Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Popcorn Chef]

Damn good (and hard). The physics are really well done and it's almost hypnotic to watch the whole thing unfold when the kernels pop. For what it is, it really couldn't be much better. That said, I wish I knew how many different kinds of containers there were, and maybe have a list of all of the containers I had gotten perfect on to measure my own progress beyond just a highscore.

HEAT9 responds:

I totally agree with you and stats is something I really want to add, but right now this is just the basic skeleton of the game, and I submitted it to get a feel if people have any interest in it before investing more time into it. So far I think I might do just that :) Thank you for leaving feedback so I would know what to focus on more.
FYI there is 30 pots right now and initially you are given a selection of 14. After getting a score of 10, a new harder pot is added to the selection mix and after every 5 points scored. But I will work on improving that algorithm today since new pots still have a hard time of randomly appearing (1 out of 15 chance when you reach a score of 10). I shall update the game soon and frequently.
It's sad that I cant submit an HTML5 version of the game so that Chrome users can play it, but Unity's HTML5 build is still in beta and very buggy, so no other option...

[Monotone]

Oh great, another 15 year old learned how to code and knows how to make some profound statement about love using a puzzle platformer. Ever since Jack killed Katheryn, amateur developers have been killing the market with these self-absorbed games that were called out months ago by the Pretentious Game series.

Oh alright, I'll stop my bitching and give you an actual review. You have an interesting concept, though it's little more than a gimmick. Take the whole dual players concept, incorporate gravity, viola, game! The puzzles aren't bad. Since you can effectively fly using the shimmy method, none of the puzzles are particularly hard, and the 20 levels go by pretty fast, which is nice, as I often find myself losing patience with these types of games. A few of the more difficult levels were a pain to redo, but overall you kept things simple and didn't over-complicate anything.

The main issue here is lack of content. The levels don't need to be longer, and there don't need to be more of them, but it would have been nice to have more engaging graphics, music, or a less corny story. Hell, it's 2015. There's nothing stopping you from incorporating all kinds of crazy shit like enemies and a combat system. You could have turned this into a weird yin yang gravity-defying Castlevania for all I care, but the basic get-to-the-end thing is getting old, especially for a game that runs such a well-paved path as this.

The 'glitch' graphics, which are very reminiscent of This is Not a Game, are very distracting, however. Making them transparent would have been nice, I very nearly screwed up a jump when one spawned on top of my block.

Primajin responds:

I'm glad you liked it so much! I can't wait to see your Yin Yang/Castlevania crossover!

[About 2.0]

I guess I see what this is supposed to be but it feels more like a homepage than a submission. It's polished and smooth as hell, but it also seems antiquated to be submitting it here, especially when something like this should be available on as many devices as possible. Anyway, nice job, but it might have been more fitting to have some kind of interview or voice acting to make it more engaging.

Noisysundae responds:

I wish I can pronounce english fluently like when I write it. ;w;
This flash is also my test area for my graphic and programming skills too. That's why I decided to upload it here. I'm also planning to do flashgames in the future.

It consumes too much CPU clocks due to the layered background so I'm pretty sure handhelds can't handle this flash. But if you're talking about mac's scroll wheels, Flash CS6 on windows doesn't support it. If I want it to work, I have to do it all again with someone's mac because .fla files from windows versions can't be opened there too. Experienced that during my multimedia class. :(

[ARROW KEYS & CLICK (Unfinished)]

This game must be broken or something. Every time I start it a white box opens up and then Flash crashes. Looks like you may have an infinite loop or some serious bottleneck issue. For a game this small, I have no idea what could be causing the bottleneck so I'm guessing it's a coding error. Obviously I can't review a game that I can't play, and you claim to have lost the FLA file, so I don't think anyone will be able to play this.

hexar responds:

The problem actually lies in the small "intro sequence" i did for the game, wich is, for some reason extremely CPU intensive, i made a fake 3D effect, which even brings my new up to date computer almost way down on its knees.. this was ofcourse supposed to be fixed before the game release... Still, it should work on most computers if you give it some time.. maybe not though, i am sorry you didn't get into the game :/

[Jump Quest]

I tried. I really did. Even though this game has no menu, presentation, or instructions at all, I went ahead and tried to score a single point in this damned game. Actually, that wasn't the hard part. The hard part is landing safely, which by rights should award you 10 points considering how damn hard it is. The squares you're supposed to avoid are way too slow; even with the jumping animation, it's very unlikely for you to be able to clear the square by the time you land. Worse, the squares come in groups and frequently it's IMPOSSIBLE to jump over them when they come together. On top of that, the game does not keep track of your score or really do anything other than stick you with one game over after another. The game isn't even decent enough to give you a game over screen, it just resets.

It might be your first game, but did you not even consider making it a little more balanced or skill-based?

kosiak97 responds:

An apology, I forgot to add to the description that there was a double jump. I fixed it now so maybe it will be a little bit easier. Although I did not think of adding a game over screen, but if it is that important, I'll have no problem adding it. Thanks.

[Stick Beard]

Pretty good. This is a little more showy in terms of graphics than it is smooth in terms of animation, but ultimately it's still really damn good. The game is colorful, the gems are really fucking hard to get, and the soundtrack is well done. I liked that the choices were varied but simple, however on replay I realized that there's really only one path to the end (Natives and Forest simply don't have routes) and that kind of left a sour taste in my mouth, since it tamped down the replay value considerably.

Factoring in that you can replay the dead-end routes like Natives and Forest for infinite gems, and that the gems are really only useful for upgrading your ship in the final level (why do you collect gems during that level, anyway?) it just seemed like this was a little lacking as a game. It makes up for these shortcomings by being very attractive, though.

Solid submission, but not really worth more than one playthrough.

Stone-Steven responds:

wow, I appreciate the solid and lengthy review!

[D.O.E.S]

I thought this was a joke when I first played it. In fact, I still think it is. From the obnoxious little jingles to the fact that your luck seldom ever rises above one, there's really nothing in this that can even be considered a game. Maybe I just don't get it. Or maybe you should have actually included a tutorial somewhere in your game that said something more than "click stuff, things will happen."

All I noticed was that I had no way of controlling what I uncovered, unlike, say, Minesweeper which gives the player hints which can help them logically determine things. Without any guidance, it's more like drawing from a deck of cards than exploring an area. Moreover, the combat system is impossible. You click on an enemy to deal damage, get countered for missing, and have to hurry up or you'll take damage. This would be nice if enemies didn't have a tendency to screw you royally. For instance, some enemies respond to an attack by dashing out of the way, meaning you can only hit them one at a time. If you try to be cautious, you may encounter a bomb and unwittingly cause your own death with your slowness. The only way to learn is trial and error, which would be fine if the game were more fun to begin with, but it's not.

Some randomly generated games are fun. This isn't one of them, the reason being that it takes far too much control away from the player.

Surn responds:

lol

[A Dance of Fire and Ice]

A little gimmicky. I've always hated one-button rhythm games (is that even a genre?) because it's really all about eyes and memory rather than brains or reflexes. Certainly this is fun and addictive, mainly due to the music chosen, but it gets old and quickly begins to rely on an unforgiving intolerance for mistakes to facilitate its difficulty. Personally, I prefer games with difficult tasks but many checkpoints to one with easy tasks assigned in large quantities, and because of that I would have preferred shorter levels with more confusing visuals (perhaps a hex grid) and complex rhythms (alternating or odd meters).

The layout and presentation is nice, but its simplicity is also its downfall as people are repeatedly faced with a very plain screen telling them that they have failed. I would have liked some kind of system that judged how close you were to hitting on the beat, as many other rhythm games do (Perfect, Great, Good, Almost, Boo).

fizzd responds:

Sorry you didn't enjoy it! It is by design meant to be a game of rhythmic endurance just as much as rhythmic gymnastics, and is meant to train the ability to keep a consistent beat throughout a song, so I'm not going to switch the design to exclusively short hard levels anytime soon. Definitely isn't for everyone!

[The Awakening RPG]

I don't think anyone would argue that this isn't a flawed game, but it certainly has a charm to it. The graphics are very intricate and give this game an uncanny sense of magnitude on par with the Epic Battle Fantasy series. The music is somewhat dull and repetitive but is quite well done, though still a far cry from the Sonny soundtrack. The gameplay is overall really well-done and keeps players engaged with the active battle system, though I would have liked to see things played around with more, for instance attacks where you can hold down a button and consume extra stamina to deal extra damage, attacks that damaged an enemy's stamina, or enemies that feigned attacks or had certain conditions for which you made them unable to dodge.

This game suffers from several major pitfalls. First is that I noticed it lagged a lot. At the beginning of the game I recalled reading something about setting the quality to low, but skipped past it too quickly and wasn't able to find that information again. I pulled up every menu I could find and didn't manage to adjust the quality, which was a real pain since you walk SO slowly on the world map... If you wanted it to be atmospheric, you could have at least made the character smaller on the world map, like Chrono Trigger does.

That said, you balanced this out really well. I liked how you moved away from the grindier aspects of the game, allowing players to grind but not really making it necessary, especially when there were only a few pieces of equipment to be gotten. I got the Twin Serpent Blade and instantly fell in love with its massive damage bonus, and though I played this game for three hours only to change weapons once, I felt it actually worked out fine.

Also, the storyline was pretty lame, in all honesty. There were a lot of tropes... Waking up and not knowing anything, befriending a random magic user that seems to know anything (this was a very close parallel to Sonny and Luis...) and then the battle with the Golden Demon that was impossible to win... Which really annoyed me since I was really kicking his ass but ended up being funneled into the plot dialogue anyway. You use a lot of tropes and it's bad enough to the point of me not being able to take the narrative seriously at all. Thankfully there were a few moments of comic relief that broke it up, and the huge number of civilians in the towns also gave this game a sense of realness, even if the main plotline wasn't interesting.

Final verdict? Good game, though it was a bit slow and buggy at times. I would be interested in seeing the conclusion to the story, as well as what you had planned for the rest of the game. It would have been nice to have some kind of arcade or Colosseum mode where players could engage in battles and unlock story sequences without doing fetch quests and stuff - it would have been a nice easy way to wrap up this game without it feeling completely unfinished.

RockLou responds:

Thank you for the review and your input!
During the development of the game, I experimented with the attacking where you held down the attack button and a seperate bar would appear and fill up as you held the button. The longer you held it, the more damage your attack would take. It was an interested idea but one thing I like about the current battle system is how fast your attacks seem whenever you press the attack button. It happens instantly and you feel badass. :P
I also experimented with the spells. Whenever you made a spell you'd have to press a combination of numbers quickly and depending on how you performed, the spell took more or less damage. But that also took away the instant and fast-paced feel of the battle.

I can agree with you that the story is kind of lame. :P Most of it wasn't really thought out much. The future of the story (not in the game) is more thought out, if I ever would continue.
I didn't want to include any crystals or anything because it IS very cliché, but I really needed something to boost the plot.
I have thought of a colosseum in Savina city, but it seemed a bit out of place and would've been even more work... and I'm already tired of this goddamn game. -.-