3p0ch's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[SlayTheCube Remake]

This game is pretty seriously bugged. On the first level if when you're collecting the bullet you move up enough to hit the wall, then you bounce downward and keep going even if you don't send movement commands, while the red square stays stopped. On the third level I got killed and now if I try to reset it I just instantly die and I think (based on how the screen flashes for a millisecond after clicking reset) the positions of the squares don't reset to the initial positions for the level and instead just go to the last positions when I died.

The description of the game doesn't actually describe how you're supposed to play it. You're the red block and need to pick up the small bullet and use it to shoot the blue block. Movement by mouse-clicking the movement buttons is incredibly clunky, and keyboard controls would have been far better. But the most important issue is that the gameplay itself isn't fun to begin with -- it's just a matter of pulling a fake to make the enemy go in the wrong direction and then grabbing the bullet and shooting. I wouldn't recommend just adding more levels to the current game engine; it seems like the engine itself needs to be reworked in order to make a fun game -- either an action game (where the enemy moves spontaneously and not just when you do, and can fight back if you're not quick and good enough to beat it) or a strategy game with some real puzzles to solve.

Mark4Games responds:

The game is not finished there is only code for 2 levels thus why you find it buggy. The keyboard thing that you were talking about I didn't do that because how the keyboard stuff works in JavaScript is different and I would have to do way more to it then I will allow myself to. I made this whole game on a iPad originally that's why the buttons are there. Remember this is a remake I don't want to change the first two levels because then I would just make a new game. This is something I wanted to do because my skill has grown a lot since I made the original because trust me it was way worse like colliding into walls used to kill you but I changed it to the wall bouncing from the 2 on. The wall bouncing in certain conditions will move you or the enemy even though you don't hit the buttons. I will take you're thoughts into consideration while finishing the game. The point of me finishing this game is not to make a fun game I just want it to be a learning experience but I will try to make it more challenging. The second one is more fun but I won't be releasing it one here yet till I remake it. Please if you have some suggestion for the third one share them.I won't be changing the engine only because if I did that it would that me to long and I would rather save the time to work on the third one that is going to use construct till I finish Homeworld Takedown so I can work on a new engine. I agree with you the game isn't fun it's more fun to work on then to play but just to give you some background on this game I made it in high school 2 years ago in 9th grade I am now in 11th our school iPads don't have games on it so I have to make my own entertainment. But yeah the game isn't finished yet I'm working on it. You should check out my game Homeworld Takedown if you like action games it's not finished yet it's a big project and I want to do it right but you should give me some feedback. That's all thanks for the feedback!

[RESPAWN]

I'm afraid it's just not any fun. Issues are that 1) It's not a puzzle platformer since there's no puzzle element to it. I admit that I stopped playing pretty early so I don't know if some of the later levels will actually have more of a puzzle to them, but so far it was pretty obvious how I wanted to build a bridge to the goal. 2) Horizontal movement is way too fast. The only real challenge from the game was in positioning the block as far on the edge of the previous block as possible without going off, but that sort of challenge doesn't make for a fun game. 3) The level completely resets if I fall off the edge of the last block.

Edit: I came back and tried playing again, and this time the horizontal movement wasn't as impossibly fast to manage as it was the first time I played. Still too fast to get precise block placement when you respawn, but the game is much more playable now. IDK if that was just an issue on my computer the first time around or what. However, now I'm running into new issues. After getting to about level 10 or so, the blocks are no longer always staying in place after I respawn. Sometimes they slide to the left or right (once even downward), and sometimes they disappear completely. It seems more like a bug than intended mechanics. And right now I'm on level 15 and something else is happening: it's not letting me respawn in some areas that are clearly red or non-gray. I see a way I could get through the level even without being able to respawn there, but the blocks slipping around (pretty often now) is keeping me from using that approach. Playing in Chrome on Windows. Will try refreshing the page now to see if that fixes it and edit if so. -- Still running into the same issues, and it looks like blocks spawned from red areas are sometimes but not always doing that, and ultimatum479 noticed it too.

BJMgames responds:

What level did you play up to? This game contains 20 levels, and new mechanics add in throughout the game.
Thank's for the feedback though, I'll try my best to make some changes.

[Sloc]

Not bad. I haven't finished all of the levels yet, but so far it doesn't seem very challenging. I would recommend at least adding a bonus for finishing levels in the minimum number of moves (or at least a small number of moves) to give it some more challenge while still letting people progress if they finish the level regardless of how many moves they take (since some players suck and will downrate you if they can't win).

I have left and come back, and I would like a way to resume at the last level I was on when I left. Either with it auto-continuing wherever I left off, or with a level select screen that shows which levels I've finished so I can pick the next one I haven't done yet.

The only other thing is that sometimes when I click on a square to move it, I'll want to move it up/down or left/right, but the program will start moving it the other way and I have to abort the move and retry. I'd prefer if it didn't do that.

Lakshaymavia responds:

Thank you so much for this detailed review. I really appreciate it and I love it. Yes All these level are not that hard but I as these are the starting level I don't want this to be hard. I was too thinking about the no. of moves or the star rating system. I will add that. And also when you start play it will take you to the last played level.
And I want to about the last point. I have the same issue sometimes that's why I make the functionality that if the block move to some other position then only It will count move. As you are also a dev ,If I increase the drag force I think it will not look responsive. Thank you again for your suggestion. I will work on it.

[Winter Falling: Prototype One]

Really nice game. I'm not sure if there was a patch to nerf the difficulty or anything, but the first few times I played it (yesterday) I got trounced and today I made it through all three levels. Maybe I didn't do as bad as I thought the first few times because I got overrun and didn't realize that even if you win you'll still get overrun but will beat the clock before the bird gets killed and have the enemy leader end up dead. That lack of realizing that getting overrun is expected might be making people think it's impossible even when they're close to winning.

I agree and disagree with previous reviews: there's a lot to understand about how the game works that doesn't get explained so the player sort of gets thrown into it and has to figure things out, but I think it's perfectly fine to make a game that way and toss people in to die for a while until they figure it out.

My only critique is the UI could have been nicer if the player could rearrange all the troops and trenches in the battle simultaneously instead of only being able to adjust one type of unit at a time and having to move back and forth to switch what you're adjusting (it was sort of a pain to rearrange troops to put heroes in the center of crowds that way).

Also are those percentiles based on actual performance of players? If so, maybe I'll play a few games with the bird thrown on the front lines to make everyone else feel better.

Rarykos responds:

Haha oh awesome review!
Thank you very much, I'm really happy you liked it and got the idea!
Yes, I try to explain that it's just about surviving to the last second with the Crow, but people feel bad when any units die :(
And I will make an improved UI for the next version, it is a pain.

Thank you again!

[Lockdown]

This is actually a good point-n-click game. Normally I don't like this genre, but in this case things actually made pretty logical sense and the player doesn't need to pixel-hunt and just needs to pay attention to everything to finish it. I think the "Eggs" clue was completely fair FWIW and I didn't use the walkthrough link at all. Bonus points for having beta testers in your list of credits. If you'd ever like another beta tester for sequels just PM me.

Afferz responds:

Thank you so much, it means a lot!

[Escape Pong!]

IDK how long the Adventure Jam gave you to make it, but the gameplay and overall production look a lot better than most jam games. It's certainly something that could be expanded into a larger game if you were so inclined.

It's too bad about all the reviews seeing a blank screen... if you find out what's wrong then let them know when it's fixed 'cause I'd hate to see the game score low and go unnoticed because of it.

CubeBleu responds:

Two weeks, but also it was our first game so there is still a few problems to fix I guess!
Thank you for the kind comment :D

[Dwarvania]

I know you might hate to see me say this and feel like it's impossible to please everyone... but I think I liked it better in the version where you can't outrun the guards and you had to actually play well or die. The update that made you able to skip the into was a good move though. I really liked the original version, so I'll still give a pretty high score.

Edit: Even his walk speed is faster than the guards right now though

xinelu responds:

Yeah, even Skyrim pleased everyone right? haha

You also can try not to use the sprint + box! Think it like a personal challenge.

(: But thx for the review anyway I appreciate you played more than once!

[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

[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.