Bezman's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[.:Firewall:.]

t random numbers rather than intelligence

Played 4 times. I think I got 75,175,550,300 or thereabouts.

Anyway, it's a simple enough idea, nothing new, but I've not seen this particular way of executing that idea before.

I liked the tune.

Found the lack of diagonal control a tad irritating - surely you could've had some diagonal movement, but just halve the speed so overall velocity remains the same, if that was the issue? Not particularly hard to get used to, but just seemed a bit odd and unnecessary.

Keeping fire just seemed to be a case of tapping the button rather than holding it.

I personally felt it would've worked better with more powerful mines. I didn't realise that the green things destroyed the mines but blues diodn't until I spent 30s experimenting. You should've mentioned that in the instructions. Personally, I'd have it so the mines just remain for a while. Maybe even have them blast out a smal radius when they go.

We have few enough.

I think it'd be cool if you put in a few visual rewards, maybe just a 'wave XX' sign, maybe with some flying particles, every so often.

Also, a few times, the fire power-up kinda appeared with half of it off to the left of the screen. Seems a bit bastardly.

==
It's a competent game, but the lack of fresh content as I played and the feeling that the enemy patterns weren't particularly interesting, with just random numbers rather than intelligence behind their layout, helped put me off.

I had a modicum of fun but got tired of it.

fuzz responds:

Acctually you got 550 :)

But i see your point, thanks for playing and the helpfull review

[Path Of A Hermit Demo]

Flawed mechanics, but the upgrades added humour

Seems kinda unimproved since Path of Akuma.

I found that the best 'tactic' again was to simply hold 'A', use my right hand to draw or whatever, then once I'd gained around 35 points, just continuously do specials...

I felt it'd have been good to know our next opponent's stats and also the amount that each stat would increase before we spent our upgrade on it.

For some reason (maybe because of my procrastinative nature), the very presence of an upgrade system compelled me to keep playing until I'd gotten enough points to defeat anyone before they even landed a hit! It was kinda fun to watch after a few games for the unintentional humour. Then my walking stat went too high and my punches no longer connected, so I closed the window.

==
Flawed mechanics, but the upgrades added unintentional humour.

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I'd love to try and make a similar game with better mechanics. I hope you won't mind...

skein responds:

no i don't mind. and why should I? I got inspired by sinjid battle arena anyway.

[Mario kart mini-game]

lacks a spark or a purpose to make it really fun

This reminded me of racing games on the game gear, that basically operated like this. The way the track approached and the general way you dealt with bends were really well implemented!

I felt the objects approached a bit too quickly for us to be able to react in time if we are in the wrong place.

Also, I felt that when the track turned, it should maybe move you over more (but also make it so that when the tracks turning you move the cart faster if you press the other direction). So that we actually need to 'turn' and don't just line ourselves up then forget about it.

After I 'beat' the game, it just sent me back to the start!

You need maybe some scores to beat or something... maybe make it so it's like the aracde Sega Rally games (time counting down and we need to stay on the course)... just now it really feels like there's little point in it, few rewards.

==
Well made game - the way the track approaches is fairly impressive. But it seems to really lack a spark or a purpose to make it really fun to play.

tank2tank responds:

Yeah good review- but it's worth me pointing out that this really isn't a 'full game' and more of a tech-demo, sorta thing.

I'm currently experimenting with an F-Zero themed game based around this, and i'll take your criticisms into account, thanks!

[fuzzy puzzle]

kinda fun in parts, but I won't return

I like the twist on the tired dress-up genre.

The characters were kinda cool.

I first played 'very hard', after a while found the fact that I had to shift tiny dots annoying, then played easy.

To make it a fuller game, you should really have a button that checks for you whether you've done it correctly or not. Have all pieces check if they are within, say, 40 pixels of where they should be. Maybe have a bonus for if they're within, say, 25 or 10 pixels. When we click the button, it could say, 'x pieces correctly placed'. x pieces within 25 pixels! X pieces within 10 pixels! And maybe a little firework animation should play for if we've got them all roughly, within 25 or within 10. (better animations for if we've got them all in more exactly.)

I really think that hard/very hard should have false items. Keep the things we need to drag big - if I had difficulty with the dragging itself, I'm sure children would too.

==
It's a cool idea. Reminds me of
deedz.net/bandpicgame.php?roun d=newgame
(although that game assumes knowledge of Project Rockstar's band pics, it might inspire you).

Was kinda fun in parts, but I won't return in its current state. It's definitely something you should think about taking further forwards.

viviornetier responds:

yes it does when you go to another difficulty and back to the one you were in it returns in its state :d
it's basicly a dress up game and the examples are there as examples you don't actually have to recreate it :d
and for the small parts i'll put them in my next update ^^ ;) and wrong parts to ^^ thx's for advice :d

[Craig's Self Portrait]

Cool visual look, but I really reckon you should k

I liked the design of the flying creatures and the music-players also looked cool.

I think you needed to add more to this. Maybe have it so when we roll over the musicians, they zoom in? Maybe have it so when we click on the flyers, they fall down?

I liked the spotlights and the whole visual look made me smile.

When link was pulling at the sword, it looked more like he was stroking it than pulling it!

Also, you should put in credits. Accredit yourself and also all the songs. What's the song that plays after the choir?

The songs all seem cool, though a bit longer than needs be for this.

==
Cool visual look, but I really reckon you should keep working and add more to it.

exaltica responds:

The songs were:

Some Choir, I forget
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Art Star
False Media - The Roots
Life Of Arctic Sounds - Modest Mouse
Legend of Zelda Hyrule Castle Theme

[Duck Luck Character Quiz]

made me smile.

I am duck!

I presume most folk are though...

I thought the graphics were really rather sharp here. I liked the layout, scanlines on text, colour and graphics.

Many questions made me smile.

Great song.

To improve, maybe you could let us see the other endings after we finish? As it is, I spent a quick minute replaying it 5 times to see 2 other characters.

Also, maybe if you had a '% steve', '% duck' etc. so we can see how much of a margin there was, that may be cool. I've seen that in a lot of proper online quizzes folk post on LJ.

Good quiz. Even though I rarely take these silly things, this one made me smile.

Snubby responds:

I make things like this in a day so I don't really think too deep into gameplay and stuff... I should have had like an image you can copy into sigs and stuff of what character you are, other characters, etc etc. I kinda sped through it, which I always end up regretting. I can always upgrade it tho.

BTW there are 4 characters, not 3.

[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

[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

[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