Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[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. -.-

[Etherworld]

There are some major problems here but also some major potential. The first thing I noticed was a style of minimalism which sometimes helped the game and sometimes hurt it. The silhouette platforms were good. The menu buttons were good. The voice acting was good (though repetitive). The lack of boss music was bad. The lack of animation for the enemies was really bad. The lack of any sort of AI apart from the boss was very bad. The lack of a menu background, bad. The general lack of things to do in the game, very bad. The fact that the difficulty only affects your health, also bad. Even when you have a crouch feature, you only use it a few times throughout the entire game.

Overall the game showed signs of polish, but just as many signs of a lack of polish. The textures in the background were well-done, the character sprite is well-done, and the boss, interestingly enough, has well-drawn hands and a very sloppy looking body. I like how the lava had a delayed reaction in response to the boss' pounds, and how the screen shook with each attack. I see that you tried to spice things up with a flight mechanic in level 4, but it's not enough. You need to incorporate stuff like special abilities, collectibles, or features like climbing, sliding, or grabbing. This game is lacking in content and it hurts it a lot. Overall the gameplay becomes very formulaic due to the fact that the enemies don't even respond to the player. It also makes the player feel disengaged, which could have been rectified by implementing some kind of plotline.

I also want to mention that you really need to do something about that boss battle. I actually liked the physics - it's neat how the player moves faster while jumping - but I found many times that the player was sometimes fast enough to out-walk the boss' attacks, and was sometimes too slow. I noticed the player tended to die from this while walking outward from the center more often than if the player was walking toward the boss, but it wasn't a sure thing. The mechanics were at points sloppy, having once been pushed back into a wave of lava by a hand, or other times falling straight through the ground because I didn't jump quite high enough (at least stop the player from moving forward, show them that they've hit a wall).

Anyway I just want to reiterate that the boss fight is hell if you're going for achievement 05. It's frustrating and fickle and I feel like you didn't have enough people beta test the project. It would have been nice if the boss had more attacks, but more importantly the delay between the attacks needs to be greater, or at least more consistent.

Etherblood responds:

Hey, thank you very much for your detailed feedback, I agree with most of your points.
The main reason so many areas are lacking is due to my timelimit of 1 month. I never made a game with deadline before and pretty much messed up my time management (and adobe flash worked against me sometimes, it was pretty frustrating, I won't be using it from now on). I'll also spent a lot more time on games in the future.
The voice acting are just 'stolen' sounds from the League of Legends champion Nami (some enemies have Brand's voice and the boss has Malphite's), there wasn't much to take from, so yes it's repetive.
The combat in this game is pretty non-existant, your only attack is to stand still! and move your sword forward, and the enemies apart from the boss all have a set path, thats just sad...
I never encountered a bug where I was pushed through the floor, that obviously should not happen.
The boss battle is very easy when you know how it works, I think the problem is that the possibilities to beat him are pretty limited and the game has no hints at how whatsoever.
I personally find lv4 much more difficult than the boss fight (because I know how it works).
I ended up adding a lot of random because it got to repetive, adding more phases instead might have been a much better approach. I pretty much just forgot about boss battle music even though it's the most important part...
Well, again, thank you very much for your feedback, it's helpful and I'll make sure to reread it as soon as I'm working on the mentioned stuff in my next platformer.

[PewDuckPie - On the Run]

Overall this just seems like a more frustrating version of PewDiePie Adventures, only you can't play as Stephano or Piggy, and you have no abilities.

Since you've taken down the old version of this game, I'll just paste my old review right here:

Damn, how did you get Pewds to play this on the day it came out?

Well, it appears that the two of us have something in common in that we've both made very difficult PewDiePie-themed Flash platformers.

As someone familiar who played Eggy's original Unfair Platformer before the rage genre exploded, and as a regular on Platform Racing, I figure I'm probably immune to a lot of the dificulty in this game. Even so, I still found the traffic light in the first level to be unpassable.

First off, I really like the graphics. They're goofy and colorful, although the ground is rather redundant and the background remains constant rather than panning over gradually. The intro is really well-done, although I think the animation could have been a bit better than Pewds' legs simply rotating back and forth. The music is also redundant but I really like it, especially the change when you enter the cloud chase scene.

Onto the gameplay, watching Pewds play this game gave me a prelude to its difficulty. I actually made it to the traffic light on my first try, believe it or not. The physics are a little clunky, seeing as the player character is fairly slow. The enemies are total bullshit even though I was able to outsmart them 90% of the time. The wonky physics are actually a greater cause for concern than the 'surprise!' deaths that most rage games are known for, which I think is interesting and also makes the game much more fair once you get used to it. The few gimmicks I did notice, such as the 'infinite' hallway, were clever.

The cloud chase is also interesting. The platform engine you're using makes it very hit and miss. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard. I've tried to figure out how to outsmart the traffic light and I've noticed a few things:
- The cloud vanishes just before the creature bits away the floor. This should give the player time to jump to the left, but I've also noticed it become out of sync with the dinosaur attacking BEFORE the cloud vanishes.
- In one playthrough, I noticed a little gray pattern replace one of the pieces of the floor right next to the cloud before it begins chasing you. I haven't gotten this phenomena to occur again, but I assume it may be a shortcut?

Had this game a bit more clear instruction, I'm sure I would be able to review more than just the first level. As-is, the trick to beating the first level is simply too ambiguous, and I think I've given a more than fair review of an unfair game.

Now that that's out of the way, I do want to congratulate you on the new intro, which looks nice as hell, though it is a little on the long side. I also figured out the trick to the traffic light but honestly it's probably close to 90 degrees in my room right now and it's making me too agitated to sit through enough of the game to beat it again.

zoyer responds:

That was a really nice and mature review. The best and most fair review i've got so far on my game. I have no idea how I managed to get Felix to play this game so fast. I had luck i guess and i think his fabulous dress made him want to play it a bit more :D

This was actually the first version i uploaded but i took it down because i wanted to change the title of the game. Then when i had uploaded the new version I saw that pewdiepie actually had played my game and had linked to my old game so noone could actually press and enter the game themselves so I deleted the new version and saw i could take back the old one so i did. So that's the story behind that :)

The traffic light is actually really simple, you just have to do exactly what the shroom-guy says. You have to wait for the circle of the traffic light to turn green and not jump when the text comes up and tells you to jump, you always have to remember, it's an unfair game :) The horse that appears if you jump before or do not jump at all, it has nothing to do with the bricks that dissapears under you. The cloud dissapears automaticly, just go to the very right and it will dissapear, the horse only shows up if you jump before the light turns green or if you decide to not jump at all. But if you jump when the light turns green, then the floor will dissapear.

I realised when the game had been out for a while that i should have made the first level easier, at least i know it now so won't do the same mistake again. The game was super unfair before it got realeased completely but i had some testers so they could help me out so it wouldn't be that unfair and impossible. Thanks for the review and everything :)

[Pride and Punishment]

It's... Unfinished. What am I supposed to say about this? You have the makings of a really good and attractive game, but there's nothing here! What gameplay is here is also rather slow. The bow could be drawn faster, the jumping could happen faster. I also noticed you spawn at the top of the screen if you hit the spacebar.

I don't know why you can't finish this game. If your FLA got corrupted that's one thing, but otherwise hell, I'd finish the damned thing for you.

glitchs2d responds:

This was for the Newgrounds Game Jam, and done in only around 48 hours. I'm going to release an update for the game soon once I get things working the way I want. Also the space bar is the way how it is for testing reasons I forgot to disable it when I uploaded, since i was so pressed for time. The new one will have a lot of fixes, and be much more of a game than what it is in its current state.

[#Escape: The Waiting Room]

Polished but incomplete. I won't say anything about the graphics/sound/interface, I think they speak for themselves. What bothers me here is that goddamned username and password. Since when do usernames have a space in them? Couldn't you have just changed that character's name? God. DAMN. THAT. SUCKED.

I'll also say the game is too short and too simple. Not enough to do, not enough items. Also you can collect those little labels indefinitely... Lolwut. Storyline could have gone somewhere but it literally doesn't say more than 'some guy lost his memory'.

Aprime responds:

Usernames can have spaces in them...

Thanks for the review!

[Shitty Fucking Art Game]

Yeah, yeah, the game is satire. We get it. But is it good? The minigames that make up the bulk of the game are repetitive, dull, and frustrating. There's no clear objective. The whole 'people saying things behind your back' game mechanic was cool but got old fast. There's just nothing entertaining or funny here. Graphics and sound are both uninspired.

PsychoPop responds:

"Yeah, yeah, the game is satire. We get it."

Speak for yourself. Plenty of reviews indicate that people didn't get it.

I give your review 5 stars out of 5 because you are in the "in crowd" of people who get it.

Wink.

[Pixelo]

These kinds of games always give me a headache. I like the Sudoku inspiration here but it's a little daunting having over 500 levels. Judging by the medals and what I've seen from the puzzles, beating all of them is not terribly important; they just add variety and play time to this game. It would be totally possible for this game to choose levels randomly - this would also eliminate the problem with players just guessing and redoing levels.

The exp and money system is also stupid. This is a puzzle game, I don't want to manage currency that barely does anything except change the game's visuals.

One thing I considered that would have been really cool is if there was a grid of several 10x10 puzzles arranged to make a larger, less pixelated puzzle. You could solve a big pixelated part, then solve individual sections in-depth to reveal a very clear image. You could also probably find a way to do this with colors; there's no reason to stop with half-baked pixel art.

Overall fun but way too long. Plus, players that are really good should be able to delve into Normal and Hard difficulty levels sooner.

tamaii responds:

Your idea is really great! I'll think about it.
And also i got your point. I guess i should think about normal and hard puzzle unlock scheme.
Thank you for playing

[Super Hero Chronicles]

Addicting, for what it is. The concept/graphics/music are a little too repetitive and simple for my taste, but the actual shooting element does have a charm to it, especially when you get powerups. In my opinion there need to be more enemies and more attack patterns. The levels could also stand to be a little shorter since they're so repetitive as it stands now. I wish I understood how the powerup system worked too - there didn't seem to be a countdown or any explanation as to why my split lasers were disappearing.

glitchs2d responds:

Yea if I ever make a sequel there will be a lot of mechanics to the game that will improve. My game programming has improved dramatically since then, but I have yet to actually start working on part 2 of this game. Maybe once I get some free time. But your meter on the right side is what affects your lasers (except when you have the beam laser). It was a combo system that I made that would encourage players to kill all the enemies in order to keep their laser going. Thanks for playing.

[D-Pression]

Huh, had to look up a tutorial for the very last level and it would appear I took the long way around for the two 'blank' levels.

Anyway you did a really smooth job with the programming. I really like the slipping and sliding and the wall jump mechanic is just comfortable to use. The obligatory puzzle element was fun, although sometimes frustrating and a little gimmicky due to it having the whole physics flair going on - sometimes made things harder than they should have been.

You really could have stood to improve the graphics. They're simple, they're cute, but they're OVERDONE.

The real reason I'm docking so many points is because I'm sick of programmers dick riding The Company of Myself with these simple 'symbolic' puzzle platformers with crummy graphics, melodramatic and even more melodramatic one-liners scattered throughout the levels. At least The Company of Myself and Fixation had a plotline. This is just a bunch of drivel.

Another really big thing that bothered me is that with such simple games you really lose a lot out of the experience when it's just one level after another. There's a heavy puzzle element, sure, but it would be nice to see some new mechanics partway through the game, or even an open-world kind of environment.

This is not a bad game but conceptually it is the most infuriatingly jump-on-the-bandwagon game I've seen in a while.

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Thanks for the long review, Kwing! I agree with most of the criticism, and most of them can be explained by the lack of time I had when making this. I made it for the Stencyl Jam 2014, but I had my most important school exams in between :)

The programming is pretty smooth, but could still be improved, I think. Stencyl made it somewhat easy though (even if it took a lot of time for me). I'm glad you're happy with the movement though! The physics thing was probably too difficult for most people to realize for themselves. I should've hinted on it more, and made it a bit more obvious that you had to use friction :/

I agree with the graphics too. Then again, I was in a real hurry while making this! I finished this game in the last minute, but I still had time to make small updates later. There's still a lot that needs to be done, I think.

I actually had to make pretty much all of the "story" or text in the game in about 5 hours, and only 10 minutes or so went to actually thinking about what I wrote, as it was time consuming to place the text. If (when) I make a huge update to this game in the future, there will be a lot of changes :D

I would've wanted some new puzzle mechanics too. I originally wanted to make some levels where the "shadow's" movement was inverted from yours. I also waned to include some with many "shadows", and some with upside down gravity, to confuse the player. Alas, I had no time, as I earlier said. The only thing I had time for was to include two levels where the "shadow" couldn't touch you, but had a very similar room to yours, as you might recall.

Thanks again for the long review, I'm grateful that you took some time to write out your thoughts! :3

[Catch the Pacman]

I can't be the only person to think this... Why is the AI so bad? I see tons of the Pacman (Pacmen?) running back and forth in place while you casually stroll over to them and kill them. What is the function of those zombies? Why is the movement speed so slow? Why does the player rattle around inside the walls instead of fitting snugly between them? There's something seriously wrong here.

By the way, shouldn't there be several ghosts? This would be cool as a strategy game where you have to outsmart the enemy but this is just a slow chasing game.

sex92toso responds:

1.I agree with you with the pacman, since I started the game, I could been fix it yet.

2.The function of the zombies is to kill you. Maybe I should make them faster. I´ll see.

3. I do not understand what you mean by "player rattle"

4. I liked the idea of several ghosts, could you give me your opinion so I get an idea?

Thanks for the review, seriously.