3p0ch's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Tronicles VSS]

The graphics are pretty nice, so I played for a while. I killed a swarm of those boss-like creatures that hang out in the back and fire two big-ass shots at a time at me. Now I'm sitting around twiddling my thumbs looking at empty space with nothing else spawning, and reading comments that talk about how I could have fired those dynamite things if there had been any instructions or an obvious key to press to fire them.

[PUMP]

Cool little game. The graphics are nice pixelart and the overly happy pump that looks like he prolly gets a kick out of swinging a huge club is adorable. Music fits really well with the theme of being halloween-y in more of a whimsically fun than scary or disturbing way. Most of the levels are pretty easy peasy but it does start to get challenging at the end, and the overall physics and controls seem fluid.

IDK if it was a bug or an intentional design feature but on the spamattacktofly (or smth like that) level I couldn't fly all the way across by spamming but I did somehow end up landing on the spikes safely while spamming and just walked across to finish that level. So yeah I cheated :3 (Using Chrome on Windows in case that's any help, and that was after dying correctly on the spikes a few times so probably a sorta rare event)

[Shuffle World]

I saw it was a Mr. Nannings game and rated it while it was loading TBH. And I'm leaving the rating where it is. The game's tagged "easy" and "simple" so you already know this, but I'd've given it a full 5/5 if it were more challenging and/or had more brain-twisting from the swapping mechanics. It mosdef deserves at least 4.5 stars though.

[Cuter Defenders]

I ran into the same problem as with the previous upload of the same game -- at the end of level 9 it stopped spawning enemies but the level didn't end and the game wouldn't progress, it just continued to keep accumulating power. I tried reloading the page and it restarted from level 1.

[Pokemon Circle]

The interact key (n) didn't seem to work if I had movement keys held down while pressing it, so I wasn't actually checking stuff and I had no idea that I wasn't and I ended up confused as heckk. IDK if it's just a synchronous keypress issue with my keyboard, but it made controlling feel unnatural, so best to avoid that in any serious game if possible.

plufmot responds:

Thanks for the feedback! That was a problem I overlooked when making this, thanks for bringing it to my attention! 😀

[Purpy]

I don't usually think of myself as being a total retard, but I can't get out of the starting room on the second level so I guess I must be one :p

Are we supposed to be able to double jump or smth to get through one-way platforms? Cuz I can't :( It makes jumping noises if I hit space while in mid-air, but it doesn't double jump and IDK how to get up through the platform.

Edit: Saw the comment posted later mentioning wall-jumps, which don't always work right, so now that's explained. But I've got to agree with the other reviewers that jumping into a gap the same size as the player is nearly impossible -- and frustrating instead of being enjoyably challenging.

[Dial for Adventure (Alpha 0.004)]

Well, this sure looks like an extremely early alpha release. So far, all you can do is walk around in a few areas. There's not any meaningful dialogue, there are no battles, and there are a few notable bugs -- if you open the menu there are two characters but only one of them seems "real" while there also seems to be something in the second character slot that looks like another level 1 knight but without a picture. When you're walking around in the map, there seems to be something in the background (trees and rock that show up if you walk toward the south end of the map and walk around) that shouldn't be there and looks very buggy. And the main character looks inordinately small compared to everything else on the map. There's not enough content for me to be able to tell whether this might be on its way to becoming a good game, so I'm afraid I can't say very much insightful at this stage other than to encourage you to upload again in the future when the game is more fleshed out for beta testing. You have a lot of work ahead of you to make a full game out of it. I wish you luck.

[Post Mortem]

The mechanic of being able to switch characters that you control is something you don't see very often, if ever, in point-n-click games. It was nice to see it incorporated, but I got the feeling that it didn't end up adding very much depth to the game because the puzzles were still fairly straightforward without much brain-busting over how to keep multiple characters coordinating to achieve a goal. If you decide to make a sequel, I would definitely recommend putting a good deal of work into designing puzzles that exploit that mechanic well -- and if you can really get people to have to think outside of the box to use character switching and cooperation effectively without it becoming tedious to manage then you'll have a real gem on your hands.

A less important point but one worth mentioning is that the controls seemed a little clunkier than with most point-n-click games. I'm not sure how your game engine is set up and whether it would be easy to change, but maybe it would be easier on the players if the arrow by default becomes either a walking symbol if the mouse is over a walkable area and you move there if you click, or a magnifying glass if it's over an interactable object and you look at an object if you click, and there are buttons at the bottom for interaction and talking etc that would override the walking or looking actions if you select it. And for the inventory: pick stuff up by using the interact button on the object to pick it up without having to use a separate inventory button, always have the inventory slots up so you can click on any object in your inventory to try to use it, and get rid of the current backpack-shaped inventory button entirely. Or just find a point-n-click game you like a lot and see how they handle user interface stuff and do something similar.

KnoseDoge responds:

yes, this is something that i myself feel. i don't go deep at all into the switch/combie character mechanics, mostly because i originally had a pretty hard time constraint when i made this game (and some because i am not very good at making puzzles hahaha).

thank you nonetheless for your feedback. if i do start working on the sequel, i will probably have to redo most of the ""engine"" (it is made in gamemaker, but with some HEAVY scripts handling all the point&click stuff). it isn't too hard to add content to it, but i would like to make it even more simple (just text-handling is a nightmare. dialouge trees? oh mama)

[Phone That]

Maybe I'm just not smart enough to figure out what the clues are to realize what numbers you need to use. I could find the level select just by trying a bunch. Then eventually found that there are active numbers scattered all over the place. I googled to find that 112 is actually a cell phone number that's used in Europe, but I would never have guessed that and am not sure if there would have been any straightforward way for me to look it up anywhere. Tried googling a few other numbers that I found worked, and came up with nothing. Then decided that I'm not going to just brute force 1000 numbers to find out what they do.

Other games that you've uploaded have been good, so I'm giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming that I just haven't figured out how I'm supposed to approach it.

Edit: All right, much better now that there's a directory in the comments :)
It seemed more like a matter of just trying everything than really figuring out puzzles, but it was still enjoyable.

joqlepecheur responds:

Hi there, sorry about that I attached a file in the project and thought it was accessible. You are not supposed to brute force on the contrary. I edited the content (I hope you can give it another go !)