Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Comic Reader- Art Forum Battle Royale Volume 1]

The art is great at some points and at others very inconsistent. Hard to put a rating on that as I don't think the better artists should suffer because others are stragglers. I'm also not sure if that's the point of this being a battle royale - is the competition only within the confines of the comic, or did the original forum eliminate competitors when their art was trumped by the art of a competing artist?

As far as the rest of the submission, it's pretty clunky. The page flip animation is a bit basic and could have benefitted from being just a bit longer and smoother. It's also disorienting that the frames change only after the animation finishes. There should definitely be a mute button. Most importantly, whatever zoom-in feature is advertised in the help menu doesn't appear to actually work, and this makes most of the dialogue completely unreadable.

dw bro i got u

I'm assuming the comic book panels are stored within a single Movie Clip, and you're navigating between frames on that Movie Clip? If the registry point of that MC is the center of the stage, try this code:

https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/abb76c2053be98383cbedbfe78546171

Mabelma responds:

Thank you tons! For the wonderful feedback I will definitely put it into practice for the next version, and I appreciate the code greatly! I’ll check it out 🙌🙏

[Torture the Blammer]

There's not a ton to write home about here. The graphics are pretty basic, and there's only a few things to click on. Clicking on the victim himself only advances a set of predetermined frames with no animation, and the ending doesn't have much more than a few basic tweens.

I get that AS2 is hard to get into if you're trying to make something quickly, but it would have been easy enough to have different body parts take damage independently from one another, and also to have animations advancing them from one state of injury to the next.

Little-Radiodemon responds:

umadbro

[Type Help]

I really wanted to like this, but it's just too obscure. The first room with the towel and chamber pot are nice and feel like a text adventure should, but the demon riddle is annoying, as it's unclear that it's even a riddle in the first place - I spent a lot of time searching other rooms for some kind of solution and found nothing. I understand the logic, but it just doesn't feel like good design.

The apple is where things completely fall apart. The fact that the player can turn spoilers on, ignore a warning and break the game seems to imply a "right" way to beat the game, without tampering too much with the commands given to you. Yet the way the apple is obtained still requires you to manually edit the game itself. The line between solving puzzles and breaking the game gets too fuzzy here, and while the logic of this is kind of explained, it's never demonstrated in a way that would make it user-friendly, nor does it really feel fun to actually accomplish.

Then after you finally get past these two awful sections of the game, barely anything happens before the game itself ends. Just like that? No real story, and no puzzles between the super obvious bits of the start and finish and the two horribly impossible puzzles in between? The game requires a lot of investment to understand and is so wholly unrewarding that it just doesn't feel like it's worth it.

If anything, this game (particularly the apple puzzle) feels like a weird tutorial for understanding how the story builder feature works, but doesn't provide enough substance for me to have faith that user-generated games would be any better.

Would also be nice if pressing up allowed you to look at past commands similar to a real terminal.

BoMToons responds:

Yes, it's mostly a tutorial for learning the editor. That's the point, but I do understand how obscure it is, so I'm not disagreeing with your comments, mostly agreeing.

The first version of the game hid the things now marked as "spoilers" completely, but a reviewer complained about that fact and said it contradicted the "open-ness" of the game's concept. So, I compromised and put in the spoiler stuff... I do see how it's a bit contradictory now though :-/

The demon name puzzle is very obscure, I know, but I liked it too much and felt too clever to exclude it... but a lot hinges on it, so... I left it :-)

I agree about the up command... how could that be implemented and keep the page scrolling/paging feature though? (I don't want to code a scroll bar, and Ruffle doesn't support Flash's native components)

[Epic Battle Fantasy]

I remembered playing this back in the day but never beat it. After seeing EBF5 in the portal, I decided I didn't have time for a 30 hour game and decided I'd give this another go instead.

It's decent, but the gameplay is a bit drawn out and monotonous. Not knowing the type of an enemy except based on the damage you deal is a bit annoying, and I found many of the items to be significantly more important than others while in the shop (potions, ethers, and revives are by far the most important, and ethers get used the most.)

I liked the idea of balancing healing and damage with Goku at the end (the fact that Judgment heals you makes this interesting, as your mage might heal the swordsman, but is better off using Judgment to heal herself.) However, aside from that, the game doesn't have a ton of strategy to it, and not knowing how long until you reach the shop or how long each wave lasts makes the game feel longer than it otherwise would.

matt-likes-swords responds:

Yeah, if you only play the oldest game, you're gonna get an outdated experience.

[Magirune]

Honestly this is pretty boring. Aside from the achievements, there's really no reason to avoid dying, and the fact that all enemies give 1 XP regardless of difficulty really breaks the game. Perfect example is that you can spam up and down between floors 20 and 21 and if you can kill that enemy without taking damage, you can farm levels infinitely (there are likely other places where you can do the same thing,) making the whole system kind of broken and also defeating the purpose of potions. Also, even if you're trying to beat the game without dying, you can just use a potion whenever you drop below 50% health. There's no strategy whatsoever as to when you should use one.

Once you get past the weird combat mechanics, the game is puzzle and exploration. Navigating 15 floor mazes is a bit confusing and often tedious, but the puzzle elements are decent, even if it's frequently interrupted by level grinding. Once I got the pickaxe (but couldn't figure out where to use it despite seeing "need a pickaxe" messages earlier) I figured it was time to hang it up and be satisfied with the fake ending.

Between the lack of music, balance, and overall sparseness of anything interesting, this game just feels really unfinished.

FluffyLotus responds:

You should try hardcore mode. It removes the 1xp when the enemies are to easy. That's how the game was originally built.

[Eggbot vs Zombies]

I like the concept - the way the one level expands and you collect more weapons is really neat and has an interesting way of pressuring you. Certain choke points become advantageous to hold, but because of the missions and doors opening, things stay dynamic and you run around the level quite a lot, especially once you start buying health, ammo, and extra lives.

Negatives? There should be at least another enemy type (flying would be good as it would require the player to aim in more directions.) It's also too easy to get big chunks of money at a time and skip to the best weapon of each type, or just rely on the mystery boxes, whose weapons are powerful even before you buy any of them. The missions are few and far between, so much of the game feels very repetitive. With the amount of guns you can buy quickly superseding the amount of content, there's not much reason to unlock them.

The one level gets kind of old after a while, too. You did a great job designing it and it feels pretty balanced, but there's only so long you can play it before it starts to get stale. It would be cool if there were some areas that cost a ridiculous amount of money to unlock (like $1000.) That way the one level could retain some variety even late into the game. Time bonuses on the missions would also give the player a sense of urgency.

I've noticed a few bugs. You can stand on the leftmost obelisk when the mission comes up and enemies are unable to reach you. Sometimes when teleporting to the top of the level, enemies get stuck inside the floor, and when you restart a game, sometimes your Beretta will start with the amount of ammo as the last gun you equipped in your previous game (one time I actually spawned in an inaccessible area - no idea how that happened.)

EggysGames responds:

Thank you Kwing for your detailed reviews they are always really in depth and informative.

[Heaven and Hell]

I remember playing this very briefly when it came out and liking the concept, but never really stuck around long enough to get into it. After getting deeper into the mechanics, I have to say this is easily one of your better games. The original graphics and color scheme are attractive, the concept is good and the dynamic environment keeps things interesting.

As far as flaws, the gameplay is slightly repetitive, with the biggest issue being the way the bubble system works to reset enemies that fall too far down - it's too repetitive and can lead to enemies getting stuck in the same ruts. The items are also generally not too useful. I beat this game with two deaths and never needed much aside from seeds and (at most) one health potion per level. A boss at the end would have been nice also. Some items (namely the bomb) are so underpowered and expensive that they seem like a complete waste, and I don't think I ever used the wings at all.

EggysGames responds:

Yeah this game was big, and it was the last game I made for almost 2 years at the start of my break from game making. It broke me and was missing polish indeed but the idea did come out amazing. I was good at destructible ground at that point in Flash. I need to remake it in unity with polish and physics.

[Tough Growth]

There's very little here in terms of actual content. The aesthetics aren't bad (though they are a bit on the flashy side, with lots of effects and graphics that aren't much more complex than squares,) but I think the biggest issue is the concept to begin with.

At its core, this game is a mix of bullet hell and a mouse maze, with neither being terribly new or groundbreaking concepts. Too often is it possible to cheat by moving the mouse off-screen. More annoyingly, the stages in which the large player box makes it hard to dodge feels more gimmicky than difficult. Similarly, the last area of the game (where you're sent back a level for failing) feels more gimmicky than anything, as the levels are generally easy than the ones previous.

I would have liked to see some more unique obstacles, some deeper level of strategy, or at least some other way for the player to interact other than dodging things.

Jaswir responds:

I wonder, what game would you consider groundbreaking?
Also this game was designed to be a mix of bullet hell and feed and grow.
I do not know any other games that combine bullet hell with feed and grow.

[Rock Bottom]

I'm not sure I see the appeal here. The music and graphics are pretty bland, with the only really attractive element being the color scheme which sets the tone quite nicely.

There are a handful of issues with the rest of it. The dialogue has numerous translation errors, making it come across as awkward more often than not. More than that, the game aspect of this feels inorganic and distracting. The way the brother slaloms up and down is weird. If you get too far behind, both of you fall off the screen. The arrows on the road give you some reason to move up and down, but just feel out of place in a submission like this. The grabbing mechanic also feels kind of weird, especially since you only ever really do it once, and the whole concept of chasing a guy down in the middle of an endless road just doesn't feel realistic. Forward movement feels useless because you never need to go any other direction. The repeating houses get old fast. Need I say more?

Ultimately this comes across as a rather uninspired proof of concept. I see the need for these types of games to exist, but the execution here just felt weird. In your defense, content like this is hard to make right. Some folks at MIT tried (and failed) at exactly this task when they made Elude, so it honestly would have been more surprising to see a game do this correctly. Either way, this game just didn't wow me.

bioszard responds:

Thanks for your feedback, my friend. I'll really think about this issues you brought here.

My goal in this game in this game was just to show that many times we tell things to depressed people that just not help the situation. In my humble opinion, we must just welcome depressed people, making them feel confortable, not encouraging, not judging nor creating expectations based on their own will.

Besides that, I was forced to think about and implement (almos alone) 2 different game genres within 72h, for LD41 (I'm not justifying my fauls, just telling the develop context). You are completly right, my translations skills are not that good, I'll try to improve that. Thanks for your time.

[Eggys Big Adventure]

I played this back on mobile and was impressed with the overall smoothness and playability of the game. There are some minor flaws of course - reused graphics, and some weird physics when standing on moving platforms - but for the most part the game feels comfortable. While it's good that the game is simple (as the controls on mobile really don't lend themselves to complexity) I would have liked to see a bit more environmental variety - perhaps different kinds of enemies, or platforms that offered more than the basic Unity physics prefabs.

Most of the issues dealing with actual enjoyability stem from level design. A lot of the difficulty is concentrated in the earlier levels, and while you can usually skip particularly hard levels and farm eggs elsewhere, it's still weird that the second half of the game (and bosses) are comparatively easy, especially when the bubble level is downright brutal (and frustrating, since it's so easy to slip off of them.) It would have made sense to make all of the levels somewhat easy, but for the eggs to be put in especially difficult places. On that note, it would have also been nice for collecting all eggs in a level to provide something, even if it were only cosmetic such as player skins.

Overall my biggest disappointment here is that the game feels like a very generic platformer, even though I've known you to come up with some really outstanding original concepts such as Nodes, Draw Play, and Battle Fish. Battle Fish in particular strikes me as a game that could be outstanding on mobile, given its simple control scheme as well as how much more enjoyable it would be in a less laggy platform such as Unity.

EggysGames responds:

Thank you Kwing. You are correct I didn't space out the difficulty on the levels as well as I should have unfortunately. I didn't feel it was that generic, since I havn't made anything with physics like this before.

Thanks for the review.