Zir0's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Sword of August]

Nice game

Hey.

Nice shooter, although I'm not a fan of storylines, especially in shooters (or many other action based genres for that matter). I just skip all the text and go straight to the action. (:

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Gameplay
====================
- A bit too much reading for me, this being a shooter and all. I wanna just get into the game, shoot things, blow them up, and dodge their attacks. I don't have time for sophisticated ship configurations, pages of walls of text, and what not. I think having more engaging enemies (and not just making a bullet hell or an enemy that shoots a lot in a bunch of different directions), better AI, simple systems without so much learning curve would be better. The game has excellent graphics, but that doesn't hide these aspects.

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UI / Accessibility / Polish / Other
====================
- On the UI pages with back and next buttons, you should probably hide the Back button on the first page, and the Next button on the last page. Either that, or make them look greyed out or otherwise disabled. Under the mentioned circumstances, they give the impression that they can be clicked to navigate further, when actually, they do not.

- At first, I was going to say, give the player the option of adjusting music and sound effects. Then the option is presented after you complete the first stage, as other non-gameplay related options. In my opinion, options such as these should be presented at the start of the game. Nonetheless, my initial though still stands somewhat - there should be an option to adjust music and sounds effects separately, instead of all or nothing, and make this option available during play.

- One thing I do like about the help is that you limit the amount shown in the beginning. No one likes to see walls of text at the beginning of a game (at least I know I don't).

- Consider adding the Escape key in addition to P to pause and unpause.

====================
Graphics and Audio
====================
- Graphics olok great, and the music and most sound effects are alright.

- Regarding the explosion sound: It sounds more like a tapping sound rather than an explosion. Furthermore, consider using several explosion sounds instead of the same one. When fighting many enemies, the same sound repeatedly gets monotonous. The sound they make when destroyed? That's more like it. Also damaging an enemy ship, it uses a similar tapping sound, which seems tacky. :P

====================
Controls
====================
- Since the game is keyboard-based, consider allowing the player to proceed through dialog by using some key (as they can sue the spacebar to skip altogether). The same when viewing the Results at the end of a stage.
- When I press down and left arrows on my keyboard and try to fire, I can only get two of these three keys working. The other three diagonal movements with firing all work fine.

Other than all that, an alright game. Focus more on core gameplay and less on writing. (:

________________________
- Ziro out.

[MC2 : Burning Skies]

Quite the bullet hell

Hey.

Nice shooter game, and the way that upgrade system doesn't use any form of currency is nice.

User accessibility was done very well, and while the keys can't be remapped, there are several modes of input, including mouse-based. Consider adding the Escape key to pause, since I presume many are used to that. I found myself pressing Escape several times, because I kept forgetting it's the P key. (:

Graphics were done well, though not all that detailed, they still look fine. Still, old-school raster art would have looked much better. For some reason, vector (or vector-looking) art was just never too appealing to me in a shooter game, but nonetheless, they still look fine.

The music and sounds were good, too. Game definitely needs more explosion sounds as the same explosion sound for (almost?) everything gets monotonous. Going back to accessibility, I like the ability to adjust volume of music and sounds separately (Pay attention here, junior devs, and even some of you veteran devs who are being lazy about this. (: )

I notice how you have your own "2D sound system" too. Nice touch. One thing that seems weird, is when you have the shield, the sound pans when you move your plane to the left or right of the screen, although the shield itself is always on top of you. I feel this shouldn't be panned, but sounds that actually occur to the left or right of the player's ship should be. You're making the sound listener the game screen instead of the player's plane in this aspect.

Now on to the gameplay. You weren't pulling any punches with this. The game comes at you fierce with bullet hell from the start, even on the first level, and many of the enemies, especially tanks and turrets shoot quite rapidly. Not a problem, as it doesn't get too frustrating, but consider adding a few more health drops here and there to help players out.

Looks like you went all out with a premium version, which I'm sure provides other goodies as well.

Overall nice game, guys.

________________________
- Ziro out.

[First Dress up flash ^^]

Good start; keep working

Hey.

Seeing as this is your first Flash, it looks like you got the basics of handling the mouse down alright. You will mostly want to make the game more accessible and user friendly, so here are some tips.

- Since all the components are designed go to specific areas, make it so the user can just click on the item (hairstyle, etc.), and it will automatically affix itself to where it needs to be. This pretty much eliminates the need to drag and drop, as more dress-up games are going that route, and it's not dependent on the user to line things up accurately.

- That being said, you may want to organize all your components into menu, and have the user select the item(s) from each menu with which they want to equip the character. For example, you'd have a menu for eyes, hairstyles, eyebrows, tops, and all the other groups. You won't be able to show everything at once, but you don't have to; it won't be necessary.

- There is a lot of unused whitespace along the top, left, and bottom sides of the Flash, which appears to be centered vertically, but aligned to the right edge. You could use that extra room for menus and UI.

- Consider giving an option for the character's skin color to be changed.

- The music sounds appropriate, however, add the ability for the player to mute and un-mute the music. You can probably add one or two more songs, as long as your SWF file size doesn't get out of control.

- You can even add the ability to change the background image, if you're feeling up to it. Not a direct change to the character, but having different backgrounds can work wonders for the over look and feel.

Keep practicing your Flash skills, and hopefully, you are using ActionScript 3.0. If not, I highly recommend making the jump to some point; it's a heck of a lot better than 2.0, and light years ahead of 1.0. (:

Good skill / luck, soldier.

________________________
- Ziro out.

egaoxxxlotje responds:

thankzss alot!!

this will surely help me ^^

[Basketball - World Cup]

Nice but needs more work

Hey.

First off, I like the fact that this game actually favors BASKETBALL (to an extent), and not some 3-point derby, or other casual-style-not-really-basketball type of game.

The graphics and audio are good. Being able to customize the appearance of the player is really nice.

However, it's the gameplay that leaves much to be desired.

- Players should be able to move around using the entire court, not just in a straight line. Of course, you have to change your control scheme, since all four arrow keys would be used for movement, but that shouldn't be a problem. Also as a result, the ability to remap the controls should be implemented.

- Players shouldn't be able to run out of bounds. Same rule applies to the ball.

- The ball physics are a bit flaky. Ball bounces erratically sometimes. For instance, the ball shouldn't be able to bounce from one end of the court to the other in a single bounce.

- Since the controls of the game are keyboard based, add a key to pause and mute, instead of having to click the mouse.

- In the shop UI, since it uses a scroll bar, you should be able to drag the bar itself, rather than have to click the end arrow buttons.

- No fouls? (:

-The AI uses cheap algorithms, such as jumping AS SOON AS I JUMP.

- When a player makes a shot his opponent should automatically get the ball.

- It's too easy to dunk on people. (: Considering the previous statement, sometimes, you can get the ball right back and dunk again.

- Probably should get rid of the travelling (jumping with the ball and landing without shooting).

- Get rid of the goaltending. That's very annoying.

- If you shoot the ball and the time for the end of the round expires, it should let that ball continue to go, just in case the shooter makes the basket, instead of abruptly freezing the ball.

I would really like to see at least 2 v 2, with one player, and three AI players, but you'd need to improve the AI, physics, and rules before attempting this. (:

Off to a good start, though.

________________________
- Ziro out.

[Invasion of the UST]

Nice Lesson

Hey.

Some good data is here. I got all of them correct except for the first one. While it wasn't anything particularly new to me, this could be very useful for people who have trouble being specific (or too specific). I also like the font used.

A few things to consider:
- More questions. However, don't choose all the questions during each game. Could be taken a step further by choosing them in random order (choose the groups at random, then mix up the order of questions in each group).
- Add some media: A few sound effects like button clicking, correct & incorrect, and time warning could easily be plugged in. Replace the bland, white background. Nothing that distracts from the purpose, but even simple sounds and frame UI graphics make it a little more attractive.

One issue encountered:
- During play, if you navigate through the Flash with tab key and press spacebar when no apparent button has the focus, the Flash behaves strangely. It tends to go the the next question for example, without having answered the current question.

Overall, I like the concept.

___________________________
- Ziro out.

MikeJSingleton responds:

Thanks for the feedback! It's all very helpful :)

[Pothead Zombies]

Cool Game

Hey.

This is a nice shooting / defense game. Graphics and animations were done very nicely. Sound effects are a bit quiet, but with all that's going on, that's probably a good thing. The music was nice too, although I'd still like the option of muting the music while keeping the sounds.

The weapons and upgrades are ok. Being firearms, they're pretty much the same as we've seen in every other shooter game that has guns based off real models. There's not much one can really innovate on here. Damage, fire rate, reload speed - we've seen those many times before. I would like to see some different weapons here. I was able to finish the game and didn't even bother upgrading the Red 9 or Sig Sauer once, nor did I purchase the MP5 or Rifle. (I mean, I played around with in a few games, but was ultimately able to finish the game without them.) The latter two are pretty much useless, and can be swapped out with some other more interesting weapons, maybe some type of explosive for collateral damage, or claymores, or something.

For some other players, a game plan that worked for me was:
- Immediately start saving for the crossbow - don't bother upgrading either of the pistols. Once you get the crossbow, give it to your AI.
- Continue using your pistol, build up the AI's crossbow every occasionally, while saving up for the M4.
- Don't bother with the MP5 or Rifle. You can max out the Crossbow if you want, but you don't have to. However, you should invest some points into it.
- Don't bother with the fans. (You can bu them later if you want, just for kicks.)
- Save up for the Gattling, and max it out. In the end, you will have the Gattling, and your partner will have the M4.
:-)

Maybe it's just me, but the fans didn't really seem to do much. If their intent is to slow the approaching zombies, it isn't all that noticeable.

While playing, I noticed there is no way to restore health, making the game gauntlet-style. However, when you lose, it does give you the option of continuing at the cost of a percentage of your score (I like that - I did that exact same thing with my game, Blast Force :) ).

Having an AI partner is cool, but I wish you could change his behavior a bit. It seems once he has acquired a target, he will continue firing on it until it is destroyed. In most cases, this is fine, but in later levels, he may not be doing too well against a particular zombie (also in part due to his slower firing rate), and another zombie, usually a faster, weaker one, is closing in. I would like him to switch to that target, because he'd have a better chance of killing it.

Question for leonardozimbres: I'm guessing when your AI partner "levels up", it slightly increases all his stats for whatever weapon he's using? (:

Overall, it's a sweet nice game. Nice work, soldiers. As you were.
* salutes *

_______________________
- Ziro out.

leonardozimbres responds:

Sorry for the late answer. When the AI levels up, the coop buddy will shoot and reload faster. I do hope to make this more clearer on a future version.
Thanks for your care in reviewing this game. Im taking notes of observations to keep doing better work.

[Slayer III]

Not Bad, but Rough Around Edges

Hey.

This is an ambitions game, and there was much effort put into this.

GAMEPLAY
- Consider giving the player the ability to jump. I was also going to say back attack as well, but then I noticed you can do that as an additional attack with Spacebar-based attack. However, this shouldn't use magic...
- If the player is performing his combo on an enemy, that enemy should not be able to interrupt the player's attack and interrupt it. This goes in hand with the first item in the controls section listed below. Also, at the end of the combo, consider making the final combo hit push the enemy back a little if the enemy is not defeated. They tend to get a "free hit" on the player otherwise, because the player cannot move while finishing his animation.
- I tend to not like the Corruption attack, because it often puts you right in the middle of trouble. (:

CONTROLS
- It's easy to control the character, but consider allowing the player to perform his complete set of standard melee attacks by simply holding down the mouse button, instead of requiring additional button presses.
- Since you can enter the menu via the Escape key, having an Exit button is nice, but ideally, the player should be able to exit the menu using the same manner they entered - the Escape key.

GRAPHICS
- The background graphics look fine mostly, but the characters, especially the player's character looks a bit "flat"... like is made out of paper.
- Some of the graphics are just cheap gradient fills (the player's second sword, and the Corruption attack), and look tacky.

AUDIO
- No problems here. Sounds good to me. (:

POLISH / NOTES / OTHER ISSUES
- At the beginning of the game, if you try to move left, I can understand that you cannot go that way. However, it "pushes" the player back toward the right instead of simply stopping him. Consider Valeron, when you walk towards the Veilspere, and how it stops the player without pushing him back? That's how you should do it everywhere you don't want to the player proceed.
- The player should only have his back to us when he is walking upward. Walking left, right, and downward, we should see his front and face.
- There is the http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/www.
maxgames.com link issue which has been mentioned by others already.
- The Character menu is poorly presented. The fonts are look like Times New Roman (or some other word-processing font instead of a more game-like font), and the Energy line is overlapping the HUD. There also appear to be characters being truncated in certain areas.
- When I am communicating with the Veilsphere, and it fades out, I can see the map...
- When traveling from Valeron to the Ruins, the red dashed line does not show, and my player is instantly in the ruins (personally, I would prefer this method over the somewhat flamboyant lines. Furthermore, when I travel from back to to Valeron, the screen shakes, I hear, "Welcome back, Dristen", and the screen does not automatically change. I have to manually close the map.
- When viewing the map, sometimes, I can see instances of tool-tip from the HUD show up. Furthermore, the mouse often turns into the hand cursor along various areas at the bottom of the world map. I'm guessing the HUD is still active somewhat, as it gives a false indication that you can click on things down there while viewing the world map.
- Wasn't sure what to do next. In the areas, it's day two, and no one ways to challenge me. When I go to the Veil, he/she/it has nothing else for me, and other than the Ruins and Forest, I can't seem to find any new areas to explore.
- There are times throughout the game, where the graphics settings tend to change back to High on their own.

Nice game, but it's quite rough around the edges, and lots of issues to be worked out.

__________________________
- Ziro out.

[Colormixer - Beta]

Interesting

Hey.

Combining RGB colors to try and match the target color is an interesting idea. This seems like it would be better a gimmick for a larger game, rather than a main concept, though.

Needs some sound effects, as it's completely silent.

The only thing I didn't really agree with is the reset game mechanic. Keep the time bonus, but I think it may be better to allow the player to adjust the knobs forward and backward, instead of resetting all of them, incurring a penalty. You could perhaps make it so that the less number of adjustments made, the better.

For some reason HSL/HSB came to mind in addition to having RGB, but maybe that might be too hard? (:

Not too engaging game, but I found this interesting nonetheless. As a game programmer myself, I'm sometimes playing around with both RGB and HSB/L. Now, RGBA would be a pain. (:

_____________________________
- Ziro out.

JernoBill responds:

Thank you for your review!
I like the fact, that you can't backward a color because this is what makes it difficult.
But your idea is good too.

HSL/HSB... mh first I wanted to use subtractive colormixing with CMY instead of additive colormixing. But then the LC-Displays have to be canvases and you have to shoot color. The name of the game would have been ColorCannon! Maybe I just do a second part of the game? :)

Regard, Dennis.

[Lolipoop: Forest is Magic]

For the Achievement Whores

Hey.

Not much to the gameplay, but there are so many different achievements and for such meticulousness or frivolousness, it's silly.

The bird killing sound effect is funny at first, but then it quickly gets monotonous. And all those testers? Haha! Yeah right! :D

I encourage you to view this Flash, if you've never seen it:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view /573816

_________________________
- Ziro out.

[Cold Boot Plus]

Kinda Frustrating

Hey.

I had a difficult time just getting through the three doors on the second screen. When you are on the platform just to the left of the door (outside the little room), once the door is open, you have to short jump to get through it. Player should just be able to walk through. Furthermore, when you exit the door, your player falls through that platform... I'm guessing the game is remembering that last short jump you did to get by the door in the first place?

Is it possible to just mute the music and keep the sounds?

On the level where you get the wall jump: If you go back section on the lower left, where there is a one-block opening, and jump on the wall above it, and try to simply "slide through", you'll find it quite challenging. The robot gets hung up on the upper right corner of the tile below the opening, switching between upright and wall-jumping positions. (if you need a screen shot or video, let me know - I'll be happy to send you one.)

There are various spots where the robot gets hung up on a top corner of a tile.

I'm guessing you had some trouble or didn't care for categorizing the game, and just decided to put "Game"? This should be under Action - Platformer - Puzzle, although I didn't encounter much action, but that's the closest description. (:

In the Storage Lobby Lobby screen, the text underneath that was too small to read. The "Storage Division Lobby" label itself, could be a little bigger, too. The size of the fonts in the upper left were fine.

Bit of a difficulty curve in the game. I gave up on the level that starts you on the right of a diamond-shaped tile structure with water inside it.

_______________________
- Ziro out.

GreyKnightGames responds:

Thanks a lot for kind of stopping and actually making a good (in an objective way) review.

I agree with the problems this game has, but i'm afraid there's not much i can do, it's the engine. You see, i'm not using flash itself to make it.

About the category, i was sure i selected just that, A/P/P... must have slipped through my mind.

And i apologize about the storage loby screen, I am on a 1080p 27" screen so i thought if i could see it anyone could, heh. I'll take this into account for future projects.