Zir0's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Velocity Raptor]

Interesting Game

Hey.

As far as the science you are teaching, I can't comment on that. So I'll stick to the technical side of this Flash submission.

When I press the X key to continue, I kept getting this message:

During the instructions, each time I pressed x, I got this error message:
TypeError: Error #2007: Parameter child must be non-null.
at flash.display::DisplayObjectContainer /removeChild()
at Levels/removeNote()
at Anchor/key_down()

During play, I sometimes get that message, or this message:

TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference.
at Anchor/killMe()
at Levels/clearLevel()
at Levels/key_down()

Graphics were a big turoff. There is something to be said about first impressions, and unfortunately, your graphics don't leave a very good one. There;s much better freeware graphics our there, especially since your game has a small set of graphics to use, it should be easy for you to find something. Same goes for fonts.

I like how you can mute music and sounds separately. Great job on accessibility there.

I believe the genre is a bit miscategorized, mainly using "Platformer", as this usually implies a some form of jumping in a side-scrolling game, not an overhead one. Unfortunately, Newgrounds doesn't provide an "overhead" type of genre, nor a "simulation and puzzles", "Puzzles - Other", or "Simulation - Other" may have worked. (I think the current options in the flash game submission genre leave a bit to be desired.)

The solution to level 16 was too difficult (too random), and the following level was too easy.

A note about levels 23 and 24, and other similar levels: don't lead the player on, once it ic clear that the player has failed and cannot complete the level (in other words, must start over), go ahead and do so.

I recommend you to take a look at the "The No Twinkie Database", which explains some good topics on game design.

Good skill on your future games. I think your greatest challenge here will be to educate _and_ entertain, this being a game after all. Otherwise, it may have been better to just make an informative movie.

_______________________
- Ziro out.

TestTubeGames responds:

Thanks for the detailed feedback, Ziro!

[FinalFantasyRemixBattle]

Needs Lots More Woek

Hey.

I do like the old-school style RPG games, but if you're just starting out, it's best to use your own graphics, sounds, characters, and theme, rather than try and build off something as successful as Final Fantasy/Kingdom Hearts, mainly because of certain... expectations associated with those games.

Battle System:
- Since you're using Final Fantasy 3 (I refer to the US versions) settings, you should _really_ use the "Active Time Battle" system, instead of static turn based.
- There are some flaws in the battle system logic. It seems that the enemies get two turns each round, as Sora goes, then enemies, then Riku, then enemies again. If this is by design, you _really_ should consider using an ATB system.
- I should be able to target who I want to cure.
- There are no damage/heal indicators.
- When following RIku, and you get to battle the one soldier, he is too difficult. One, he does more damage than you can heal, and second, after four tries of having Sora and Riku do attacks only, I still lost, and eventually gave up.

Controls
- WASD keys are fine, but you should also consider arrow keys for movement as well.
- During combat, since it is controlled by mouse, allow the player to dismiss the victor UI message by clicking it, in addition to / instead of having to use the keyboard.

Graphics and Sounds
- Personally, I do not condone the use of using ripped sprites and sounds in games. Use freeware media, collaborate with someone, or learn how to draw and make music & sound effects.
- Use a different font, preferably, something without serifs on it. I don';t know what font you used, but it looks similar to Times New Roman, which is not a god fit.

Other
- I notice when I move diagonally, my character doesn't use his running animation. Also, when I stop moving, he always faces left or right, and not the directing in which he was moving (if I'm running north, and stop, he faces left or right, instead of north).
- Can't interact with all the NPCs in the town.
- When I complete the quest from the old lady, is there a reward for that? Also, I really should be able to walk out to the wild on my own time, and not just suddenly be out there fighting some bear, with the herb "right there".
- Sora's voice in his attack gets annoying quickly because it's used too much. Perhaps reserve this for some attack that's nopt used as much as a basic attack.
- When you are following Riku, screen transitions shouldn't be instant.

Your ambition is good, and I feel you may be biting off just a little more than you can chew, as this will required lots more programming under the hood, as well as game design for the mechanics as well as balancing the game. I wish you good skill on this project; you're definitely aiming high here. Not too shabby for a first game, though.

* salutes *

_______________________________
- Ziro out.

[Space Factory]

Cool Game

Hey.

The game was built quite well, and I played through 100 weeks after being eaten the first time around. (:

Profit, loss, income, expenses... I feel like I'm actually running a business here (an yes, I am a self-employed Flash game programmer). All you need are self-employment taxes, haha! (:

One thing I REALLY DO like that you did not include in the game, are having to deal with personnel. Things like morale, attitude, lazy workers, code of conduct and all that. The animations of the workers is good enough. (:

The graphics and audio are done very well, and the option to mute music is also a good idea.

When playing the game for the very first time, the learning curve may be _just_ a little steep. The tutorial, while I like its interactivity, seems to merely tell you do things, but doesn't go into too much detail as to what you are really doing. Took me a while to get the hang of the game... prolly why I got all ate up the first time 'round, haha! (:

The save feature was an excellent idea.

I wish we could have more than 7 machines and 350 units of space, especially when building the level 5 products. Also. certain products like the plastic tend to be used a bit much (for example, produce space plastic for the first time it unlocks _a lot_ of products). Maybe if it only required one fossil instead of two, that may make a difference. Otherwise, product requirements, profits, and costs seem to be balanced fairly well.

First time though the game, aside from learning it so late, I made the mistake of trying to complete the contracts instead of the Uncle Blagscab's terms. Second time, I just ignored the contracts, focused on the terms, then +50 weeks, completed all the contracts, and unlocked all the achievements, except for one - couldn't start a war - they kept stopping my super villain. (:

The only issues I encountered were a few performance and useability / accessibility issues:
1). When switching to and from the change production screen, it takes about one second for the screen to actually change.

2). When in the change production menu, the buttons seem to be listening for mouse up events, and not click events. Many times, I've selected something I didn't want just after using the scroll bar, moving my mouse off the scroll bar, then releasing the mouse button.

3). Sometimes, the sudden pop-up of various notifications does get annoying. I know that they convey useful information or events, but they just happen so suddenly. Maybe experiment with quick screen transition or something. Could just be me though (: this might be a tricky situation to solve.

4). When you're on the super villain screen, the "Start War" text is partially blocked by the "More" tag.

I think that's about it. A _very_ polished game, and should keep someone busy for a while. Definitely deserves higher than a 3.55 (at the time o fthis post), IMHO.

Great job, soldiers.

* salutes *

__________________________
- Ziro out.

[Last Green Triangle v1.2]

Good Improvements over the Last Version

Hey.

You made those changes fairly quickly. Nice work (:
The presentation of the shop is much better now, as the game elements underneath are de-emphasized.

frizzyo made a good point with the menu buttons. They're a bit difficult to press. I can click them when I move my mouse over to the far left edge most of the time to highlight them.

I know you mentioned sounds are coming soon, so I'd like to add some preemptive tips:

- Try not to be (too) monotonous with the sounds, especially the explosions. Assign at least two different explosion sound effects, or you can really mix it up and give a different sound effect to each type of obstacle. For all shooting elements, give them a different sound. The differences need not be drastic. Shooters can easily get caught up with having just one sound effect for sounds events that occur often.

- Don't forget the mute/volume for sound effects and if you decide to add music, allow it to be adjusted separately from the sounds. Since your game is keyboard based, you can keep it simple and do it all with a single key. By default, game starts with both music and sounds. Press the key, and it mutes both music and sounds. Press it again, and you get sounds only. One more press and you get the start setting (music and sounds), so it's a three-phase setup.

I like the concept (I'm a sucker for old-school shooters), but I think you should have more enemy types. It took a while for the red magnet looking ship (stays at the top and shoots at you) to come out, but I like those guys. However, I didn't see any other enemies for the yellow (other than boxes), cyan (other than chaser ships), and blue (other than the mid-sized ship that comes from the bottom).

For blue, maybe you could make a ship that goes horizontally, and shoots at you when it's aligned. Perhaps as time goes on, the blue ships could shoot each time they align with the player instead of just once (just put a delay in there, so they don't spam, lol).

For yellow, I was thinking of adding a larger pentagon/hecagon/whaateverm that takes maybe 2 or 3 hits to kill. When you kill it, it breaks up into a few of the current yellow squares. However, that might be too easy to stop, as you might easily be able to kill the smaller squares as soon as they disperse. You can experiment, though.

So, another idea was to make a yellow ship that doesn't attack the player directly, but instead tries to steal the money floating around. It flies around on the screen, looking for money when it appears. If you kill it, it drops all the money it collected, plus what ever it starts with (like the other enemies). Make it move a little faster than the pother enemies, and small like the cyan ships, so it's a bit tougher to kill.

For cyan, maybe a combo of red and cyan: something that chases and shoots at you. But don't put too many of those - game ight get hard, unless the player is playing "hard' of course. (:

The multi-shot (I forgot to talk about this one last time, sorry), is cool. I got it to level 3, and for the most part, it's pretty good, but maybe multi shot could discharge projectiles at an angle or something.

The magnet is really cool, but sometimes, the money just flies right by me.

I hope my suggestions aren't imposing, but just some ideas to experiment with. Coming along nicely, though. (:

__________________________
- Ziro out.

imagirom responds:

thank you very much for all the suggestions. i will implement quite a few of them in the next version, which is coming soon!

[Virtual Piano]

Nice

Hey.

I like this program. My notes is the same as knex's, and you already mentioned it in your author comments (about the keyboard). Also, what Saminat said: adding more keys to be played.

Another suggestion would be to allow keys to be played as you drag the mouse over them.

The samples sound great too. Only thing is they are so short. However, I can understand you doing that so you won't have samples with long durations, making the SWF larger.

Good job, soldier.

_____________________
- Ziro out.

[Dudley Soundboard]

Excellent

Hey.

I went through all the sounds. All's working properly, and the UI is cleaned up pretty well.
Nice going, soldier.

* salutes *

Bu, when you gonna do a Soundboard of yourself??? :-D

[FWG Confrontation]

Nice Game

Hey.

The concept of "creature flooding" is nice, but I have a some notes.

Graphics: The graphics look pretty good. The UI and foints look good too, although I'd change the environment up on different levels.

Controls: Controlling the player is pretty solid. However, for a game with lots of controls, you should consider allowing the player to remap the controls.

Gameplay:
- When you win a round, I think you should get some kind of small, monetary bonus, based on your some kind of performance metric (if the game is already doing this, then it's not apparent), or at least completely refill your health.

- The availability of weapons, items and spells are good.

- The power meter implementation could be applied a little better. Perhaps a partially filled meter could make the normal attack be a little more effective. Currently, it's either all or nothing.

- There is a bit too much clicking going on. Personally, I'd like to be able to just hold the mouse button to attack repeatedly, and you could just set up some wat to toggle that between charging the power meter and repeated attack. Most of the time, I'm using the standard attack more then the charged attacks anyway.

- I see multiplayer all over this game. You really should consider it. (: You could devise a much more interesting "leader board" maybe win-loss record or something.

- Don't give the computer warrior advantages, just because it's the computer. This is apparent from level 1. For example the computer's attack is a bit stronger, and has a better knockback. Instead of just beefing up his stats (which is one of the things that just about every other adventure / fighting game does to make "tougher computer opponents), write better AI.

- Regarding the difficulty settings: What is the incentive for the more difficult levels? I presume you get more points.

Please see this article regarding difficulty in game design:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature /6549/how_tough_is_your_game_creating _.php

Audio: I don't hear any sounds. My volume is up (yes, lol), as I can hear sounds from other Flash games, but not this one.

Notes / Other:
- When I keep the mouse still, the I-beam eventually appears over the cursor.

- The game is categorized as Action - Fighting - Brawler. Brawler is more like, say Double Dragon, or Streets of Rage, which is what drew me to the game. This seems more like Action - Fighting - VS, since it has a much more player-competitive aspect to it, and then there are the RPG elements in it (more currency = more power) (although in my humble opinion, the currently available selections provided in the Genre drop-down box are a bit limited. (:

- There are some typos in the instructions:
1). On the first screen, it says, "beat the hell out strange creatures". It should say, "beat the hell out of strange creatures".

2). On the second screen, "computers" is misspelled. It should say "computer's", to show possession.

Otherwise, interesting game. (:
* salutes *
_____________________
- Ziro out.

[Last Green Triangle v1.1]

Needs some Improvements

Hey.

Nice shooter game, but a bit rough around the edges:

* Audio: Needs sound effects. If you decide to add it, also include the option to mute and/or adjust the volume. Adding music is not necessary; however, should you decide to add that in a future revision, then include volume adhjustments for it as well, separate from the sound effects.

* Graphics: The particle effects on the explosions do look nice, but you need more eye candy to make up for only having primitive shapes and lines.

* Gameplay:
- Add some sort of functionality where, when I die, I don't have top start over with nothing.
- Showing a high score is nice, but unless you actually have this tied into some back-end database somewhere, where I can see my scores with other players, it's useless. If not, might I suggest PlayerIO. It's a nice Library. If interested, you can learn more at http://playerio.com/ (:

* Usability:
- The game play entities should not interfere with the HUD.
- When you open the shop, consider: (1) dimming the gameplay elements, or; (2) removing the gameplay elements altogether. Showing the shop over the game play looks tacky.
- The text in the help looks cumbersome, and should be presented a little better.
- Include a UI on the HUD that shows which weapon you are currently using.
- Consider allowing the player input using mouse as well as keyboard and mouse, and allow the player to remap the keys.

Keep at it, and good skill.

___________________________
- Ziro out.

imagirom responds:

thanks for your feedback. i included as much as i could in the new version. sound effects are coming soon

[Cody Travers Soundboard]

Nice Board

Hey.

Cool sound board you have here, miss.
I only found two issues:

1). "THIS FEELS FAMILIAR": When you move the mouse over it, the word FAMILIAR is misspelled. It changes to "FAMILAR".

2). "SOUNDBOARD MADE BY": It has a mouse over effect, and the mouse changes to the hand pointer, giving the impression that it performs an action when click. I'm not sure if it's supposed to or not, but it doesn't do anything when I click on it.

Otherwise, good work.
* salutes *

_________________________
- Ziro out.

[Undeath or Dying]

Rough Around the Edges

Hey.

An alright shooter game, but the design needs some work. Here are some things to improve on:

========================
Controls
========================
- Allow the player the ability to reconfigure the controls whoever they like. Furthermore, side-scrolling, platformer, shooter games (which is also how this game should be categorized - this is not a brawler game) should use the mouse to aim (give the player 360 degree aim - kill the old-school 45 degree aiming - good for nostalgia, but its day has come and gone).
- Nonetheless, since you're using the keyboard, consider making accessing and controlling the UI keyboard-based as well.
- I like how you can jump and shot down, but I didn't find much use for it.

========================
Gameplay and Design
========================
- More enemy types, more player abilities (the melee attach is cool, though), introduce some vertical scrolling as well as horizontal.
- Why is my character walking in place, even when I'm not actually moving around? (:
- _Please_ make the gun auto-fire. I don't want to get carpel tunnel playing your game.
- The explosion graphic looks nice, but it's a bit much just for blowing up henchmen. It looks nice, but it's being used too much, and should be saved that for larger things that blow up.
- Graphics look alright, however, there is an inconsistency between characters and background. The characters and other effects are vectors, while the backgrounds are raster, and it looks tacky. Stick to one type of art.
- The point of origin for projectiles don't match the end of the guns. Bullets look like they are coming from the shooters' bodies. :P
- When firing the single shot, there is a delay from when the shot is discharged and when the sound actually plays. If you are starting the sound and the discharge at the same time, maybe there is some silence at the beginning o fthe shot sound effect?
- Consider allowing the player to mute audio and music separately, instead of "all or nothing".
- Make an animation for actually throwing grenades.
- I like how the item changes, so you can get any item you want, but I think it changes a little too rapidly.
- The sounds are a bit too loud, and the explosion is monotonous. Consider toning them down, and adding a few different sounds for the same events. When there are lots of explosion sounds playing, it just gets noisy, and the sounds clip.
- Don't make players start over from the beginning of the game. Consider starting them at least at the beginning of the more recent stage.

Good luck / skill.

____________________________
- Ziro out.