Bezman's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[ReflexCursor]

work on your mechanics a bit

The basic idea of the game seems interesting and good (there aren't many pure reaction-based games online). The first time I played it, I didn't bother reading the controls. Took me a few lives to realise I needed to click, but it was easy to pick up, thanks to your clean presentation.

You did make a small typo in the instructions.

The mechanics seem overly reliant on luck for my tastes - as the positions are randomly spaced, we can lose due to a circle popping up right next to the 'enemy', then maybe another pops up right beside it, making us lose a few lives in a row. Maybe the enemy could be reset each time?

The rankings seem to be totally messed up. Game 1, I got 7pts - A. Then I got 27pts - E. I played a few more times, to see how the rankings worked and it just seemed a bit random.

==
More reaction-based games are a good idea, but you need to work on your mechanics a bit (and also maybe tweak the presentation further).

2/5

TheGriffenFreak responds:

ok i will thx. and the rankings goes by time, theres a hidden clock, it doesnt go by the score

[Ball tower]

it still needs work done on it

Played a few times, failing level 3. I persevered more through dogged determination and to see if it'd continue, than anything else.

Eventually got to level 4, where the moving saucers were a kinda nice change. I died, slightly after the bomb. I think the two saucers never really got close enough...

Music is awesome.

Graphics are a bit horrible and overly rough. You could really put more effort, maybe give them some detail, try and think about the colours you use a bit more...

The game was mildly fun. The basic rules of the game are solid.

I felt the bombs were a bit unfair - being killed when jumping, by something we can't even see, just seems unfair.

Also, the jumping motion itself seemed a bit wrong to me. It may have been the way we 'wobbled' when on a platform and also the way that if we held down the jump button, we'd kinda jump straight off each platform as we touched it, rather than landing, then jumping (if you understand what I mean).

You're off to a good start, but work on the level design... add some more variety... don't force a complete restart after each death...

Keep working on it and it could definitely end up as a fun game, but just now, it still needs work done on it.

Patacorow responds:

Thx for the information, I'll try to fix all things you are telling me about at version 2. Oh and about the music, by Cypher! All my games have unless 1 of his musics. He rocks man!

[Prison Throw]

Great graphics, but too much chance

The cop cars are really nicely drawn and everything has a sharp style.

I liked the theme.

I just found the mechanics themselves to be a bit dull - I understand that a game of chance has it's own merits, but I was hoping we'd maybe be able to influence the result more than we were.

Some funny rankings might be cool.

Maybe the prisoner's facial expression should change as he falls over.

==
Great graphics, but too much chance and too unoriginal for my liking.

[Toast: Game]

movement just feels unnatural

I liked the graphics for the mountains in the background.

I hated the way the main character moved - it just seemed to move too fast for my liking - both when jumping and also when just moving around. I think that should be slowed down a tad.

Also, make it so a jump is more of a curve than an 'up, stop, down'.

Whenever the little toasters exploded and went on fire, the screen seemed to lag for a second or so, which was a real bitch on level 3, where I would often get myself in trouble thanks to that bug.

Level 4 was easier than 2 or 3 imo. I gave up at level 5, mainly because of the 'twitchy' movement.

The level design seems OK, so if you sorted out the movement, it might be an enjoyable game.

==
Currently, the movement just feels unnatural and that really breaks the game for me.

Hacker12 responds:

Thank You for your input. ^^

[Mazes]

focus on variety and fun

Level 4 was pretty cool.

The other levels kinda seemed a bit run-of-the-mill though.

I hated level 3, as that was just a case of trial-and-improvement.

The final level seemed to automatically kill us when we got to the round black spaces. Horrible.

Graphics could be prettier.

==
It's a start and with level 4, you've shown some creativity. The difficulty level isn't too aggravating - some folk really go over the top.

However, with a lack of ingenuity elsewhere and the auto-deaths, this seems like a sub-average offering in an over-populated genre.

Try to focus on variety and fun for the next version!

Billyhomeboy responds:

Ya the third level was not supposed to be hard or anything, The purpose of that level was to help everyone understand the final level. Im not sure many people figured out the last level but since im getting so much confusion over it I will tell the secret, take the mouse outside of the window to the left and bring it back in on a different trail. The correct trail gives you a check mark.

[Ball Revamped 4]

Almost an adventure of a game!

Well, great game (and so it should be!)!

I liked the difficulty of the levels and it did kinda seem like a 'greatest hits, remastered' album with the various obstacles and whatnot.

The movement was brilliant! Playing #3 and the original 'ball' after this, I appreciate how much the years of tweaking have helped the movement feel so much more natural!

I did find the final boss a bit too big a jump in difficulty though (around 140 deaths until that point, then 260ish afterwards... heh). I understand you need to have something we feel chuffed after beating, but I almost felt like giving up at that point.

Another complaint (though just a teensy one) is that the bombs' time limit was a bit long, apart from the one level where we had to move with it. It'd maybe be cool if you had 2 kinds of bombs - one with a 5s time limit, one with a 3s time limit. I know it's only a couple of seconds, but it'd just help keep the tempo of the game up.

Lastly, whilst there were a few cool puzzles and changes of pace (like the burning levels, the bomb we needed to rush through the maze, the falling spikes and the dark world... as well as the level with 3 channels [1 with a switch to deactivate a laser in another, which we then fell down to trigger an explosion by the exit on the right]) there were a few levels that seemed a bit uninspired. I vaguely felt like you could've developed a few more memorable set-pieces.

Loved the music and the faint trail.

The bosses weren't quite as well realised though, graphically. (I didn't like the style of the cracks on the first or the 'tumble weed thing' projected from the hand.)

==
It's a great game regardless. Almost an adventure of a game!

[Overhead: persistence]

enjoyable for the most part.

Played 'persistence', got annoyed and quit. Completed 'existence'. Started 'persistence', decided to cheat after a while, to avoid having to replay large sections of the level.

Eventually completed that game, cheating on around half the levels. (I passed all the obstacles though (apart from the tricky pink one) - just maybe not in the same 'go'.)

Stylish, clean, drawings in 'persistence' mode. I enjoyed the backgrounds and after a while decided I liked the way you only made small changes between levels.

Animation was a bit wanting - specially the between-level animations. The walking dude was a bit over-simplistic with the tweened walking and the animation for the leaves turning orange took a bit long.

The music was fun to listen to and set a good mood.

I would have preferred the tracks if they were loops though. Also, the first track eventually got on my tits (as the first level took the longest to complete, by far).

I felt that the level design was nicely varied, and enjoyed playing through the various traps.

I hated the long length of the levels and also the way the difficulty within each level would increase. I hated dying, then navigating the various obstacles, which forced a time delay due to their nature, before trying again at the more difficult obstacle.

The end boss seemed to be overly reliant on trial and improvement.

The grey rectangle's hit box seemed larger than the graphic.

Sometimes, when we clicked on the perimeter of the 'start' button, we'd die immediately, due to your poor placement.

I preferred the shorter 'existence' levels, though I didn't enjoy the mood as much. I preferred the happier tone.

==
Despite a few flaws, it's a good game and is enjoyable for the most part.

I felt it a bit overly frustrating and think that if you combined the happier tone and clean, stylised graphics of 'persistence' with some shorter levels, you'd be onto a real winner.

[Juggling]

Great game. Not an epic, but short and sweet mecha

I really liked how you asked us to loop around the ball, to differentiate this from the plethora of other games like this.

It would have maybe been cool if there were subtle sound effects for the ball just bouncing off the cursor, and maybe an 'error beep' for when we fail.

The sounds for getting the double-loop was funny at first, but got a tad irritating after a while. You should have really had multiple sound effect, maybe various voices or whatever.

Is it really possible to get 2 CW loops AND 2CCW loops in one 'bounce'?

I think you should point out on the main page that we need to loop for mega-points, so people don't mistake this for a clone with no twists.

Also, when we get over 3 digits, the score is cut-off. You need to increase the size of the text box a bit.

It took me a few goes to get the hang of keeping the bounces controlled enough to implement the spins and whilst at first I was proud to get 100, I managed (after a few minutes) to get the hang of keeping a pattern of double loops, which made it laughably easy to get into the top 10. Even after getting the #1 score, I went back to play a few 'parting' games.

==
Great game. Not an epic, but short and sweet mechanics.

I'd probably nominate it for game of the month!

You should resubmit with some extra dressing - a greater variety of sounds for the loops, sound bounce noises, maybe some graphical changes as we get past... say... 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000... then every 250 or 500 points afterwards.

Solid mechanics, really well implemented (perfect physics/loop recognition) if a tiny bit dull and limited.

[Lost in dimensions]

I enjoyed this game.

I don't normally use the old system of +/- in reviews any more, as it took effort and seemed to confuse some authors. But as you liked my other reviews, I'll return to that system. It's just a vague indication of how much a like/dislike each element.

First, the report of my play-through. I completed the main game on my 2nd attempt, then played the highscore game a few times. I did quit a few attempts, when I died in the slalom-ish fire-level. After dinner, I had one last attempt on both normal and highscore modes.
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--- Music starts before we press anything. GAMES SHOULD BE QUIET UNTIL I TELL IT TO START!

- Music can kinda drown out the witch's voice

++ Nicely 'screechy' voice

- The broom really didn't look like a broom to me. I just felt the end-bit (the side where the straw should be) could have been a lot better drawn.

---- I personally found the menu a bit confusing. The graphics for the coins, etc. initially looked clickable.

--- Also, the way we needed to wait for the messages to pop up and explain each mode kinda irritated me. I think such things should either be on the screen, or be near-instant.

-- I found the status bar a tad confusing. In my first game, I thought the level number was the number of lives remaining (it was the first time I'd really tried to work it out, amongst all the clutter) and so was surprised when I failed after failing a level one more time.

+++ The rotation and 'lag' of the broom sorta differentiated it from all the other mouse-avoider games.

--- I actually hate that system of moving, where the object moves a certain fraction of the distance towards the cursor. I just think that the broom should have a maximum speed and it should generally move at that speed whenever we place the cursor a certain distance away.

In this game it seemed less annoying than usual, but I still disliked the system.

+++ I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the moving obstacles.

++++++ Some of the levels are fairly ingenious in their basic design. Specially the ones involving the 2 sets of moving spikes and the slalom level in the time-trial mode.

-- I did feel at times that the hit-box of the broom seemed a bit odd. I never felt entirely confident in how close I could go to the spikes and was never fully sure of whether I'd pick up an item or not until I actually did so.

I kinda think you should make the hitbox for the former smaller and the hitbox for the latter larger.

As I've been working on Skears 2 for the past 5 years, I don't want to give many suggestions when I play similar games. I'd like to release my own game first. Hope you understand.

I do think your levels could be a tad more memorable and maybe you could introduce a few more features to add even more variety, but on the whole, the design is good.

==
I enjoyed this game. I may not return to it, but it was great fun to play and I just wish it was longer with added variety, or there was more competition in the highscore table.

There's a few things you could improve in the presentation, and the design can always be polished further, but it's a solid game. Fun!

Congratulations in making an enjoyable game! It may not have the innovation of your other titles, but it's a solid, fun game.

I'm looking forward to seeing your skills improve further.

~~~~~Review Request Club~~~~~~~

Abs55 responds:

Thanks very much for the constructive review. I had hoped you would write such a review and you have. You have shown a lot of things that I could improve on, if and when I make a sequel. Thanks.

[Treasure Trawler]

Fun and relaxing to play, but

Great game.

Fun to play. The races give it some diversity. I like the shop. Music is thoroughly relaxing.

I did find the race system could have perhaps been better explained in-game (I restarted and read the instructions) and felt that in the shop you should have explained exactly how much of whatever our money would buy. E.g. how many torpedoes does 50 buy? no way to know without spending the cash!

I found the end disappointing. I was kinda hoping for more new elements to be introduced or maybe an increase in difficulty. After level 3 though, it seems we've seen it all.

==
Fun and relaxing to play, but needs more challenge and perhaps a bit more diversity.

Keep up the good work!