3p0ch's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[GridWorld]

I generally like programming games like this, and it reminds me a lot of lightbot which is a good thing. I agree with other comments on minor things that could be improved: either give a clearer explanation about how to use the keys instead of mouse to enter commands (especially about the fact that you have to press space to select a track before any keys work, even if there's only one track), or make it so the first track is automatically selected to receive keyboard commands. I'm also not a fan of the kids cheering sound at the end of the levels.

More importantly, this seems like a nice game engine, but it really needs more difficult levels. Maybe looking back at other games like lightbot could help spark ideas on how to make more challenging levels. Or if you changed the mechanics slightly so that bulldozers can push other bulldozers around instead of having the level stop if they collide, maybe that could allow you to design more challenging levels where people need to use that mechanic.

[WHY MUST I FEEL SO ILL]

Semi-autobiographical?
...
Hope you feel better soon (although I don't even know myself exactly what that wish entails in this context).

[Apocashop]

Two suggestions: many video game players might not notice that there's a time limit for each day as the sun moves across the screen, so the faster you finish interactions the more people you'll have a chance to sell to and the more profit you stand to make. If you take all day reading everything and asking questions to everybody then the game will be tough to beat, but that will be most people's instinct if they don't realize there's a time limit, and is probably the source of the negative comments about the game being super hard. Just making it clear there's a time limit will probably clue people in and boost the ratings a bit if those people aren't left thinking this is impossibly hard.
The other thing is that there are occasionally gold clouds that float across the screen that you can click on for cash. That's fine during the day when time is moving since it gives people more things to focus on at once, especially if there's a time limit on the day, but I noticed that the gold clouds will still come out when the anvil makes the last comment of the day saying that the day is over if you just wait at that screen without continuing and you can just hang out and click a few gold clouds before ending the day. I'm not sure how I feel about that -- it's cheating, but also would give weaker players a way to make it through the game easily if they don't mind cheating a little and would therefore boost ratings because there are definitely people out there who downrate stuff purely because they can't beat it. So it's up to you if you want limit when the gold clouds can come out.
I had one run where a bug appeared, and this is what I can remember of it. Either day #2 or day #3 (can't remember for sure which) began with no clues about what item people are going to buy a lot of that day, but they seemed to end up mostly wanting swords. I offered to protect the guy who was hiding from the bounty hunter, and on the next day he went through both the dialog thanking me and giving me a bonus for doing so, and I also got a message right after that about needing to watch my back for turning the guy in to the bounty hunter. And on that same day, there were a few times when people finished talking and I had to click the continue button multiple times before it would advance.
The sun also didn't make it all the way across the screen before the day ended on days when I accepted a bonus to have more time during the day -- it made it most of the way across, but not all the way.

kylechu responds:

Thank you so much for the detailed feedback -

We were hoping the sun would clue enough players in to the time limit, but it sounds like we need to be more explicit about it. My only concern there is that if players aren't looking closely enough to where they would see the sun, I'm not sure what I can do that they WILL notice.

That's actually a bug - we wanted to make it so they didn't pop when the timer is paused, but it doesn't seem to be working. However, you make a good point that it could act as a crutch for weaker players, and it isn't like some players "cheating" will affect anyone else - there isn't a leaderboard or anything - so we may just never fix this bug.

Do you happen to remember the clues for the hero that you had on the day that the nasty glitch happened? That might help me narrow down the issue, since the crisis clues are tied to individual heroes. (EDIT: I just pushed what I think is a fix to this glitch. Thanks again for pointing it out!)

When you say the sun didn't make it all the way across - do you mean it stopped like 3/4 of the way through the sky, or where about half of it was off the screen? If it's the first, that's a nasty bug and I'll take a look. If it's the second, that's just a side-effect of the modifications that I made to try to smooth the sun's movement.

Again, thank you so much for the good review, and the helpful feedback!

[ABC]

This is a really good concept that seems like it hasn't really explored a lot of its potential. There's some degree of puzzling based on the mechanic of switching from top-down to side-scrolling and the accompanying change in gravity (or lack thereof), but it's sort of basic in this form. I'm not faulting you for that because I know this was done for a gamejam with a very limited amount of time so there's not really a chance to sit down and design super intricate puzzles. But if the purpose of a gamejam is to get you to explore an idea quickly and potentially find something that's worth fleshing out with more time, then you've mosdef accomplished that mission.

[The cave]

On the third level I walked through the walls going horizontally, I think I was in mid-air from jumping but I'm not sure if that was a critical part of making the bug happen. The guy fell down through the bottom of the screen and didn't die or anything, just fell off the screen, and the game at that point was pretty much locked for all practical purposes (even though the guns were still firing) and I had to reload the page. Happened twice.

If it's a fixable bug then by all means fix; if it would be very difficult to find and/or correct then maybe just make the guy die if he falls off the bottom of the screen so at least the game doesn't get stuck.

LucasRebelato responds:

I will fix those bugs, sorry for that. And thanks for review

[Robot Fire Dragon]

OMG I got bored to death putting the fuking dragon together before the game even got started. Games are supposed to be fun; if I wanted something that was dull and monotonous I would go do homework instead of slaking off and playing online games.

[Sliding Bridge]

I thoroughly enjoyed this; it goes beyond the usual sort of puzzler because you really have to think outside the box for many of the levels in ways that I don't want to spoilerize here for anyone who's still working on solving them. When I was playing it, there were many times when I thought "is this cheating?" but I think they really were meant to be solved that way.

Minor gripes are the long loading time (much longer than I would have expected since it doesn't seem like the assets would have big filesizes) and that the music during gameplay started to feel repetitive fairly quickly, and I could've sworn I heard the title/level select music elsewhere before.

Dat ending tho... wut?

[CLONESPACE]

This was a really fun game from start to finish that had me glued to the computer until the end and making the effort to ace every level. I was on the fence between giving it a 4/5 and a 5/5 until I read the other players' comments. 5/5 for making a puzzle platformer that's challenging enough to get downrated by weak players for being too hard. Git gud r git rekt.

Chaz responds:

Hey thanks man!

[In Ruin V2]

Overall it seems fine for a beginning programmer, but there's lots of room for improvement. It could definitely use a preloader screen like the game description mentions. The gameplay is very basic, just top-down shooter with a small empty field where you kite the zombies around. There's no reload button so you have to intentionally empty your gun to reload. The story doesn't seem to be interactive (I always prefer to have the story be revealed in the gameplay rather than with text, and having the text presented as sort of a side note on the main menu detracts even more than if it were at least presented between levels or smth) or compelling like the game description says, although I haven't gotten that far into it. The graphics are pretty basic. Sound worked on Chrome and Firefox but not IE.

That said, if you're new to game making, then making a functional top-down shooter is a big first step and would let you add on more stuff to the platform you have, depending on how flexibly it was programmed. Most of the top-downs I've seen that I liked involved running around in a maze and solving puzzles as well as killing enemies (along the lines of Outpost:Haven). Which might be easy to do with the existing code or might not depending on whether you're locked into having the entire playfield be on the one stationary screen. Or if you want it to be more battle-centric than exploration and puzzling, then I would suggest making enemies with different behaviors that call for different approaches to kill (maybe you've done that and I just haven't gotten far enough into the game to see it) and giving the player different weapons with different mechanics throughout the game. But see if you have the same issues with no sound in IE because that's kinda a big bug if it's not just something screwy with my computer.

[Astral Crashers]

I'm only a few stages into it, but so far so great.

There are a few things I personally would like to tweak on the controls. First, I would want to have the default movement for soldiers to move in attack mode (stopping and attacking if any enemies get in range) instead of moving to the destination first and then attacking (make that be the mode that requires pushing a button). Second, since I have a mouse with a wheel, clicking the center button to pan the map will sometimes make the screen scroll up or down. I would rather pan the map with the keyboard, but it's tough to hold the mouse with one hand and use the arrow keys to pan and use the number keys to select squads and use the A button to move in attack mode all at the same time. If it were possible, I would have WASD pan and have a button other than A switch between attack mode and moving mode.

Also, in case anyone complains about lag or choppy play: switching browsers from Chrome to Firefox made a HUGE improvement for me. Even though the FPS on the display was a little lower in Firefox than Chrome, I could actually tell (or feel) that the game was running much more smoothly in Firefox. (I know, I should have quit using Chrome for gaming ever since they stopped supporting Unity, I'm just a slow learner.)

moligames responds:

Thanks! I have noticed the control problems you mentioned.
I will try your suggestion in the new game, it will combine RTS and other genres of games.