SkyeWint's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Adaptor]

This game is neat, but fails on a few key points that makes it extremely frustrating when they're all happening at once.

- The enemies are instakills, which is extremely frustrating with highly finnicky controls.
- Some experimentation in jumping is necessary to understand that your controls remain reversed until you land.
- Difficulty ramps up REALLY REALLY fast. Right on level four, it becomes insanely difficult, if only due to the timing of the enemies.
- The time limit is very unforgiving, and makes it nearly impossible to win some of the levels, let alone actually get all the stars. The stars should be hard. The actual level itself, not quite as much (not if the stars are meant to be a bonus).
- The character's hitbox seems to be just a little bit higher than the sprite, by a fairly significant amount.

Other than that though, it's pretty good. The animations are well done, the aesthetic is consistent, and it's just generally fairly well done. It's too bad I couldn't go too far in due to the excessive difficulty from the mechanics. That really harms it the most.

[FLIPTRIS]

Now this is a twist... I don't often review games (and that probably shows...), but I think I'll make an exception in this case since I love tetris so much.

THE GOOD:
-Creative idea.
-Generally responsive controls with a few issues I'll discuss later.
-Music is cute, fitting, and NOT A REMIX OF THE TETRIS THEME. Thank goodness. I've heard way too many tetris remixes on tetris-themed games.
-Different kinds of mino add good variety.
-Well-implemented interface.

THE NOT-SO-GOOD: First and foremost, two problems with the controls that SERIOUSLY hurt my ability to enjoy the game.
-One is that the slippery placement is slightly bugged. If you try to rotate the mino while it is on the ground or move it too much, it seems to think "place" right after rotating, which caused many problems for my placement while I was trying to get a piece in just the right spot. It would also randomly decide to not place one piece after twice as long as another piece, which caused weird issues as well.
-The other, larger problem was with tilting the world. If I moved a piece to the side, it would tilt the piece's orientation with regard to the center as well as teleporting it out to the edge and seemingly DOWN. This was especially a problem in situations where there's no spot on the side I'm on, but there is on an adjacent side. I move the piece over and it teleports to a place where I would have to move it up, even though I had to pass the place I planned to put it en route to flipping. I feel as if a better way of dealing with this would have been recording the placement of the blocks with regard to the center, then turning it and keeping every orientation and placement of the minos the same... the only actual difference would be how you can see the pile and what direction your pieces are moving.
-The music does get annoying after awhile, though this is comparatively minor as people are probably focused on the game.
-Learning curve is VERY steep. Perhaps an optional tutorial would have been good?

Overall: This is a pretty darn awesome idea, and as a lover of tetris I REALLY love the idea. Unfortunately, the two bugs I had mentioned are very annoying and cause me to dislike the game quite a bit more than I would have otherwise. If you can't replicate the bugs on your end from my description, I'd be more than willing to take a video of the issue.

-Skye Wintrest, that guy who makes weird and creative music and LOVES games.

Zanzlanz responds:

Thank you for your review! The sliding is a very new feature. I can certainly make rotation delay the placement. I could also make the piece rotate in relation to the world, but I am no doubt scared to mess with that code because of how deliberately fine-tuned it is. I can't fully reply right now, but I do acknowledge and appreciate your review :)
I will see your music tomorrow too :D

[Zombies In Your Backyard]

I have to say, for a first game...

This is pretty darn solid. I'm going to use the bulk of the review on things that could be improved, not because it's bad, but because there's a lot of stuff you could do to make this shine far beyond a solid base.

The good:
-Solid, decent controls.
-Solid, decent guns.
-Pixely graphics get across what they need to, and they aren't bad.

Improvements I'd suggest:
-A better soundtrack. While it's appropriate, a simple bass/drums combo is a bit... plain. Granted, the game itself is plain, and not complex, but it could definitely be improved upon.

-Better ammo system. It's really, really annoying when I have an uzi, an AK47, and a M16, I'm trying to use the bullets sparingly, and I STILL run out of ammo before the day ends. You pretty much have to learn to click the mouse really fast and be precise in bullet use. (4 for small zombie, 8 for middle, I think 16+ for the big one) Perhaps ammo drops would fix this, it could also cost per bullet at the store to make up for it. That would make it more realistic as well. Also, a weak melee weapon with knockback (or strong melee weapon without knockback) would really help. By the time you can use it, you'll have taken damage.

-Bigger area/more zombies/more weapons. This is a large section, which I think would make the game a lot cooler. Granted, it could also revamp the game completely, but... First of all, in a shop that sells an infinite amount of bullets, has the world's best doctor, and an entire arsenal of guns, why wouldn't it have grenades, bear traps, and some kind of 'armor'? Not to mention different kinds of guns, wood for blockades, and barbed wire. I'm sure you can see how these would be used (bear traps only outside, kills one zombie on the ground before being disabled, blockades can be placed, costing a certain amount of wood/cash, and barbed wire can be placed on a blockade to harm zombies destroying it). The house could have more floors, and the lawn could be wider. This would make it more interesting. I would recommend having a front lawn screen, first floor screen, second floor, and third floor. Zombies could eventually come in through the roof, they could come in through the back door, and through the window. You could shoot the floating zombies from the second floor and the front lawn to kill them, once they come in they're a normal zombie. An enemy with a ranged attack would be good as well.

Though this is a bit messy, hopefully it has some good ideas that could be implemented in another update or other game.

As I said, this game is a wonderful base. I just don't think it's a full game quite yet, more a mini-game that's for killing 10-15 minutes. I feel like it should be in a larger game rather than being on its own as it is. But as I said, it could take off and go quite far if done right.

Good luck!

(-4 because I need to leave room for its potential, +1 because I'm pretty impressed with the quality of it already, since it's your first game)

-Swint of the Review Request Club-

[Time In Three Formats]

Well.

It's a clock. It works. It shows my actual time, which I admit is pretty cool. No idea how you did that, no idea what you intend to do with it, but it works. It's even accurate.

The second one doesn't have seconds, as said.

This is a bit too large, and I really don't have much that isn't said already. The graphics are ok...

I don't really see any conceivable use for it though, unless you wanted to make some kind of clever game. There isn't that much original about this, and to me it basically did this: "Hey, it has my actual time. Cool. Ok, what now?"

-Review Request Club-
-SWINT-

[Shape Defence]

Hooookay. Been done before.

This kind of thing has been done before, the only real change is that you have skulls on the shapes and you took out a lot of the upgrades that are normally in the game.

The art is alright, the blood effects are basic and copy/pasted and turned. There aren't that many of them. I'd put more kinds in or an automated random blood generator... or something to that effect. The enemies are shapes (duh), and the cannon is a circle with a rectangle on it (basically). I'd improve these, as really, "shape defense" is kind of overdone, over made, and not very original.

Upgrades are really self-explanatory. You have healing. You have increasing of health. You have the common cannon that shoots alright, and does decent damage. You have the slow-shooting, accurate, and burst-damage sniper. You have the common machine gun, and basically a mini gun, thought you're calling it a "cluster". I'd upgrade to have some seeking rocket-type attacks, a close range laser that hits one-two enemies at a time, mines that you can place, blocking walls that eventually are destroyed after blocking too many enemies... stuff like that.

Music is alright. It fits well. There's muting of sound. Don't have much to say on this.

The controls are ok. Simple, just point where you want and click to fire. Can't move your turret... Wish you could do that.

Overall, it's a basic stationary shooter game. Not much to make it special, and it's not overly original, so it's kind of just... boring. If you had a bit more to make it original and special, that would be a good thing and make it much more enjoyable.

-Review Request Club-
-SWINT-

[Symphonic Tower Defense]

Suggestion.

Make an algorithm so that you can put any song into this, make it into a downloadable game, and put it out as an indie game like Audiosurf. I know that I, for one, would buy it, as this is awesome. I just wish I could put my own custom songs in it. That's my only problem with it.

As for gameplay, that is top-notch. I love how you put little definitions of what musical symbols do in actual music as well as in the game (as a musician, I say thanks for that), which is a nice touch. The towers have their own places, the way this is executed is flawless, it looks wonderful... I could go on and on about how good it is, but that would be redundant. Overall, excellent work. I just think it would be more awesome if I could download it and put my own songs in. You could make a lot of money off of this that way.

-SWINT of the Review Request Club-

FrozenFire responds:

Don't worry, we've got plans.

[Riddle School 4]

Interesting.

And quite unexpected. And /somehow/, I managed to beat the game in 0 seconds. How? I used the commentary. lol.

[Space is Key]

Well.

That was fun.

Quite an amusing little game. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Such a simple concept is right, the only thing you can do is jump! The one thing I'd have liked is to have some command to start when you die. There may be a delay, but it's only a half-second, and you still basically have to jump the instant you die...

However, other than that, no complaints.

Concept: 10/10 Genius for a basic mini-game.
Gameplay: 8/10 My only complaint is listed above. Otherwise, it'd be great. However, with that problem, you get many more deaths than necessary.
Music: 9/10 Fits perfectly with the game, and is quite amusing to listen to. "Blippblipp" indeed.

Total: A solid 9/10. Great work!

On a side note, my death count was 284. :P Wish there were a way to submit it and see how everyone did other than through the reviews.

[Dino Run:Marathon Of Doom]

Good game, but...

there is one little problem. I enjoy this game, I enjoyed the first. However, the problem that I noticed (which appears in the other one, but is offset by the breaks) is that if you touch something, you will stop. If you try to run up a hill, you're slowed down by an extremely large degree. If something touches you from behind, you are stopped, even if it would appear to be pushing you. Basically, if you get caught like that... three times, you are dead. If you get caught with several other dinosaurs and a few rocks, you are dead. If you even hear the doom wall, you might as well turn around and run into it, provided you aren't right next to the end. I enjoy the game, I really do, but with these it's just... not as fun.

[Amea]

Quite a good game.

Well-executed, well made, not quite horror, but that is only because it is too generic. My only qualm? I can't manage to find the boss music...