pawles22's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Prism Indigo]

Ok, first and foremost, for the love of God, MAKE. THE. BULLETS. DISTINGUISHABLE.

Seriously, one of the last things you want your player to do is to wonder whether the thing they're flying into is a collectible or a bullet that's about to wreck them. There's not a single reason you should do that, unless you want to make the game annoying on purpose.

The art itself is quite nice though, low-res but that's what you'd expect.

The music quickly gets on your nerves, so I'd appreciate it if it was more of a background tune, especially given how it repeats over and over and over without too much variety.

Now, the gameplay. This is where the game lacks the most - this thing simply isn't fun to play. The stages themselves feel like typical grinding for exp - you do it because you have to, not because it's fun. It doesn't require much effort, and gathering the cores like that quickly gets very boring.

Regarding the first stage boss - his second phase is absolutely horrible. While the spiral looks dangerous, every "wave" hits precisely the same positions, so all you have to do is position yourself in a blind spot and hold "z" until dude drops to 0 HP. It's the same as if you had just put some random lasers on both sides, and put the guy just there, doing nothing, waiting to get killed, except here you try to make an illusion that something is happening. The only thing you achieve is making the player annoyed by both boring the person who already knows the pattern, and annoying the person who doesn't and might get hit for no real reason other than the design being bad. Please, don't do that.

Stage 2 boss was somehow even worse... Its third stage was alright, the bullets explode in different positions, so it's at least a bit less annoying than the other two, but it's still just.... fine? For the most part, you made it just as an big pool of hitpoints that the player has to get through, a little at a time (as far as I understood though, you wouldn't even have to shoot them? The actual HP bar never went down). The only thing the first two phases do is slow your progress. They don't pose any real threat to you, they ONLY slow your down. Again, don't do that.

Overall, the game simply isn't fun to play. I didn't play past second stage because it's just draining.

PS: I rate things harshly, so don't take this as hate or something.

EDIT: the bullets actually do have a similar colour to the cores, they should contrast stronger than that. And regarding the music, the melody of the tune is, let's say, "sharp" to the ear. The high pitch paired up with very regular time interval between notes quickly tires the listener out. I understand the limitations of the engine, but take a look for example at VVVVVV's soundtrack. While the music there clearly can be better due to the lack of limitations, even short parts of it have a lot of personality and are nice to the ear.

F1Krazy responds:

I always appreciate constructive criticism, and I also appreciate the fact that the game may not be to everyone's tastes, so thank you for the detailed feedback, and rest assured that I'm not taking any of this as "hate".

The first two problems are down to the game engine. It's hard to make the bullets and the cores any more distinguishable than they already are when they're both four pixels wide. I was hoping the colour would be enough for that, but perhaps not. I'll have to go and have a rethink. As for the music, TIC-80 limits songs to about 90-120 seconds, so I unfortunately don't have much scope to make them less repetitive. When you say to make it "more of a background tune", I assume you mean just turning the volume down?

My next update will be focused on improving the game's difficulty curve, which I'm already aware needs some work, and I'll take into account what you've mentioned regarding the first two stages. They're definitely a bit too dull and easy at the moment, and I'm sure there's plenty I can do to spice them up and make things more interesting for first-time players. I hope you'll be willing to give the game another look once that update arrives, and perhaps let me know whether things have improved.

[Hadros]

It's just a 2048 copy with some graphics.

[Tricky Keys]

Good game, fun to play for a short while. Not too long, so it doesn't get too boring before finishing it, and the design of the levels is also clever, so it has just enough to keep the player entertained until the it is finished.

Music and graphics are the strongest points of this game - they are top notch, especially for a game jam like GMTK. Marvellous job here.

The idea of course is not anything new, and as far as I know, it was commonly used in the jam (someone correct me if I'm wrong - I was not that interested, and it took place so long ago, too), however this is a really good approach to it. I tend to dislike the smaller sizes of the levels, but clearly the game makes very good use of what it has, and some of the levels were really enjoyable.

I definitely do feel like the difficulty curve tends to be a bit random at times, and some levels are just suddenly way easier than the others and vice versa, but overall it is quite good. The game is demanding, but mostly fair, and that makes it enjoyable.

Would anyone mind explaining what the use of having to hold the horizontal arrow in the direction of the wall to be able to wall jump is? There is a very (VERY) huge chance I am missing an obvious mechanic (or just forgot about it already). That is just out of pure curiosity, as a fellow game design hobbyist myself.

One thing that I would definitely think about, is the way the game handles respawning. There is a pretty long animation after death, and if it is one of the levels where the player is almost instanly pushed into a hazard, it tends to get a bit frustrating (not too much, since the design is still good, but extra frustration reduction is still welcome, unless a frustrating game is the point, of course, but I assume that is not the case here). What I'd suggest is waiting for the player to press a key on the keyboard, and only then proceeding to let the virus take over control. This would increase fairness and lessen unnecessary death count at the beginning of the level.

Overall it is a simple, yet very enjoyable game for the 20-30 minutes of gameplay. Good job on this one!

[Chessformer]

Omg I hate puzzles, I'm so bad at them LOL.

This is a super nice idea, it's a fun game to play. The graphics is nice and simple, the levels are designed well. The music gets a bit annoying after a while, but it's not a big issue.

The problem I have with most puzzles is that they're fun to play for 10-15 minutes, and then I'm ready to move on and forget about the game. That's why I'm not a fun of the smaller games like that, but for all the others who enjoy it, it's great game!

Good job! :D

[High Stakes]

Quite and interesting game. The gameplay isn't very interesting for a longer period of time though, especially with such a big factor of randomness, but then again, it IS a card game after all. Still, it's just not very satisfying when you lose at the very beginning of the round when you have literally no way of telling what cards might be safer than others, and you just need to randomly guess - and passing is quite obviously not an option so early.

The graphics are really clean, I like the colour scheme a lot. The vampire iimages are also very well-done, so good job.

The sounds do their job, the music isn't anything particularly fascinating, but it is a card game, so what do you expect?

Quite a likeable game, lacks anything to keep the player truly engaged for a longer time, but it's really solid.

[Manorvania]

Pretty good game. Love the characters, they definitely made the game great for me.

The design is a bit weird at times, especially with some frustrating checkpoints placements, but the design is actually very very good for such a small game, it lacks way less than many other simple games like this.

Btw, I found wolf's phone even before encountering wolf, so yeah, as you can probably imagine, I was a bit confused.

Sound design is probably the strongest part of the game - everything's perfect, especially the music themes.

Art is okay, can't point out anything bad, it's just not the type of artstyle I prefer myself, but yeah, still enjoyable.

Overall great game, could test it a bit more and redesigning some small fragments of the map, but I enjoyed it a lot.

(btw, the camera movement feels kind of unnecessary, like, seriously, I'm not telling you to get rid of it, but it has a feeling like it wants to be more useful, when.. it's not xD)

[Blue Bayou]

Fun game! Extremely entertaining

[Sludge and Sorcery]

Nice game with great graphics, good music and fun story. The battles quickly got tiring though, especially with so much sidetracking

[Erebos]

An amazing game with really good music, nice graphics and a great atmosphere!

[Arcade Wizard]

i just needed 5 minutes to fall in loe with game. Seriously.

First of all, the music is one of the best I have heard in a while. And not only here on Newgrounds or anything, I mean OVERALL. It's so catchy and I absolutely love it!

The graphics are also perfect, I have nothing to complain about. They're just great!

The gameplay is just as amazing. The game is addicting as hell! I got a bit scared of the grind when I got to second level, and to be fair it's the only thing that still bothers me, that final wave is a big overkill. I haven't got very far into the game (yet), but I agree with peptrace - I don't know how many types of enemies there are, but if those mentioned by them are/would be here, it would be an awesome thing!

Also, the story is also very well done. I usually wouldn't care that much about the excessive plot put in just for the sake of it, but here it was actually interesting - especially with those great images!

Love the game, if it were released as some bigger project, I'd pay for it definitely

gamemakertim responds:

Hi, thank you for the great compliments! I'm happy you enjoy the game :D