Bezman's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[all around tutorial]

ching, quality of info

+++ Large number of subjects.

-- Lot of spelling mistakes.

-- Sexist reviews not allowed? I'm sure that's not a rule...

--- For code, I think you really should EXPLAIN it - not just hand it out.

--- Your link code opens stuff in the flash window. set target='blank' for it to open a new one, as you'd generally want.

-- The gradients are terribly explained. If I didn't already know that stuff, I don't think I'd be any wiser after this tutorial.

--- Music got annoying after a while.

--- Custom cursor messed up at times - sometimes disappearing.

- Sometimes there was no 'back' button or it didn't work.

==
I think you just need to work on explaining things better and not rush into doing so much. When teaching, quality of information is paramount. Specially when so much material already exists.

yodd responds:

I suck at teaching, and I was a noob when making this, I am quite sad looking at my flash on NG, especially this.

[cursor gallerie 1]

all of these

+++ Some great effects. Specially: On An Angle, Halo or Hollow, Pwhurplete, 2-D 3-D?

? Particle smoke - taller. As it is, we see the top when we pull it down and that looks like a mistake.

-- No 'music off' button.

- Algerian bucks was kinda boring.

- some seemed to be too similar to previous ones. Like 'death to daddy long legs'.

??? A selection menu nav-bar, maybe at the bottom?
Having little icons of the effects would maybe be classy.

==
Some effects were better than others, but as we can just skip through the ones we don't love, it's no biggie.

Enjoyed playing with all of these for quite a while. Kept me entranced, working out each mc. I'd like to make one of these things myself sometime.

yodd responds:

Always happy to get a review from you ;)

I agree, features missing, and such, but meh made wuickly and bored.

Thanks for the review!

[Halloween Reprisal]

one of 4

++ I like the stylised lines of blood.

++ Varied kills.

+++ Lovely font. What is it? Looks very Tim Burton-esque with the crazy curled serifs.

- In 'how to play', we should be able to move forward screens if we want.

------ Exceedingly repetitive.

==
You could have maybe allowed us to just walk past the children? I felt bad for hurting them mercilessly.

The 'game' basically just involves walking to identical targets, wherupon we activate one of 4 'kill animations'. No risk of loss. No tactics. Just activating the same animations over and over and over...

I was quite relieved when it was over.

Really, to even qualify as a real game, this needed a rethink.

Rammer responds:

): a 3? it might be repetitive, but i don't think this deserves a 3.

i do understand where you're getting at, and me and Blaze did have better plans for this, but we ran out of time and had to take out certain features that would have given this any challenge.

also, if you had read the "how to play" section a little better, you'd know there were 7 "kill animations", which probably would have made this slightly less repetitive for you. 'up + z', 'up + x', and 'z' when the kids are walking away from you.

["Newgrounds Tutorial"]

many other places

Not much to say. When I started this up, I was kinda curious to see how it panned out.

++++ Great loading bar. Did you do that yourself? Is it with a 100-clip mc and a gotoAndPlay(percentageLoaded)code? I just love the masks/gradient combo. Though on the left, there seems to be a tiny glitch with the rectangular edge.

+++ Love that intro for 'That's Life'.

-- Was annoyed when it suddenly stopped.

+++ Great bg.

---- Intro was way too slow.

-- Why not have all the icons for the whistle/blam/protect/levels?

--- Messed up grammar in 'levels', paragraph 1, sentence 3.

------ Incorrect info: Batting average is your top 3 submissions/3. Not all.

---- For 'Batting Average', you could have had a much more relevant pic. Maybe a screenshot and an arrow pointing to the BA?

--- No music credits outside your comments. Why none in-game or via the submission form?

++ I do like the style and layout generally. The dashed lines goes well with the font. Is the in-'game' font courier? You've used it nicely. Looks good spaced out like that, with room to breathe.

==
Personally, I'm not too sure whether a tutorial like this is too useful. I suppose it's always good to have more info, but it's just that there's already so many other places folk can turn to for help. I don't foresee a lot of newbies seeing this.

I was thinking - what might be kinda cool would be if you started a collab with all your WI/Ht buddies and made a NG Glossary/Dictionary. Like a list of all the words: Flash, Blam, Protect, Experience, Voting Power, MP3, Tom Fulp... and for each one you could have a short description, maybe a link to a longer description/any related words/maybe a pic.

And maybe you could have links to relevant parts of the site or the exp calculator or whatever?

A bigger undertaking, but in the end, maybe that'd be a great resource for all?

Although that may be better done as a Wiki.

Anyway, it's something to think about mebbe.

Stay funky,
- Bez

I had an idea - how about a sorta

Frenzy responds:

Wow, great greview, first of all! I enjoyed reading that!

About the pictures, it was hard to find a relevant picture for battign average... maybe a baseball bat, now that I think about it!

About your idea, that doesn't sound to bad, although it sounds like A LOT of work, it might be kind of fun. :)

Thanks!

~Z~

[BreakOut: Ep 1.]

thus far

+++ Cool music

-- Though I'm not sure it suits the mood perfectly. Something more detached, kinda using sparse bits of melody (like Equinox on Snes) rather than an ongoing stream, might work better.

--- It annoyed me when I tried to pick up the keys from the guard and couldn't do so. I came back after finding the door and could. Why couldn't we pick up the keys earlier?

--- Sometimes, when we type in something, it's not obvious whether we made a typo or a mistake in our syntax, or if we're just barking up the wrong tree.
Maybe have responses for everything. Like if we say 'examin tabl', you could say, 'I don't understand "table"' and if we say 'examine table', you could say, 'its perfectly ordinary' or 'there's nothing special about it'. Maybe a few stock phrases, one of which you pick at random.

?? Maybe have text be added to that in the window (deleting lines at the top if there's insufficient space) rather than just replacing it.

---- Often, I couldn't examine things I felt I should be able to. A red hand on the guard's face? What's that all about? When did that appear? Do you mean a handprint? Why can't I examine it?

-- When using the computer, the little icon switched between the white scrap and the red explosion each time we use the PC.

+++++ Not many other (if any) text adventures on NG.

+++ The start had me instantly hooked. Kinda cliched scenario, but it works. I hope that we learn more about why we're here etc.

++++ Shower/toilet bit amused.

++ I like how the map teases us.

==
Actually thought this may be just another breakout game!

I was hoping it would be a bit different and glad that for once my wish came true!

I started the game, got the key, passcard, safe combo and map, used the toilets and shower (heh) and examined the smell. Now kinda lost as to what to do, though I'd definitely like to come back to this.

Made me smile and kept me intrigued thus far, although sometimes annoying just trying out all the different things... part and parcel of the genre, but the annoyance would be lessened by some messages in response.

By the way, please don't give me any clues. Well, maybe a tiny one...

Cia-Vamp responds:

Ow dude! Thx for this amazing review. It really helped me. Ill keep all your tips in mind.
THX!
Here are some clues to go on:
-you might find something intresting in the toilet cabinet
-the item you found in the cabinet is used in the hall to the right of hall1. (stop reading here if you want to try yourself how to use!!!!!:
1 light match
2 drop match while burning
3 the oil on the floor starts burning and you are able to go on)

[Tutorial on Tutorials]

amused, but learnt

++++ Amusing idea.

++++ I learnt something - the idea about how to highlight the buttons.

+++ Clean and precise-looking. Complementing colours.

-- No 'back' button.

-- The 'layout' and 'planning' section could have used some images. E.g. when you mention the way you organise your layers, a screenshot would help break up the monotony of text.

-- No 'mute' button.

---- Text was hard to read for me. Both because of the similar tone to the bg and also because of the font.

--- When I reached the end of the button tutorial, I wasn't sure what the 'play' button was gonna do. I thought it'd continue to do nothing. Confusing.

++ Jolly little tune that didn't get too irritating.

==
Expected to be amused, but learnt something instead.

karategangster responds:

I will take everything you have said into account, thankyou very much for the review.

[NG Review Game #2]

you just need to add

Played once. It crashed on the first movie around just as the alien and the dude first meet. Buttons wouldn't do anything. Closed it and did other stuff.
Played again. 90/gold.
Played again, to try and work out if my score could be improved. 85/gold.
Then, whilst writing this, played a few more times to see the other 2 messages.

+++++ Great graphics for the menus/etc. LIke the new take on the NG logo, with the redone bg. Screenshotted images work well.

++++ All the 'good' reviews are fairly well written. And I liked how you had one review in there, that was pretty abusive, though disguised by flowery language.

++++ This time, a couple of the 'submissions' were pretty good! I liked the mudman one - that made me laugh heartily, though character movement left a lot to be desired. Also, the scratchy style of the one with the guy's big nose was quite cool. Memorable and I wonder what he said or did...

++++++ As before - mechanics are a great idea. Good for teaching and a test of working stuff out too.

+++ Balanced difficulty. I liked how the first one was obvious, and after that it needed a bit more consideration.

---- I hated how at the end we had no idea where/if we went wrong. I think 100 is the max. score? I'd have liked to know where I went wrong.

????? At the end instead of having: '90' have '90/100' or whatever.

???? After each submission (whistle or review) from us, why don't you give feedback? Like maybe a bit of text zooming in and saying, 'abusive: 0pts' or 'helpful! 10pts', with maybe a short sfx for the extremeties of the scale. And mention if it should've should not've been whistled.

??? Or maybe at the end, show us a break-down of the ratings, like show us how each of our reviews was, then allow us to go back and check the not-so good ones. That'd be a great option, though the previous suggestion alone would work.

???? Maybe even give explanations in a 'recap' at the end, recapping the ones we got wrong (simple to do for you with flags and conditional gotos) and explaining why the one we didn't pick was unhelpful/abusive/neither and why the better option would have been better. Or why it should've been whistled/not.

-- It annoyed me not being able to rewatch some movies. Specially towards the end, where I couldn't remember if a certain movie even had an intro, I'd have liked a chance to replay the movie.

? If you're gonna do a v3 (and I think it'd rock), you could have the review/movie pop up in their own windows, just as they would on a real screen. The windows would be draggable and closable - just like in 'reality' and during the review phase we'd be able to flick over to the old screen and rewatch.

-- Music seemed dodgy. The sound for each flash starting didn't quite synch with the opening of the window or anything and it seemed kinda glitchy there.

--- No indication of how many are left to go.

???? I kinda liked the previous version that allowed us to check all the ones in the portal, and had your amusing parody names/photoshopped dates. That also let us easily see how many we still had to review. If you did that again, but allowed us to review in any order, it'd totally rock.

+++ Liked the little messages you give.

==
A massive improvement from the previous version. Truly awesome.

Now, you just need to add more feedback and keep up the great work!

Stay funky,
- Bez

Little-Rena responds:

Ah, you again, you're review was one of the ones that lead to the improvements, so thankyou for taking the time to review again.

The mudman one was really funny, I'd agree, Queen is good with that sort of stuff, lol.

100 is the max score yes, I missed a percent sign out that I was going to include, for that I am sorry.

Indication on how many are left? Wow, I never thought of that, lol, I'm abit lost without reviews.

As for being able to watch them again, I had an idea to add another frame that was a collab type menu but I don't know why I didn't add it, I think I forgot to be honest.

An recapping where reviews could be changed or a whistle should have been blown, well, that would defeat the point of the game maybe. Though, if it was somthing you could see when you have compleated the game with a high mark then I could understand.

I would love to make it more like the actual newgrounds, but to be honest, my actionscript knowladge isn't too great, so it'll take some time to work out.

Still, thankyou for the detailed review and it's good to see you took the time to give your input.

If I ever make a third, this will definatly be one of the reviews I go back over to see what I need.

Thanks again.

[Run to the Portal 3!]

the execution left

Played Elimination. Lost. Played Survival and won quickly. Played Frontpage a couple of times and Elimination 3 more times.

++++ Great concept. Setting is one we're all familiar with.

+++ Game mechanics make a fair bit of sense in the context of NG (apart from survival).

++++ I loved how in Elimination the game mirrored the process so faithfully.

----- I hate how in Frontpage mode, we're raised as we collect high numbers. It means that after a wee while, we'll basically be constantly at the top. I'd honestly be surprised if anyone managed to complete this. I believe there's no way to stop getting so high and once you're up there, it's mainly down to luck.

---- In the Elimination mode, I just feel that we move too slowly or the 0/1s too fast for us to properly dodge them. Maybe you could make the buttons accelerate us (rather than move directly), add inertia and get it so that from a standing start we can move out the way faster.
Throughout a lot of it, I felt annoyed with the slow movement.

-- At the end of Elimination mode, you don't show us the score. If you showed the Graveyard screen with the score there, that'd work nicely.

-- boring/bland bgs.
Maybe make a Bg similar to the portal header, with the swirly stuff? Or maybe a discreet gradient? Texture?

++ Font for numbers and different colours looks cool.

==
I enjoyed the concept but the execution left something to be desired.

Hope you hone it a bit.

INeedABetterAlias responds:

The Graveyard idea is great. I'm adding that in now.

[Swishmax Tutorial]

in my head

+++ New subject matter.

++ Sylish intro and buttons.

+++ All seems fairly well explained. I'm not gonna dl the program though, as I use Flash and...

----- You didn't explain what this program's all about. Does it create .swf files? Who made it? Can you do everything in it that you can with Flash? How much does it cost? Will the stuff you create run at the same speed?
Having a section about the bg of the program would be great in letting people actually understand what it's all about and whether it would be worth them getting it.

- You only covered the very basics. And not even how to draw your own stuff. Material for a future tut?

-- There should be buttons in each section to go back to the main menu rather than have to click 'back' repeatedly.

++ A nice little loop.

==
Seems like it'd be useful if I wanted to make a sprite movie using that program. But whereas this could have been great in teaching us about what the program is etc. I feel like I come away with no actually useful info in my head.

Arnas responds:

A good review. For the what this program is about www.swishzone.com will explain everything to you. This is only a tutorial not a program advertisement. Hehe. Yeah I only covered the basics. No advanced stuff. I could make another tutorial in the future. Yeah you're very right about the menu buttons. But hey. That's for the VERY lazy people. That shouldn't bother those laid back people.

It's only for sprite making and animating basics. People will automatically at least be "Low" level ranked to Swishmax instead of "Newbie" I am just teaching so people will at least know the hang of it. The rest is up to them. Sorry if it wasn't as good

[The Factory - Game]

it kept me

+++ Intuitive mechanics.

+++ Well-judged inertia.

++++++ Lots of difference between the 3 difficulty levels.

+++ Some variety, mainly in the form of the roaming scientists and a couple of the levels (specially #2) requiring different tactics.

--- Could have more variety. Maybe blocks that actually home in? moving floors? Obstacles could be used in more varied ways. Maybe a level where rather than allow us to go up to each obstacle, then time our passage, the whole level is just on long passage and we need to keep our speed 'just right' as it shuts in a 'wave'?

--- Overly basic graphics. Maybe losing the outline and taking more care in the drawings would give it more style? Colours could be better.

- Like a previous reviewer, I felt that being killed by closing blocks was a bit odd.

--- When I beat the hard mode without hitting a scientist in that level, I hoped the candy would do something.

- Some setup would be nice.

+++ The ending is kinda cool, with the tweening giving it a nice surreal quality.

==
Not the best designed game and certainly not very original. But it kept me mildly entertained for a wee while.

Stay funky
- Bez

artville responds:

Hey, thanks for reviewing this kinda old game. You brought up a thing I've never thought about before. Nice to see someone taking themselves really good time reviewing.

So thanks for reviewing. It was kinda useful, even though the game is pretty old =D