Bezman's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Simpsons: A Quiz v.2]

an awful lot

I played through. Got 2 Qs wrong - 'how many people suspected of murder' and 'how many clips'.

+++ I liked the music.

- I hate the way the music restarts each time we fail. It means that unless we sit back before completing the quiz (as I did after finishing it all) we won't hear the full thing.
I think it should've started when we click anything, then just repeated after that with a pause maybe, and an option to turn it off in case anyone wanted to (not that anyone should).

-- Too few questions.

-- The way you have options to go to next question, menu etc. after each question seems a bit pointless and makes it feel a bit disjointed. In the speed quiz specially, it seems it should be omitted.

--- In the speed quiz, if we run out of time on the last question, it says we won.

--- No gfx.

+ The colour yellow is fitting...

++ Most of the questions are fairly well picked.

===
I got some enjoyment out of it, but it could still be improved an awful lot.

Frenzy responds:

Thanks...

[TicTacToe]

noughts and crosses (or 'tic-tac-toe'

+++ All works well

+++++ Computer seems flawless on highest level

+++ difficulty levels

------ Inherently limited nature of the game

-- Shitty-looking front-end

+++ Good song

overall
=====

Nice work, but dude... it's just noughts and crosses (or 'tic-tac-toe' as you yanks are wont to call it)! Totally limited.

Does what it does well though.

Maybe spruce up the gfx a bit.

themoviejoker responds:

... xD

[Ultimate Newgrounds Quiz!]

questions. Could be a

Checked out a couple of extras. Played the 2 working quizzes. Lost maybe 5 times.

+++ I like quizzes about NG.

-- Having questions about how many submissions some random user has or what #39 was on such and such a date (though I got both right) seems retarded. It's better, I feel, to have questions that are/will always be true and is about something (relatively speaking) of some importance.

--- I hate the 'make a mistake, go back to q1' format. Better to maybe have a score or whatever?

--- No pre-loader?

+ I like how you've got extras. The ad was voiced too slowly and I didn't bother watching all the crazy page. But it made me feel like you cared about this.

------ You've got a question wrong. 'New Ground' was the name of the fanzine. For the original website, 'the final decision was "New Ground Remix"' (from the lit.)

---- Non-working button leaves a bad impression

overall
=====

Some decent questions. Could be a lot better though. Hardly ultimate.

Kronzo-Productions responds:

Thanks for the long review. Sorry that I got that one question wrong.

[Flip It!]

out a decent

Played it. Completed it.

I'm sure I'd played this before. Ah well. Probably didn't review then.

Anyway:

++++ I like the basic game mechanic.

-- Seen it before on the experimental gameplay project website.

+++ You have some interesting levels. I like how your levels are designed.

----- The scoring system sucks. You could have maybe made it so we got bonus points for time remaining. Maybe 10 for each second? And maybe we could get 10 points for removing a tile, but lose 11 for making it return?
That way we'd have to think a bit and try to do the levels in min # moves for a better score...
Also, have an actual penalty for dying.
As is, everyone will get the perfect score.

--- No high score table.

++ Decent music

overall
=====
Cool game. I vote you keep developing it. Add levels. Sort out a decent scoring system. If you add a lot of levels, maybe have multiple modes (for different game lengths).

Nick responds:

Thanks for the great review. Yes, I've taken into account most of what you've said for the sequel (which I started about two weeks ago). So far it's looking good.

[NGIntern: Progress]

thinking about the

Played it once. Got to about 20000 points (of that order anyway).

Wasn't taking any damage and my life wasn't ever being risked. I then started trying to shoot every enemy that passed and not let a single one through. That game was pretty hard, though I think the challenge may be impossible, given the distance you sometimes have between enemies and the speed. Lost with the first digit still '2'.

++++ At the speed at which the enemies come, we do have time to move in their path and shoot them.

------ There's really nothing in this game that threatens us at all. We will only fail because of over-eagerness, trying to do it faster, boredom... basically, I just have an issue with the fact that you won't ever fail simply by hammering 'a'. Any game that requires nothing more than such repetitive 'dronework' to survive needs some changing, I feel.
Maybe (slow) enemy bullets? Maybe enemies that somehow try and swoop at you? Maybe some obstacles that can't be destroyed?
Seriously, even as a lead-up to a boss, this needs changing.

++ decent music.

- gfx for bullets aren't to my liking.

- I actually think the whole thing looks really generic.

------ and the play mechanics have been seen oh so many times before.

++ No glitches - code seems to work well.

overall
=====
A decent beginning. Nothing worth playing though, I think. I'd suggest you try thinking about the play mechanics. Make it so we need to actually do something other than 'drone work' and it may be worth playing.

t7bros responds:

Thanks for the response. My original goal was simply to get the game past judgement. I may make a version 2 (if I can get things fixed by the end of the month) to be released on May 31, but I have to see if I can do it. Anyway, I'll keep your suggestions in mind. Thanks for your support.

[Portal Protect]

game, but I just think it

Played it, getting to around level 4/5. got 19k points I think. Started getting bored, was dropping down...

+++++ Relevant subject matter. Captures the imagination.

++++ The various modifiers do bring about some interesting variations.

--- Though it kinda seems like generally we'd practically want to avoid the flashing things once we decide what we prefer - there's not much to encourage us to go through the different modifiers.

------ I don't like the way the game seems to have little interesting variation.

-- Not to keen on the way there's no losing state.

overall
======
An interesting game, but I just think it needs more variety in the game mechanics.

You know, this kinda reminds me of my own 'Skears DX' game. Which has far less interesting gfx but more interesting levels imo.

unknown911 responds:

Thanks for the helpful input!
By the way, you lose when you go under -1000 points.

[Little Ball Game]

as is though

++ Nice shadow.

- Though maybe you could have the shadow move further away as it shrinks, when the ball rises.

- Also, maybe have the ball rotate as it moves.

+++ I really like the whole look of it, with the tiny trees and the moon... though it'd be maybe nice for the grass to also have parallax scrolling, the way it is just now makes it look as if it's a big ball on a tiny world, with little bonsai trees.

-- I think you should impose a max. limit on how long pressing the jump button will make us rise. As it is, I pressed it until it reached something like 50k, released it, saw it bounce a couple of times, then restarted (as it was just way too high).

++ basic bouncing works well.

overall
=====
Not a bad demo. Not much fun as is though, but it shows real potential.

Stay funky,
- Bez

darkhole-dk responds:

Hey thanks for the nice review, they're not used to be good now-a-days. The ball rotates, so i guess that'll be another plus. (Well, it does at my computer)

[Endless War 2]

I could onlybeat 1 level...

how I played this
==================

Selected mission 1. Failed a few times. Had a look at other levels, turned difficulty to easiest, tried the 2 easy missions, failed, tried 'blood' 1, succeeded, failed on blood 2 a few times.

selected aspects (rated from ----- to +++++)
(note: I'm not rating everything or trying to break the flash up into constituent parts. Just giving you an idea of how good/bad I consider the points I mention.)
===============================

++: graphics were fairly nice

++: There seems to be a lot of work put into the enemies, movement and all.

+++: I like the way you have so many missions for us to work through and have alternate modes. Blood mode seemed a change.

-----: I just never had an idea how I was meant to be playing, what tactics I was meant to be using. I never had a clue how I was meant to kill without being shot and it all seemed down to luck.

---: Dying can come as a surprise. Have the screen flash or something when we're hit by bullets.

--: I'd have liked it if you'd started us off on some really easy missions, with maybe the choice of playing through one of those styles, but each level could open up the next. As it is, there's no sense of progression.

overall
=========

I really wanted to like this. A fair bit of effort has gone into various aspects, but ultimately, it just wasn't fun for me.

I wasn't sure if I was meant to be running to dodge the bullets, or if I was meant to just turn and shoot as fast as I could, or if it was largely down to luck... the game wasn't very welcoming.

A tutorial might have helped me get into it. As it is, it seems a bit impenetrable.

BlackFox-of-ITMO responds:

Yes, this game may seem to be too hard, if you're rushing forward and shooting to all sides. Use hand grenades, your opponents guns with grenade launchers - the can hit in a radius and even through the walls. Sometimes turning option "Old bullets" on can really help.

P.S.: Nice idea with screen flash!