3p0ch's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Accelerator]

This is a very good game as it is. But I can't help but remember Vector Rush and Vectrix - similar genre where a game that I thought was very good became awesome on a re-release, and I can easily imagine a similar jump to the next level with Accelerator. (Unfortunately there seems to be something wrong with the swf for Vector Rush now which the author can't fix; if you haven't played it while it was working then imagine a stripped-down version of Vectrix.)

[Social Dysphoria The Game]

You appear to be invincible if you park in a corner and leave a paperweight on the spacebar.

VOEC responds:

Thank you for letting me know.
Fixed it and updated some things to make the overall game a bit more challenging. Also added a new shoot pattern for more variety.

[2013 Shelter]

A little too much of a pixel hunt for my tastes. Specifically: finding the nail and hammer in the second puzzle, the axe in the third puzzle, using the box in the middle of the lake of the fourth puzzle, finding the rock in the sixth puzzle, etc were all just a matter of futzing around until you stumbled upon the solution. What's with the out-of-place barrel with a note in the first scene? Going to an outside site to continue after finishing the game here also doesn't help.

As far as making this constructive criticism, my biggest sentiment is that a game like this should focus more on trying to find creative ways of solving a weird problem and having the player interact in a way that makes it clear that they know what the problem is and what they're doing to solve it (dragging items into the appropriate things to use them on maybe?) than on finding a hammer when only the handle is showing.

[Ripple Dot Zero]

Found a bug: The credits screen only has three people listed, and there's no freaking way the best flash game ever was made by just three people.

[The Ruins of Machi Itcza]

People complaining about the ending need to play upgrade complete if they haven't already. In that game you click a button and it goes from a plain text screen at the end with no real congratulations to a buff pic saying you're awesome and you totally kicked butt. Seriously, that makes any difference in a game? And, well, I kinda liked the end because even though I got trolled I kind of got a smirk from thinking about all the other people out there getting trolled who would actually get POed at it.

The journey in this game wasn't half bad in my opinion. The later keys required a little bit of thinking about how the game is laid out to anticipate where you should go, not a whole lot but suitable for a flash game. Platforming wasn't very challenging except for one or two points, but it's fine for a game that's supposed to be more cerebral than cerebellar. My only real gripe is that movement was a little too slow to be completely enjoyable (maybe because I'm playing on a $2.99 piece o crap laptop, but others seem to have thought it was slow too). Run button, plz.

[Nano War 2]

credit for tweaking up the genre

I liked the fact that the fat and antibody units were added to put a new twist on the game. But in practice it still turned out that the best strategy seemed to be to capture as many of the unit producing cells as possible as quickly as possible, and only worry about the fat or antibody at the very end to take over otherwise unattackable cells.

The other tweaks to the game - offering difficulty levels where you don't get to see numerical values for strength and having fog of war obscure enemy movement - were also a welcome addition. But again, they didn't end up changing the game play mechanics, and didn't affect what seemed like the optimal strategy of capturing unit producing cells as quickly as possible.

[Robinson Crusoe: The Game]

plz ignore retard reviews on this being impossible

Many reviewers seem to have concluded that the game is too hard to be enjoyable. Granted, it's hard enough that no one is liklely to survive on their first playthrough. Or second, or third. But after a couple of playthroughs to really understand the mechanics, and a couple more to note where everything is and develop a strategy, the game is definitely winnable. I just wish there was at least a vicotry screen of you whooping the cannibals afterward.

Thank you for making a game that is actually fairly challenging, and please continue doing so despite the whining of the inept and their tendency to vote games down if they aren't able to finish them on the first or second try. Perhaps it's possible to make games difficult without having them ragequit after losing the first couple of times -- maybe have a help screen that pauses the game while they can look over a list of all the structures and their effects and their building requirements, or offer a new strategic tip after each time they die or something -- but that certainly goes beyond what would be expected of anyone in a gamejam timeframe.

BTW: no way I believe that this game could've been made in just three days :p

[Teleporter man Alpha.01]

run! teleport! ignore! puzzle! go go go!

Since most people think walking speed is too slow, but Tainted-Trixter and me think walking speed is OK, I say to put in a "run" button.

I agree with suggestions for making teleportation quicker. Have the robot turn into a red streak off toward the ball with a super-fast screen scroll towards it.

Ignore suggestions to make the robot jump farther. Tell those reviewers that they just need to suck less. :D

And as coaster1235 pointed out, it'd be nice to have increasing dependence on puzzle solving rather than pure platforming as the game progresses. Maybe multiple different teleportation spheres to manage, wormholes (maybe some that will teleport just the robot or just the sphere), "enemies" that will interact with the sphere (carry it around) in often bad but sometimes beneficial ways. Making doorways that go from one screen to another and whose paths can be altered by flipping switches and requiring teleportation balls to be left in strategic areas to navigate back is one sure way to drive gamers batty.

Goosfraba responds:

You have many great ideas for the game. Especially the idea that the enemy's could interact with the sphere, I might use that

[Ninja's Adventure]

Buggy

Here's a list of bugs to work on that I noticed (welcome to the life of a programmer :P. It gets easier eventually, though.)

1 - your guy starts below the level of the ground sometimes, so he can't move sideways until he jumps. He should start either at the level of the ground (if that can be done easily) or a little bit above the ground so he just falls to the ground at the start of the level (if he can't be made to start right at ground level easily)

2 - you can only jump while you're moving sideways, and can't jump if you're standing still

3 - when you jump high enough to hit the ceiling, you lose sideways momentum, which makes it tough or impossible to jump over stuff. Ideally, you just want him to lose upward momentum when he hits the ceiling, which would require your code to distinguish between ceiling collision and wall collision and handle them differently. Or if you're lazy, just don't let the guy jump high enough to touch the ceiling. Or if you're super lazy, say that the ceiling is covered with superglue and it's your job as a player to not touch it. But then you would still need to make jump height change depending on how long you hold down the jump button.

4 - just make the guy die if he goes outside the play area, or put a wall around the area, instead of saying in the comments to not go outside of it.

Once the mechanics are working nicely, focus on level design and better graphics and some sound if you feel like it

NinjaZeno responds:

Alright. I'll work on that. Thanks for your review ;)