MLScherbatov's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Jurassic Hunter]

needs more instruction and explanations for nearly every part of the game. yes, the whole balance and acceleration thing is xelf explanatory, but am i supposed to hit the dinosaurs or avoid them? what am i even getting money for other than the few coins i ran into on one jump?
this is fun and the dinosaur thing is cool and everything, but when making carbon copies of other games, there is really no room for flaws that were not in the original. you've really got to add something besides just the theme of dinosaurs IMO and although i enjoyed the game it doesnt stand out from the dozens of others like it in any other way

[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!

[Game.Init()]

jump was pretty unresponsive for the red lights, but it might have been my computer - idk. because of this i couldnt make it past level 9 and quit after about 10 tries where the second red orb simply wouldnt allow me to jump. up until this point it seemed to be a pretty awesome game, tho. nice and clean cut, smooth, and simple. i recognize this music from somewhere, tho

[Game01 Prototype]

the music and graphics have me laughing my ass off, but the game play itself needs some work.
it seems like the water rises too fast to start, and the player doesnt really have enough control or enough platforms to bounce on. perhaps think about letting the player jump for a while before the water starts so that they can get the hang of the movement. maybe after the 10th or 15th bounce you could pause for a second and show the water starting to rise then scroll back up to the player. anyways this was definitely worth my time and i hope to see a finished version soon. keep up the good work.

[ICS]

you should use the same button to interact with the menu and the world. it was really confusing at first because while testing the control scheme i accidentally opened the menu and had to fish around for a while until i realized enter was accept there. maybe give the player a little time in an open space to move around instead of spawning us on the settings.
i really dont think it's necessary to require the player to activate the doors at the end of levels. there were a lot of instances where i had a split second to make it there and i had to retry multiple times just because i forgot to hit the button. this isn't objectively a flaw, but it's not a regular thing in a lot of puzzle games like this, so it took a while for my muscle memory to catch up.
it seems like we shouldn't have to activate the fountains mid level if the ones at the spawn heal you automatically. again, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's a bit unorthodox. maybe you should make us activate both if we have to activate either.
Increasing the move speed and reducing the time it takes to burn would make this game 100x better. there would be much more of a sense of urgency and it would create a sense of urgency (as well as realism) that seems to be missing here. i mean come on. we're on fire. i get that you're going for a happy go lucky sort of like borderline creepy atmosphere here, but i think it could use some zest. maybe make the screen flash and have more exciting music play when you're on fire or something and i feel like this could make it big
most of the secret items seemed to just show up randomly when i was going through normal parts of the levels, or even just appear in the spawn area the second the level started. you should think about putting more of them in hard to access areas or requiring the player to do things like burn down wooden walls or structures to get to them (but maybe have to preserve certain other wooden things to complete the level)
platforming in level 12 is far too difficult and gives little to no overhead room to ascend steps. i quit after about 10 attempts making it no further than the sheep.
previous review said jumping off ladders didnt work - i had the same issue. ill come back to this in a few hrs and see if i can get any further. so far i'd say great job, but needs a little polishing.

[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.

[Box Story]

too little control, too much luck. i completely lost interest after the first level that required me to jump from peg to peg... you really didnt expect people to be able to accomplish this, do you??? i had a hard enough time balancing on one single peg, much less being able to control my jump from there, and the level design is so unforgiving that i not only have to perform my jumps with perfect timing, but also get lucky enough that the box is at the right angle to even proceed.
music was pretty good, and animation was ok, but the move speed was far too slow.

[Mourn]

jump was unresponsive after repeated level attempts... other than that the game seems awesome. reminds me a lot of braid, but that's not a bad thing. keep it up :)

[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