Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Karla's Quest: Spotter Demo]

At first I thought this was going to be an escape room and was a bit disappointed to find it was just an Eye Spy.

The art is solid and does give off the vibe of early 00s Flash games, but what this game is really lacking is content. There are only four items to find, and the only reason they're difficult is to find is that them being blacked out makes it unclear what the objects even are (specifically the phone and wallet.) A greater area to explore (perhaps you can go into different rooms) and maybe some more puzzle elements (or at least more items to find) would make this more interesting.

Vile523 responds:

Understood, thank you for your suggestion. I'll take it into account for the full game.

[DANSurge]

Everything works right, but the game is a bit boring as there's no consequence for failure and you can always replay the same challenge again and type in the correct answer immediately (since it's not randomized nor does it have any anti-cheating mechanism.)

- The Voice is too quiet compared to the sound effects.
- Text answers should be case insensitive.
- Multiple choice questions would be better with buttons; only use the text box when you have to.
- If you're playing through the harder challenges, you have to manually change the page to the harder challenges every time you're sent back to the menu, it doesn't remember. The game also doesn't remember which challenges you've beaten.

That aside, the plainness of the graphics and voice make this feel a bit boring. Neither are bad, they just aren't aesthetically exciting.

[Yu Dragoon 2: A flash Game]

The smoothness of the 3D here really can't be understated, it really is completely seamless. While normally a pretty simple thing, the diagonal running animations also are a really important touch that contributes to the fully 3D feel of the game. This seriously looks awesome. If your engine can handle it, I would like to see some kind of platforming or verticality so that the third dimension can actually do something other than be a cool graphical illusion.

Gameplay-wise, there's a lot missing. As others have said, the camera is too zoomed in to have much spatial awareness, and it's also really hard to make out if you can hit an enemy from front or behind (it just makes more sense to run around and attack from the side.) The single attack, lack of dodging, blocking, combos, etc. make this feel almost like Sword of Vermilion in terms of blandness, and as an unfinished game there's obviously nothing in the way of upgrades or progression yet.

Honestly the only thing this game needed in order to succeed was a teammate to take care of some of the boilerplate code needed for a combat and inventory system.

TeamTamago responds:

Thanks, all this feedback is really helpful! I'm already working on a version with these things implemented. Also verticality is going to need some clever tricks and the like but it's totally possible.

[SHITstage SHITsters !SHIT GAME!!!!!!)]

The art is solid, but that's about all that you've got. Even in terms of visuals, the game looks a bit shaky (literally) due to the health bar moving with the player, probably an issue with the dynamic camera that would make it more straightforward to dock a smaller health bar just above the player character, rather than trying to put it in the top left of the screen (alternatively, shove the level, player, and enemies into a Movie Clip and manipulate that for your dynamic camera so the UI in your _root never moves.

Enemies can attack from so far off screen you can take damage without realizing it. Similarly, you can kill enemies from so far away you barely see their death animations.The bullets change direction when the player does (I don't know how you could even get that to happen without intentionally coding that it.)

Past the first like 3 enemies is an infinite loop of a town with nothing in it. You couldn't even tell the player they reached the end of the game?

Ultimately feels like an unfinished Alien Hominid clone.

MoneroBTW responds:

yo man, thanks for the ideas, we are goin got fix everything!

[Gooby]

I liked the aesthetic of this game a lot, the simple brush tool art screams Flash, but there's also enough flair in the animation (I especially like the running animation) to make it feel as though all the simplicity is intentional and reflects a consistent style, rather than being simple out of laziness or inexperience. The graphics and dialogue are really cute and make me want to see more work either in the same universe or in the same style.

The gameplay is unfortunately kind of lacking. The controls are smooth and the rules are fair, but when you combine the simplicity with the lack of difficulty you end up with something that feels very forgettable. The auto targeting makes this game feel like an even easier version of Archero where you don't even have to stop moving to continue attacking. The enemy AI only comes in a few flavors, and because none of them try to encircle you and just have basic rush or projectile attacks, the hardest part of any level is surviving long enough to begin circling all of the enemies that clump together in the middle of the screen. The game's progression seems like a difficulty curve at first, but since the upgrades scale proportionally to the increased enemy density, you realize it's really just a single homogeneous experience with power creep to make it look more dramatic over time.

Despite having a few forks in the map, the game ultimately ends up being very linear, since you still have to clear every level, and one of the areas is actually soft-locked (in a very conspicuous and intentional way) by having enemies that are too fast for you and have to be revisited once you unlock the first speed upgrade.

The upgrades are really basic and the false choice of building out your character (since you eventually max out everything anyway) feels like the design of this game was borrowed from a mobile game. On top of that, the lack of a final boss really is a big letdown, because it essentially means that the first and last levels have the same content - just the same 3 basic enemies that are all dealt with using the same circling strategy.

For a one-time experience, this isn't bad, as it's short and doesn't overstay its welcome. That said, there are so many little tells that indicate that the game is a very tightly controlled experience (from the upgrades to the path the player takes to the single dominant play strategy) so its replay value is going to suffer dramatically, player agency and skill ceiling are low, and playthroughs of the game from player to player are going to look nearly identical, as there's really no way to play the game aggressively, defensively, or even like a speedrunner (since you can only attack at the predetermined autofiring rate.)

[Portal Defenders: Fast Break!]

Really good looking (and feeling) game. The sound design and animation in particular really make this pop and give it a really exciting energy.

Gameplay-wise, it's fun if you play the way you're intended to, but it's easy to cheese the game. Once you're in the lead, you can essentially stand still and run the timer out. I saw an NPC run up to me and use an attack to steal the ball ONCE, but even if this happens you can generally just run and never shoot. The extra obstacles in each level sometimes mitigate this, but not to the point that this wasn't a dominant strategy toward the end when the AI became really oppressive. If anything, the level gimmicks feel like a desperate attempt to fix underlying balance issues with either the mechanics or bad AI.

The controls felt a bit annoying, it was never clear what it took to block a shot (sometimes my jumps could knock a ball away from the hoop, sometimes they couldn't, despite me jumping with almost identical timing and in the same place.) Having attack be a button combo instead of a fourth button also seemed strange and unnecessary.

The fact that the turbo only replenishes under certain conditions led to some frustrating situations where you literally can't do anything except block, especially with late-game AI players that would jump in and grab the ball at lightning speed, making it nearly impossible to grab the ball without directly attacking. On the other hand, the "on fire" bonus felt really overpowered and like a cheap way to give a struggling player a free win if they just kept playing long enough to get lucky. I think the solution to this would be to make it so that turbo slowly replenishes on its own, and have On Fire only last for a certain amount of time, not until the opponent scores again.

In terms of content, this game feels bloated. Too many levels and too many characters, with the gameplay changing too little across these variables to make it tempting to replay. It feels exceptionally demotivating when you consider that the most reliable way to beat the game is to run back and forth without actually shooting.

Overall this game feels like an overly ambitious project with some fundamental flaws in enemy AI and balance that were hastily covered up with lots of characters and level gimmicks, rather than addressing the underlying issues. The result is something that looks and plays like a great game from the right angle, but has a few gaping holes in it that become obvious upon closer inspection.

BoMToons responds:

Great review, this is why I love NG :-)

[Alister - Monster tamer]

Going into this, the polish and production quality of this game (especially the buttery smooth animation and vibrant particle effects) made me think it was going to be a serious contender to win the whole Jam. Unfortunately this game is either incomplete or just buggy beyond belief.

Defense Cut is the only attack that seems to do a reasonable amount of damage, and even then you can only barely kill the two turtles at the beginning before they kill you. Unless you reload from a save, those turtles are actually still there after you defeat them, making it impossible to progress, and if you DO make it past them, dying puts you back at the start with the turtles respawned, forcing you to load again. Sometimes even winning a fight will do this, which is quite annoying. I was able to trigger the cutscene inside the castle, but that was as far as I got.

Keep going, there's a game here but it's clearly not finished.

Alex303 responds:

thank you for the feedback! I increased the starting level and removed the turtles after you beat them or lose and it saves it. yea sadly didnt have any time to add anymore thanks for playing.

I forgot to mention the reason some attacks do less damage is because of the typechart. there is a working typechat but did not elaborate on it here

[SPERT BALLS]

Have you played Brainsplatters 2? This reminds me a LOT of that game and it's hard not to directly compare the two (which is kind of crazy considering that game is nearly twice your age.) Anyway...

Virtually everything about the aesthetics of this game are pretty flawed. The drawings, voice acting, writing, and gameplay could all stand to get some major improvements. That said, I have a lot of appreciation for the level of detail put into giving this game every little bell and whistle, even if those bells and whistles are themselves flawed.

For instance, the animated intro, animated menu, and voice acting are all inclusions that aren't strictly necessary for a "click stick figures to shoot them" game, but contribute to a really cinematic experience. In a way, this feels more like a concept sketch or animatic of an actual game, given how lacking the assets are but how complete the structure is.

Aside from the rather generic advice of "put more effort into the graphics" something really critical in making this a better game would be ramping up the difficulty. Forcing the player to click the stick figures faster, making the stick figures move, or more complex methods of killing bad guys (similar to having to find the hiding sticks in the last level) would make this more engaging instead of allowing the player to cruise through the entirety of the game in a single attempt.

Ibs571 responds:

I did actually played Brainsplatters 2 about when I was 6 yrs old (8 yrs ago) on stickpage but the main inspiration I took was from a game called Sift Heads I remember playing that game with my brother years ago

Note: Originally I was going to add puzzles and different mechanics but the 2023 flash forward deadline was near and then I rushed it

[Ucogi GO]

There's not much here other than a walking simulator. The graphics and overall production quality are nice, but there's not enough here to really call it a game.

The biggest issue with what you have (and this issue really does stand front and center) is that rolling over the circles to move to them just feels really bizarre and unnecessarily tedious due to how small the circles are. Using arrow keys (even if the arrows have a button overlay on the screen, as many mobile games do) would make this feel so much more accessible. As it is, the awkwardness makes it feel like I'm playing a port even on its intended platform.

Veinom responds:

I wanted this to be a game that you can play with your mouse only, but you are right. I was considering making the blue circles bigger, and I will try adding keyboard controls as an alternative. Thank you.