Bezman's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Awesome Sprite Tutorial]

I was pleasantly surprised

I was surprised and impressed at this tutorial - it seems well written; easy to follow and the web address was great.

I appreciated the lack of music - I feel more folk should do the same rather than wasting megabytes on an entire song. Lets us listen to our own music or learn in silence, if that's more conducive for our own learning.

It seemed easy to follow along - I knew most of the features already, but even had I not, I'd have been able to follow along no problem.

I'd disagree with a few of the choices you make - I'd personally either use the transform tool (q) whilst holding down shift to keep the proportions, or type in a number into the transform box. Similarly, I disagree that limiting the onion skin to one previous frame made it any easier and I'd use F6 for making new frames. Though folk don't need to know the shortcuts immediately, it'd be worth mentioning them!

The main point, though, is that your system worked.

I'd suggest you tell folk how to tween the movieclips to move Mario across the screen or just have a ore motivational end frame, maybe telling folk that they can now use those techniques to carry on and make a movie...

Though the tutorial seems good, it lacks gravity when it's your only submission - if you had a sprite movie that you linked to, or maybe a short 10s example movie to inspire us and show that you know what you're talking about.

Regardless, this is one of the better submissions I've seen. Good work.

Swizardv2 responds:

Thanks. Well the having no flash is a long story :p. 2 things manly. I don't have the concentration to work on things for a really long time, but I actually did a minute of animation, but had a harddrive crash. Hmm I'm thinking of remaking this tutorial with some things you mentioned and other people mentioned. Also if I add a sound, it will be a loop no bigger then 300kb or something. I could go into more dept indeed with movie tweens and backgrounds looping, but that's hard to explain. I know this tutorial doesn't prove I can animate, but I know I can :P Besides the main fact I made this tutorial, is wen I was looking at collabs to join, and collabs I joined (didn't want co-auth), these basics were done wrong. And wen these things go wrong, these basic things, then nothing good will come out of it. Sorry for ranting xD, thanks for the review.

[Delayed Radar]

Flawed execution

Time:240. I died a few times on the first timed level and once on level 8.

The game had a simple premise - easy to pick up. The eponymous concept didn't really add much to the game though - specially as it isn't really a 'delay' - just something that follows the mouse. The former would show where our mouse was a small time ago and force us to think ahead. With this, the radar changes direction as soon as we do and it just doesn't force us to change the way we play at all.

At first I found the 'obstacles' a bit annoying - feeling it was almost luck that governed when I'd find a ball I hadn't seen yet. Later on, I found one, just as it disappeared and working out where it'd go was an interesting challenge. However, the balls don't seem to move all the way to the edges before bouncing - making it feel random and unintelligible.

Lastly, in level 8 - a level that should have been difficult - I was easily able to complete it on my 2nd go thanks to the orbs starting in the same place.

The graphics were OK with the crosshair and greenish 'radar' clearly showing what they are.

The central concept is an interesting one, but you need to take more care in the execution. Really focus on what you think should be the most fun element and then work on that.

Treerung responds:

Well your opinion is very respectable and I know alot of people who played this game probably came away a little disappointed but, for me, this was a big learning experience considering I was experimenting the uses of masks(which, from what I can see, are rarely used in games).
Anyways thanks for the review!

[Hedgehog Launch]

beautiful story; fun game.

Beautiful game.

Though none of the mechanical ingredients are unique, the combination is and it makes for a tasty dish.

Adding user-control to the 'fling stuff' genre's visceral thrill really makes for a more complete game - one we can lose ourselves in, rather than setting aside after a minute.

The upgrades work wonderfully on so many levels. They make the game play differently at the start compared to later on, when bouncing from one platform to another nearly-adjecent blue is a viable strategy. The fixed prices introduce an interesting choice - buy now and get the benefit immediately (with hopefully more money garnered) or buy later, saving cash overall. Lastly, the sense of progress sets up the ending wonderfully - I expected it long before it arrived, but it was no less a pleasure for it.

Wonderful game. Your usual high standards of graphics (for the life of me I can't work out how you have such a large bg! Flash messes up my images when smaller than the ones you have) and tight mechanics. Sound choices are superb.

One criticism is that after falling to earth, with no up-rockets, the best strategy is to use any remaining fuel to extend the time. This makes for a slightly boring 10-30s and I think this slightly mars the game. Maybe you should have disallowed the use of side-rockets within a few pixels of ground level?

Wonderful game, great ending.

jmtb02 responds:

Haha, thanks Bez. Your use of metaphor and vocab are a shining beacon in the rab-dab-dabble of Newgrounds reviews. Thanks for the review, I appreciate it :).

This was one giant bitmap about 4000h x 1000w. I made sure it looped perfectly by fading in the left and right side of the bitmap image with itself then exporting as a PNG file (png-24 is the fastest but heaviest format for Flash for some reason). As long as not too much is going on while the camera is moving and the _root is moved via code and not v-cam things seem to work out for the better! I also move the hedgehog faster than I move the background so the hedgehog actually travels about 12-15k pixels upward in the time that the background moves about 4,000 pixels. Parallax saves the day.

-J

[Through the Machine]

Needs signal losing a life more clearly

5230 on my 2nd go.

Graphics are great and the level layout seems well timed to the music.

The smiley faces give a nice risk/reward mechanic.

My main beef is that when we lose a life, it isn't really signalled sufficiently or shown as the significant event it is. The lowered alpha value can be missed - we should se a flash and maybe some sfx to make it clear. And when we finally lose, we should get a short animation instead of just being booted to that screen.

Also, maybe also show our % completion as well as the score?

Great style though.

[Visual Illusions 4]

Fun to flick through.

Cool that you drew these! I'm used to folk submitting these kinda things with pics they got off the internet.

One point - the flag only works if you look with the flag filling your field of vision. After sitting normally, I just had the square of the flash itself burnt on my retina. Maybe it would have worked better with a black bg? Got it to work when I looked closer though.

I didn't bother trying the remaing flags and the 'true cyan' as I don't want to damage my eyes.

The 'rotating boxes' didn't work for me.

The cube animation was pretty cool.

Everything else I had seen variations of before, but then I do look at a lot of optical illusions.

I also liked your explanations. I should point out that cyan is actually the true opposite to red though.

Good effort.

[First Light]

OK.

I like the mechanic of no losses and submitting at a peak - I've not seen that before.

I guess the fact that you can't die made it more relaxing, as did Kevin MacLeod's music, but it still remained a frantic game for me at the higher difficulty.

On my 2nd game, I found myself stuck in a corner - after having held right and down to avoid dots that were dangerously close to the edge, the avatar sorta got stuck in the corner and I just had to submit the score. Even worse, I clicked while the rotating symbol was up and then it returned to the menu, not giving me a chance to submit. Ah well.

The simple graphics work well, but maybe having the background cycle to a random colour after collecting each dot would help with presentation, fitting with the hypnotic music.

Fun game, though perhaps a bit too limited.

Maybe with some more rules governing where the black dots appear (maybe stopping them from clumping together and keeping them a set distance from the edge) I'd prefer it.

-Review Request Club-

[Circle Chain]

Don't carry on when the level's already been lost

The music is cool.

Fun game and I liked the aleatory element - a value underlooked within games.

Though the inspiration is obvious, the differing method of progressing reactions helps it stand apart.

I only got to where the blues are reintroduced (after the yellows) - having to avoid them made for a frustrating pause when the game was already lost, but the chain reaction carried on anyway. Also, I felt that for what seems to be an almost-entirely luck-based game, the difficulty was a bit high. I felt dejected more than anything.

Regardless, not a bad game - original enough - and I'm sure a few tweaks would help it be more relaxing and less furstrating.

[Forklift Kid]

Cool idea. a few

Woo! Finally managed to complete the 8 levels, with a 'unicorn power' rank in level 1, 'the internet' on level 2 and gold medals on levels 3-8. (I replayed 1&2 to improve my rank but not 3+)

This certainly seemed like a novel idea and I really wanted to love it.

Your graphics are sumptuous. I love your patterns in the walls, the backgrounds and the style of our avatar is so cute!

The music is well chosen and lovely to listen to - I specially liked the music for level 8. It would have been nice to have specific song titles so I can go and download that last song more easily, but enh.

Anyways, now we come to the level design.

Level 1 was near-perfect in terms of introducing us to the various game mechanics and level 2 took a tiny bit of head-scratching but was a nice level of difficulty. Level 3, however, really brought it down for me.

I had to retry a whole bunch of times - having worked out what I had to do, the boxes would often fall into a place where I couldn't get them out of. It just seemed a needlessly frustrating way to get used to the physics.

I would have maybe liked to see a 'pull' option - perhaps map 'jump' to the up button, then use space to flick switches and if pressed by a block, she'd grab on and pull if the opposite direction is pushed. Being able to pull would also have made level 6 more enjoyable.

I'd also suggest you maybe make the physics more 'forgiving' somehow - certainly making the forklift trucks more inclined to stay upright with a box on them.

The remaining levels were all pretty varied and fun. I would have liked to see some levels with a more puzzley bent - it seems like there's still a lot of level ideas with the foklift truck scenario that you hadn't explored.

I think you should have had some better ending - the current ending just feels like you ran out of time or something - I think a harder last level, or some sort of 'boss' or something to give the game a 'full stop' would have helped.

The 'puzzle' with the steps and switches was a nice change of pace, but felt like it was leading up to something rather than a conclusion.

It's a great game and both the idea and the in-game visuals and audio are great. Ignoring level 3, it was fun while it lasted. I'd love to see it improved and resubmitted with more levels though.

-Review Request Club-

[The Frustration Game]

Great little game! (Not frustrating at all.)

11 mistakes.

This was a lot easier than I thought it'd be, but I'm actually glad for that. There are already a few games that try and be HARD OMG LOL but don't actually offer the variety like yours.

I love how you really play with different techniques and whilst the one-trick-per-level has the potential to get stale (like in James Pond3: Operation Starfish), the levels are short enough for the formula to work.

Keep it up - I reckon you could be working in the industry in a few years!

You need to change the name though, for the sequel. I'd far prefer you did that than upped the difficulty and made it live up to the name, but the choice is of course yours.

Anyways, stay funky. Looking forward to more from you!

[Particle Pong]

Shame the particles didn't affect the mechanic.

It was a cool visual effect and there's definitely a draw - I was pleased to get over 100 and am sure it'd look crazy when that number doubles or triples.

However, I was kinda disappointed that none of the particles could actually be interacted with. I was hoping the particle system would be a gameplay revolution, letting us bounce particles around to keep them in play. (I thought the life system would be particles-in-play rather than just the simple life-meter effect it currently is).

It looks cool and I'm impressed from a technical viewpoint but I was disapointed by the mechanics.

And if it's just meant to be about prettiness, you could have different colours of particles, bgs etc.