Bezman's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[->The Par Box<-]

Some good, some bad.

A very mixed bag.

It's a shame that all of the things apart from #12 were just mcs being spawned at the point of your mouse.

I really liked the change in #12 and had fun imagining other possible ways to interact - hoping you'd do some of those things and more.

The different shapes and animations do encourage different sort of movements as we're interacting in order to make pleasing shapes though - something I like.

And yet, there's an awful lot of repetition and a fair few that I think could have been cut out in the name of improving the overall impression. There's a good few variations on each possible movement pattern when it may have worked better to just focus on the best few.

The representational smiley faces felt trite compared to the abstract stuff and the thin black lines around some shapes looked unpleasing to my eyes as did some of the 'hand-drawn' stuff. The geometric shapes look kind of classier and seem better suited to being repeated as particles.

There's a fair few Flash on NG that spawn particles at mousepoint already but if you pursue different ideas in how the particles could move and be interacted with - something I hoped you'd do after #12 - I'd love to see a sequel.

Bird in Flight was cool too.

FatKidWitAJetPak responds:

I am making a sequel actually that will have 100 effects and many of them physics controled. These effects were all tween controlled with a program called Fuse where they change different colors, blur, glow, e.t.c. You might think most of them are shot out of the mouse when in fact, they are just created when you move your mouse. I wanted it to be simple top control, so i made everything with the mouse.

Thanks a lot for the review. :)

[Hot Stuff]

Desperately needs more variety.

I've seen a few of these games where you need to keep a variable low in multiple instances of an object. The issue here - and often elsewehre - is that working out the optimum way to play is really easy - just 'attend' to each instance in a set order, cycling through ad infinitum.

Maybe throw in some changes to switch up the optimum strategy. Maybe some objects get hot faster than others? Maybe objects like comets, flaming torches and stuff fly in from off-screen and give a massive boost in temperature if they collide - requiring us to douse them before they do. Maybe it's a stove, meaning that the temperature needs to be kept warm (but not too warm)? A balance is more interesting to achieve than just striving for an extreme.

It's a good start and it shows that you're capable of some programming. Keep going! But either think a bit more about the game mechanics or ask someone else to help you in that regard.

Frankly, I didn't find the gamplay frustrating - just terribly boring. After 128s, I just let the boxes explode since it didn't actually seem to be getting harder and I saw no reason to continue.

JackBond1234 responds:

Thanks for the feedback!
Yeah, at about 128 seconds it basically becomes impossible and you have to let 5 of the boxes explode and work on slowing down one until eventually it explodes.

I tried my best on the mechanics. It being my first time, I still have some tricks to discover. :)

[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.

[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!

[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 :)

[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

[Being a Helpful NG'er]

Like most tutorials, a bit dull.

Like most guides, this suffered from being essentially just a lot of text with no interactivity and few images.

The examples of reviews were a nice 'break' from reading your voice all the time.

In 'method 1' of how to write good reviews, surely listing things you disliked and things that could be changed are almost synonymous? Here, for example, I'm stating that I disliked that element, implying that the two 'steps' should have been merged together.

As long as your disliked are clear, the suggested course of action should be easy to infer.

I was disappointed to not be on the 'great reviewers' list. :-(

It was generally easy to tell what was a link, but you could improve your hitboxes. the 'hit' frame shouldn't be empty or just the text again - instead have a rectangle so we can still click on the counter of the 'e' or between the stems of 'M' (for example). They could sometimes feel tricky to click.

Heading typography could be improved - between the two bgm icons, it doesn't stand out as much as it could. Perhaps an alternate font?

I like the icons by the way - they fit with the geometric font.

The 'good posts' section seemed really sensible and fairly well written.

The NGDD account is 'closed'. Linking to it seems pointless.

To be honest, I still have no idea what any of those clubs DO. After checking out their threads, I came to the theory that chit-chat is the bulk of activity and nothing particularly 'helpful' or influental actually happens.

The RRC seems like it deserved a link.

I was suprised to see 'animation' credited. I mean, I saw graphical work, icons that were drawn and basic typographic choices. But no animation. :-/

Anyway, this suffers from being nothing more than 'linear' text and was a bit dull. More pics, more exciting typography... these little touches would have helped.

As far as tutorials go, though, it was fairly well written and you give a quality overview of everything.

-Review Request Club-

RohantheBarbarian responds:

Thanks for your criticisms. I will take them on board, however please note that the NGDD account closure occurred AFTER the making of this flash.

Thanks for reviewing.

[HappyLand Valentine]

Original and fun.

Died once at level 3 - thought I had to kill the boss using chains (like the elves) - once at level 5, twice on level 7, maybe 5 times on level 8, got 191s (33.5k) on survival.

The chaining of normal items has really turned the game around. distanced it from the shooters it could previously be easily compared to and helped it become a unique blend of a chain-reaction game with a shooter.

I felt that by starting off with both directions, you missed a trick - introducing enemies from the left was a cool twist to witness in the original game and helped add variety within levels.

When I killed the boss, it felt odd for the level to just carry on - maybe if it continued - with a time bonus for time remaining - it'd feel more ike an occasion.

Speaking of occasions and celebrations, I was a bit disappointed at the lack of any ending animation after the king.

And I still think you should slow the pace a bit, zoom out, but make each hit take off maybe 1/3 of our energy. And make Fuzzy Elf's expression change.

The controls also started to feel a bit cramped - personally, I'd prefer the option to use a and w.

The new rocks were a cool addition and really encouraged me to stay alert. I also liked the way that the king now bounced around and needed to be avoided.

The chaining added aleatory elements but there was still skill involved.

The medal system could have been explained a bit - I assume it's based on life left, but am not sure. If I'm right, maybe it could have changed colour from blue to bronze to silver to gold as the bar 'measures itself' at the end of each stage - changing colour as it passes each threshold? And pop up the relevant medal at that same time?

Its existence means that when I return to this, I'll have another goal to play for.

A fun game you've got here and I think you should return to the concept sometime, with a few tweaks and maybe a couple of twists.

I'm only criticising it so much because it has potential.

ChromeShark responds:

Thanks for the detailed review. I'd really like to make another HappyLand game one day, possibly for next Valentines day, so your comments are very helpful.

I considered having a level before the current Stage 1 with only one direction of enemies. I guess I thought it might be a bit boring for players of the first game, and the chaining didn't really work well with only one direction.

About the controls, if I remember right then W and S caused problems on some keyboards, hence be using Q and A.

Medals are mostly based on health left, they also take into account chaining and a few other factors. I'll make this clearer for the next one. Like you say the medals were more of an afterthought to give players a bit more life out of the game.

For the sequel I'm probably going to change to forwards shooting as a lot of people have requested this. The chaining system will need quite a rethink after that.

Thanks again and see you in January!

[-HappyLand-]

Happy indeed.

I generally enjoyed this.

The start seemed ridiculously simple, but I liked the twist on level 4 and level 6 actually killed me once or twice. Level 7 killed me about 5-7 times and I beat the elf king in 3 goes.

I liked the twist on a normal shooter - both in the direction of projectiles and also with the elves that we need to avoid hitting.

However, I felt that it all seemed a bit flukey for my tastes - with the frantic pace, but the generous amount of 'health', we're almost expecting to be hit loads of times and so each time we get hit loses its feeling of importance. If the game were slowed down a bit and maybe the 'camera' zoomed out, to let us see everything ahead of time, with an accompanying decrease in the number of times we're allowed to be hit, the game could be just as hard, but each time we're hit would be more of an occasion and the deaths wouldn't feel so chancey.

Maybe change the face of the main character - like you do with the king - to reflect his lack of happiness. And maybe the king could have some attacks implemented.

The game was fun despite these gripes - the graphics were jolly, music fun and the gameplay had a suitably happy vibe.

ChromeShark responds:

Thanks very much for checking out my games and leaving reviews! I'll leave more of a response for the Valentine review : )