3p0ch's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Life is Snot]

I like the way the world design worked out for a game based on exploration with a short lifespan. You've got to explore the world and come up with a plan before trying to pull off a victory run. That means you'll need to do a bunch of restarting while you're just exploring and figuring things out, which lengthens the gameplay for the size of this world. And the restarts don't get very annoying since the starting point is in the middle of the world and you can go in any direction to explore -- if it were more linear or required taking the same path over and over again on restarts to explore more nooks and crannies at the ends of branches then that would've gotten irritating.

The level design itself was great for a casual game that takes a little bit of planning without going to the degree of turning it into a logic puzzle. The element of age with changing abilities adds a new dimension that I don't remember seeing before in a game like this and it was pulled off well. Graphics are adorable and the dynamic music correlating with age is a great touch. Game mechanics are smooth, and the intangible fun factor is high. I'm really surprised the game doesn't have a higher rating; the only downside I can think of is needing to restart from the beginning a lot, which I didn't think was really all that annoying with this level design.

[everything else]

This game's as hard as good ol' Floppy Joe gets when Scarlett Johansson's on screen but it doesn't seem completely unfair. Enemies act deterministically and will always respond the same way if you keep doing the same thing on each reset, so it's tough but possible to work out reasonably reliable and quick approaches to kill each enemy. There are definitely some strategies that tend to work better than others, and if you make it through a level smoothly but run out of time then you're probably using a bad strategy and need to try another approach. So having to reset a bunch doesn't seem so bad since it feels like you're still making progress in refining a tactic for the level.

The fast pace is fun as hell, and there's enough content and will need to be enough resetting that despite the fast pace the game doesn't seem short. Having a few different types of enemies and a switch from having a gun to a knife helps keep it from feeling like it gets repetitive. If you ever wanted to make a sequel then I imagine even more enemy and weapon types would keep things fresh. The only aspect I didn't like was the levels with no enemies and just stuff to progress the story; it got a little boring wandering around them to find stuff and I didn't really get into the story. But cahocachi liked the ending so maybe that's just me.

The bad ending's last levels might have scrambled my brain a bit with how fast those resets happen.

And nothing makes you appreciate murder more than having to live without it.

[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!

[Space Probes]

It's functional but it looks like it's just one level (or the first 20% or so of one level that repeats) with basic mechanics. It would need a lot more content, and ideally some fun mechanics that set it apart from a typical vertical flight shooter.

[Ninjuzi]

It was fun on the first play, but I ran into the same bug as Hylarn: when I restart there's no enemies (nor music). I'm not getting the detached arm bug that he got, but no enemies is a worse bug than detached arms. Using Chrome on Windows and that happens whether I restart directly after dying, go to shop, go to upgrade menu, or anything else I've tried.

[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!