Zir0's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[College-Ruled Universe]

Hey.

Nice game.

It looks like a good start. The graphics were done very well, and I think that's the game's best asset (no pun intended).

This could definitely turn in to a good hardcore shooter game. Also, you can even find an in-game use for the platformer aspect of the game, maybe some side quest or maybe you land "inside" and enemy base or something, and take the core out on foot, then hurry and get back to your ship and escape before the place goes up, or something.

Should you continue the game, I'm sure you'll add more power-ups, enemies, sound effects, and all the extra polish. Please consider adding a pause ability, and the ability to mute music or sounds.

I hope you find yourself a good AS3.0 programmer.
Good skill on your game, soldier.

____________________
- Ziro out.

LordDF responds:

Hey Ziro, thanks for the great review. Yea, there's a lot of polish left out of this demo since I did it in such a hurry. That's a good idea about landing inside an enemy!

[Little Bass Survival]

Hey.

Interesting game. Very simple gameplay and mechanics. The fish graphics look really nice, but they do cause a slight lag when there are lots of them on screen. I set the quality to low, and that helped. For such a simple game, I'm surprised that there are separate settings for music and sound effects, and even a pause, not that I'm complaining. (:

Looks like larger worms restore keep hunger away more than smaller fish, which makes sense.

One thing I really liked about this, is that you don't have to avoid the entire fish's body, just it's mouth area.

I find myself trying to "psyche" out the other fish by making him come at me to get him out of the way. Why can't those fish ever get hooked, or maybe you can make a fish coming at you run into the hook, then the fisherman hooks that fish, so you get rid of him and the hook at the same time? >:)

Turning the fish upside down when it dies looks kinda funny. (:
Encountered one little glitch that my fish can still eat worms after it dies.

Not a single piece of poop from this fish eating all these worms. Fish poop like craze, ya know. (: Maybe if your fish pooped next to the catfish, they'd be concerned with cleaning that up than going after your fish.

___________________________
- Ziro out.

AcetheSuperVillain responds:

Thanks for the Zir0 report, glad you liked it.

Once you make Music, Sound and Pause for one game, it's an easy thing to copy and paste it into a little game like this.

The reason other fish don't get hooked is because (technical time) they are added to the stage and not to an array or container and just compare their positions to the bass and remove themselves when they're done in their own enter_frame events (come to think of it, garbage collect might be part of why it lags). Besides, when have you ever known me to go that extra mile?

[Thor Soundboard]

Hey.

Nice soundboard. Visually, it looks quite different from your other boards.

I only encountered two issues:
1). Preloader: For me, it didn't show up until it was at around 70%.
2). Damage 6 and 7 play the same sound. I'm guessing these should be different sounds.

Otherwise, very good.

____________________
- Ziro out.

[Vectorball alpha]

Not too bad

Hey.

Actually kept me playing until I lost (level 9).

Consider adding these into your list of features, if not already:

- On the title screen, change the Textfield, so that the text cannot be selected. Also, try using a font that matche that of the "Play" button, even if you have to remove the Textfield and just draw a custom label yourself. Same with the upgrade screen.

- Better graphics. There are some freeware textures on the Internet you can use for the walls.

- Sound effects.

- A Health power-up, so you can regain health, or add a health powerup "ball". This ball behaves just like the rocks, except that you must let it touch you to regain some health. If you shoot it, you either destroy it, or it turns into a regular rock.

- Slower moving, larger rock, that either (1) takes 2 or 3 hits to destroy; or (2) takes one hit to destroy, but breaks up into 2 smaller rocks.

- At the end of each level, don't just suddenly it. Allow all the currently active rocks to complete, then end the level. I imaging you're either doing each level based of a set amount of time or a certain number of rocks. Either way, once that limit has been reached, don't produce anymore rocks, and wait for all currently active ones to be removed.

- Some additional power-ups to consider:
1) Money power-up. When you collect it, it gives you a nice chuck of money, OR it adds a temporary multiplier to your current gains from shooting rocks.
2) Temporary invulnerability.
3) Temporary speed debuf on incoming rocks.

That's probably enough to keep you busy. (:
Good skill.

______________________
- Ziro out.

[Greenhouse]

Design is a Bit Rough

Hey.

The graphics in this game are done well. That's the game's best asset. Very nice. (:

Design, however, needs some fine tuning.
This game suffers from the same problem as many others like it: too many customers asking for the same service, and you won't be able to fulfill all of them. I would be more interested in using the vacated areas for additional parking and/or more of the same services you have. In the beginning, it's a bit too rough.

Also, there is no way you can "swap" two cars, if all your houses, your parking, and waiting customers are full. You're pretty much stuck, and have no choice but to send one car out, even if they are asking for another service from a different greenhouse. (If there's a way around this that I'm missing, please let me know.)

Also, I discovered a glitch where I could neither place a car in the upper-left greenhouse, nor were any more customers asking for anything in that greenhouse. I think it may have happened as I was moving a previous car out, or trying to drag a car to the exit, but somehow, the game still thought a car was there. I ended the game, and restarted the level, and all was well. I know it's a bit difficult to explain, as I haven't been able to reproduce it.

Include an option to mute music and sounds separately, or at least have a 3-way audio setup: (1) music and sounds; (2) sounds and no music; (3) no music and no sounds.

__________________________
- Ziro out.

[E.T Tower Defence 2]

Needs Some Work

Hey.

When restarting the game, it doesn't reset properly. Units from the previous game are still on the field, and when you place a new unit, one of the existing ones disappear. All units should be gone when you reset.

I also encountered a situation where the text area on hte right gets crowded with TextFields on top of each other.

When a towers destroys an enemy, there is a short delay before it targets another enemy, even if that enemy is already in range. Not sure if this is a by design or not. If it is, consider removing the delay.

Even for a first game, I'm _pretty_ sure you can find better graphics on the internet. Look up Lost Garden. Also, get rid of the radial gradient backgrounds on your UI elements.

On the "Ultimate tower", why are some of the stats taken away on an upgrade?

I notice all the cannons have "Ground" as one of the target attributes. This gives (at least me, anyway) the assumption, there are other targets, such as "Air". If this is not true, remove "Ground", as it is a moot statement.

I noticed a small graphic artifact on your enemy ship, way off the the right. It looks like a little spec. I presume this is some shape that wasn't entirely deleted. (If you need a screen shot let me know.)

______________________
- Ziro out.

[Hell Yeah Copter]

Cool Game

Hey.

The simplicity of it all was done well. Only one problem was the light green terrain on the 2-x levels. It was a little too bright. (: Your ability to mute music and sounds separately is fantastic. I also like the controls of the copter. I like how the bombs can go along the trails and destroy cannons. You should consider adding shot sounds to the cannons and other firing enemies, just something subtle, so it doesn't get annoying.

But, if you're gonna call it "Hell Yeah Copter" in your title, you need a badass copter to go with that name. This copter looks more like a Little Bird, not that the Little Bird isn't a good copter. You need something like an AH-64 Apache or AH-1 Super Cobra; something that looks more ominous. (:

Otherwise, nice cross between skill - collect and avoid.

________________________
- Ziro out.

Accession responds:

Thanks for the review! :D There were actually 5 other helicopters drawn up for the game that you were supposed to switch between at certain points, but we had to scale it back for production time. We'll probably see them in the sequel!

[Retro shooter]

Nice Game

Hey.

Consider adding more effects to make the game more engaging. For example, when you hit enemy ships, add a flash effect, similar to when the player is hit. Also, add explosions when destroying enemies.

Graphics look alright. However, the backgrounds is a higher resolution than the sprites, so there's a mismatch there. I do like how the colors of the lasers match the main color of the ships that fired them.

When the game is over, don't just suddenly put up the "Game Over" text. Add a short delay, and change up the music. Also, you should change up the music when you fight the bosses. There is also some white space along the right and bottom edges of the Flash window. On the title screen, the "e" at the end of "Space" is cut off a bit.

____________________________
- Ziro out.

[Brittany Airplane Service]

Nice Game

Hey.

Performance gets a bit slow in the later levels when there are more people on the screen.

The music didn't seem to fit the game much, so I muted it. However, I'd like the ability to mute the keep the sounds, instead of muting both of them.

I like how Brittany can carry two items at once. One thing I did notice is, only two destinations can be queued at once, and I presume that's by design. Faster players may want to be able to place more items in the queue, but at the same time, there are only three levels, thus the game is a bit short. Graphics are also fine.

The turbulence is a nice touch. Basically, this is "freeze" time, while your passengers lose a bit of patience. (:

There is an issue with the fonts you're using to display timer, and money (basically your HUD font at the top of the screen). The "9" character isn't appearing.

___________________________
- Ziro out.

[Brittany Birt: Hotel Job]

Not Too Bad

Hey.

Graphics look great here. However, I noticed that you're reducing alpha on people, it seems as when they walk close to each other. I'm not sure what the reason is for that, but should probably keep everyone opaque.

Also, I notice the game runs with quite a bit of lag, especially when there are lots of people walking around.

Sometimes, employees won't go to the door I want them to go to. When I click on their service icon, they will com out, then go to some other doo that I never told them to go to. I think this happens when you're trying to manage multiple employees at once, and the game isn't ordering the events in the queue properly or something.

The music sounds good, but I'd like the ability to mute the music and keep the sounds, instead of muting both.

I never was able to pass level 3. Probably tried about 10 times before giving up. I can get employees to the customer pretty fast, but no matter how fast I go, I can only get about $500 of the needed $700. Bringing out customers more quickly probably would help, and also reducing the chance that multiple employees are all requesting the same service at once, since you only have one employee of each service.

There is an issue with the fonts you're using to display timer, and money (basically your HUD font at the top of the screen). The "9" character isn't appearing. It probably wasn't embedded properly (might have been left out of your embed settings).

Other than that, nice game. Would like to see the difficulty of level 3 to be curved a bit, though. (:

___________________________
- Ziro out.