Bezman's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Inferno Pong]

Keep Working at it.

It's a nice idea, but I think it still needs some more thought to be put into it.

Firstly, you need to explain scoring in the instructions section. And also if and how we control the ball's movement. Not just explain the controls and leave us to work the game rules out for ourselves...

Also, I feel it'd be better if you moved both bats using the mouse. Because the lower bat has a limited speed, it can on occasion be literally impossible to stop both balls hitting the bottom - a real flaw in my opinion.

The music starts again with it still going after a game. (Meaning you have the tracking overlapping itself over and over for each time you restart.

Have a 'stopAllSounds();' command in the first frame before the music starts to sort that out.

You've done well. I just suggest you keep at it, because you're along the right lines and just need to shine it up a bit.

Stay funky,
Bez

[Kopfball2002 Soccer GAme]

Buggy

It was a nice idea for a game, although the version at http://fire.he.net/~sonarr/sc.html is more enjoyable.

NOTE- not unrelated, as this is a fair comparison of 2 very similar games and could help the author see how to improve.

Anyway, your game had the following faults:

- it was too easy to hit the ball back up (try making it move a bit faster and be less dependent on how you hit it?). If it hadn't been for the bug below, I would have been able to keep on going to infinity really...

- some spelling mistakes

- it had a really bad bug where it reset to 0 points despite the ball being nowhere near the floor.

Stuff I liked:

- music

- selectable backgrounds

- selectable players

Good effort, and I hope your next one turns out even better.

Good luck,
Bez

[SBC Pong]

Good start

You've got the beginnings of a decent game here.

Apart from the fact that 2-player games generally don't work on a single keyboard (being more suited to a console, or netwok play), I suggest you sort the following things.

- Let folk see the 'ball' before the game starts.

- Stop the bats moving off the screen.

- Have a sound effect for when the ball hits a bat, a different one for when it hits a side wall, and a different one for when a point is scored.

- Maybe have some bgm with a button to turn it on/off.

- Wite the instructions in-game. Rather than have them in your author's comments, write them on the screen before you start.

- Actually have an end-game state. Make it so that maybe up after one player has score 10 points, it ends the game and states who won.

If you did that, it would be a decent 2-player pong game. As it is, it's slightly below average. And another point was docked for the unoriginal concept and lack of 1-player action.

Stay funky,
Bez

[F-16 Afghanistan]

A reaction game with a twist.

This is really a reaction game, but presented in a different way.

I applaud you for the way you've tried to make it more than just a bare-bones reaction game, but it could use some work.

In games, I think it's good to be told exactly what the rules are, or have those rules intuitive, rather than have to work them out.

Stuff like not being able to fire once the enemy had fired seemed rather annoying and I didn't understand what difference (if any) having your weapons jammed made.

I got up to the jeep that took 2 hits, but it was just annoying to have to take time to get back that far.

It might have been better if you had 4 lives or something...

Also, some sound effects other than when you click to replay would have been nice.

Looking forward to your next effort,
Bez

[ºMystery Gameº]

A great idea, well executed.

As the levels vary a fair bit, I've commented on them 1 by one.

1 - At first I thought the music button was the thing out of place! Hehe... I see it now... but maybe the first level of the game could have been easier? (I think you should maybe have a couple of almost obvious levels to help us get into the game.

2 - got this one after examing everything for a few seconds. :)

3 - got it straight away. :D

4 - eh? How's that circle different? I had to guess, and even now, looking at it again, I still don't understand how it's different...

5 - rather easy. Got it straight away. Although I like that fact. ;)

6 - I actually thought it was the one above... Hmm... I'm not entirely sure why this one is either...

7 - easy if you know it. This one's just a test of knowledge.

8 - Fault - the button doesn't work until you click on 'hint'. I liked this level.

9 - I worked it out with the hint in your comments. The button's maybe a bit too small though? It should really stretch all the way across the screen, surely? Also, you can't press the button until you click to see the hint.

10 - Haven't got a clue. I couldn't even find the place by clicking about. I needed to right-click forward. (I think the left-most dot's supposed to be the button though...)

11 - Well, I got it, but I don't know why it's different and can't work it out...

12 - I liked this one. I might not have thought to zoom in had you not suggested it... Maybe a hint would have been nice?

13 - I just couldn't get this. I don't have a scoob and couldn't find the button by clicking about either. (I think it's spelled coincidence, but the 'e' wasn't a button...)

14 - The hint made this pretty easy. Without the hint, I don't think anyone would be able to know for sure where the button is.

I also like the way the game 'carries' on after that... (I only noticed it on my 2nd go round.)I'll maybe have to have a look at your pedestrian-killing game when it's released.

Overall, it's a well-made game and I applaud you.

I think you have just about the right number of levels, but I'm left a bit annoyed with the ones I didn't have a scoob about. Maybe you could add a control panel at the side in the next game? It could have a button for a hint (when available), music on/off buttons and a button that lets you skip the level if you can't work it out.

Then, at the end, you could maybe have an option to see why the answers were what they were?

I'd really like to know the thinking behind 4, 6, 10, 11 and 13.

The music was rather short and got annoying quickly. I don't think that's only because of the length - maybe the music could have been better chosen? Meh... it's good enough anyway.

It's a good game. I'd like to see another one, with buttons to skip past levels if you can't work it out and buttons at the end to either restart or go to an answers page. That's be even better.

Stay funky,
Bez

MarkOfTheBeast responds:

I also have noticed that some of the buttons are very hard to find, the circles look the same, etc. The reason for this is when I made the game on flash and tested it, the answers seemed obvious. When I submitted, everything got smaller, as it should get, and made the game very very very difficult. Thanks for the lengthy review. :D

[Ultra Happy Land]

Can hardly be called a game.

Well, you've got the beginnings of a platform game engine, but to then rave on about it the way you have borders on idiotic.

Collecting 4 items without any obstacles whatsoever? That's not a game - that's a demo at best.

[Tutorial set upd8]

Well done for trying to teach, I suppose.

However, Some of the stuff isn't that well explained. You tell folk what to do, but at some points, you skip over stuff and assume folk know how to do it (turning stuff into movie clips) and also many things could have been explained more fully. (e.g. why should they double-click the movie clip? To be honest, I think your motion tweening thing's actually slightly wrong...)

If folk knew the stuff you gloss over, they'd probably already know the rest of the stuff you try to explain.

It's got good intentions, but I think there are much better tutorials than this around.

Sorry for the negativity,
Bez

[Whack-A-Mole (update)]

Level 3 was too much of a step up.

Levels 1 and 2 were pretty easy, but then level 3... WOAH!

You should really have a more gradual change. Maybe have every single mole slightly faster than the previous one, and then after 20, the speed might drop suddenly by about 9 mole's worth... You know what I mean, surely?

Also, the 'centre' of the hammer should be moved up a bit. I think it'd feel more natural if we were using the yellow part to aim rather than a little crosshair.

Still, it's a well-programmed little game.

Good work. :)

[Sick DeJa Vu]

I don't really like the idea behind the game.

Firstly, in the instructions you made it sound like a simple shooting game and left us to work out for ourselves that the game basically involves clicking on the right place at the right time.

At the end of the day, this is just far too much guesswork and repetition. I messed up at the orange guy a couple of times, and I really couldn't be bothered going through all that was before it yet again, so I just cheated my way to the next section.

The animations are a bit tiring after you've seen them once - you should have made them shorter, had an option to skip them or made it so that the long orange animation acts as a checkpoint.

You've put a fair bit of work into this, but it's just a bit flawed. Hopefully what I've said will help you make a better version. Although having said that, to make this kind of game seem interactive enough to be fun would take A LOT of work.

Are you up to it?

[Preloader made simple]

Wasn't that well explained...

Whilst you explain the rough concept, the way you explain it, the pre-loader would be at the end...

(You tell us to make the 2 keyframes at the end of the timeline, but surely the pre-loader should be before everything else...)

In any case, it's a good thing that we don't have to worry about crappy pre-loaders now that Tom made that public one for everyone to use. :)