3p0ch's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[THE LEGEND OF BUBBLE BOBBLE]

This is a great example of why games in the good old days were so good: it has fun gameplay that's straight to the point and pretty challenging. Kudos for making game mechanics that are really entertaining. There's no map, and that's kinda true to the style back then; Zelda would give you primitive maps that just show room and boss locations but I remember other games from back in the day where if you wanted a map you had to get a pencil and paper and make it.

I had no idea what the man was talking about when he told me to find him at a certain place since there's no way to know the room numbering system or how to open the secret door until I read through the comments (I never would have intentionally tried that on my own as a way of opening the door), but now that I tried it, yeah that does make the game super hard. Also not sure how to get to the watermellon on the left in the first dungeon, but maybe I'll stumble across a way to do it. IDK if there's a lot more secrets hidden around, but that definitely boosts the game's score in my eyes. The only gripe I have is what other people already commented on: occasionally rooms seem like they almost insta-kill you when you walk in or respawn, but there aren't many of those.

Also, I thought I got the only ending when I saw that I'm not a good friend to Bob, but now that I read WatchRyder's comment I'm wondering how many endings there are.

[The Last AntLion]

I looked at the controls in the game description before it started and thought "Shit, those are some really complicated series of key presses to pull off combos..." :D

Seriously though, there's a nice variety of upgrades and character types. In the end, I felt like for most of them I ended up hanging out in a corner and trying to snipe things as they came into view, plus jumping at appropriate times for some of them. Except the army ants when they called for a different strategy. And then I got my ass whopped by the queen and haven't figured out how to get past that level yet.

I thought I was sort of limited in what I could do, and that the jump wasn't as great of a means for evasion as I'd like, while I didn't really end up using the roar and hardly ever used the bombs except against the army ants. So it ended up being a lot of sitting in the corner and sniping for most of the levels. But maybe that's just 'cause I'm doing it wrong and should be roaring and bombing and doing other stuff more? If it really does give you an edge in the game to do all that stuff instead of mostly sniping then it's a really good game that I just haven't figured out how to play right yet; if it doesn't give you that much of an edge in battle then I'd say the game mechanics could be tweaked around.

velketor responds:

Thank you for playing 3p0ch! I appreciate your detailed constructive feedback.

A lot of players choose to hang out in the corners and snipe, which works for most waves if you are lucky enough with the spawns. The game play was designed so you learn how to defeat each enemy, with all of your knowledge culminating in 1 final epic battle versus the Queen and all of her minions combined.

Jumping works really well to avoid the flying kick of Mummy Ants, the lightning bolts of Electric Ants, to jump over Fire Ants, to avoid being trampled by the adult Dinosaur Ant, and to jump over the Queen's magical spell she shoots from her wand. Jumping also gives you a slight boost in speed, so if you jump a lot while running, you'll actually move much faster than if you were to just run.

The main purpose of bombs is to defeat the Army Ants, however, you can also use bombs to break open the statues for a 40% chance at a random drop. When you choose to blow up the statues is up to you. They are a kind of hidden Easter Egg that many players never realize until they start fighting the Army Ants.

Roaring works well against all enemies except ethereal Ghost Ants, Army Ants, Adult Dinosaur Ants and the Queen. It's designed to help you get out of tough situations where too many ants are surrounding you. It can also be used to break all of the eggs at the same time in the Dinosaur Ants wave.

I wouldn't say you were playing wrong though =) Everyone has their own strategy. I've seen people get obsessed with bombs, others never use bombs until the Army Ants, and some people choose to never purchase any upgrades other than Quivers, Keys, Bombs and Potions. I have my own personal strategy, but I won't share it here ;)

There are definitely tweaks that could be made, and your feedback is invaluable towards helping me fine tune the game going forward. Thank you again for the detailed feedback, 3p0ch!

[Nauseous Pines]

You just need one interception and the game's done? I thought I'd need to do that three times.

This is bizarre as all fuck, and most of the challenge of the game is in figuring out how things work and what you need to do. Once I figured out most(?) of the mechanics it was pretty straightforward. The appeal isn't in typical gaming, but more about the drug trippiness and fetish (IDK if I would go quite so far as tagging it "hentai" but it's not far off) and figuring out shit that's somehow impossible to figure out even though it's flat out explained to you. For anyone who wants to experience it, this is unlike any other game out there and is worth playing through and figuring out... even if I did think some of the text parts were kinda tl,dr.

railslave responds:

Thanks, I got plenty more weirdness like this on steam @Uriel's chasm 3

You can start again and try another route btw

[Baddity]

Unlike the other reviewers I didn't mind having arrows to move and mouse to shoot -- I didn't think WASD instead of arrows would really be necessary, but you might as well allow WASD movement to make everyone else happy. What bugged me was that the fire rate is completely dependent on how fast you can mash the mouse button. Unless you're deliberately trying to test how rapidly people can click the mouse and making that be the main criteria for winning, I'd much rather have it auto-fire while the mouse button is held down so I don't have to get carpal tunnel syndrome to finish it.

Also, if the point of the game is more about making people get the creepy experience than making a game to test their skill, then I'd recommend having a larger health bar and making increasingly creepy things happen when their health drops to certain levels so you know they'll get the full creepy experience in a playthrough. If the game is more about testing the players' skill... well... it seems like it's just a test of whether you can give yourself carpal tunnel.

[The Secret of Tetrapylae]

I finished the game with help from the walkthru, and I'll say exactly where I needed it and why in case you find this useful. Fair warning to anyone reading comments before you finish the game: stop reading now or you'll get some spoilers.

First spot was finding the key around the dead guy's neck. It's debatable whether you consider finding that to be something that you would expect from a good player vs being unfair pixel hunting, but it was something I didn't see until invoking the walkthru.

Second was the exact order or placing the "things" on the "12-position thing" (in case anyone ignored my warning I'm still being vague :3). I didn't see how to figure that out from anything I was given, or even in hindsight how I could have figured that out from the scribe. (If that page was where the clue should have come from --- I could figure out relative positions of everything [like how far each object should be from the other objects] but not exactly where they should lie.)

Personally, I didn't find navigation to be confusing. I figured that part out on my own and didn't see any surprises from the walkthrough.

I intend for that to be only feedback so you can see where I (one player) got stuck, and decide for yourself whether that merits any consideration in determining future game design. Sometimes point-'n-click games have a button you can press to show all interactable objects which would completely eliminate any complaints about pixel hunting, but I also argued against such a mechanism on a review of another point-'n-click game recently saying that if the dev makes awesome graphics then it's fair game to expect the players to look at 'em. Overall I thought the game was pretty enjoyable, and if you ever were to offer a "show all interactable objects" feature, I think I would recommend defaulting it to "off".

One of the other comments invoked mention of Submachine. While I feel it would be too early to talk about it at this point, I'll at least say that my comment to Submachine's final episode involved saying that they built such an immersive universe that the whole experience was far greater than the sum of its parts. IDK if you plan to spend ten years on a project, but if that's sort of what you might have in mind, then take it for what you will.

terann responds:

Thank you very much for your comment. You highlighted two spots where a lot of players really do need help (I can see that from the Youtube analysys of my walkthrough video).

When designing the game I really tried to avoid pixelhunting. I believed that the string, though small, was spottable enough. The only thing I can do now is to increase the interaction area around it. Here I must say that I do not like the concept of highlighting of all interactable areas. IMHO it is part of the appeal of the PnC games to figure out the relevant spots in game scenes.

Regarding the second puzle, I wanted to avoid something that is often seen in PnC games, where e. g. a code for a combination lock is simply written on the wall of another room. This puzzle has actually two hints (the third verse of the second riddle in the manuscript), but they are a bit more vague, and it is expected from the players to connect the whole thing to something they see every day in the newspaper. But the hints are probably too vague, and people do not read papers anymore ;)

Finally, about Submachine: It was not my intention to compare this game to that awesome series of which I am a big fan. I just used it to illustrate a concept.

[Spaceship Shooter RPG Deluxe]

This is my favorite of the games you've uploaded recently. It has the autofire and map with continuation from the last level you reached, which are big improvements. It might be better if vertical movement were allowed, and if there were hotkeys to activate the pickups (maybe there are? So far the only way I found to activate them is with the mouse.) But it's pretty good for a shooter game as it is.

MatiasVME responds:

Thank you very much for your comment :). At the moment there is no vertical movement, but, I want to see how the game is doing to see if we can continue updating it. The game was intended for a casual audience but it's a very good idea to add a vertical move. Maybe it can be added as an additional mode.

[Ultra Spaceships]

My main comment is that it lacks "fun factor" in the early levels, mainly because 1) they're pretty easy and 2) having to repeatedly mash space to keep firing gets tiresome. But once you get to later levels where it's more challenging, it gets fun.

Having the first levels be easy wouldn't be so much of a drawback if, after you die, you can restart the game on the same level where you died (or maybe after the last boss you killed) instead of having to start over from the beginning. And as for mashing the fire button: personally I think it would be ok to hold space to have it auto-fire, but if you'd like more user interaction and finesse then maybe have it auto-fire if you hold space but have a gun heat bar that will make the gun overheat if it's just fired constantly so it needs to pause a few seconds to cool down if it overheats.

Aside from those critiques: it has unique physics that feel nothing like what you'd expect from a space shmup, but are entertaining in their own right. The foreground graphics are simplistic but clean, and background graphics and music are nice and work well. I might like it if the game ran at a slightly faster speed, but that's just my preference.

MatiasVME responds:

Thank you very much for your comment. We made a version 2 of this game, it's called spaceship shooter rpg deluxe. It has several additional features.

I'm glad you liked the game, thank you.

[missed messages.]

I admit I couldn't relate to the story. I and almost everyone I know never reached out, or lent a hand, or even really talked much about depression even though I for sure went through it and I'm sure I wasn't the only one. In part because of the stigma that would come with it, the idea that no employer will ever hire you if you're labeled as mentally ill, and the sense that you've just got to deal with your own issues. So we just dealt with it, and even if anyone ever would have seen it and offered help I probably wouldn't have taken it.

But even without the relatability, this was a nicely done game -- its story became an immersive experience that I'm glad I saw.

And I gotta say that aside from the theme of being there for a friend in distress, IMO the other moral of the story is at least equally important: don't become an overbearing asshole of a parent who thinks that constantly criticizing your kids is how to get them to improve and reach your expectations.

[Big Bash Bolt]

I tried running a race with absolutely no cheating and was left in the dust by everyone with no booby-traps to slow them down, and I still got a #1 trophy at the end. Not sure if that's really what you want this game to do given the description. But trying to cheat without getting caught is more fun than running the race fairly as a slow fatass, so maybe cheating is just its own reward regardless of what the ending screen says.

JUSTCAMH responds:

Interesting that you're rewarded for coming last... That's certainly not right! I'll get back to you on that one!

[Project Demonology]

So far it seems like it's on its way to becoming a good RPG game. I took notes on glitchy little things I noticed, none of which were major (playing on browser in Chrome on Windows):

When I play in a browser, I see save files from other RPG Maker games I've played on Newgrounds in the same saved game list that this game uses. That seems to be a common issue with RPG Maker and there's probably a solution for it.

Skills and many items don't have a description of what it does; it looks like there's a space where it's supposed to pop up when the skill/item is selected.

When the guy gave me a note and said to read it somewhere private, I wasn't sure how to do that and was confused for a while when I couldn't find the note as an item to read, and only later found it's in a quest log in the "pause" menu. Also, the quest log doesn't seem to update at the point when you're collecting relics. (It wasn't entirely obvious to me whether I actually collected relics in the Eastern and Western zones after killing the bosses, but I did kill the thing in the hidden room in the main town afterward so I think I did collect relics.)

Walking out of the town and onto the paved path toward the intersection just outside town, the scene didn't automatically switch from town to the road outside town unless I press the action button (at least if I walk with arrow keys; if I walk by mouse clicking it transitions). That seems weird, and might have people thinking they can't leave that way (what I thought at first) or aren't supposed to leave yet.
Maybe related: the Blood Heal ability seems like it's not targetable with arrow keys but is with mouse.

The battle with the imp in the cave outside town didn't have its background change -- the background during battle was the overworld scene with the player walking up to the cave, which seems weird.

It looks like I can't use a potion as an item during battle - only the weak teather and god item were available to choose. (This would be the only possible glitch that would significantly affect gameplay.)

Stairs at the Fallow Village Inn don't do anything -- maybe that was intentional but it's probably better not to have stairs that don't go anywhere.

If I'm supposed to be able to sell items at shops, I can't.

Edit: Now realized that the main town's building on the left is now no longer guarded, so I went there and actually finished the game. The only "big picture" thing that you might or might not want to change is that this game seemed to have an aspect of many RPG games that I don't particularly like -- it seems like the optimal approach is just to go with heavy hitting melee guys (the double/triple hitters in this game) plus a healer or two and there's no real need to change strategy at any point -- switching from melee to magic based attacks, starting to rely on items to deal damage, using specific combinations of attacks, actually using the Guard ability that no one ever uses, etc. That works perfectly well for commercial RPG games, and would be a perfectly viable way to design the game and probably generate plenty of fans, but personally I think I'd like it better if it called for changes in strategy from time to time.

MrCrabsGames responds:

Thanks for the feedback! A lot of very valid criticism here and a lot to work with in patches for this and future games :)

The issue with saves is quite concerning, especially since saves are supposed to be unique based on the games internal name, this is the case for the game as an EXE, but 100% worth investigating, so thanks for raising that.

The game was built mainly with mouse use in mind, but moving zones with the action key is an oversight on my end and will be fixed in the next patch, I will have to investigate the blood imp targeting, and the lack of a background on the first imp fight is also something I will address.

Not using a potion in battle is intentional, the idea behind them is that they are for healing during battle, this was to make it so the skeleton and imps healing abilities your only source of healing, with all the risks attached.

I do agree that once you have an optimal team, you don't need to mix up your strategy and this does detract from some of the intended difficulty mid/end game, I did originally have a concept where you would have hard hitting abilities that would slowly make your team go mad, and then be more unpredictable, giving another form of risk and reward, but this didn't play out as well as planned when tested out. I think this section especially boils down to a lack of experience making games, and I hope to improve on this and ensure that i can push this game much further and have any future games I work on benefit from this experience.

Thanks again for all your comments! Was really useful to have this feedback to work with and improve with :)