3p0ch's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[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!

[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!

[Nauseous Pines]

You just need one interception and the game's done? I thought I'd need to do that three times.

This is bizarre as all fuck, and most of the challenge of the game is in figuring out how things work and what you need to do. Once I figured out most(?) of the mechanics it was pretty straightforward. The appeal isn't in typical gaming, but more about the drug trippiness and fetish (IDK if I would go quite so far as tagging it "hentai" but it's not far off) and figuring out shit that's somehow impossible to figure out even though it's flat out explained to you. For anyone who wants to experience it, this is unlike any other game out there and is worth playing through and figuring out... even if I did think some of the text parts were kinda tl,dr.

railslave responds:

Thanks, I got plenty more weirdness like this on steam @Uriel's chasm 3

You can start again and try another route btw

[The Secret of Tetrapylae]

I finished the game with help from the walkthru, and I'll say exactly where I needed it and why in case you find this useful. Fair warning to anyone reading comments before you finish the game: stop reading now or you'll get some spoilers.

First spot was finding the key around the dead guy's neck. It's debatable whether you consider finding that to be something that you would expect from a good player vs being unfair pixel hunting, but it was something I didn't see until invoking the walkthru.

Second was the exact order or placing the "things" on the "12-position thing" (in case anyone ignored my warning I'm still being vague :3). I didn't see how to figure that out from anything I was given, or even in hindsight how I could have figured that out from the scribe. (If that page was where the clue should have come from --- I could figure out relative positions of everything [like how far each object should be from the other objects] but not exactly where they should lie.)

Personally, I didn't find navigation to be confusing. I figured that part out on my own and didn't see any surprises from the walkthrough.

I intend for that to be only feedback so you can see where I (one player) got stuck, and decide for yourself whether that merits any consideration in determining future game design. Sometimes point-'n-click games have a button you can press to show all interactable objects which would completely eliminate any complaints about pixel hunting, but I also argued against such a mechanism on a review of another point-'n-click game recently saying that if the dev makes awesome graphics then it's fair game to expect the players to look at 'em. Overall I thought the game was pretty enjoyable, and if you ever were to offer a "show all interactable objects" feature, I think I would recommend defaulting it to "off".

One of the other comments invoked mention of Submachine. While I feel it would be too early to talk about it at this point, I'll at least say that my comment to Submachine's final episode involved saying that they built such an immersive universe that the whole experience was far greater than the sum of its parts. IDK if you plan to spend ten years on a project, but if that's sort of what you might have in mind, then take it for what you will.

terann responds:

Thank you very much for your comment. You highlighted two spots where a lot of players really do need help (I can see that from the Youtube analysys of my walkthrough video).

When designing the game I really tried to avoid pixelhunting. I believed that the string, though small, was spottable enough. The only thing I can do now is to increase the interaction area around it. Here I must say that I do not like the concept of highlighting of all interactable areas. IMHO it is part of the appeal of the PnC games to figure out the relevant spots in game scenes.

Regarding the second puzle, I wanted to avoid something that is often seen in PnC games, where e. g. a code for a combination lock is simply written on the wall of another room. This puzzle has actually two hints (the third verse of the second riddle in the manuscript), but they are a bit more vague, and it is expected from the players to connect the whole thing to something they see every day in the newspaper. But the hints are probably too vague, and people do not read papers anymore ;)

Finally, about Submachine: It was not my intention to compare this game to that awesome series of which I am a big fan. I just used it to illustrate a concept.

[Spaceship Shooter RPG Deluxe]

This is my favorite of the games you've uploaded recently. It has the autofire and map with continuation from the last level you reached, which are big improvements. It might be better if vertical movement were allowed, and if there were hotkeys to activate the pickups (maybe there are? So far the only way I found to activate them is with the mouse.) But it's pretty good for a shooter game as it is.

MatiasVME responds:

Thank you very much for your comment :). At the moment there is no vertical movement, but, I want to see how the game is doing to see if we can continue updating it. The game was intended for a casual audience but it's a very good idea to add a vertical move. Maybe it can be added as an additional mode.

[Ultra Spaceships]

My main comment is that it lacks "fun factor" in the early levels, mainly because 1) they're pretty easy and 2) having to repeatedly mash space to keep firing gets tiresome. But once you get to later levels where it's more challenging, it gets fun.

Having the first levels be easy wouldn't be so much of a drawback if, after you die, you can restart the game on the same level where you died (or maybe after the last boss you killed) instead of having to start over from the beginning. And as for mashing the fire button: personally I think it would be ok to hold space to have it auto-fire, but if you'd like more user interaction and finesse then maybe have it auto-fire if you hold space but have a gun heat bar that will make the gun overheat if it's just fired constantly so it needs to pause a few seconds to cool down if it overheats.

Aside from those critiques: it has unique physics that feel nothing like what you'd expect from a space shmup, but are entertaining in their own right. The foreground graphics are simplistic but clean, and background graphics and music are nice and work well. I might like it if the game ran at a slightly faster speed, but that's just my preference.

MatiasVME responds:

Thank you very much for your comment. We made a version 2 of this game, it's called spaceship shooter rpg deluxe. It has several additional features.

I'm glad you liked the game, thank you.

[Big Bash Bolt]

I tried running a race with absolutely no cheating and was left in the dust by everyone with no booby-traps to slow them down, and I still got a #1 trophy at the end. Not sure if that's really what you want this game to do given the description. But trying to cheat without getting caught is more fun than running the race fairly as a slow fatass, so maybe cheating is just its own reward regardless of what the ending screen says.

JUSTCAMH responds:

Interesting that you're rewarded for coming last... That's certainly not right! I'll get back to you on that one!