Bezman's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Mario Breakout (OLD)]

Insubstantial and a bit messy.

aspects (rated from ----- to +++++)
=====================================

---: when each level started, we were given hardly any time to get our paddle in position.

---: It seemed to always go the same way - we seem to have no control over the ball

--: only 2 stages

++: power-up.

++: fairly decent graphics

overall
=========

It's quite bizarre. With the ridiculously small times we get at the start of each level it's almost as if you're trying to stop folk from finishing, lest they discover that there's only 2 stages.

Too insubstantial a game.

But if you started it off a bit easier, messed about with fun powerups and stuff... it could be a fun wee game.

Biscayne59 responds:

I'll do a remake of it, just as soon as I learn action scprit better.

[Pong Rally]

Nothing new.

aspects (rated from ----- to +++++)
=====================================

-: controls seemed silly.

++: it all worked well.

--: Why was so little of the screen used for the game?

+: the music tracks were nice

+: You had little movie clips
-: but they served no purpose and didn't react to the game.

---: It had no extra features beyond what pong offered, other than a tally of hits. Nothing new

---: Not really engaging.

overall
=========

I was looking forward to playing this, but was disappointed to find how similar it was to the original pong. You seem to have put a lot of effort into extraneous feature, but the core gameplay is lacking.

Casualty responds:

You're right on every point. Thanks.

[Rumble Ball field 4]

I felt at unease whilst playing.

play experience
=============

played through from start to finish. Collided with some bombs. Fell down a hole maybe 6 times.

aspects (rated from ----- to +++++)
===========================

++++: nice sfx for hitting the things
-----: sfx all played after 1-2 second delay for me.
-: more sfx would be nice.

--: We can move the ball around, using hundreds of tiny pushes with no penalty. That seems wrong.

---: We're never sure how well we're doing in a level. Maybe a 'par' score or something would be nice.

------: I HATE flashes that play a tune on loading, before any user-input.

--: I'm not too keen on games like this, and golf games which are just about bettering a score. I like it when there's a max. number of shots or something, to give you an initial goal (just beating them all) before working on beating your high scores.

+: The lack of colour in the last level was interesting...

-: When I was picking up stragglers, I constantly felt like I was losing.

----: In fact, for some reason, I got the constant impression that I was doing worse than I was 'meant' to be doing. I felt like something had to click, maybe I was doing something wrong. And I never knew what.

Overall
=======

The sfx are all nice and sweet but it didn't really fill me with an urge to play on.

GameBalance responds:

That is unfinished idea. I was under stream of hi-scores games.
But I feel like it can be good level walkthrough game.
But - for some people it was intresting to try to beat hi-scores in this one.
Anyway I planning to make it non-hi-scores game in part 5. But need to thik up good features.
If u have good idea for this concept e-mail me it

[Box Ball]

The potential wasn't realised.

My experience
----------------
Played. Glitch after L1.1. Then I died on purpose on l1, right-click played to see what would happen. Played l2.1, fell off at a tricky bit, but the screen kept going - not recognising my failure.

Aspects (rated +/-)
------------------

------: After I completed L1.1, it went back to the menu.
--: 1st level is way slow and boring.
---: I think the bit I died on at level 2.1 was disproportionately hard, compared to the rest of the level
-: I'd like to see the ability to jump at different heights, to not whack off the top.
-: it seems wierd that if you 'walk off' a ledge, you fall so slowly compared to when you jump.

+++: The interactive pre-loader was a really thoughtful touch.

++: The idea has more potential than you've realised. I was looking forward to seeing the horizontal stages and bonus stages...

overall
---------

The game had potential but wasn't fun for me.

I think you should sort the game out, maybe make another version. Or persue another idea if you like and come back to this when you know more AS.

Keep at it.

Stay funky,
- Bez

dreamers responds:

thx, question tho... howd u play lvl 2.1? i didnt think it was on this version... i thought i split the lvls up, any way all ur point have been taken in to consideration and i acctualy changed them b4 u posted this reply;

lvl 1 is posta be slow as it is... well lvl 1

lvl 2.1 will be changed, that is why i havent uploaded it

i can't yet make it so u can jump at diff hights, ill look into it

the level moves, not the ball so when u jump u get an added boost, compared to when you fall. ill look into it and change if possible.

ive only just got to a point with lvl 1.1 in which i think im ready to continue to lvl 1.2 so if u play any lvls beond lvl 1.1 then at the moment they will have non of the new attributes lvl 1.1 has,

thanks for the honest review though bez,

i hope when its finished you'll be more pleased with it

[King of Buttons]

Nice idea. Could be expanded further.

Nice song. Quite amusing in this context. Graphics work well, though are a bit derivative. (Are they stock buttons?)

Time attack is probably the most obvious mode. Nicely done. Maybe needs a bit more pizazz?

Reflex - another obvious idea. Also nicely done. Though with the time the button animation takes, I think the theoretical top score would be more like 50-60.

Endurance mode was fairly inventive, conceptually, but a bit ridiculous and not much potential for fun, I felt. I actually think it would have been better (not necessarily from a fun-game point of view but from a keeping-the-ridiculous-angle point of view) if the scores were hidden. But that would only really work if the list was longer.

I like the notion of being told you're #xxx in the high score list, but not actually knowing how much higher you'd have to go to go up a place. It'd just add to the whole element of 'stop when you think you've done enough'.

Challenge - my favourite mode. Inventive, with some nice ideas, which took some picking up on, like the 2 shades of red and the upside-down buttons. Maybe it'd have been nice to have had some moving buttons too? Also, I have a feeling a lot of folk may have real trouble with the deep red differentiation, if they're even marginally colour-blind.

I got to 39. I noticed that scores seem to only show for that instance. Strange stuff.

On a related note, it'd be nice to have a personal high-score list, given the circumstances. That holds for all modes.Specially time attack and reflex.

Be nice to have more modes maybe. Challenge mode could perhaps be expanded further. With maybe one 'easy' version, one 'hard' and one 'randomised positions, which ensures the buttons don't overlap but is otherwise randomly positioned.

And maybe a timing game. Pressing the button and trying to get a count-down as close to 0000 as possible?

Other than that, I think you've covered a good variety of game modes.

My only remaining reason for not giving a higher overall is the inherently limited nature of the game.

Stay funky,
- Bez

GAMECUBICLE responds:

If it would have to check what place you are in the highscore list every click it would mean sending the variables every click... lets say that like 10 clicks is 5kb... THAT WOULD TAKE A DAMN LOAD OF BANDWITH :P
So i couldnt do that, this takes too much bandwith as it is right now anyways...

O yeah, the button wasnt from flash itself, i made it in 3d studio max :P

[Rumble ball field 1]

Gameplay seems a bit lacking.

I really love the aural rewards associated with getting longer chains. It does provide an extra point of interest and really encouraged me to attempt to link as many yellow balls as I could.

But by the time level 5 came around, I was a bit bored of the basic premise, having heard the little trills enough and not feeling much of a compulsion to expand my score.

When I was thinking about my score, there was some interest in working out how to optimise the bounces, but the level design could have done more to encourage or make use of that and it would have been really nice to have had some more variation. Maybe change the levels a bit more or add more items or obstacles.

I must say though - the presentation is wonderful.

GameBalance responds:

Thanks! I need think up something.

[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!

[_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

[Ball (Original Demo)]

A quality first version.

It's a really good first iteration of a game and most of the problems have been sorted by the latest version.

Anyway, having just got to 'level 46', it was fun but occasionally felt a tad too unforgiving.

Level 44 was a real bitch - never managed to beat it - just got a power up to skip it eventually.

That's actually something of an interesting point to my mind - you could use power-ups as a way to allow folk to skip levels after a certain amount of time has been spent and a number of lives lost.

Maybe have 2 colours of power-ups - 1 for negative effects, 1 for good effects. Then maybe the first time you play a level you have to dodge or cope with the negatives, then if you're having trouble, the game may eventually reduce the size of your ball or even allow you to skip it.

The walls that you could go through in levels 27 and 41 (I think) seemed incredibly unfair, reducing those levels to trial and error and it seemed inconsiderate to ask us to realise that we could pass through the walls then avoid them in every other level.

I still don't understand what the 'forgiving walls' thing did.

The up key seemed rather annoying the way it behaved - too big a jump when we tapped it and holding it didn't work for a moment, then a stupidly massive leap upwards.

Thankfully, that's sorted for the latest version.

I do really love the way the ball rotates, varying with the speed of the movement on the x-axis.

Another gripe I have is that some of the levels were too similar - specially level 25,26,27.

These problems have all been sorted for the latest version, although I notice you've totally abandoned power ups (only got to 26 in the latest version though and I don't like reviewing games until I've finished them) which seems a shame.

The one thing I'd suggest for this game that you haven't added (apart from the suggestion with power-ups) is to have cookies saving your level, or maybe a password system.

Affer all, it is a very long game and they get far longer...

jmtb02 responds:

Wow, megareview for such a weak version of the game. Thanks!

First off, you are right, abandoning power ups is one of the things many people have been asking me about. They seemed to be pretty cool in this version. I tried putting some in the newer version, but they just detracted so much to the levels. The levels were hard enough as they were.

Forgiving walls lets your ball move partially through walls, but not completely through. It just makes the game easier.

Yes, levels 25-27 are VERY similar, I did run out of ideas, haha!

But either way, thanks for the review. This review did not only help this submission, but the one I just submitted! Thanks!

--jmtb02

[Clock Legends]

Not sure what to say...

Some of the platforms and stuff were pretty nice-looking but I hear you ripped them off some other flash author and that's not really cool at all. (I lowered the score for graphics for that reason, but not the overall.)

Anyway, the whole movie is just a bit silly but the silliness didn't result in a giggle from me.

Despite you apparently being a clock fan, you have Strawberry act very much out of character at the end just for the hell of it.

Also, the audio was a bit quiet and subtitles may have been nice.

Mhhh.. I'm not sure about this.

It's a slightly crazy idea and I like it when folk play with the 4th wall (like your screen scrolling) but it didn't result in much hilarity here.

cableshaft responds:

Hey

I'm really sorry about my review for your game - Clock Legends - on NG.

That review had been meant for the clock movie that stole your graphics, but I got mixed up... really sorry man.

Anyway, here's my thoughts in case you're interested and they help at all.

Basically I thought it was a really nicely made game both art-wise and technically. I really liked the slightly rotating platform right at the start - luverly AS.

However, I thought the general design could have been better. It was a very hard game and to not have any save points just seemed incredibly frustrating. The bit just before the first rising grey thing can't be gotten past in hard without using a kamehameha from what I saw as you can't jump high enough. The controls should be able to be skipped past and you should be able to see them again after quitting.

The kamehameha should be explained a bit more, as it wasn't until I read the author's comments and played around with it a while that I worked it out.

I can't really see any difference between easy and hard other than the higher score.

It seems a decent game, but it's far too frustrating for my tastes. Being killed by the 10th major obstacle, then having to go through the previous ones again for the umpteenth time isn't very much fun. Maybe you could have made it marginally easier, with the creatures as the challenge for those who want it. Also, maybe have it so that the peewees act as save points? Maybe have a 'training' mode which allows for that?

Anyway, graphics and coding both seem awesome. It's just some parts of the design I felt could have been better. And it's a shame that despite the excellent coding and graphics, I just didn't enjoy it that much.

Overall 6/10

Sorry again for that and I hope my words were somewhat useful.

Sorry.

Stay funky,
Bez