Bezman's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Clinically Obese SMB]

Excellent idea, flawed execution.

The entire conceit is brilliantly amusing.

I felt you could've done more to make it actually interesting to play though (maybe making the levels even shorter, or making the ? blocks release cake - fattening Mario more and more) and the ending (I was killed at bowser) seemed to make no sense to me.

I was looking forward to seeing an obese Peach.

The end of stage 1 was cool though.

[NG London Meetup Jan 2009]

Very good for what it is. And a secret too! Whoo!

I think the Happy Sheep has Ockeroid to his left (our right) and Burnzoid is to the left of him (his right).

Quality production! I liked the 'secret' with the tramp! I wouldn't have found it if someone hadn't hinted at it in a previous review. I still wonder about him... was he really the bro of that lad from East 17? Was he really making an album? If so, his rapping was... not up the standards I'd expect of a pro.

Or was he lying - trying to impress us or have a private chuckle, seeing how many folk he could fool?

Or was he delusional? Convinced of this and countless other untruths?

We may never know.

I think the 'lol' in a circle should have been a musical note or something to show more clearly that it might turn off music. And maybe the hobo link could twinkle once every minute-ish to help folk who would otherwise never find it?

Quality production though - I'm impressed at all the links and the scrolling works well and is at a well-judged speed with a good size of 'dead zone' in the middle.

I approve of this PRODUCTION OF LOVE.

[Instawin]

A brief smile gave way to brief boredom.

I've seen this 'trick' a couple of times before. However, I renjoyed the 'you win a prize' voice and brought a faint smile to my face.

I felt that your gaps - between each 'scene change' should have been eliminated. And the final comment - that you have a voice - doesn't make this particular submission better. The reverse, in fact.

Also, you really need to stop being so lazy. 2-frame animations of a badly-drawn-stickman just aren't that interesting for the eyes. Try making new drawings. Do something that looks good - whether better drawings or more animation.

Wegra responds:

I can't help being lazy. I can never really find a time to practice.

[Obama Dress Up]

Too limited.

This seemed even more limited than most dressup games! I mean - only headgear (of which only one can really be used at a time), slogans and badges? That's not really allowing for much creativity.

Be imaginative with what you let us do - even with the current setup (him behind a podium) how about facial hair? Glasses? Facial tattoos? feminine makeup? Hairstyles?

I liked the fact that his head moves about, though that meant that stuff like the bunny ears only fitted half the time.

The graphics were well done though.

[Sequence]

Unoriginal, though well executed.

'Simon' is one of the oldest computer games in existence and this plays almost identically - though a few extra tiles and the fact that the length is only increased after 3 rounds is notable.

The first time I played, I didn't realise that each length needed 3 victories to proceed and it seemed a bit irritating until I got to the length of 5 and upwards.

Maybe you could have asked for only one victory at length 3, 2 at length 4 and 3 thereafter? And to ensure folk understand the rules, don't progress us after a mistake - instead we should play the same level again.

I loved the way you quickly repeated the pattern after a fail and the music and graphics were lovely.

mindlesslabs responds:

Great feedback, I'll be sure to improve based on these ideas. Thank you very much!

[Doyu Jump]

Decent concept, faulty execution.

I liked the basic concept, but felt the execution was off.

The controls and rules - barring the special items - are fairly simple. It took me a couple of goes to realise that I needed to release before the trampoline became active, but after that it was just about learning about the items and refining my technique.

I feel, though, that the level design could have been made more interesting. Rather than just be a random game, you could have forced us to navigate around tricky layouts of obstacles, introduced the various elements at a slower rate, rather than throwing it all in at the start leaving little to look forward to...

There's a couple of other faults that seem needless. Why should it take 3s each time we want to restart? It's a short time, but when we die, we want to dive straight back into the action!

And why's there no mut button?

I also feel the general layout and typography could be imptoved - specially on the 'tutorial' screen, with the slightly obscured start button and the building that first looks like it's part of the tutorial from its placement.

The idea is sound enough though.

[Madness Short 4 - M136]

Disappointing.

I wouldn't really call it interactive - I mean, it's a short movie with a scene select at the end.

If it's gonna be a choose-your-adventure type thing, then I can only wish you the best of luck. You've got a fair bit of work to go.

I feel your animation was a bit slow - the movement of the bullets and the characters seemed stilted. You could maybe consider your pacing a bit more.

The way the blood 'disappears' looks odd - after shooting out of the guys, it should just come to a stop in some sort of pool. Definitely not 'go back into their head' like it seems to do when the 2 dudes in the 2nd room fall down.

I liked the blood sprays with the dudes in the 2nd room when the bullet hit them. Just redo the ending few frames.

I feel let down by this, but best of luck for future stuff.

Murad136 responds:

Hey thanks :) What I've taken from your review is increase the frame rate and add more frames in between the movements (which I will do, thanks) and work more on the finishing position of blood! Thanks :)

[Madness Regent]

Five minutes of fun.

I actually struggled for a minute or two at the glass roof - not realising I had to shoot down. To me, it looked like some sort of portal so I thought I just had to jump into it, then thought maybe I had to press down or another button... only when I 'saw' what it was after coming back to it did it become obvious how to get past.

I feel like maybe having a sign teling us 'you can shoot downwards!' would have made that a bit more njoyable to me - it wasn't a puzzle, just me being dumb, I guess.

The first time I played, I died at the final boss, having accrued a few mistakes by that point - specially in the upwards chase and elevator scene. I completed it on my next go - glad I didn't have to go too far back but feeling that the 2 bosses seemed a bit repetitive.

The final boss specially seemed like it was really forcing us to learn the attacks and hit boxes rather than react or use much skill. And there's nothing to suggest that standing within grasping distance of the hand is a better option than trying to jump over - until we fail or realise that it never actually uses its fingers. I guess that's maybe your love of old-school game mechanics showing through.

I loved the visual signals clearly showing trails for bullets, colours distinguishing friendly fire from enemy fire.

The backgrounds were superb and I specially loved the windows just after breaking though the glass. The touch of blue lighting after the elevator and the lights by the clown, which we could smash also helped make it feel more involved.

Controls were excellent. Whilst we couldn't easily fire in a direction we weren't moving, it wasn't generally a problem and replaying it to run circles around enemies was a joy.

I found the ending - with the explosions and ensuing downward fall - lagged slightly.

Overall though, it was a real joy to play. Short, focusing on the 'five minutes of fun' and then ending before repetition ever has a chance to occur.

Variety throughout, easy to play...

This is what more flash games should be like, rather than spreading themselves to thin or competing with modern console games.

[GTFTN1 - Scanlines]

Short tutorial, but I got a benefit out of it.

Although you mention it in the comments and - for a couple of seconds - in the intro, I think you should list the required program(s) in the main menu, with the start button.

Even though I knew about defining patterns, I hadn't considered using them to do scanlines. Thanks for reminding me what a wonderful thing the pattern-defining function is.

The fades work well.

For the first screenshot, circling the important info would help. Maybe darken the irrelevant parts, with a mask letting us see the relevant parts at original brightness?

And more than one example of the technique's usage would be nice.

These might be more useful if you explained the techniques - here, for example, explaining how patterns work, so folk could try their own. Even an extra paragraph would have sufficed, pointing out that the defined pattern is tiled, maybe illustrated with a zoomed in example, with squares surrounding 'tiles'.

To stop music, use:
stopAllSounds();

Short tutorial, but I got a benefit out of it.

-Review request Club-

Marsupial responds:

thanks for the code and the review, some good points.

I'm working on a part 2 which will be a longer and technically better tutorial

glad this helped you though