Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[[BTNverse] There is nothing here.]

I did not expect what is going to happen when you collect the final upgrade. I think it's a brilliant idea.

I was originally going to say one-hit death is too harsh, but it's actually perfectly appropriate, especially since the stronger enemies serve as barriers until you collect power-ups.
Also thanks for adding things like the minimap, otherwise hunting for that one forgotten 'enemy' in the last stage could have been frustrating.

Really great, well done.

adriendittrick responds:

Thanks for reaching the end :)

[Learning project #1]

It's fine, but since it's an endless game, it starts feeling repetitive eventually. For me, that mark was around ~35 when I felt I'm seeing similar patterns.
Of course, it's perfectly possible to lose, but I think I could keep going for a good while if I played it safe and stayed near the centre.

From a game design perspective, endless games have to have 1) good replay value (tick), and 2) evolve over time – which I don't think this game does. And without new elements being introduced, it's a matter of time before you lose out of boredom (instead of lack of skills).

A couple of ideas:
– Over time, slowly speed up the red block, or add more of them. This is the simplest way to add increasing difficulty to the game, but it does put some upper cap on the score if you don't stop increasing since there comes a point when it isn't humanely possible to continue anymore.
It also doesn't really add anything new to the game, it just makes more challenging, but shorter.
– Add a "challenging dodge" every, let's say, 20 points; stopping all blocks from spawning for a while and spawning a scripted red block pattern – e.g. waves, or concentric circles with gaps…
Make a couple of those, at least to cover 0–200 points.
– Add a slow-moving "gold block" every once in a while which you have to pick up, otherwise you lose.

And by the way, you can have an actual scoreboard. Newgrounds has a built-in scoreboard system you can use. See API Tools in the Project System, and this:
https://bitbucket.org/newgrounds/newgrounds.io-for-unity-c/src/default/

Its-Kaleb responds:

Thanks for the tips (especially for the score board) , I will work on it more

[Blockio]

Good. A simple platformer, but the movement feels fluent and the controls are very responsive, so it's fun. The final level felt perhaps a bit too harsh and took really a lot of retries to complete.

The problem is that your score is kept even if you die, so the easiest way to get the max score is to die a couple of times and kill enemies again and again.
You should probably save the score at the beginning of a level, and reset to the value if you die.

Also, have you considered adding medals/scoreboards to your games?
https://www.newgrounds.io/
I think it would attract more players and add some more replay value.

[Jamboy CANDIE]

It's nice, I like the style and the story sequences in between the levels.
The platforming experience is all right, but mainly it felt quite unresponsive. I can't count how many times I missed a jump because double jump didn't work, and the wall jump was troublesome as well. And fluent movement and good controls mean everything in a platformer game.

But the rest of it was fine. A couple more details:
– It was unclear which key affects which door. I collected a key and pointlessly kept jumping into a door, but it wouldn't open because it needed a different key (and keys unlock doors instantly instead of requiring you to go to the door, so there's probably no need to display the key onscreen).
I'd use a matching colour for the padlock, so that you don't need a lemon-coloured key to unlock a pink lock.
– The pumpkin has an exclamation point next to him. At first, I thought it's a "NPC" and you're supposed to talk to it… well, you're not.
– The number of jams you have can go below zero when you die (and probably shouldn't).
– The arrow keys move the entire page. See here for the fix:
https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/developer-resources/unity3d-webgl-support#wiki_toc_3

I think fixing the double jump's responsivity is the most important change to make, the rest of the game is quite good.

Nesteaboy99 responds:

Thank you for your review! I'll keep your feedback in mind for my next update

[Rena Game]

I thought using pictures as bosses is the weirdest bit… then came the hoverboard bit and pizza… and the ending.

But I did like the boss fights; the first duo boss took me the longest to beat, because instant death after being hit once in a bullet-hell game is quite crazy. But I think they were the most developed of them all, with the multiple phases etc.

During the second boss in Papa John's I think I encountered a bug – the bullet ratio multiplied every time I died, and once after dying I respawned in the middle of the ground and couldn't move. And then I found out the 'Continue' button only works until you refresh the page, so I had to redo the game again.
The cheat code came in handy, but you probably shouldn't give it out in comments, otherwise nobody will play the game normally (instead, show it after completing the game, or if somebody dies too many times).

tobyalden responds:

Thanks for the review! I just fixed the continue bug.

[Boats]

Honestly great. A couple of times while writing this review, I went back to play another round, because it's so fun.

The ships and mines appear close to the edge of the screen (luckily never so close to you that you'd have no time to react), perhaps they should appear just beyond for realism, but it's fine.

I also like the ship variety, although I'm not sure if the larger ships are any better than the smaller ones. The galleons look intimidating but they are (seemingly) just as fast as the small ships, which just makes them bigger targets. I like the "ghost ship"/"Black Pearl" kind, too, even though at first I thought it's a bug (it's single-coloured, and there's way too much smoke). Perhaps the larger ships should have a larger health pool (if it doesn't ruin the game's balancing).

The best strategy to deal with enemies is probably to lure them into mines, since with a single health point, confronting a ship directly is very risky, because it's nearly impossibly to dodge a cannonball when you're sailing towards it.
After you collect a bunch of powerups, it gets better.

I feel like you could have fun with the sea itself – it looks too calm. I was going to suggest adding a wave pattern texture, or some fake waves animation, but that would perhaps make it too distracting, since you really need to pay attention to every object onscreen.
But something like an occasional maelstrom pulling nearby things towards it could be interesting.

The cannonballs don't seem to be spawned in the muzzle, rather below it, so perhaps you should adjust it slightly.

Sometimes it felt bad if I had a cheap death after a particularly good round when I had to start all over again and I thought this could work as an 'upgrade game' to prolong the playtime, e.g. the money earned from each round would be used to buy permanent upgrades for the ship.

Anyway, thanks for this, it's a great little game.

PurpleClam responds:

Hey! Thank you so much for your great review it's exacltly the kinf of feedback I'm looking for!

You're right the larger ships are exactly similar to the others for the moment. I might add some health mechanic to both the player and enemies to make rounds last longer in the future.

I love the ideas of making the sea less boring and of permanent upgrades and I'll look into it. I'll see if I post an update in a few days depending on reviews!

[Endless]

Well, it takes 13 seconds before anything happens and after you dodge the initial two pillars, there's another waiting time etc. I almost thought it's going to be like that forever, but around 80th-second mark, the waiting times are gone and the pillars appear constantly which makes the game more intense, but also it's the same alternating pattern over and over again. I went along to 150 to see if anything changes, but it didn't.

I think I could keep going for a long time (because the game doesn't speed up), so it's more about losing out of boredom than because you weren't quick enough.

Also, is there a reason why everything is so blurry (all text and especially the main character)?
You can use 9-slicing if a small sprite stretches incorrectly:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/9SliceSprites.html
And Text Mesh Pro to avoid blurry text:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.textmeshpro@2.1/

The gameplay is too simple. I'd at least make the order in which the pillars appear random.

hoanglong12 responds:

I compress image size in order to minimize the game size !!
Thanks for links !!

[trippy coloring book for tweens]

It's a nice idea, but I feel it would look much better if you could draw actual, smooth brush strokes instead of a series of overlapping squares which aren't even connected (unless you draw very slowly) and look very ‘pixelated’.
There's also the problem that you can draw over controls, which shouldn't be possible because then you can read the instruction, or see the colour you're currently using.
The wave filter of various strengths and directions is also really the only kind of animated filter in the game. You could add screw, rotating… whatever. And if you decided to expand it further, an Undo feature would probably be nice (otherwise you have to redo the entire thing after one mistake).

[LADDER LAD]

At first, I thought the lack of jumping and fast falling speed is going to be a massive problem, but there are so many ways to get around (bubbles, ladders of different speed, through the sides of the screen…) and mainly there are two safe ladders, plus a death only restarts your current level, so dying – although it happens often – isn't frustrating and you can retry right away.

The time luckily isn't an issue, at least in the beginning. You have enough time to make strategic choices without needing to be suicidal. Not that the game is easy, and being lucky is certainly helpful, but you never have to retry a level simply because you made a mistake and let an apple disappear.

I'm not sure if there's an ending, I stopped just before completing two rows of apples. If there is, I'd hope the final level changes the formula slightly (like having to climb a tall tower while the bottom of the screen moves up), otherwise, I already felt it was getting repetitive (+1 apple, -time without new gameplay elements).

Despite that, even though it's a simple game, it's definitely quite entertaining.