning reminded me of FeindishDemon's tutorial, while the space levels reminded me of Ball Revamped, except that it had way better hitTest for the corners. I think you'd have used the same hitTest for the entire thing if you had written all the script yourself.

It needs way more levels for the different realms, like Neon and Space, and it also needed something like a Level Select you could go back to. The balance was whack.

One more note was that the inverted colors thing was stupid. You're just redoing the same level with different colors for no reason? Come on. You changed ONE of the levels for it, and that's it.

Lastly, the V-Cam was way too small, giving the player a bad view of the map. Just use the Free Transform tool to make it bigger.

Needs tons of work, most prominently in the graphics area. I used to draw graphics almost that bad, but the important thing is not to let a single color take up to much area of the screen. Even using Bevel filters is better than it.

SyndromeGames responds:

Thanks for the thought out review! I am going to do a collab with an artist for my next game concerning the artwork. (WOOT) Not gonna have a V-Cam, or very much reworked V-Cam. And to be totally truthful, i DID use a tutorial. It's not like I didn't put any work into this, I've put COUNTLESS hours into this game, whether it was reworking the code to meet my needs, or making the levels, I did a fair bit. Is using a tutorial really like cheating though? If you are in school, and you learn how to do something from a teacher, and you use what he teached you in the test, is that cheating? The tutorials are made for people to learn. Well, thank you for the review, I will certainly keep what you said in mind.

-Jacob

[Inculcation]

Started Out Great

Graphics are amazing. Great proportion, great realistic art style, but my favorite part about them was the lighting. It was very intricate and really set the mood nicely.

Sounds were good too. Good quality, definitely spooky.

The gameplay was good but it was a little obscure and abstract. You could only blow up a plastic bag in one spot, and the answers to some things are in odd places with little reason. Since the player's on drugs it makes more sense, but it seems like the story fits the gameplay instead of the gameplay fitting the story. Also, it could have been better if you randomized the codes and the displays, like displaying random numbers that corresponded with random answers. It would have made walkthroughs harder to exploit the game. The crap in the hallways that appeared and vanished made no sense, either. Also, I didn't like the learning curve. First try, F, second try, S. Is it really supposed to be that rigid?

The rest of it was damn stylish, though. You played on the horror element of keeping the player ignorant, which made it scary as hell. You couldn't tell if they were aliens or if it was some conspiracy or zombies or what. I actually thought it was zombies until I saw the windows bricked up. Damn scary, though. By the time you get to the point where you can kill yourself with a collapsing ceiling, it loses a little of its edge. It's just unrealistic, and weird that you find clock hands lying around in random places. The entire game reminded me of Reverb fused with a generic point-and-click. It needed more, like the lock-picking minigame and stuff like that. The game is too spontaneous.

As for the epilogue, I thought it was rather cliche. Most of the people in the US are already so ignorant we probably don't need drugs to be brainwashed into killing people. Look at the school shootings and stuff; it happens every week. While it's interesting that the player is on drugs, and it wasn't what I was expecting, it might have been better if there were no explanation. It would be unsatisfying but at least you couldn't ruin anything. It was decent, I guess, but definitely not as good as the rest of it.

[Moovlin PC Demo V2]

Awesome!

Alright, consider everything I haven't talked about in this review to be perfect.
1. The storyline and music were a tad cliche, but cliches have to come from somewhere.
2. There were a few issues with acceleration while crouching.
3. The enemy's bar should have faded so you knew how much time you had to attack.
4. If you hold run and pause, then unpause, he slides.
5. The flips still had a bit of a delay when you were on the ground.
6. Boost power doesn't decrease if you stop.
7. Moovlin's graphics are a little iffy. It's good, but you need a way to make his expressions look better. Just using lines doesn't cut it. You just need to redo his face.
8. It's still too strict with the leaderboard.
9. The street level is too misleading.
10. The boss battle was too methodical.
11. Mooviball's acceleration was whack.
12. I could fall off a platform as Mooviball and die before hitting a platform below.
13. Sunshine Plains' flower was way too hard to jump on.
14. Moovlin was too fast in the Plains.
15. The background is sometimes black. Make a background for those instances.
16. The subquests seemed to lag a lot.
17. The subquests didn't have cutscenes or anything.
18. Moovlin had so much health that the only threat was falling off the map. You should make either a health bonus after level completion or give him less health so enemies are dangerous. They did delay you for a bit, though.
19. If you pause and exit the battle with Truff, nothing mutes.
20. Needs more Mooviball levels!! Try doing loop the loops and stuff, speed boosts, and rad jumps.

Good demo, but fix stuff.

Psychofig responds:

1. Evil politician that is hell bent on taking over the world, and two robot recruits from a federation that try to stop him. That sounds exactly like... wait... nothing.
2. Didn't find anything wrong with that.
3. I will fix that, THANKS.
4. Oh wow, just noticed that. Will fix, THANKS.
5. I can make the delay shorter, but there still has to be some or else it is not realistic.
6. Since there is no boost power access in the demo, you're wrong on this. It decreases when you use the Boost.
7. Yeah, yeah. I can't change it now, since the cutscene faces aren't just one MC. It's cartoony, but you get the point, right?
8. Improving the jump feedback will probably stop alot of people from dying prematurely. I will get onto that, but the system will stay. Only people with skill should have access to the leaderboards....THANKS
9. I'll clear up the signs, THANKS.
10. Each boss is different, the battle lasts a max of 2 minutes so it shouldn't be a bother. I will improve graphics on it though...
11. No it isn't...
12. Hittest error, will fix. THANKS.
13. Might make it bigger, dumb floaty mechanics... THANKS.
14. You noticed it, eh? The cutscene after (not in demo) will explain why.
15. I'll make a nice background for the save states and death screen. THANKS.
16. Will optimize....
17. They aren't supposed to, since they don't have anything to do with the advancement of the story.
18. I'll make a health bonus. Don't worry, the next couple of levels require you to stop running and time everything, I'll dose them in obstacles...THANKS.
19. I can't fix that glitch, I dunno. 3 Audio tracks run in one frame and the mute won't work... I'll see what I can do, but if I can't fix it quick I won't bother. The player can make an exception...
20. Yup, there will be about 4 in the full game. Maybe more... My engine isn't good enough to support loops, but I was thinking of speed boost and maybe some anti-gravity, I dunno. It's all relative.... THANKS

[Seven's Second Adventure]

Extremely Boring

This is basically a bad version of Smithy's Quest by Eggy.

Graphics: The style is kind of neat, but the coloring is off. You can see really neat pixel art in things like Final Fantasy Tactics, but you just don't see it here. But I will congratulate the artist on making so MUCH of it. The map is really, really big. Some of the graphics were just minimalist though.

Gameplay: Extremely boring. It took me about 30 minutes to beat (timed by listening to an album with better music than that of the game's provisions), and I felt so unfulfilled afterward. You included a lot of references to Newgrounds users, which is probably what all the hype is about, but this is really nothing special. There's no time limit, nothing that really requires skill, it's just walking back and forth across a long-ass map a couple dozen times. It would have been nice if there was a minigame or something, just to pass the time. The scripting, although functional, was pretty simplistic as well.

The references to other users was neat and ebbed away some of the original boredom, but it couldn't salvage repetitive gameplay and mediocre graphics. Sorry.

Magical-Zorse responds:

ok, cool

[T E T R I S ' D: The Game]

Badass!

Graphics were good. Your animating style was always sort of peculiar, as it looks like you use the line tool for your sticks... Nevertheless it was pretty smooth. The interface and other graphics were well done too. The red death line was kind of unnecessary; once you fall off you're pretty much done for, so you could have made it invisible.

Sound was pretty sweet, as always. Good rhythm, melody, and timbre. Didn't get repetitive after a while, either. Would have been nice if there had been sound effects, especially for the blocks falling into place.

Great gameplay... I had a lot of fun playing it! The squishing script wasn't too sensitive, although I 'died' getting hit on the back of the arm by one of the blocks, obnoxiously. There were a couple glitches, too, such as standing halfway between a block and dying if you moved, or dying while walking into a few corners. Other than that, the randomization was pretty good, especially because every piece fit perfectly. I would have preferred if the arena had been a bit wider, and if there had been walls instead of a gaping abyss, but that's preferential stuff. It could have used more depth, like powerups and stuff, or a highscore board in particular. The medals were a tad generous, as well. I also disliked using J and K for the commands; it would have been nice if you could use A and S instead, since most people are more comfortable with those; maybe even customized controls. Other than that it was pretty good.

[B: The Video Game]

Fun

As sucky and simplistic as it is, it has a charisma to it that I can't place. Perhaps it's that the scoreboard makes it competitive. Still, it could use some improvements. I'd suggest an upgrade shop where you could sacrifice points, with items like:

- Faster Speed: 100 points (Tier 2: 200 points, Tier 3: 300 points)
- Extra B: 250 points (Tier 2: 500 points, Tier 3: 750 points)
- No Edges: 1000 points (Hitting an edge brings player to other side of the screen.)

Other than that, fun. It was a bit strange that you don't lose your points when you submit your score, but it's still an epic win!

[Colour My World]

Fun

Didn't explain too much. The art style was nice, but the character didn't fit the art style like the rest of the world. There was a glitch where you could make him go to the falling part eternally while on the ground, and it sucked using the mouse and arrow keys instead of implementing WASD. It was too easy to get lost, you didn't tell the player their objective, and the whole melancholy world was a little overdone. If you were trying to be funny, you weren't.

It was too short, the duck movement had no purpose, the game didn't have any difficulty since you just ran across to a (very easy and short) finish. The overly simplistic ending was rather poor taste. I was hoping I'd get some kind of challenge where something would actually try to stop me. Something like the NerfLord from Adventure Quest came to mind. I thought maybe I'd get to fight something that was draining the color from the world and restore it, but no... Just some (rather pointless) trek across random land with no meaning or purpose to the end of some cafe.

Run, click, jump, end. Not nearly enough. Graphics were good but still didn't salvage it by a long shot.

SilverStitch responds:

Well... the ducking was thrown in for kicks, hence why it isn't actually included in the controls.
And this isn't meant to be some full-on game experience. Its just to take a few moments to go slow and enjoi what you have...

[Glass Fish Rhythm]

Fun

Graphics: Well done, nice color scheme, well-achieved 8-bit style. Looked very retro but still somehow natural. Really well done. It was really cool how the fish pulsed to the beat, and the cool grayscale effect when it was paused.

Sound: Good quality, very good music. I've left a review for the song featured in the game if you want to know more about it. I really didn't like how the music stopped if you crashed into something, though. I know the whole point was to sync the level with the song, but it would have been better if you had just lost a life instead. I noticed myself jamming to the music only to have it stop when i blindsided something. It was pretty well synced, though.

Gameplay: Pretty sweet. I liked how you could lay eggs, since it's a strange feature to be able to choose when you save your game. However, it was pretty tricky at times, in that hard-stupid way as opposed to hard-fun. Not only that, but you got infinite lives if you lay an egg right before an extra egg pop-up. It was too hard and too easy at the same time, which really ticked me off. While it was fun dodging stuff to a beat, the bats in the cave really annoyed me, as it seemed their placement was random. Irking, since you couldn't do too much about it. It would have also been nice if you could see a layout of the level before trying it. This would have given an underdog player a lasting chance at first go, which really gives players new to the game a thrill when they think they might win. Speaking of new players, it got obnoxious that every time you died you had to watch the death animation. Sure it was pretty short, but it got on my nerves sometimes. Most players want to lash back at the level like a dying snake (albeit a rather stupid one), so that should definitely be fixed. I also didn't like how it didn't tell you how to beat the boss, and that if you died during it, you had to restart the 3rd level in addition, since I've redone it so many times I could do it with my eyes closed. And, like a lot of players, I agree that the controls weren't too hot. The fish slid around a lot, and although I enjoy games with sliding (like Fishy), it got obnoxious that I had to use imprecise controls inside of a very precise environment (eg. to music, to a beat, etc.). Perhaps the easing could have been downed a little. The achievements were pretty unpredictable, too. I'd look at one and wonder if they really tested your skills or if it just rewarded someone who was curious (or dumb) enough to try something out.

One of the better rhythm games, but lots of room for improvement.

[Hover Bot Arena 2]

Awesome

Graphics are great, loved the explosion effects, the particles, the easing, and the animation. The floor changing with the explosions was great, nothing was overly complex about it but still amazing.

Sound was good, a little repetitive but satisfying sound effects nonetheless.

Gameplay was awesome. I especially liked the upgrades. However, it's too easy to get money. You could just go in Survival and kamikaze all of the bots for cash. And yet the later upgrades cost so much I couldn't stand it. It'd have been better if the first upgrades had been more expensive, but with a smaller increase between upgrades.