MLScherbatov's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Light In The Dark]

seems pretty solid. i think the sound could use a little work, tho. it goes from completely silent to very loud very abruptly in the beginning of the game, and although the music itself is good and the sounds are on point, i think they could be EQed to be a little less harsh or at least quieter.
im sure this is because you're going for a retro feel, but i think the jump has just a teensy bit too much air time and that it makes the game seem a bit slower. its not necessarily a bad thing, but the game might be more exciting if it was faster paced.

GamekrazzyProduction responds:

Thanks for your review!

I don't know what you are talking about when you say the game goes from "silent" to very loud... unless you are referring to the loading screen, as I couldn't put any sounds in there as the more objects in the loader layout, the longer the original loader is which looks tacky.... I honestly didn't even want the original one at all, but I felt that showing the controls there was necessary.

The jump height is based off of how long the button is held, and one way I think I can make it still feel faster paced would be to add an aerial attack, which I did not implement due to time constrictions.

[Guitar Hero]

im 99% sure this game is broken due to a glitch.
i have a red and yellow key, ive explored every location i can possibly reach in game, i have both awards and two coins so far, but this chest behind the safe will not open no matter what i do. ive literally been going back and forth tapping x everywhere i possibly can for over 10 minutes and i am forced to assume the game itself is faulty. seems like a decent platformer, but im just stuck and i have jumped on every platform and tried every door and object at least 10x by now. i hope you get this fixed....
FYI i think the issue is that im unable to reach the ground next to the chest, and can only sit on top of it after jumping over the safe. perhaps this was broken in an attempt to fix the issue with walking off the edge of the screen - im not sure...

Munguia responds:

Im 100% sure you only did a 80% of game, i will give you a clue: Z Z Z
anyway check my latest post for details.
Don´t loose your mind, is only a game.
Thanks For comment

[TrapTower]

jump button did nothing, clicking or x. you should really think about allowing A and D to act as the left and right arrows. nobody is going to use the mouse with the arrow keys - its just not standard and WASD + the mouse is very much what is comfortable and acceptable for most players.
i'll come back in a few days and check this to see if it's playable by then, but refreshing the page didnt help anything so i have yet to actually begin any kind of gameplay other than switching characters... im using chrome if that makes any difference, but i find that generally when my browser is the issue the games dont even load as opposed to being broken in some way.
good luck with this... i see a lot of other people had the same problem and that you are actively troubleshooting, so i wont blam this despite being kind of frustrated by it. 3 stars because i feel like it might be a good game if it worked lol

LIDgames responds:

A and D as left and right arrows have been added thanks to your suggestion. No more mouse input, jumping can be done by X, Z, up arrow, or space. Thanks!

[GRAND ADVENTURE!]

this is really cool and im enjoying it immensely, but i have quite a few complaints as well. (they're in order of how i encountered them, so bear with me if this is a little disorganized)

1. you've gotta add a button to accelerate the cut scenes and text... it takes way too long and i had to refresh the page more than once due to my sound card issues (which made me have to replay the intro over and over again). also, you could think about having the text pop up in the background while still allowing the player to move. it's very tedious to scroll through this stuff when most of the puzzles are relatively self explanatory.

2. saves didnt seem to work at all, and the menu controls were really weird/ it was far too easy to accidentally select the wrong file even if they did actually load properly.

3. a sprint button would be really nice. walk speed is far too slow in general given that there isnt much to look at besides specific objects and single frame animations (which are cool, but the lack of animations otherwise doesnt justify the slow move speed) and its ridiculous that you'd slow the move speed even further for certain sequences. that's like running dwarf fortress at 1/4 speed... its pointless because the whole game is about the actors and how they interact, not making the player stare at them for extended lengths of time. past this, these slowed down sequences come right before a difficult battle like 100% of the time, making them much more likely to be repeated multiple times and making them dozens of times more irritating as a result.

4. z, x, and spacebar are not really the best places to put the controls. i cant figure out which fingers to put where, man. think about changing spacebar to c, at least.
transition from top down to platformer was a bit weird. i like that a lot of games have been doing this, but it needs some kind of an explanation (magic gemstone or something... this is a fantasy game so it shouldnt be hard to fabricate a plot device or a flash of light or something)

5. again, the text really gets in the way of the game. during the boss battle with the spider everything feels incredibly choppy because of how rapidly the game switches between the animations and the gameplay, as well as the fact that i shouldnt have to wait 5 seconds after every attack on the boss to read text that wouldnt take a second. yes, it's good for atmosphere and i like the script, but it's poorly executed and makes the battle frustrating. there are just altogether too many instances where the player is frozen or slowed down for no good reason while the game continues to progress around you. it'd be one thing if i had to get my blade unstuck from the webbing each time i attack, but instead it seems to be just an arbitrary waiting period. if you give the player something to do here, this wouldnt be so aggravating, but leaving me to sit on top of the spider for no reason while enemies advance is simply not skill based difficulty and isnt entertaining or challenging in any real way.

6. climbing ladders was a bit weird and i felt like the jump should have been a separate keystroke than just holding up at the top. it worked and all but it was sort of strange.

7. the moving torch or brazier or whatever that was repeatedly got stuck on the black structure in the forest, and i had to keep leaving the area and coming back to retrieve it. you should add a small buffer area that can be walked on but that the torches cant enter, much like most sliding block puzzles (see top down zelda games)

8. i know you mentioned that the 2nd boss is too hard, but wow, man.... that is just not fun. you should at least give the player a few life points as a cushion (like 3 hearts or whatever?) i feel like we all need a little bit of time to learn how to deal with the ghost's movement patterns, and i dont even feel like you need to nerf the boss much if you did this.

ill message with more later

Emptygoddess responds:

Thanks for the feedback.

[No One Was Here]

this is amazing. that said, i have a couple of criticisms. i felt like sometimes i was allowed to run into fans and at other times they killed me. what exactly is the rule here?? also, i think you could make the radius a teensy bit bigger, cus some of this stuff was really frustrating, and there were a few times where i felt my jump was a little bit unresponsive. other than that, i love it. keep up the good work.

jeremyaburns responds:

Thanks for the feedback! The fans should kill you any time you touch them, but in reverse time they actually suck you in so they are much harder to avoid.

[Pappalaatsa]

the sound is really far too abrasive, but the background is ok. rocks are far too common and difficult to get over, center of gravity for the bike is too high, and balance controls are oversensitive as well as unresponsive at times, essentially making this unplayable. i wish you the best of luck finishing this because i can see you did it in 5 hours which is pretty cool, but it definitely needs a little work. upgrades would be cool, too. check out dream bike racing 2 for some ideas - i think it got things right in ways that might help u out

Pipeweed responds:

Thank you! Yes i was making the terrain generator for a worms style game but decided to give it a try with this classic Finnish moped "pappa (grandpa)" tunturi... :D I will make version 1.2 with everything you asked to fix. PEACE!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mnjE3-l0IQ

[Drink Beer, Neglect Family]

this looks really cool but its entirely too frustrating without a jump button. i couldnt even get past the first family picture in 5 tries and that really doesnt push my buttons right. challenging is one thing, and you could even take the jump away as a beer effect, but as it is this is just ridiculous. all i can do is fall downwards and i can barely make it back up, and the second beer keeps spawning at inacessible locations. my first beer is never a problem but i frequently got the ladder debuff as my second beer, making it essentially impossible to accomplish anything at that point. i repeatedly dropped through platforms without pressing the down key as well. idk how anyone rated this highly, and im sure it's funny and everything but im assuming something is going wrong here (google chrome, win8)

esayitch responds:

There is a jump button.

It is Z.

I do take the jump button away as a beer effect. It says so on the top left corner.

All locations are accessible. It is designed that way.

You drop through platforms only when you have an effect called "You fall off of bridges".

Everything works as intended. That's why everyone rated it highly. You failed to read the flashing text when you got a beer.

[Straw Hat Samurai: Duels]

too much clicking and tedious dialogue, too little ingenuity or skill involved in the combat. it seems to be mostly luck and you really need to have more than just one click controls in order to make a game that's in any way challenging or entertaining.

lutc responds:

Combat is very much skill based, especially in higher-levelled PvP duels, and when not using autoslash. (The purpose of autoslash is to help beginners get started and used to combat)

[Arizona Joe]

why would u use j???? that is really weird dude you should probably consider switching to z and x or maybe shift and z... as it is i have to place my hands in a strange position to operate the game

Stairs were oversensitive and i often lost progress simply due to the lack of wiggle room in small levels where i'd accidentally run into the stairs or door. think about having the player press a key to access them (e, maybe)
it was unclear what the upgrades did or if they even did anything.
im not sure what the point of having a counter for your bombs was, because i never ran out and it seemed like the only restriction was how many you could place at once
the first level with crypts needs a fence or for the trees to be closer together or at least modified in some way. the trees clearly leave enough space in between them for the player to walk through but it seems like you just used an invisible wall and it's frustrating to be backed into a corner unexpectedly in this sort of game, especially with the checkpoint so far away on a level as big as this
overall collision was a bit fishy, and i would get stuck on corners and various objects that should not logically impede movement, so you should probably shrink your hitboxes or round off corners to avoid problems with getting hit by your own bombs or backed into corners too easily when the player runs into these hurdles

baneguin responds:

Hey MLScherbatov, thanks for all the great feedback! We acted on most of your suggestions (all were very awesome). On the dev branch you press c to travel through doors, stairs etc.

About the control setup, I totally agree. I'm not familiar with flash game standards, so bear with me. I changed it to use arrow keys for movement, z for bombs, x for pickup/throw, and c to travel with space/tab remaining the same. Let us know if that's better for you.

Let me explain the bomb counter, because this has been an issue even with our in-person play testers. This is the number of bombs you can have active at any one time. I understand this isn't obvious, nor necessarily relevant to be successful in the game. There's nothing much we can do about it except maybe decrease the beginning bomb count and offer more upgrades as the game goes on.

Concerning the crypt, I agree that the tree collision feels pretty fishy, that's why we fixed it up.

We have had some troubles with the hitbox (especially when fitting into a one tile space). That's why I adjusted it to be smaller, and to be centered at the character's foot.

U da man with all this great feedback.

[Vermin Desert Range]

regardless of the help button, i still think you need to make it more clear which things you are supposed to shoot. it really made no sense...

gintasdx responds:

Yeah, I guess I need to make a tutorial stage or make more interactive help.