3p0ch's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Dungeons Deep]

I played by swiping the screen (as the instructions said) for a while and then read comments that keyboard is working, and I can say that that's a huge improvement.

IMO this isn't a Roguelike -- in this game, after your first move the enemies move on their own timer so if you're fast you can just blaze past them, while in a traditional roguelike the enemies move only when you move so it's more of a chess match than a sporting game. But even if it isn't a roguelike, this game is something in its own right that people should either love or hate for what it is. I agree with other reviewers that this seems more like an early concept demo than a complete game, but it does have a fairly good foundation to build on.

[Voltaic Triple-Gun (C3 Jam)]

Lol, the explanation of how to make special abilities work is in the title page's "About" button... I spent a while just figuring stuff out in-game (it really wasn't obvious even with the instructions) and after finishing it I went and checked out that button and saw it would've made things a lot easier if I did that while I was trying to figure stuff out.

That said, IMO most of the fun in the game was figuring out how to get those special abilities to work to get through the levels; if I started off knowing how to use them, then getting through the levels would've been a lot more straightforward. If you were to expand this game, or make other games that try to capture the same spirit, I'd say to keep introducing new mechanics as the game progresses for the player to figure out how to use effectively to make it through.

ValettusGD responds:

Haha, yeah I added the ability controls to that page last minute, but it's good to hear you had fun discovering how to use the abilities on your own. It was my intention to have the player learn them organically, so I'm glad it worked for you. I know the in-game instruction wasn't great (thus the addition to "About"), so I'll certainly introduce them more gradually and more clearly if I make another version.

I can't change this version now that the Game Jam license for the engine is up, but I'll probably expand on this game at some point.

I appreciate the feedback!

[Escape3]

As others have said: this is overall a very good game with amazing graphics, and the only thing that seems a little off is the fact that the three characters each essentially go through their levels independently without really interacting. Of course it's hard to complain about not having that degree of intricacy to level designs when the game was made in two weeks for a gamejam after all.

At one point I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do and I stopped playing (I needed to take a break from playing these gamejam games anyway), but I came back to the game later on and found that pressing H brought up a screen that clued me in. I guess construct 3 is locked now that the jam is over, but even if so, maybe you could mention the game controls including H key in the author comments.

[Vikings]

So far this has been my favorite of the c3jam games. It has superb graphics, nice music, fairly good gameplay although the levels are short -- leaves me wanting more. I agree with t4upl tho, it could use better in-game description of the controls or any description in the author comments... even after reading t4upl I was all "why isn't the X key opening the chest?" and a few minutes later was all "oooohhhh, that was talking about the X button on gamepad; only the E key on keyboard works for that". Persistent (not briefly appearing) descriptions in the background of the opening area are the way to go IMO, but that's pretty nitpicky considering it's a gamejam.

But wasn't there supposed to be a "three" theme to the jam?

SebbeV responds:

Thank you for your feedback. We made this game in 2 weeks. We put most of the work in to level design and programming. We will keep patching the game as often as we can. We hope that you enjoyed it.

Greetings /Crew

[Three Days Before]

It's not really up my alley. In my mind, good art games should be games first and foremost, but with interesting flavor added to tell a story or evoke an emotion or what have you to make them an art game. In this case the platforming physics felt very stiff, movement seemed slow, and there wasn't much of a gaming experience to speak of which was made worse by the level with the rain cloud and fire where it seemed like the game was stalling just to drag itself out longer. Maybe a game that's more about telling a story than gameplay mechanics would be better suited for a top-down RPG type format than a platformer; IDK. It's not the game for me, but there are people out there who enjoy art games purely for the art and story, and this might resonate better with them.

[3Pants]

Sort of addictive, but I can't seem to get through the "Leave none alive ... take everyone out" level no matter what I do, even if the area is cleared out and I keep killing spawns pretty quick when they do show up.

YellowB responds:

Allright! FIXED! :D

[JoinTheDots]

I loved the Linx games so of course the mechanics are right up my alley. The graphics, sound, and overall ambiance are much nicer and more refined with JoinTheDots. It's hard for me to be a good judge of the difficulty; I just went straight to the last levels in the packs (thanks for not locking them btw) but I think that's just because I have experience from Linx and the difficulty might be fine for people who haven't. The only minor issue I had was distinguishing the colors on the large levels when there were a lot of different colors in play -- if you're still inclined to do any more coding then maybe having both ends of a pair get highlighted when you mouse over or start dragging from one of the pair would help, but the game is very good as it is.

PocomaxStudio responds:

Oh, I love your comment... I would like to see more of these.
" if you're still inclined to do any more coding then maybe having both ends of a pair get highlighted when you mouse over or start dragging from one of the pair would help"

I am planning to transfer the game to mobiles at some point, and there will be no option of mouse over there - as it is just tapping... but it is INDEED true that the colors are hard to distinguish when the grid is at maximum size... which leads to more moves, and less earned stars.

I will be thinking on that...

Thanks again!

[XOB]

Overall a nice game, even though it's sort of short (unless I'm missing something and the level with "THEND" isn't really the end of the game). Graphics are nice for a minimalistic puzzle game and helped by the effects. Music is overall nice although the sound effects started feeling too repetitive after a while. Level design was appropriately challenging. New mechanics were introduced as the game progressed to keep it interesting. Two small gripes I have are that the movement feels a little too slow and clunky, even for a puzzle game where speed isn't a big issue, and at one point I stepped away from the game to make dinner and came back and it had inexplicably reset to the first level.