MLScherbatov's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[TINY BUD ADVENTURES]

we should be able to move while the instructions are on the screen. i refreshed the page before realizing that i just had to click the text to continue, because i thought the controls just weren't working. nbd, but it might be offputting to some players. first impressions are important, especially on a site like this where a lot of games can be kinda unfinished/untested/broken.

we should just press space to continue when we die. there's no reason to make us press another key that isnt already in the control scheme. also, the music should probably keep playing even while that "press a to continue" is there. this game is very chill and the audio is a big part of that, so making it cut off kinda kills the mood, especially because right after we've failed is probably the time that we'd need calming music the most.

having limited lives is a good way to challenge the player, but i think maybe you should make the first few levels a little easier so we can get the hang of things. i lost like all of my lives on 1x4 because it was so hard to get used to the limited length of the jump. these first few levels should be tutorial so that we can ease into the more difficult parts of the game. it's no fun having to do the first 3 over again when they're so 1 dimensional, especially because it makes us redo the first level which is 100% tutorial.

i think you should really consider having a health bar or giving us a few chances, maybe have the spikes knock us back when we touch them but we only die instantly from falling. the game is just really frustrating in it's current state, and it shouldnt be given how simple it is.

i agree with pretty much everything said in previous reviews. im still stuck on 1x4 after 3 runs, and im just not so motivated to finish the game when it's already this aggravating at such an early stage. the visuals and the sound are really great, and i think this could be a great game, but there are a lot of reasons why it failed to keep my attention

PRGAMES responds:

Hi MLScherbatov

I Really Thank you for your detailed Review

This being my first game I might have missed out on a lot of things
but i will shortly (will try within 2 days ) come with a lot of changes

Thanks

[Astral Crashers]

you have some issues with the scrolling - if my cursor leaves the window, the game should just behave as if it were still just on the edge of the screen and continue to scroll. as it is, it just stops moving when i leave the window, so i have to walk a tight rope or i cant really control the game. it frequently outright scrolls in the wrong direction, too. this is a big issue because in an RTS its important to be able to smoothly view everything that's going on. i cant really do that with this setup, because it can take me up to 5 seconds just to move the camera a few inches.

the first level with oil extractors gives me a bunch of e-bots, but i cant mine with them until the oil extractor is finished. it's good to have objectives and to teach us how to play the game gradually, but if the enemy is building their base during this time, we've lost the opportunity to mine extra resources. im sure you are familiar with the concept that the first few minutes of the game are the most important, as everything grows somewhat exponentially from there. this isnt game breaking but it didnt make a lot of sense, especially when i can only build with one e-bot, and i had another half dozen standing there doing nothing while i waited for the oil extractor to finish.

i paused the game for a few minutes to make some food and the music had stopped playing when i got back. it still plays in the menu but there is nothing but SFX when i unpause. i'd much prefer it was the other way around lol

given the camera issues and some problems with unresponsiveness/ the screen moving while im trying to select units, its pretty much impossible to actually follow your tip of moving dying units to the back. also, there are no formations and everything seems to have the same movement speed, so the units are going to arrange themselves however they want. right now it seems that the only way to play this game is make a big group of units and tell them to attack move to the enemy base, because trying to implement any real strategy is ineffective and backwards due to the difficulty of controlling the units.

i feel like the attack move should prioritize enemy units. if i told you to blow up an enemy base, you wouldnt just shoot the buildings that dont have any weapons first, you'd shoot the ones that were shooting you. a lot of the time my units seemed to just be standing there letting themselves get killed and not retaliating.

after harvesting, e-bots only go back all the way to my initial pivot, even if i have built a new pivot right next to the new group of crystals. its also completely pointless to create more than one base because it takes an extremely long time to build and the resources never run out, so theres no reason to seek more crystals because i always spawn directly next to a bunch of them.

basically this game is just a carbon copy of starcraft with a ton of glitches, only one race, and extremely slow/ basic gameplay. it's fun, but i have starcraft. honestly you've made a pretty solid game, but after playing 4 levels, i really dont have any reason to keep playing this. starcraft 1 is simply superior in every way, unfortunately, and its really easy to find for free nowadays. i dont mean to be overly critical, but if you're going to make a game inspired by another game, you have to add more to it or use some unique graphics or dialogue, not leave out a bunch of aspects of the original and pretty much copy all of the art and game mechanics

moligames responds:

Thank you, write so many recommendations about the game.
This game is one of my attempts.
Due to limitations of personal energy, there are much to be improved.
I will improve the game mechanics in the new game!

[Why The Woods Whisper]

you have some glitches with the dialogue boxes/captions either covering the drawings so we cant see them, or layering on top of each other. if i double click a trash can that has the option to search it, i have two stacked up sets of the yes/no options. also if a text box is open and i access the menu, it stays on the screen and covers up menu buttons. this isnt game breaking, but its irritating and kinda sloppy. also for one of the explanations of the newspapers i clicked 1 time and it skipped through like 10 clicks worth of description lol

when i found the shoe, the game basically instructed me to go return it home, but i had already placed my newspapers into the trash can. when i got to the first area of the woods, i tried to go home with the shoe, but it said i cant until i go to the cabin. when i tried to leave the area, i couldnt because "there was a piece of trash on the ground" i.e. the newspaper that i had picked up earlier.

it seems that the game recognizes this trigger based only on whether i have the newspaper in my inventory, not based on whether i have interacted with it yet. i had to restart the game because of this :/

movement speed should be much higher (or maybe let us hold shift to run), and in the bog as well as a few other spots it seemed like the player just wouldnt move in the direction i wanted him to.

graphics and sound were nice. the dramatic music cut out partway through the final dialogue, but it started a little later after i asked the next question or w/e.

i think this is an entertaining and simple story, and you obviously are pretty good at writing, but there are a lot of little issues that could be fixed up. i'd love to see more like this in the future.

[Earth Taken 3]

why cant jump just be w or up? i keep screwing up because like every other game uses up for jump
there are 4 different control sets and yet all of them use random other keys for it??? its right there???? its so much easier than pressing s or L or any of these other options

the rest of the game is solid AF and i like this series a lot, but i cant really let the jump thing go tbh

SeethingSwarm responds:

I totally understand you're issue with the jump button.
UP or W are both the obvious choices for jump and I use it in most of my other games.

The thing is that in this game you use the directional keys for both moving AND aiming. You can aim and shoot in 8 different directions and it would be annoying to jump every time you simply wanted to shoot upwards or diagonally. I didn't want to make this game with mouse aiming and shooting, because there are so many out there. I personally wanted a game where you use the keyboard alone to control the character, so I made it myself. I wanted to make a game with mechanics reminiscent to old-school games like Contra, Earth Worm Jim, Alien Hominid etc. I understand that a lot of people don't like this setup and all I can say is that it was a personal choice.

I'm really glad you enjoyed the game despite the control setup being annoying and frustrating. Thanks for the feedback. I'll definitely keep it in mind, and thanks for giving the game a nice score :)

[MS Paint Racers]

this is fun and not too difficult, and the graphics/music are very nostalgic. i didnt find that i ever needed to brake or slow down, though. perhaps we could make the other cars go a bit faster because it seemed like they were mostly scenery

[Stealth Sniper 2]

these loading times are insane. i understand that sometimes flash games can be demanding on the ol processor, but this is ridiculous. when i tried to zoom in, it starts asking me to disable my mouse, and i can barely get more than a few fps in the first place, nor is my cursor even on the screen. and besides that, are these just counterstrike skins? this is just slapped together...