shinobody's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[AscDungeon]

I mean, I don't dislike it, but - if you can move smoothly, doesn't that kind of defeat the point of ANSI graphics thing? It reminds me of how Frog Fractions 2 had a textmode platforming section without breaking the digital/binary movement thing - which this does't.
I mean, as of now it's not that it's a bad platformer - but without binary movement it feels just like regular platformer that for some reason uses ANSI graphics.

antonmarcelo responds:

Hi !

Yhe smoothly movemnt is proposital, but I thanks your comments. My intention is make a tribute for old games and old BBS systems. The history of his game begins when my wife shows to me old modem sounds and BBS screens. A lot of nostalgia come back and my idea is make it.

Thanks again for your impressions and comments, it´s good see people playing the game and giving feedbacks.

Regards

[Valhalla Bound]

I love it! It captures feel of an old NES arcade port really well - it really feels like something that would be actually playable on the old console with Zapper. At the same time, retro stylization doesn't sacrifice anything, and it is a great and addictive experience.

On one hand, I thought that maybe the fact that you're not suposed to shoot the ghosts (even though it makes sense in hindsight) could be clearer from the gameplay - perhaps some sort of audio feedback or screen flashing telling you when you lose a life - but then again, having to discover the rules of the game by yourself with trial and error really brings out the spirit of old arcade games.

Avizial responds:

Glad to hear you loved it! :)

We had a lot of back-and-forth in regards to certain aspects of design. Whether to sacrifice some of the retro aesthetic to appeal to a more modern crowd or take a risk staying faithful to older styles of play.

We are retro at heart and it is nice to see someone appreciate older styles of gameplay and figuring out the rules.

But we are here if any players need some tips or tricks.

Thanks for playing our game! We hope to hear from you in future titles!

[Samurai Adventure]

I kind of like it?
I'm kind of not sure why it's called an RPG though, it's not like you actually get to choose much about your character during the game - it's much closer to an action-adventure game like Zelda. Mind you, as a Zelda-like, it doesn't look particularly bad. It's a bit on the simple side, but sometimes simple is all you need.
Only gripe I'd have is that navigation in the world is a bit hard since all areas are vast and use the same tileset, so they start blending together after a while, but I guess it adds to the challenge, and fits with the retro style, since older exploration-driven games like Zelda or Metroid didn't have built-in maps - though perhaps having smaller, more memorable rooms that use different colors or different tilesets or have unique names could help - something like Jet Set Willy or VVVVVV used to do.

SirenGames responds:

Thanks! I'll clarify in the description for future players, but this game was made in 24 hours by me and me alone (except for the music tracks). I was restricted to using 3 colors, yellow, red and white with a black background.

Also it's an RPG because you level up and increase stats as you play, which brings it out of a Zelda-like and into the realm of RPG I thought.

If I had more time I would definitely have added new tilesets and content, but 24 hours isn't a lot of time to make a game from scratch, so this is all I could cram in.

[I am the ninja]

Eh, it's okay.
Hint: generally, it's better to try to introduce players to new mechanics in safe environment. Otherwise, player having to guess e.g. what jumping robots do and dying because of something they couldn't predict, frustrates them.
Similarly, first encounter with chains (that I thought were just decorative background) screwed up my jump and made me die - for no fault of my own.
E.g. - compare how in Super Meat Boy in couple first levels you can SEE the buzzsaw obstacle, but you can't get hurt by it until level 6 - and before, player would encounter the buzzsaw in Warp Zone minigame level before that, letting them find out what it does, in a way that does not hinder them from continuing the game.

Also it's a good idea to ensure that player HAS to know all basic mechanics from the get go - I died multiple times in level 3 before realizing double jump exists (in second level, I managed to get up on the ledge with precise walljumping).

What else? Eh, some loose hints - when player dies, position and status of all objects in the level should DEFINITELY reset, otherwise levels where player has to figure out pattern of multiple moving obstacles get kinda confusing over time. It'd be also good if, once player dies, they'd have to press the button to restart - this gives player time to calm down from rage after dying, and pressing the button is a concious decision to continue, making player more determined - minor detail, but it works pretty well in hard games like Hotline Miami. Just a thing to consider.

All in all, not a bad game. Definitely some care and effort was put int it.

Frozennnn responds:

Hello thanks for the feedback and nice review i will have all in mind for the second part

[Sentry Knight Conquest]

Look, I can give this game that it has some real cool design. Definitely someone has taken a page from design of Doom, since it has orthogonal unit differentiation (layman terms: each enemy is actually behaving different from each other, instead of just dealing more damage or taking more hits). However, I'd say game is still slightly flawed and could use improvement in some areas.

First of all, game is too chaotic. Game area is tiny, monsters and bullets are huge, and there's so much shit happening at all times! Like, my first introduction to the exploding demon bat enemy was when something I didn't even notice exploded into my face, and I thought what the hell was happening.
For the record, that is not a good thing.

Second, the game isn't superbly thought out in the way it presents its design to the player. Game is clearly inspired by bullet hell games, but hitboxes of bullets, explosions, and enemies are extremely vague and unclear - the only way to figure them out is by trial and error, which is hard due to chaos onscreen. Worst of all, your character moves extremely slow, and there are pond areas which make you even slower, which requires you to plan your every move carefully in advance - which is just not freaking possible considering that enemies can spawn literally EVERYWHERE on the screen, and half of enemies do a special attack on their death, so killing enemies isn't even always advantageous - and with clunky aiming and chaos onscreen it's almost impossible to aim your shots precisely to decide when you want to kill enemies.

Why did I encounter those? Because I freaking refuse to upgrade my HP - more on that later. In fact, upgrade system is one of the pointless, stupid ones where it's impossible to pick your way to play, instead you're expected just to buy whatever you have money for instead of deliberately picking certain upgrades geared for a certain strategy.

For example, in games like this I prefer to be extremely fragile, but fast, small and deal a lot of damage - and this is ALMOST possible! If you could upgrade your speed, and firing speed - since you already can upgrade your hitbox and damage - but again, upgrade system is geared towards you upgrading everything at the same speed, since upgrade price rises exorbitantly with each one.

Why is that a problem? Right now, there is only one way to play this game - the way developers intended. Have a lots of HP, tank a lot of hits, use spells a lot. And that's okay, that's decent. But the game could be truly good, or even great, if each player could pick what playstyle they want - for example, someone could be this slow tank with lots of HP that regenerates quickly and uses spells - but another might want to use only their gun, and be extremely fast and small knight with a huge hitbox.

That's what separates good from the great - when you look at every Deus Ex, Doom, System Shock, Starcraft, Street Fighter player - you will find that these games DON'T have a single optimal strategy, that each player prefers to deal with stuff in different ways. And that, to me, is what signifies a great game (or at least, game with a great gameplay).

Tyler responds:

I never played Doom but thanks for the review. Will keep it in mind for my next action game. Always working to improve.

[Escape the Volcano Dungeon of Dread!]

Look, game design advice - it seems your idea of raising difficulty seems to be limiting the player. Throughout the game you need to wait as the screen scrolls, then there are the orange blocks - look, game design advice - this just doesn't feel right in a video game. In general, it's better to add multiple systems and let player come up with interesting solutions to problems you create. And this applies to every game, look even at classics like Megaman - you can pick many paths through the game, and sometimes even through the levels themselves, fight bosses in different order, you decide what weapons and items you want to acquire when, and how and when to use them limited only by weapon ammo system - even when there were autoscroller levels they were few and far in between, a break from the more open rest of the levels. Same goes for other classics like Zelda or Metroid, just even harder - and hell, even Super Mario Bros had more gameplay depth between different powerups radically changing gameplay, secrets and warp zones, ability to play as Luigi in Lost Levels and generally deciding whether to go fast or slowly, and whether to try to engage enemies and risk getting hit in the process, or try to avoid them and risk getting hit in the back - reflected in game design, every castle boss could be defeated by being fireballed to death or by being dodged and taking the axe. Worst levels in Super Mario Bros? Water levels where you were usually unarmed and in constant danger, and you didn't have the tools to deal with that danger anymore.

Here, your idea of creating a challenge is to give player very little tools to deal with challenges ahead, and then at certain points limit player's options even more (make him wait for the orange blocks to touch lava, place enemies in a way that you can't skip them, make player guess what's ahead, and so on.) The only emotion it creates is frustration - and if you're intentionally trying to create a game about frustration, like maker of VVVVVV did, then it's fine. But I don't feel like that was the goal here, you were trying to create "challenging but fun" game and simply missed the mark.

It's especially annoying since some stuff is done well - introduction of new gameplay mechanics is done well and in self-explanatory way, and visual style is pretty neat, feeling faithful to the NES aesthetic. Controls are tight, music is good - just work on our design skills and you have potential to create some great games.

Gypopothomas responds:

Thanks for the feedback, lad. Some interesting points that I totally agree with. I'll save them to my brain's system memory for future projects.

[Slaughtergun]

Guns suck.
No honestly, just firerate/spread is not enough to randomize weapons. I mean, if there were different kinds of damage (rocket/acid/ice etc.), different range, special effects - then why not. But now, you only need one gun - something with good spread and good damage - which renders ten slots kinda redundant.
Also, names could help identify the guns.
BTW, how is DPS even counted? To target hit by one of the bullets? Assuming all bullets hit a target?
Enemies suck.
They're nothing original - some are faster, some are tougher, some shoot bullets. Done a thousand times. No different species, no weaknesses, nothing. They're dumb and easy to kill.
Arenas suck.
Or should I say ARENA? Since there's one, and very small. And it is too small to allow any tactic beyond "keep the far away with something fast and dodge bullets".
Summarizing - game is severely flawed. If you intended it as alpha/beta of sorts, just a check if the engine works, then I say it was successful. But as full game, it falls flat.

WarpZone responds:

Thanks for the feedback.

Totally with you on the weapon names, and I thought about naming the rooms, too. The way DPS works right now, yes, it assumes all shots hit an enemy. It's less about finding a situational weapon and more about finding a weapon the suits your play-style, advancing a few rooms, then replacing it with a better one as the enemies get stronger. I'll think about elemental damage types though.

You're right that 10 slots is overkill. The fact that people are interpreting these all as shotguns tells me I definitely focused too much on spread as a means of differentiating them. In fact, the system as it stands now can produce machine guns and sniper rifles, it just tends to produce some type of hybrid most of the time. Maybe I'll change it so it decides what real-world category of weapon it's making first, and classify all the weapons that way before generating stats. I could do something different with the graphics, too, so you can tell at a glance what's a shotgun, automatic rifle, or pistol.

Scrolling levels are out of the question with this engine, but maybe I could pull the camera back a bit so everything's smaller. I felt like this scale was a good trade-off between graphics and maneuverability, but I'm open to changing it if you think it would improve gameplay. What type of tactical gameplay were you expecting, use of cover? Exploration? Send me a message about this.

More advanced enemies are coming, including bosses.

Thanks again. You really drilled down to the specifics with your review. Fact is, I had a beta test going on, but almost nobody was participating, so I decided to just release it as-is and get feedback that way. Thanks again.

[Probability 0 (demo)]

Idea is not bad. Biggest problem is, not much is clear. I won't eve pretend I have any idea how health system works. Also, stars limit and falling damage seem like maybe not the best possible choices in game with randomly generated levels.
See, as much as I like the art style, game is confusing, ad brings no effort to educate player on how it should be played.

Droqen responds:

Thanks for the feedback! :)

I'd just like to point out that limited stars and falling damage are arguably the primary factors in making the randomly-generated levels worthwhile.

I agree that the game doesn't do the best job of teaching new players exactly what to do. It's hard on them, demanding that they make some logical leaps on their own. Eventually you run into enemies you have to figure out on your own anyway, so maybe it's a lesson for the future? I don't know! :)

[Stickformer [DEMO!]]

A) Get some music and sounds (from NG Audio Portal, or Freesound.org)
B) Make sure that players die if they fall (surround the map with trigger that kills you and restarts the level?)
C) Make sure there is some way to know which objects are fake. Having to guess "which block ahead is fake" with no hints or logic behind it is no fun. It's tedious.
D) Physics (collisions) suck to the point where game is unplayable.
E) Don't respond to criticisms "it's a demo". We know it. People tell what is bad in the game so you'll know what to fix in the full version.

hamza62240 responds:

OK, I am working on the restart box, more levels, bug fixes, fake object hints and more.

But sorry, i cannot fix the sound one cause i do not even know how to add sounds and i dunno why, YouTube is banned in my country O.O

[ir/rational Redux]

Good idea, but leaps of logic are horrifying. How does protagonist even knows a) he's actually alive b) he's actually human? It kinda defeats the point of making game about person in state of philosophical uncertainty - protagonist's stance is heavily ignorant, too much relying on what is familiar, and complete inverse of philosophical one.
Also, there seem to be problems with controls, especially with the buttons and dropdowns. Honestly - people (amateurs) out there are making games with split second ten-button-at-once-pressed commands, and you fail at making a goddamn dropdown, interface standard that's been used in software since 90's? And we're in 2010's? That's a fail.
Also, I'm disappointed at the story. Or more like, lack of it.

tjubert responds:

Agreed. The sequel will be better!