Bezman's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[FlyCatcher]

Gets boring quickly.

The game's an alright basic idea, but there's not much variety.

It'd be nice if the swatting got faster or something at least changed rather than the game remaining exactly the same for the whole duration.

The webs and shots are interesting, but there's little opportunity to really explore the possibilities of either. After trying it out, there's little to see. Play it once, you've done it all really.

The moves seem fairly nice and maybe it'd be nice to have some levels to play about in. Or maybe have the game never-ending. Have more obstacles come up, have the swatter speed up... maybe some way of recouping your abilities...

Maybe web fluid and energy (for jumping) could both be assigned to some meter which refills?

Then by the time say 50 points have been reached, the swatter should give you maybe a second or two to react... basically it should be faster and more energetic than it is now, I feel.

[Element Saga ch 3 A]

Rough around the edges

There's a lot of work put in here, but I'm not sure if it really pays off.

The 2 halves - the comic and the battles - don't seem to gel together that well and neither half seems that strong.

Come colour might have benefitted the comic and the plot doesn't seem all that strong. Crow's explanations seem more encumbered than necessary, the world within Jalapeno's mind unecessarily convoluted, with a lot of seemingly unecessary information to take in.

I'm all for flavour text, but this can't be excused so easily.

A few spelling/grammatical/word usage mistakes. Commas on the beginnings of a new line, 'bases' used instead of 'basis', 'your' used instead of 'you're', 'conciseness' used instead of 'consciousness', 'beaten' spelt 'beatan', missing question marks, lower case letters beginning sentences, and many others. Sure, maybe English isn't your first language. But maybe ask someone to look through the game, tell you what needs to be changed.

Ask for a proof-reader on the BBS. In fact, I'll make a thread for such a purpose.

The battles do have many moves, but the enemies don't seem to react to your moves, nor you to theirs. The only way to tell damage is being dealt seems to be to look at the status bars.

You should have them flinch or something when they take damage. Or if you think that makes it too easy, at least have them visibly flash.

Also, bear in mind that folk can hold down a button for the combo. Have it so that if they press the button too early, the combo is cancelled. That would make it a test of skill, as I understand you wanted.

Cheats aren't a bad idea, but having an item that diffuses all damage, then making it hard to unequip is.

You may as well have a cheat to just skip all the battles as any invincibility mode does seem to make them pointless.

Worst of all, I was really, really annoyed to find that when I tried to restart, the main menu's music kept going and wasn't stopped. (I restarted part 3)

This made that system rather pointless.

Overall, it's a nice idea with some real promise. It's nice to see people trying something a bit different and whilst it is essentially a simplified RPG, the presentation and intention of the combat system give it a flavour of its own. You're a great artist and both the pencil drawings and the simple coloured parts look excellent.

However, it could really use a few tweaks.

[Blockslide!]

Far too slow! Brilliant otherwise mebbe.

If this game had at least an option to move squares instantly (as stated below) it would be so, so much more enjoyable.

As it is, in the early levels, the thought takes maybe 10% of the time, whilst the movement takes 90%.

I beat level 11, and that seemed to be roughly a 50-50 ration, but having 50% of a puzzle game involve no thought whatsoever and mainly boredom just isn't on.

The graphics weren't great, but that wasn't a big problem. It was just far too slow, meaning we spend too long moving and not enough thinking about a newly presented problem.

I suggest you make a sequel with faster movement, maybe an option for instant movement.

The game mechanics are really nice, basically box-pushing games with a twist and taken to the next level.

There's a lot of potential here, but the speed is crippling for the enjoyment value. That needs to change more than anything else.

[Ghost wrath]

A fairly solid game.

At first it seemed like there were too many parts where damage was unavoidable, and I still can't work out how to get past a couple of bits without taking a hit (it seems in a good game, damage should always be due to the player's mistakes and always avoidable).

E.g., at the start of the 1st level (the spider) and the start of the 2nd (going down with 3 tongue-lashing things to the right).

The graphics are nice as is the music and the game as a whole rewards skill once the basic enemies have been recognised and learnt.

The story does look fairly interesting, but the game as a whole is enjoyable enough without it.

The final boss is my one sore point - 20 attacks in a row seems far too repetitive and I would have much rather it had maybe done maybe 7 one way, 7 another, then mixed up the last 6.

As it is, it's far too reliant on repeating previous success without any conditions having changed and on previously learned knowledge (the latter an argument that could be made against various parts of the game).

Still, it was a fun thing to play and I look forward to more from you.

GameBalance responds:

Thanks a lot! Nice to read it!

[Sir Chair's Maze]

Some nice work.

It's more inventive than most maze-type games I see like this.

I like the way you've introduced switches and whatnot, although occassionally, some parts seem cheap.

I was mildly annoyed by a red square hiding behind a portal and getting hit, but it wasn't a massive deal.

Also, I think you disallowed clicking on white to prevent cheating, but it doesn't work.

I only cheated on one level, just to see though.

In any case, it was a fun game and I enjoyed beating your sadistic levels.

[Balance Ball game]

Nice, but not enough to it.

My main complaint about this is that after completing the course once, there's little fun in doing it over and over again.

It's fun initially working out how to have the ball run down and the perfect time to turn the levers but doing the same thing over and over for the duration of the time limit is a bit too much I think.

I think it'd be more enjoyable either to have a single ball run down and time that (see how fast you can get that one ball to run down) or maybe even expand the concept and introduce multiple levels, with different routs, some sections where you need to gain speed in order to jump over gaps and so on.

The dynamics of the ball are excellent and fairly believable, reacting well with the slope of the ramp.

Some have suggested keyboard controls may be nice and I'd personally suggest that in any case thehitbox for the part you 'grab' should be larger.

Nice idea, but maybe refine it a bit more.

[The Bounce]

A lovely story told as we play.

Such a beautiful game, full of surprises and delights.

The story - for there is a simple story told through the game, whilst playing, in the way all stories should be - is simple but imaginative and delightful to see through to its conclusion.

The graphics mirror the childlike nature of the tale well with simple colours, little shading and bold outlines.

The music is wonderful, gelling the whole thing together well. It's almost like an interactive soundtrack and though I don't know what the dude is singing about (unless 'trente' means bounce), it's a wonderful piece of music which complements the action well.

The introduction is wonderful, with the introduction to the action starting as the explanation shows and the music starts...

The gameplay itself is brilliant. It's instinctive, the increasing number of stars and enemies is handled well and I love the increasing height reached.

The energy is generous enough that most should reach the end without too many troubles, but the danger of losing is one that exists.

Again, I loved the ending.

Unfortunately, there are a few flaws I feel.

Firstly, and worst, is the fact that the 'try again' buttons don't seem to work, either after winning or losing.

Secondly, the losing screen can be shown even before all the energy is depleted. I was 'on the ending' with about 1/3 energy and lost. Then, when actually trying to lose, I did so with what appeared to be a small amount still present.

The lack of an initial 'play' button is an omission in my view. It would be nice to maybe have a pre-loader with the credits and game instructions on the same page, then after the play button is pressed, this could fade away and the giraffe start bouncing.

I missed some of the info and the bouncing thanks to everything starting at once before I was totally ready.

Lastly, maybe it'd be nice to have the energy displayed as a heart symbol to be instantly recognised. The symbol you have is nice, but I wasn't sure why my energy was going up until I played a 2nd time and had time to read the intro.

But other than that, thanks to your presentation, everything is instinctive as it should be. The giraffe turns red when hurt, the stars give a nice explosion to show - yes, they have been collected, the rotation is handled nicely too.

A beautiful game and though it has its flaws (the 'try again' one being most unsavoury) I shall highly reccommend it.

[Draw 3D Heads for Dummies]

Nothing taught but common s

I was disappointed with this as I thought it was really going to do what it suggested - help me draw heads which looked 3d.

Instead: all the help we get are some of your pictures to look at. I was expecting maybe some pointers on how to draw the head from a different perspective without him looking different.

The suggestion of 'flipping' the head isn't a brilliant one as it means his assymetric hair is constantly flipping over. And if people really are so new to this scene that this would be useful, explaining how to flip something in the tut. would be a good move.

Yes, it teaches something - a basic way of making the head turn - but not what I feel the title suggests.

And what it teaches - draw the head from different angles to make it appear to turn - is basic fbf common sense.

[_ULTIMATE TUTORIAL 2_]

Impressive, but mainly for noobs.

I found the claymation bit fairly informative, not having done that stuff before and not having made much of an effort to learn how.

Well, maybe when I have money spare for a web-cam I'll give it a shot. I don't fancy using my digital camera and having to set up a batch process to resize/resave all the pictures before having to spread them across the timeline. Actually, now I think about it, it's still not much work compared to fbf...

Anyway, some bits of code seemed useful and the NG-specific bit was a nice tribute.

However, your buttons were a bit horrible with the hit-box, making me lose a bit of faith in your teachings and it would have been nice if you'd actually tried to explain the AS a bit more fully.

You should really specify version numbers more clearly for the programs. And whilst you do cover a lot of material, most of it hasn't got as much depth as I'd like.

It remains, however, useful to any relative newcomers. And for a free resource, supplied the way it is (as a flash file), it seems to stand head and shoulders above its peers.

GAMECUBICLE responds:

I used the same next buttons everywhere in the tutorial. And they only bug in the Flash Tutorial. So i dont really know what it is and how to fix it. Its kinda awkward

[ultimate flash sonic]

A brilliant copy of an alright game.

This effort is remarkable. From the number of characters selectable to the presentation, to the graphics, to the remarkably 'accurate' controls.

However, I can't bring myself to play more than one act. I just can't help feeling that there's little point spending time playing this when there are better, official, versions of the game.

I personally feel the series went a bit downhill after #2 and it was always about the feeling of speed over interesting design - something which is far more of a novelty and which your version doesn't recreate quite as well as it might.

There are a few missing frames of animation, resulting in some unsightly occurences when slowing down at an angle.

Being killed during the 'bounce back' as we lose our rings seems unfair - far more bastardly than the original and needlessly so.

But it seems churlish to chide you for not having a perfect clone.

I just wish that you could match your obvious determination and programming skill with some more imagination and top level design.