deletedTAMyStudios's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Company of Copperhill]

I know you only had four days to make this, but it is absolutely intolerable to play for someone like me. I get this feeling you are in love with the characters you have created, but your ability to narrate and convince me to love them as well is just not there.

The font is horrid to try and read. Are you color blind by any chance? That's the only reason I can imagine someone thinking that was a good idea, if they already have trouble seeing.

The UI and interface to the game play is completely counter to what a game with a lot of narrative would suggest. You have a limited amount of time to select an action, but a ton to read. I can't even comprehend the stats menu and options, let alone rush through my menu options just so I can attack a rat.

I wish you the best of luck in your ventures, but I really do think you need to reach out to other people more. It's obvious you have a lot to say about the world you have created in your mind, but you would likely benefit from sharing your thoughts and ideas with others, collaborating, pushing yourself even harder, and gaining more connections and taking in what others have to offer.

I think you're a talented artist and narrator, but you need a bit of an extra push to go prime time.

Hyptosis responds:

Sorry you didn't like it.

[Abstract Dungeon]

Well, IMO, it's just not fun. It's a very good concept, but it is implemented in an incredibly boring way. My expectations of a multi-floor dungeon game like this is that it will surprise me with some sort of dungeon secrets. That there will be some sort of growth system. That not all of the stats I see, or the ways I typically use them, will be the only uses there are.

But it was so predictably plain that the plainness itself was unpredictable and boring. I feel like a bit of effort was put into setting the mood, but ultimately your hands were thrown up at some point and you said, screw it! It's done. Here.

And added street cred and some menu options, and that's it.

I don't know whether or not that's true. And I mean no offense.

But I really feel as though I wasted some time on this, which is not something I like to say or feel about any games at all.

[Barriers]

I had to play this game by myself because I have no friends and any girl would probably find it as an obvious and awkward hint if I tried to convince them to play this with me. However, this game did ease my lonely soul.

If the background music to this game was what I woke up to every morning, my life might be pretty easy. So first off, good job picking a song that matched the game's theme and length perfectly. Also, as cheap as the physics and movement might seem to some, it plays perfectly. It's not overly thought or glitchy. In fact, it's just humorous enough to have two people bumping into each other (I like to complete a level during a jump) that it also matches the upbeat, carefree vibe of the theme song.

You have a knack for level design. The last level was the only one I had to restart, but my mind felt active and engaged during every level. No solution was entirely obvious because you don't denote exactly what any triggers will perform. I know some people prefer to eyeball levels and solve the entire level before starting play, but so long as the evolution of a level relatively pain-free, I don't mind either way.

I'll give an example of another game - Pixelo - which you can find here on Newgrounds. Mathematically, every level could be solved if you could think enough moves ahead... It's really a game about truthy or falsy matrices. However, in practice it's difficult to see that many moves ahead. The more you play the game, the better you get at proving single moves are correct, rather than trying to solve the entire board at once. (Unless you're just that good. I don't know.)

Anyways, a gripe I actually had about Pixelo is that it punishes you for making bad moves. I don't believe in punishing players too harshly.

Thankfully, your levels are small, challenging, and at the same time very fluent. If you make a mistake, you can generally go back and fix it. I suppose you have to assume your partner is somewhat competent and isn't just going to stay in the same place and get locked inside of a wall... but I didn't find it to be a major issue.

So...

I would say go for more intricate levels. Increasing game length is a difficult thing to do. And if you have too many levels with basic play, it gets very frustrating to players. Examples I'll cite are Super Mario Bros. 3 for the NES and Kid Chameleon for the Sega Genesis. Kid Chameleon especially had many levels as the game went on that felt like procedurally generated variations of previous levels. It got annoying. After playing so many levels, you felt as though you should have already been rewarded for mastering the "level type".

That's an issue I foresee if you had spent time creating more levels. I'd ask myself, why am I still being presented with challenges, even though I've proven myself capable of completing them?

Obviously, you could have added things like teleporters, lasers, enemies, etc. I'm going to be honest, the fundamental idea behind these type of flip-the-switch puzzle games is too simple to justify additional obstacles like that. Your fire wall obstacles were perfect because they made me think about my movements without having to worry about timing them too carefully. That fits in with the "relaxing" type concentration that this game offers.

So what I would suggest for this game and its theme is something like collectible items. Ideally, non-required bonus items to start just so people like me who have OCD about winning games at 100% completion will have something to look forward to at the end. It'd be funny, albeit a little sexist, for example, if you didn't collect these items and a green guy came by at the end and took your girl... unless you had all the medallions, of course, in which case he wouldn't.

In other words, a relaxed theme game needs optional puzzles. When you start adding additional, mandatory mechanics, you break the theme and you break the user's love of the game.

I will say that I had a lot of love and enjoyment for this game and that trust was never violated. That's important. Keep it up! You're bound to go far :)

FSt-Germain responds:

Thanks for this awesome review! I'm glad you really understood the theme, and relaxed puzzling that I was going for. I understand what you're saying with the intricate levels. The first four a slow, and I like the idea of condensing those basic mechanics into one level, so i might post an update with more intricate levels :) I get what you're saying with the collectibles, It was something that consciously avoided at first, because I wanted it to be a clean experience. But now that you have given me a better idea than just putting coins everywhere, I think it would be a fun way to engage more experienced players. I would have to redesign all the levels of course, so we'll see if I put it in an update, but it's going to bother me every update I don't put it in now because It's such a good idea. Thanks for the response, I have so many great ideas on how I can improve this game!

[Chaos Girl II; Zone Zero]

Oh my gawrsh. The music is great. Love the backgrounds as well. I think... this makes me think more about games. Thinking about how I like my little doodles more than games at times. Being able to work from doodles toward thinking more about whether any of those doodles actually deserve to be expressed in the form of a game... is something I will continue thinking about. Thank you :)

[Electric Cock Rocket]

I love the game, so I'll leave a good rating, but a few things:

1) I see no reason this game should ever lag, but it does. I get stuck moving in one direction or another and die due to unresponsiveness. Not sure what you built this with and how much control you have over performance.

2) I can't scroll the story on desktop? It goes off the page... I actually think the sliding is implemented in a really clunky way, even on the pages where it works (achievements and scores).

Other than that, I don't think I have any major problems with the experience. Some shortcut keys within menu contexts would be nice (hitting r to replay) for desktop users...

More than anything, I love that the game feels very expressive in a sort of elegant, although South Park-ish kind of way.

DBuck-Eye responds:

I'm really glad that you liked it! What were you playing it on? I'm using a 2010 MacBook Pro with Firefox 41 and it seems to run fine, but this could definitely lag, especially if you have a lot of tabs open, unfortunately. HTML5 and javascript are getting better in terms of performance, but honestly, I think Flash is still faster.

I think I'll add some more control options and a replay key tonight. Thanks for the review!

[The Farm.]

Haha, this one was funny.

[Potatoman Seeks The Troof]

I was not prepared to face the troof :(

WHY DID YOU GIVE SUCH A TERRIBLE ENDING TO SUCH A PERFECT GAME??? *sniff sniff * ... 5... awaaaaaaaa-ghhhh achoo... 5 st--s---s----- 5 STARSSSS WAAAHHHHHHHH ;_;

[Remove the dragon, wizard!]

This is exactly what games should be.

[Earn to Die 2: Exodus]

You added multi-tier levels but no secrets or other game play elements to take advantage of them? There's a fully playable desktop version demo, but not a steam or PC release? I don't have a tablet. The tablet market is much smaller than the PC market overall (I think only about 1/3rd of people on the web have tablets capable of playing games), although I won't tell you how to run your business.

Part of me is just venting because I get access to a promotion, but the full game doesn't have a release for my platform. Another part of me is venting because the promotion itself seems kind of lame. There's so few story elements that would convince me to even want to convert over to the full version, and the way progress happens in this game feels really shallow and empty.

After every single run, you go a little further, earn just enough for the next upgrade, and then you can't play back in your old vehicles or previous levels.

I don't have enough of a vehicle fetish to be left off with "buy the full version!"

[Crayon Poke]

A billion star rating. The music is perfectly sad, yet adventurous. It evokes the loneliness of her adventure. The style of music matches the art perfectly. The art itself evokes such a unique type of adventure. A style reminiscent to me of the older game boy games, but in full color. I've never quite understood that particular ability of the art style, but it's fascinating to me.

And this was the perfect game to express those styles in.

Everything about this game was perfect. Make a bigger one :)