3p0ch's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Islands]

Holy hell, I usually think of myself as good at these sort of puzzle games, but I just now finished this one after giving it a lot of thought over the weekend and then some. Many players might be put off by having to figure out how things work as you go along, but despite some initial frustration I got to like it and appreciate the adventure once things started to click and am amazed this was just one among the game-a-day series. If/when you decide to switch to making something larger scale, this should definitely be included in its inspiration.

[Paradise Inc]

As I was starting to write this comment, I noticed on the side panel that you were the one who made Extraction Chapter 0. And I'm going to say essentially the same thing now that I said in that review: in games like this, it's all about creating an immersive world and story. But that's hard to do, especially in the time frame of a game jam.

In this particular case, I have to agree with the reviews saying that there's not much beyond a sort of stock dystopia theme. The main character believes the facade of the evil corporation and goes along with them until he gets betrayed and finds out that they're evil, and then by the sheer power of his will he breaks free from their evil clutches. We don't see an explanation for why the corporation is evil, or whether it's rooted in characteristics that we ourselves should introspectively see if we're harboring. The hero doesn't undergo much development, or have to rally people to the cause of fighting evil despite risking anything and everything they might have, instead of accepting the shallow existence that the evil corporation offers them simply because they think that's the best they can make of their situation. He doesn't have to confront potential turncoats within the evil corporation and try to get them to see that what they're doing is wrong and needs to be stopped, and have to talk them out of believing the lies the corporation has been feeding them for most of their lives to justify their cruel actions. There are many ways a story like this could go if you just had more time than a gamejam to develop a compelling story.

While I have to side with the naysayers on this one and offer my two cents on what I'd like to see in a game like this, I wouldn't go so far as those who think that a game that's just walking through a set path to reveal a story shouldn't even be considered a game. Although I do prefer art games that have good gameplay too -- Perdition being a perfect example. But I digress.

Criobite responds:

I definitely agree with your points about this game! I'd love to make a more rich and interactive story next time I do a game like this. Getting some interesting ideas right now, so maybe I'll end up making it sooner rather than later. :D

[Demolo]

It's a nice interface as a web game and I imagine it could be even cooler on Oculus. It's a fun experience for a little bit simply because of that, but when it comes to actual gameplay it didn't seem like there was really any strategy or puzzle solving involved. It might be nice for a very casual gamer but it wasn't my cup of tea. I got bored after playing a couple of levels with 5 colors and not seeing a real challenge, but if it does get challenging after a while then I'd say to give an option to start off with tougher settings.

jhocking responds:

The level of difficulty is definitely one thing I'm looking to tune from feedback. Right now it starts out really easy on purpose and then ramps up hard, but I'm not sure if it's TOO easy at the beginning. As you note, I'm shooting for a pretty casual gamer (since the Oculus Go is pretty casual VR).

[Hans Hates]

Ack! I got too dizzy to play any further on level 7, and I'm not even very prone to motion sickness compared to other people I know. It was pretty fun up to that point though, and starting to get tough enough to feel like I'm accomplishing something in getting through a level.

[Do you know De Wae]

I checked out the high score screen and all I've got to say is...
Knuckles, mah bruddah, YOU KNOW DE WEY!!1!

jeremy7986 responds:

"We want to see De Wae in your buttocks."

[Gardener]

The game itself was nice so far... except for one incredibly annoying thing. Please, please, do not make the player mash random keys to fill in diary entries. Just make them pop up. I quit playing simply because of that. Srsly. Will come back and play more if/when that gets changed.

[Atomic Alice]

Oh shit don't tell me mah fan levels are lost 4evar? My compy that I made them on and the email account I sent them from both died ;_;

They would totes kik everonez asses :3

MakeGamesHappen responds:

Yeah. I am sorry. We halted developement on the game because Flash was kind of a bad choice, but was what I was most proficient at the time. I am learning WebGL and OpenGL. With the intention of re-making the game with an awesome rendering engine.

The goal is to be able to have all the original level design data compatible with the new engine.
So if that happens I'll try and dig up your old levels.

-John Mark

[Musk Mining Industries]

Dude no way are asteroid mining spaceships that hard to control IRL!

Sometimes a hard game seems like it's hard because of cheap moves on the programmer's part that just makes people want to ragequit. Somehow, this game ended up being as hard as staying awake through an English class but still just made me want to keep playing instead of ragequitting and eventually start to git gud. But then I ran into that frickin monstrostiy of an alien anvil on a pendulum that just bent me over whenever I tried to pick up the miners on the third level, and I've had enough of that tormentor for now. I might come back sometime later to see if I can figure out how to deal with that abomination tho.

colburt187 responds:

What happened was they designed the ships on earth then when they got to planet Musk the gravity was nothing like they thought it was, but they had blown the budget.

[Color Combat]

This was a nice little game. I played through it as the first guy at least on normal level, and after I got the hang of blocking and counterattacking I could (usually) pin the opponent in the corner and beat the shit out of him, so I say you have every right to respond to people whining "it's too hard" by saying "nah u jus sux, git gud r git lost".

There's definitely room for improvement with, well, pretty much everything from graphics to sound/music and even gameplay (maybe prevent pinning someone in a corner from being so overpowered) but it's still a pretty good game for what it is. On my second playthrough as a different guy the game bugged out and I was stuck crouching and sliding right while the opponent didn't do anything, not sure if that's a bug on my end or in the code (using Chrome on Windows with Flash 27.0.0.187).

[Midnight Spooks 2]

OMG at the reviews complaining that the clock is wrong!

You, good sir (or madam), get five stars as compensation for such ridiculousness. Even though the puzzles were definitely on the easy side this time around. Loved the ending :3