Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Tetris Hell]

Fun

I like the graphics. Wobbly but you can still see what's going on. Pretty simple stuff, though. Most forms of tetris have some kind of design on the blocks, which might have been nice. Something cartoony maybe? Or a better background? I liked the animation though. Smooth stuff.

The sound was awesome. Great "heavy" version of tetris, which I really liked. Very fitting, and interesting too. Depressing, but fittingly so.

As for the gameplay... I didn't really like it. For one, you lose control over a block when it hits anything, not just the ground. I wish you could push blocks to the side as your block was falling. Another thing is I feel like you were trying to make this original by making it so you can't make lines, but the problem with it is that even normal tetris is a survival game with imminent death. In this one, you just can't achieve a highscore because the blocks go away, so it's heavily luck-based. Even if you got "perfect" luck, there's literally a highest score attainable, which I don't like. No replay value if you ever manage the highest possible score (whichever it might be).

[Clock Legends]

Hell Yeah!!

Graphics are really good. They're simple but the proportions and lighting are good. The only problem is that they aren't top-notch. The graphics have lots of detail but not quite as much elegance, so the art style doesn't really fit. It would work if there were more gradients, transparencies, and particle effects with that kind of art, but as it is it would have been better if some details were omitted.

The sound is fun and enjoyable, but it's extremely loud. Tone it down a bit.

The gameplay was really fun! I like games where the difficulty is in the platforming rather than defeating enemies, and this certainly did the trick! The only problem is it might have been -too- hard. I would have liked if there were some more checkpoints (if there were any at all), or maybe more difficulty levels that gave out checkpoints at varying frequencies. Another thing I noticed was a small problem with the jumping. Sometimes if I was running and jumping I couldn't stop my momentum, or if I was jumping up onto a ledge he just wouldn't move forward onto that ledge. That killed me (unfairly) several times and frustrated me.

This is still a great submission, and it's just what I've been looking for! This submission came in first out of probably 1000 or more submissions (as it was submitted on Clock Day) and I've gotta say it deserves a pat on the back! Great work, guys!

[Invader Zim:GAME]

Pretty Good

The graphics were really good remakes of the originals, the animation wasn't so hot, though. But you did a good job on the backgrounds, characters, and items. For some reason, though, I feel like you could have done more to make the background stick out.

The sound was pretty good, but it could have used more sound effects. The quality also seemed a little low. And the same song got old after a while.

The gameplay was alright, but it could have used lots of work. It was weird how you could randomly walk on some walls but not others. Also, the game could have run a bit smoother, like having acceleration and deceleration for the character, not to mention more realistic gravity. Also, I'd have loved some feature that allowed Zim to use the robot legs that come out of his back, and maybe a few other gadgets; that would have made Invader Zim endlessly cool. Also, I didn't like the interface. The sections that showed your score and time left should have been partially transparent to prevent from blocking the screen view, and the pause menu could have looked a bit nicer (and had a menu button on it). I also didn't like that there were no checkpoints. It would have been nice if you could have restarted that level, or maybe a couple levels back. That being said, once a level is unlocked, a Level Selection area would have been VERY nice.

[The Stickman's Adventure]

Liked It

Pretty cool game. The background graphics were okay, despite the stick figure being simplistic. The animation for the first boss could have been worked on, though. Not only that but the stick figure's eye was in the center of his head, and the falling boulders were pretty pathetic; you needed some serious redesign on those. For the sake of presentation, it would have been nice if the last level had been a bit longer, too.

The music was good, but got repetitive quick. You should have had shorter levels but more regions of levels.

As for the gameplay... Well, there was a good difficulty level, but even so the sliding around was more annoying than a fun challenge. The rest of it was pretty good, although I didn't know what to do for the first boss for a long time. The gleaming helmet should have gleamed more, to point it out to the player. Other than that, pretty good work! You should also make it so that it shows how many lives you lost at the end.

ShinsukeIto responds:

Alright, sweet. Thanks for the feedback and the 9!

[AP Integration Tutorial]

Good Tutorial

It was a bit vague though. While the scripting was functional, you could have been more specific about what things did. Since so few lines of code were used in it, you could have either added more or elaborated more on each bit. For instance, you could have gone into more detail about how sounds are coded as variables and whatnot. Not only that, but your scripting style could use a bit of improvement. While you don't name variables "cow" and "boat" anymore, there are still a few things that would clean up your script so it was nice and shiny before it was put into a tutorial.

Still, good effort. 5ed.

[M-Bot The Game]

Bad

This game is pretty awful... First off, you're supposed to be playing as M-Bot but I have no clue what anything had to do with Newgrounds. There were a couple Newgrounds icons, M-Bot, a completely random background, and some orange guys that seemed to hold absolutely no bearing on anything. The boss Col-Lab made a bit of sense, but not much. In truth, it was majorly lacking in concept, which was my highest hope when I clicked on this game in the first place.

Next, there's a huge problem with the gameplay. One other reviewer stated quite nicely that there's way too much going on, and he's right. All sorts of fickle decorations fly by the screen ultra fast, and it's obnoxiously distracting. I can play DDR with seizure-inducing lights flashing in the background, but this is actually worse. The color scheme was good, but too repetitive considering how many different objects were on the screen at once. Next, the controls were pretty sloppy. I couldn't move very well, and hiding the cursor was really annoying. While there are keyboard controls, I still would have preferred some cleaning up on the mouse control. I had to keep shooting to keep M-Bot under control because my mouse sometimes left the game screen without me even knowing! Clicking and holding was the only way to make sure the game obeyed me, but that had setbacks of its own, including major ass lag. This game took up 470 MB of RAM on my computer, and I doubt even half of that was the bullets, though I'm sure they didn't help. Next, serious balance issues. I shot with a 1-shot cannon and it took forever to upgrade it. The next thing I know, I have a 2-shot cannon and I ended up getting it upgraded in about five seconds. What the hell? My last complaint for the gameplay is that the game fails to tell you what's going on at all. There was no health bar (no health, even, it seemed), no progress bar (which it desperately needed because I couldn't tell how far I was through the level and it didn't seem to end), and not much else to tell you what to do.

The music was obnoxiously repetitive. While trying to un-jam my overloaded computer I ended up hearing it quite a lot, but I didn't need to listen to it long for it to drill my brains out.

Last are the graphics, which I can't say much bad about. There were too many, and they lagged, but they were damn good. The 3D visual effects were incredible; tons of TV shows and movies fall below the line this game set. The short cutscenes further displayed the visuals.

In conclusion, this game was pretty special, and yet, still... Bad. Sorry, it didn't make the cut for me. This was definitely not worth the 35 MB wait. If I had to give one suggestion, it would be to store some of the data for this (music would be easy, graphics maybe harder) externally, and use loadMovie and loadSound to make the original file smaller. Maybe you could have split this into several parts instead. I don't know, the memory has to change. Even apart from that, though, I couldn't have enjoyed this game.

[Santa's Gift Grab]

Didn't Like It

It was decent, but it was overall lacking. The music got repetitive and obnoxious, the graphics were pretty bad (even for pixel art), and the gameplay got very repetitive and very tedious.

The art was simple, but usually with pixel games or retro styled stuff you want to make the lighting good, even if it's pixelated. You didn't. The proportions were nice, though.

Music was minimalist and obnoxious. Got old quickly. Spend a bit more time seeking out sound effects and alternate songs.

The gameplay was pretty bad... It started okay, but there were several problems with it. The ladder climbing was pretty weird, for one. You could walk across a hole as long as there was a ladder in it, or move from one ladder to the next easily, which was just strange. Next, it was damn unforgiving. You had to collect ALL of the presents without getting hit ONCE. That meant if one level was too hard, you were stuck on it if you couldn't beat it. It would have been nice if every time you beat a level you unlocked two levels, and completing either of those two levels unlocked the next two, to keep players from getting stuck. Having optional levels would also give purpose to the fact that I got points for collecting presents.

[Holiday Hop]

Decent

The graphics were good in the game, but the graphics for the menu were pretty simplistic, bordering on terrible. The buttons needed some serious texturing polishes.

The music was incredibly obnoxious AND LOUD!! I had to turn the volume way down.

The game itself was a bit bland. It needed powerups and stuff, aside from the platforms and trampolines. Additionally, it was pretty unforgiving. Hit the bottom even a little and you're gone, dead... It should either have a little more leeway or at least make it so that you have a lives system, like bouncing up while you still have a life. Also the star slid around way too much!

Overall it was decent, but needed levels and powerups... Badly. Maybe some kind of super-drive mode where you could jump high for a certain amount of time, too.

[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.

Matt-Porter responds:

Thanks for this well thought-out review!
I'm glad to share that literally everything you mentioned, has been in my docs for a sequel for quite some time, so we both agree on the shortcomings!
Just reading some old reviews tonight, saw the work you put into yours, wanted to say thanks, even if 16 years later haha