Zir0's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Zombie Break-in]

Alright Game

Hey.

===============
Gameplay and design
===============
- Overall game play is ok, and as there is no end, it gets a bit monotonous.
- I didn't find the grenades of much use. Perhaps a larger blast radius to offset their lack of accuracy. Early in the game, I found the shotgun was most useful, and later, it was the Lupara II, followed by the M60. Most of the other weapons weren't much use. Melee needs some more upgrades. The sword just doesn't cut it after a while (no pun intended).
- Game felt a but punishing when you die. Player could be in big trouble if they are far in the game then get killed, lose all their stuff, and don't have much money. Consider at least letting the player keep the weapons.
- I do like how the player heals on his own, and there is no need to worrk about picking up health packs.
Needs more enemy types.
- Is the super health and durability items supposed to help you last longer? If so, it doesnt seem like it. :\
- Pause and mute options were a good idea.
- In addition to a manual reload, consider having the player's character reload automatically, when ammo is exhausted.
- You should add a screen that explains what the items do. Some of them are easy to figure out, while others, not so much.
- Consider, adding sounds for item pickup, taking damage, dying, killing zombies, and opening doors. It gets monotonous just listening to guns and clicks.
- Would like to see a speed power-up to increase my character's movement speed.

===============
Graphics and audio
===============
- The background "hum" was a nice, subtle touch. If the game had some tune, I would have suggested that the music and sounds can be muted separately, but the hum is cool. (:
- Regarding the graphics:
1) find free graphics online;
2) if you made these, beef up your drawing skills; or
3) find yourself an artist to collab with (or a better artist)

- The sound of the Browning and M60 is too loud. So loud that it's clipping.

===============
Controls
===============
- Consider adding the arrow keys for movement for left-handed players. I'm right-handed, so WASD keys work better for me, but I'm sure lefties might like using arrow keys.

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Other notes
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- The HUD elements should not interfere with in-game play. In other words, when I click the Q icon to change quality, my character shouldn't be firing a shot.
- Collision is a bit glitchy. Sometimes, my character gets stuck around the edges of doors / opened passages, where it looks like nothing is blocking him. You can duplicate this by walking diagonally against the first a closed door to the left.

Cool game, just remove the gauntlet-style play, and add some variety and balance the gameplay a little more.

__________________________
- Ziro out.

[UDE]

Cool Game

Hey.

The graphics, and audio are great, and I like the fact that I can directly control my own unit in addition to the RTS elements. The reload on my own unit was annoying, though.

When my own unit was destroyed, at first, I thought the game was over... apparently, not (:
I was much relieved when I could build myself another one, which was cool.

Gameplay is a bit slow in the beginning, but I guess that's because of the grind involved with building up your levels.

When I click on buildings that are maxed out, r don't have enough crystals, I get messages like these:

SecurityError: Error #2121: Security sandbox violation: getChildAt: http://uploads.ungrounded.net/572000/
572433_UDE_secure.swf cannot access http://server.cpmstar.com/adviewas3.s wf?contentspotid=4802QB713DE58. This may be worked around by calling Security.allowDomain.
at flash.display::DisplayObjectContainer /getChildAt()
at map.ui.utils::FadingTextTip()
at map. ::BuildingPlayer/ ()

and this:

ArgumentError: Error #2025: The supplied DisplayObject must be a child of the caller.
at flash.display::DisplayObjectContainer /removeChild()
at com.moonmana.map.utils::DyingStageMov ieClip/die()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatc hEventFunction()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatc hEvent()
at com.moonmana.map.utils::DyingMovieCli p/ ()

Other than those, this game is nice.

______________________
- Ziro out.

episodeent responds:

Thank you very-very much! Ill fix it asap. Almost done, compiling!

[Hexery - CCG]

Getting some errors...

Hey.

When the game first loads, I get this message:

Error #2044: Unhandled securityError:. text=Error #2048: Security sandbox violation: http://uploads.ungrounded.net/572000/
572395_hexlite.swf cannot load data from http://www.hexeryonline.com/thecards.
xml.
at hexery/GetCardData()
at hexery/frame1()

Once I click begin, unless I dismiss it, I continuously get this message:

TypeError: Error #1010: A term is undefined and has no properties.
at hexery/CardInfo_getCardElementNumber(
)
at hexery/CreateCards()
at hexery/MainGameLoop()

Once I'm into the game, if I click Quit, the game over dialog appears, and there seems to be an OK button, but it doesn't seem to function. Furthermore, the TextField objects shouldn't be selectable.

________________
- Ziro out.

havanuf responds:

The initial file required an external XML file for data. The data has been hard coded into the game now and works as planned.

[Harv-E]

Nice Game

Hey.

The concept is interesting, and the graphics look good. The turning animations are a bit much, as it takes a little too long for the player to turn. When manually moving the screen, and you activate your claw, it feels awkward that it instantly focuses back on the player. I nice, smooth scroll would be much better here.

While the graphics look very well polished, the dynamite explosions could use a little extra work. They don't seem as detailed as the rest of the graphics.

When you energy is depleted in the middle of a claw operation, consider at least allowing the player to finish that last move instead of suddenly ending the day. The music and fonts look good, too. However, one way around this would be to allow some small indicator set, that shows where I am, and the current direction of my claw. Then you could continue doing what you're doing now - instantly focus back to the player. The way it is now, it just fees a little punishing.

I like how your achievements actually help out some kind of way in-game, instead of being just a bunch of useless trophies. (:

Not sure what's going on under the hood, but sometimes when I hover the mouse over the Buy buttons, the cursor changes into the texfield I-Beam.

I like the option to mute the audio, however, I recommend being able to mute music but keep the sounds.

Mostly user experience issues. Smooth out those rough edges for a more comfortable experience for your players.

_________________________
- Ziro out.

[Lovely Revy [00 RX]]

Nice Game

Hey.

This game has some potential.

I noticed when you land from a jump, the player's feet go below the landing point. Also, when using Revy's jump attack, it doesn't auto fire while in mid-air as it does when you're standing. Not sure if that is by design or not, but the two (standing and jumping) should probably be consistent. Walking while shooting should probably use the walking animation and shooting combined. Instead, it looks like it's the standing animation, skipping forward.

Explosion graphics could be a little better.

I did encounter a glitch. I was playing as Rosalina, and was battling Evil Rosalina. Sometimes, I get stuck, and can't move or switch characters. Also, when all my health is gone, the game won't end. The glitch seems to happen sometimes when I get hit.

As I said, nice game. Keep working on it.

* salutes *

_________________________
- Ziro out.

omegafinal responds:

The mid-air attack didn't work the way I intend, since for some reason, you're literally stuck in that frame of animation. I would have loved Revy auto-firing her gun. Also notice that Rosalina dealt continuous damage in her mid-air attack, so that's something I want to fix. The standing only when attack is by design in my part, because I was basing it more on Castlevania actually (but I HATE the extreme knockbacks, so I intentionally left those out). Maybe certain characters will and won't have the ability to walk and hit in the future.

The jumping "bounce" as I'd call most likely has to do with Rystic's code, it's real easy to use and functional, but it does have its limits, so I'm looking to replace it. I originally did try and script my own before finding Rystic's, but there were various problems that made me gave it up (imagine if there was just one thing I could've change and it worked. That would've ticked me off.)

That sounds like a very specific glitch, because I couldn't recreate it (or I just suck at testing my own game), the glitch I usually get is somehow the bosses does double damage. It sounds like the "death" variable has been triggered in your case for the other one, so the game thinks that you're already dead. You can PM me the specifics or post it in my news post. Thankfully, I'm thinking about overhauling the game with some new code, so hopefully it'll be better the next time.

Oh yeah, thanks for the review.

[Space blasters]

Needs much improvement

Hey.

- Needs more sounds than just an explosion sound when you kill enemies. Add sound effects for the following:
1) Player fires
2) Player dies
3) Different sound for killing mother ships

- They all shouldn't fire at the same time. Make each enemy ship fire on it's own interval. You may want to change it, so only that the bottommost ships in each column can fire. Also, change the firing ability of the enemies to the classic straight down rather than allow them to aim at you from anywhere.

- Change the mother ships so that the only appear periodically and travel from left to right along the top of the screen.

- The HUD should not be in the game play area.

- The color of the score is black, and you can barely see it over its background.

- There is whitespace along the right and bottom edge of the screen.

- The player ship shouldn't be able to move off the screen.

- Remove the Shift to start display, and simply start the game after a grace period of perhaps a second or so. Also, when you start the game, you have to press Shift again to dismiss the message.

- When you get hit, stop the game play, make a death sequence, and restart the game.

_______________________
- Ziro out.

[Comikaze Coptaah!]

Interesting game, but the controls...

Hey.

It's using all the movement keys as doubles for turning, and accelerating. I think it should do one of these:

- Use up/down for speed control, and left/right for turning; or
- Use left/right for speed control, and up/down for turning

But, in my opinion, the best solution would be to allow the users to select the control scheme they favor most.

Graphics are fine, music didn't seem to fit, and would have liked to hear better suited sounds for collisions. Some plane sounds would be nice, too. It could play the sound of another plane as it's coming near you, for example.

________________________
- Ziro out.

[P++]

Interesting Concept

Hey.

- Consider including some kind of indicator that shows the currently executed command.
- Add some sound effects also when moving around, and touching the green orbs.
- Consider adding some "end-of-game" phase if you touch a red orb or win the level.
- Change the textfield object(s) on the instructions, so that you ca't select them, and the I-bear cursor doesn't appear (set it up the same way you set up the text in the level editor)
- There seems to be some weird behavior in the text editor. If you click Create to go to a new map, and simply click the New grid button, the grid seems to "jump" a little to the left.
- An option to change the game speed when running commands may be useful.

__________________
- Ziro out.

pedmacedo responds:

Thanks for the constructive critic :D

[Don't let they leave! 2.2]

Good but too Easy

Hey.

After you max all the upgrades, it becomes too easy. However, I'd say the sweet spot of the game is waves 3 and 4, because you have some upgrades, and the animals are quite aggressive to give a good challenge. But after that, you'll have enough money to considerably upgrade.

Consider adding some more gameplay to keep the game fresh , and perhaps change the scenery for different waves. Some animals could maybe try to avoid you when you get too close.

Fix the TextField objects in the HUD so that you can't select them or the mouse doesn't change to the I-Beam when you move over them. Add some sound effects also. The big animals don't seem to stun your hired help, though. Get rid of the gradient on the game over box.

Directing a thrown net is nice, but I'd rather it not do that, or at least have an option not to. Often times, I find myself tossing a net, then immediately moving away to catch another animal on the opposite side of the screen, so my net misses. The ability to throw the net diagonally might be a good idea.

Good skill of the game. (:

____________________
- Ziro out.