MLScherbatov's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pawns of the Hallow - Mini]

this is fun, but i have a lot of notes.

you should not give us a character holding a sword and a shield that cant attack... i realize we pick up a weapon pretty quickly but it's unclear that we didnt already have one. This lacks an intro or tutorial as well and thus is very confusing at first.

there is little to no sound or visual effects for taking damage (it only seems to happen for certain enemies or obstacles but not for most of them) and thus i was down to 1 hp bar from just walking into the dracula dude trying to figure out if he would talk to me or if he was an enemy. maybe think about vibrating the screen and knocking us back 1 space when we take damage to avoid losing the game from just accidentally holding down WAS or D instead of the arrow keys to aim, cus that happened to me like twice before i started just avoiding the combat.

i had no idea whether that was water or lava or an entrance to a new room at the beginning because everything is basically the same color/texture. when introducing damaging terrain the first time you should probably put a signpost there that says "warning! toxic sludge!" or something, and then later add it in as an obstacle once we are familiar with it. a few levels afterwards you hit us with a different type of ground that also has the exact same damage effect, still without warning. you should think about showing the player which types of terrain damage us and which dont. it becomes abundantly clear which parts are safe after a few rounds of "you can only step on the tile that looks slightly different", but before that it could be introduced more smoothly, IMO.

if im not really doing anything besides opening doors and talking to people with the action key, i feel like it'd be a lot easier if we just activated that automatically when we walked up to those people/objects. i also found myself unable to speak to the guy who gives you the first weapon unless i was standing below him, so i assumed that the controls just werent working when i couldnt use the action or attack buttons.
the lever in the dark room doesnt work unless you're next to it, and it looks like it has a face on it, so i spent about a full minute trying to shoot it from below before realizing that it was just an issue with the action button again, but from a different angle.

once i had figured out the control scheme/gotten a weapon, the enemies were all too easy/ they moved back and forth a little bit but i found that i really didnt take any damage at all unless i walked directly into them. they also completely avoided spaces with gems on them, and seemed to even run away from the player most of the time, so given that the combat is so stilted and there doesnt seem to be any stat system or method of gaining xp, i opted to avoid all of them for most of the game.

you need a scheme where both hands can comfortably sit on the keyboard without having to shift positions, or personally i cant have much fun playing this. why not switch the arrow keys to shoot in the direction they point instead of just aiming, and change the action button to spacebar? it would immediately solve the issue of not being able to aim+ move at the same time. i would also have a lot more fun with this if i could hold down the movement keys instead of pressing them over and over v. rapidly.

the music stopped after about 5 mins. im not sure if it's set to loop at all, actually. if so it only looped 2-3 times tops.

i accidentally went backwards through a door and found that they took me to the beginning of each area, not actually to the place where that door was located in the previous area, so after a few attempts to go back to the latest area, i ended up nearly at the beginning of the game with every enemy respawned.... needless to say this was very frustrating. i kept trying and picked up some more gems and potions, which were helpful i guess (i still dont know what the gems do), but then when i hit the room with the 4 bear/cat things, the portal didnt open after i killed them and i was stuck. tbh i am not sure i have the patience to replay this again given that i basically just did the entire game up to this point twice and ran into a 2nd game breaking glitch...

i actually enjoyed this a lot, but this is where i've gotta call it quits. i hope you get some of these issues fixed up (although i know some of the things i brought up are a matter of personal preference). good work!

thekmanproductions responds:

OMG, this was very helpful to me! I am VERY new to RPG games, so this is what I needed! I have already updated most the errors you mentioned, but I just got this after I uploaded it.. so now have more to fix, which is good!! :D

"the music stopped after about 5 mins. im not sure if it's set to loop at all, actually. if so it only looped 2-3 times tops. " -- I had no idea and will look into it as soon as possible

"i accidentally went backwards through a door and found that they took me to the beginning of each area, not actually to the place where that door was located in the previous area, so after a few attempts to go back to the latest area, i ended up nearly at the beginning of the game with every enemy respawned.... needless to say this was very frustrating." -- I had no idea I did this and quite frankly, I have no idea why I did this! I will fix this immediately!

"there doesnt seem to be any stat system or method of gaining xp, i opted to avoid all of them for most of the game." -- Why the hell didn't I add this from the start!!! lol This will be implemented on the next update!

As for all the other bugs, I will be making sure to fix them. :D Thank you SOO much!! This is what I needed!!! :) +Respect (I will also credit you for the help) :D

[The last realm of mankind]

i cant even see most of the stuff on the screen because the resolution is so low.
there is little to no tutorial and what was there was 2 confusing lines of text that didnt even really tell me how to play the game
controls were ridiculous and didnt respond 90% of the time
this game is just confusing and frustrating and i can barely read the font with 20/20 vision.

is this seriously just one battle over and over again? and how do you have 4 stars when there are only 2 reviews and one is 0 and the other is 1.5???
im sry but this is mediocre and barely playable

music was good.

[The New World]

this is really, really hollow. i think it's a good idea but i'd much rather be playing oregon trail, for instance. all i did was set rations and water to half and give a speech every few days and i literally ran into 0 obstacles. There's no point to the game when all i do is click an hourglass and get the same "X miles traveled" each time.
for christ's sake, give someone cholera or something
wtf
like this wasnt a bad game but it's really, really unfinished. there's just no detail and no action whatsoever. you could add like a few different routes as well as having different ships, have a few basic supplies or something, maybe have a battle along the way at some point? ive seen other games from hoplite that employ stuff like this and im utterly disappointed in this title. sry, but this is not a finished game. the art and music are good, but i dont understand how anyone could find this shallow content engaging.

[Battle Sails]

the only major flaw i found was that i was unable to retreat from battles, and there didnt seem to be any way of checking how strong someone was without either attacking with a full fleet or sending in a scout that would inevitably die.
otherwise this is tite.

[Cursed Islands]

this is pretty great. simple, fun, and engaging. im kind of confused about what the experience does, but other than that i love this.
are there areas that have more str enemies or areas that have more magic? as far as i could tell it seemed to be somewhat even, and i'd like if i could go to one place to train one specific attribute.
i got the speed boots and was kinda hoping they'd make my character move faster instead of just increase the escape chance, because i never really ran away from anything aside from the first few battles.
i got the health amulet but i wasnt sure if it actually did anything at first. i like that it increases max life but i feel like it should also heal 2 as it does so. (for example in skyrim, boosting max hp also heals u for the same amount)
sometimes when grinding i'd accidentally click run because i was already left clicking in that location to move when the enemy popped up. im not sure if there is a way to ensure it wont select an option until it's been squarely clicked, but that'd be nice. it didnt cause any major problems for me, but if the difficulty was higher it'd be a p. big issue. it mostly happened in the little forest near the floating castle, because that's like right where the fight menu pops up.
SPOILER ALERT SRY SPOILERS AHEAD
i liked that the game wasnt too hard, but it'd be better if you made the final boss a little stronger. the enemies right before the fortress are just about as strong as the boss is, and the only real bonus he has is that he's got like 5 lives or something. it'd feel a lot more rewarding if the chances of beating him were a little slimmer and maybe you had to respawn in the village nearby after dying with a little less strength or something. i had like 35 str 37 magic by the time i was able to figure out where to get the acorn, so the battle was just a few clicks more than any other enemy.

also, the game should auto save after beating the final boss. i'd dropped like 8 from each stat because i hadnt saved immediately before the battle when i went to hit continue. it'd be really cool if there were a few more things to do in the map once you take over, like visit the towns and maybe idk fight one more big monster. i guess there's room for that in a sequel (pls??? pls.) tho.

anyways, great game. gave you a follow, and i hope to see more soon :)

[Magic Ball Billiard]

i love pool games tbh, but this needs some work.

i suggest you either add a line to show where the ball aims, or you stop allowing the cue to rotate while drawing back. when coupled with the black background, it's impossible to tell whether you're still aiming at the right spot sometimes.
most pool games require the player to draw back the cue by moving the mouse after clicking, and my muscle memory is making this game really really difficult to play given that ive been using that control scheme since i was in 4th grade lol
colors/background are nice (i know where u got that pic from lol)

yeh... overall this is visually appealing but i'd much rather play the miniclip version because after quite a few earnest attempts, im still finding it way too difficult to aim. especially given that my mouse is lightweight and tends to move slightly when i click it, it doesnt really even make a difference if i aim perfectly. this scheme still makes me miss :/

i hope u get this fixed up.

[Another planet 3]

i slid off the edge of a platform without having pressed any directional buttons. also i'd prefer if the gravity were set a little bit higher. otherwise this seems pretty fun so far. IMO the level should auto-restart after death, but that's not really a big deal. I noticed i didnt actually need boxes to cross the smaller lava pits, and it seemed like i was supposed to need them in a few puzzles where they didnt end up being necessary.
i think you have some issues with the edges of your platforms in general, as well as with walking on slanted objects. i keep falling off of things because it seems like the jump wont work while im sliding, meaning that if i try to jump off of something and maximize my distance as would normally be the best thing to do in most platformers, i dont even jump and instead i end up falling.

im not sure how the score is supposed to be working here. i get negative points nearly every time despite winning with 1 death or less consistently. im not really playing for a high score so that's fine, but it seems a little weird.

maybe consider adding a few more tokens to grab? a lot of games that use this kind of design have a 3 star rating system for each level and collecting all 3 tokens or w/e gives easter eggs.

some objects (especially the largest size of boxes and the wooden boards) routinely took more than one shot to grab. it just didnt seem to want to pick them up a lot of the time.

i definitely found a few shortcuts so far. i'm assuming they were meant to be there, but im not sure, so i figured i'd mention it. a lot of the time i didnt even have to solve the puzzle cus i could jump thru the floor somewhere or stack boxes until i could surpass w/e obstacle was supposed to be there

i got the gem a few times but was killed by the shooter pod thingies before the level ended - this didnt happen in the one level where you were forced to run away from one down a dead end hallway to get the gem fortunately, but it happened in lvl 15 because i jumped as i picked the gem up.

game froze on level 16 and i was unable to restart or use my gun, but could walk and jump normally.

when i set boxes on buttons they often got stuck and couldnt be picked up again.

i really feel like i should be able to jump while on top of the wheel. it took me a while to even realize that it wasnt just the game glitching out lol ... the wheel also pretty frequently fell off of the level without me even touching it. its good that it rolls around a lot, but it definitely shouldnt fall by itself.

holy frick level 20 was hard.

fun game - took me a little longer than expected. i'd like to see some more complex puzzles in the future, but i liked it as is, too. keep up the good work

[Machiavellian Suns]

when selecting enemies in combat, a double click shouldnt send me to the info screen. it just slows the game down. if anything the faction info should show up first and then the 2nd click should confirm attack/trade/etc... every time im about to attack i reflexively double click the icon and i think the current menu system is pretty unwieldy.

also, im not sure if the combat is randomized, but im sick of losing battles where the opponent has like 20 ships and i have 70. it makes sense every once in a while, but this happened 3 times in a row in the 2nd mission. i couldnt kill the sheep no matter how many ships i had or how few they did. especially when there is a turn limit on these matches and winning requires long term planning, it's simply unacceptable for this kind of thing to happen. i prepared an army for the entire match, and especially given that ships are the only way to actually win, it was incredibly frustrating to lose 50 ships in 2 rounds when i had like 1 turn left to win. if you're going for roguelike gameplay, i guess that's one thing, but in this context i think its nothing but irritating to throw a curveball at the player like that.

i enjoy games like this but it seems like there are a few balance issues. given that the ships have been so unreliable for me, i would really like to see an alternate avenue of victory. we have trade, but no currency other than ships, and i think perhaps if the levels could be completed by buying the enemy planet or through negotiating their surrender, the game would be a lot more fun. what about if instead of just having 1 dimensional trade agreements/alliances, you implemented a simple loyalty system and factions who reached max loyalty would be considered a victory and/or give bonus ships or currency thru trades?

[Where is cat?]

i had to refresh the page twice before the game would start. the game itself was simple and amusing. good job :)

[Infinity Inc]

the only complaint i have is that jumping upwards into narrow spaces/ onto platforms that only give one block of headroom above them is far too unforgiving. the first time i was confronted with 3 lasers and a crawlspace above them, i literally made like 20 attempts to get above into the crawlspace and found it to be p. much impossible. of course i can just make clones for those lasers, but it really seemed like you were trying to give us a choice, whereas there rly was no option other than killing a bunch of the clones. this issue didnt really cause many problems until the levels that really required proper timing, where i felt like i had to make a lot more attempts than was necessary just because i was unable to jump into the areas that i needed to consistently. anyways, this is great. I'm on chrome if that makes a difference - maybe im getting lag on the inputs or something and that's why it seems like such a crap shoot on the double jumps. keep up the good work.