Bezman's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Unique Universe]

Keep working on the mechanics.

It's certainly an idea I've not seen in a flash previously, but it just isn't much fun.

Neither 'scrubbing the area' to find the phrases, nor typing, is a particularly involving or interesting thing to do and the messages, graphics etc. aren't interesting enough to entertain. The speed of the 'light' makes the scrubbing dull.

Also, when I went to view highscores, it didn't work.

The music loop got irritating.

I played until level 6ish of the main game - I wasn't gonna torture myself with the others. Tried the highscoremode, finished a couple of levels, closed and reopened to see if the messages were always the same, then decided it was a pretty lousy mechanic since we can just find it all the first time, then quickly type on a subsequent attempt to get a faster highscore.

I applaud you for wanting to try a unique mechanic, but I think you should call this a failed experiment.

However, if you maybe made the light mouse-controlled and had the words stuff we needed to piece together without help, it may be a lot more interesting to play.

Abs55 responds:

Okay, i'll take your comments into consideration. Thanks for the review.

[ytmnd fadboard 2.0]

I got little

What is ytmnd?

The bad custom cursor really irritated. I just right-clicked to see the normal pointer. You can change the registration point so the cursor is at the centre of the mc. But really, I think the custom cursor is just pointless.

Your buttons also should be placed in a layer BELOW the cursor and have actual rollOver/down graphical changes.

My favourite aspect was seeing all the unrelated icons together.

Some of the sounds were fairly crazy, and marginally amusing but I got little out of this.

Maybe if you explained it all, with some info for each thing, that'd be cool and a lot better a package.

jacktherack responds:

the reason you probably didn't like it is because you don't understand ytmnd. it's not really fair to review it if you aren't fairly familiar with ytmnd.com and besides its basicly my first submission

[Bee Dodger <3]

Too slow a build-up to the somewhat fun challenge.

Mechanics were simple and intuitive.

Graphics were great.

Frankly, it seemed too easy and dull to begin with. For quite a while, I was looking at the screen with glazed eyes, feeling kinda like it was practically playing itself.

When the 'watermellon' chorus started, that made me enjoy it somewhat though.

Around the time the song ended, it did get tricky and I did find it fun avoiding the bees and stings. However, it was just too slow a build-up for my tastes.

loved the design of the various bees and the sting-firing was a cool touch.

Personally, I'd prefer it with different levels and/or faster action.

[Exorbis]

Game of the year so far.

Even if the idea was unoriginal, to take it from your inspiration and come out with all these excellently varied levels is great work.

You've done great legwork here and made a great game thanks to all that hard slog. I hope it gets the recognition it deserves.

I honestly don't think level 26 can be done. I don't see any way to slot in the blues to the bottom of the 2 central sliders as the bottom slot of those sliders never gets as high up as a horizontal slider.

I reckon you should record it with some screencapturing program (just doing the blues on level 26). Until then, I refuse to believe you.

Again, I don't think level 28 can be done. I can get every piece in apart from the bottom one. Again, I don't think the vertical slider comes up far enough relative to the horizontal ones and won't believe it's possible until I see someone else at least placing the bottom piece.

I find it surprising that there's only 2 other scores on the scoreboard. Mebbe you could add a link to submit scores on the score-board screen after each level? Might encourage folk to submit...

==
It's a well designed, enjoyable game.

That I've played it so many times and that it remains interesting is testament to the excellence of the original idea and also the execution.

Mechanics: solid and understandable, catering for a high ceiling of skill, as all games should
conveying of info: clear and uncluttered
dressing: minimal but clean and pretty

I'm eagerly awaiting the production of the sequel, with immobile obstacles and where I'm the co-level designer. ;-)

I'm sure I'll replay this before then though - the challenge is pure and good.

If it had been released like this 12 hours and 40 minutes earlier, I would cry, "GAME OF THE MONTH!"

edit-undo responds:

People have been saying the idea is unorginial, and yet I haven't seen any other games like this, could you point me towards one? (Not meaning to sound acccusative!) Remember, you've been a great help in the production of this game too; half the game's features would not be there if it wasn't for you. And levels 26 and 28 ARE DEFINATELY POSSIBLE. I just recorded a video of it, PM me your email address and I'll send it to you!

Two other sites have already requested to host this game, so I'd imagine those high-score boards will fill up fairly quickly.

Again, thank you sooo much for all the luff and support! And if you're seriously up to it, I'll gladly work with you to produce a sequel :)
I'm interested to know how I could improve the graphics/dressing though. I was thinking, probably more shinyness and a few particle effects? Wasn't sure how to implement it though.

<3

[Enter The Particlasm]

like the direction

The 'tug-of-war' system of winning kinda annoyed me. On easy, I won on my first go, but on medium it seemed like I was locked in a never-ending stalemate.

I felt it wasn't obvious enough when we were taking damage - maybe have us turn red while we do. The projectiles don't have clear enough borders and fade out slowly, meaning we aren't sure when they're active until and how wide a berth we need to give.

Our own attack is kinda odd... I mean it looks pretty but it's almost impossible to actually aim.

I think it'd work better if, say, we had 4 attacks (*triggered by asdf) and each took a certain amount of 'energy' to perform. Have them be more directional - one firing straight up, one leaving a spot just where we are, on a 4-way thing, one maybe a circle like at present.

Also, I personally reckon it'd work better with the enemy firing fewer projectiles or maybe at a slower rate, but with us having far less HP.

I can understand why it is the way it is, with you having converted this from a graphics-fest of a movie, but to be a cool game, it needs to be reworked.

==
I didn't enjoy this amazingly, but like the direction you're approaching this from and am looking forward to seeing the game evolve.

[Rapid Reaction Master]

seems more like working for a competition than fun

Are the scores definitely based on time rather than frames? I'm guessing that those folk who are in the top 10 just have slower machines than I... I struggled and was proud in the end to attain a score of 397.

I was kinda irritated how in the 2nd level (maintenance) I couldn't work out what to do and couldn't return to the menu.

If you maybe highlighted the next item we had to click or pull after a short pause, that'd be ideal.

The random element kinda annoys me. It'd be better mebbe if the timer didn't count whilst we're waiting for the buzzer to sound. That way, it'd be pretty much purely skill.

Also, for the trigger/magazine, maybe just require a click rather than a hold? That kinda confused me for a while as I thought I was dragging them and noted that the position of the magazine didn't match up...

I do rather like your graphics - the models are fairly classy and I like the menu - font, distortions and all.

==
It was an interesting idea to mix in some dragging and holding along with the clicking, but maintenance and reloading really has nothing to do with reactions.

Kinda fun, but only for a short while.

Bonus games kinda seem overly limited.

The whole thing seems flawed with the time not increasing as rapidly as it should and the game seems more like working for a competition than actually fun.

tomylee responds:

My good friend Bezman ^^
Yeah, like 1000 people said counter should start after the buzz sounds!. And i think that too, i just made a mistake about it. Im gonna work on it. Nice review, i got lots of stuff that i can get working on to an update, and i really appreciate that!. I liked the words: you could highlight what you need to do in maintenance. I think i could do that!. All process in level 2 is completely answered in the How to play section :). That´s why i didnt highlighted, people should look at it... as i spent an entire day making it :P.
Thank you for your review Bez!
-tomylee =D

[Scribble 2!]

I'm a wonderful human

I actually found the bigger-than-the-screen levels more of an annoyance than a pleasure.

I really liked the message I got though (for level 2 scribbler - I'm a wonderful human, even if I'm apparently a shit artist... waahhhh!) and loved the rainbow effect and paper texture.

Here's an idea - how about giving us bonus points for 'ink' used? It seems like it'd make sense as the shorter the length of our line, the more precisely we've drawn the thing.

Anyway, it's a cool game, even though I kinda prefer the single-screen original.

[Path Of Akuma V0.2]

I still feel

Beat it on my 2nd go.

As we can keep a stalemate going indefinitely, the winning strategy seems to be to wait until we've garnered enough points to just kick endlessly, whilst the enemy AI will simply continue picking seeminly random attacks.

I thought the front-end was really shoddy. Selectable text for 'play' ruined the button and you need to actually design a visually appealing instructions screen. And spell-check. Lastly, when we win/lose you need an end-screen.

In-game graphics were really nice and I liked the texture though.

Also, I did kinda have a bit of fun working out the winning strategy, even if most the time seemed to be spent slowly waiting for it to execute.

I really think it'd be better if you actually told us the stats (amount of damage...) like you did in the last MK game. And maybe in-fight, have a number pop up for how much damage we did.

I liked the idea of being able to charge our PP, so maybe bring that back.

Lastly, what might be mega-cool is if we could execute different attacks at different stages of the bar. So lower on, we could do simpler attacks mebbe... and the first move available would be a block...

==
I still feel the basic mechanics need a lot of work, but I'm actually really looking forward to seeing what form this game takes next.

Keep working on it - a good turn-based mechanic is hard to come by - even the professional games have a hard time injecting theirs with a real sense of strategy and interest!

skein responds:

wow a very nice review. Well the full game will have:
-2 slectable characters
-Many enemies
-Stats will be shown
-There will be a tutorial
-Diffrent class enemies
-Boss battle
-Upgradable stats
-Unlockable moves

[TreasureIsland]

Almost unplayable atm.

I was getting ready to complain about it being just a series of seemingly incongruous choices. E.g. choosing between -2, +2, 2 with no idea of what question we're answering.

Then I realised that the 'text box' you were talking about was a little button with a roll-over frame showing the question.

Big problem though: because of the low-contrast colours you've chosen, the questions are incredibly hard to read. This makes it all virtually unplayable.

Have questions on-screen permanently, and have a text colour/font that has some real contrast.

Also, the way we needed to hit instructions before the other buttons worked seemed really sloppy.

Lastly, the way we can't go 'backwards' when we go places kinda irritated me.

The graphics are nicely stylised and fairly clean though.

==
Make the questions readable, maybe make them pop up in a dialogue box somewhere. There's no reason for you to ask us to roll Over a tiny box in order to read a question that's fairly vital.

After sorting that out, maybe we can appreciate the game a little bit more.

1/5

[The Game Game]

needs some hintier clues

I'm so very tired....

I blame the fact that I only got 'normal beginner' or something like that on my tiredness.

I got so many, then I got tired of scratching my brain. Many of them - a admit - I just don't know at all.

A couple - like the Mario game - have names that have eluded me temporarily.

I prefer the Walrus's mechanics. His quiz game re: Nes had better clues and I liked the idea of having points taken off for each clue.

This, by contrast, feels like a brick wall in our face.

I did like your presentation and the couple of ratings I saw were kinda amusing.

Just really needs some clues.

- Bez