Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Gliding Over Clouds]

Really well done in most aspects.

The presentation is awesome (the consistent and pleasing colour palette, the eye-catching icon capturing the essence of the game).

I love the way you quickly and naturally explain the controls and the perils during your first playthrough.
I attempted to avoid wind boosts as much as I could to stay safe in caves, and I was pleased to find out the game doesn't let you, you have to maintain a certain speed threshold, otherwise you stop moving the next time you ascend.

I'm not actually sure what is and isn't procedurally generated (if anything); at least the caves seem manually placed.
It's cool how the caves gradually introduce new challenges with every iteration (I made it to 3000m and I'm sure I haven't seen it all yet). But speaking of challenges, the caves are the only real danger, the open areas provide a welcome breather, but are a bit boring eventually, as there's not much to do. You are mostly mentally preparing for the next game and enjoying the unrestricted gliding until you get used to it.
I attempted to do a full loop; the glider moves a bit unnaturally at the top and I think it isn't possible to do so – not that you're meant to do a stunt like that, anyway.

If you'd like to help your game's replayability, you might consider adding medals and especially scoreboards, so Newgrounds players can compete with each other.
https://www.newgrounds.io/get-started/

Thanks for this, for a game jam game, it's a nice, well-polished treat.

[First Break - Demo]

The game has excellent art direction; dark, yet strangely comforting (but that's partially due to the music, too). The initial sequence in the intro got me hooked, and the gameplay which followed isn't half bad.

I was getting somewhat tired of the sentry stones (not sure how to call them) around B-01, it started feeling like I was doing the same thing over and over again in different map layouts, and didn't get to experience new gameplay elements for a while.

B-04 introduces the four-way bomb, and it was my first encounter with a hidden secret, so that feeling soon came to pass. It's also nice how you introduce the different kinds of bombs in B-04 and B-05 before you encounter them in a challenging environment.

I ultimately left the game in C-04 (for now), because the previous level took a lot of attempts, and here it felt like I was trying to beat the same challenge I already did there (even though the hidden candle room was pretty cool).
This might be an issue with the game… if there is a fairly challenging room, the next one should ideally test a different skill or approach.

Come to think of it, if you're not logging some sort of analytics, having something like that in the demo could be a great way to see which levels people struggle with (total death count per level) or what was the level people reached when they lost interest and make some informed changes based on that.
Newgrounds has “Events” functionality you could use. Or the same can be accomplished with medals or scoreboards. See in the API Tools section of your project, and there is a plugin for Construct available.

I was sold and wishlisted when I met the NPC trapped in the maze you can talk to, and he was carrying a guitar. Obviously, the puzzle rooms are the core of the game, but the promise of an underlying narrative and side content makes me all the more interested in the game.

Other feedback:

– At the start, it took a moment to realize you need to hold 'E' to start the game (it doesn't mention this), so the game looked stuck as the usual keys like Enter or Space do nothing

– The level should ideally not start moving until you move, so you can take a moment to observe your surroundings before something kills you.

– I love the choice of showing a zero-padded death count with four digits. As if the game implies you will probably die more than 999 times.

– Talking to people for the second time shouldn't trigger their initial dialogue again.

– Fullscreen state doesn't update in the settings if you cancel fullscreen with 'Esc'

– It should mention in the settings you can press 'Esc' to resume (it only mentions it goes to 'menu'). Doing so though will of course cancel the fullscreen mode, so I need to go to the Main Menu and Load anyway.

– I started a new game in another tab to recall a few things for the review, and the death counter reset for my main window as well. Easy deathless run, yaay.

– What is the purpose of the bottom bar on the screen every time the level loads?

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And a side note; your Steam page will definitely need some love to attract people's attention. Try looking up tips how to make game trailers engaging and how to improve the page, and compare yours with the page of other similar successful indie games.

– The trailer starts with a pretty long fall sequence and shows the game's logo. You don't need the logo, or at least not until the end of the video. I would consider starting with the “You know you'll never leave” quote to give context and goal for the game, then showing the gameplay.
– You show gameplay, but don't play the sound from the gameplay, which needlessly makes it less exciting like it's not the focus of the video.
– The long description of your project has no pictures/gifs showcasing the game.

***

All in all, it is a very cool game you have here, and I wish you success with it.

[Banana Blaster (Demo)]

It's reasonably enjoyable and has potential. Funky, silly vibe with a consistent style.

It's a good choice to respawn the player at the start of the current screen after death, with an animation that slows you down by a sec or so; it makes sense as the time limit is the actual challenge.

By far the most frustrating part is the jump trajectory… the range is deceptive, as you jump very high but move almost nowhere horizontally, so with spikes, you have to almost touch them to be able to jump over and I couldn't get across the spikes in the tunnels.

…That is, until I found the run button. Please consider writing the controls somewhere in the level, at the first occurrence when you need them. I missed the overview initially, and then the controls are never explained again until you restart the game.

Having Z & X as primary controls will not be very, uh, ergonomic for people using other keyboard layouts, e.g. QWERTZ or AZERTY. If you have functional keys left to use as controls, they will be more universal. Or consider an option to rebind keys. Or some game engines and JavaScript's KeyboardEvent.code have a way to detect the physical key location on the keyboard, which doesn't depend on the keyboard layout.
It's a minor issue though, just so you're aware. People with non-English keyboard layouts usually learn to have an English layout installed to switch to when needed.

The green critters also don't harm you, which might be a bug. They continue walking at the edge of the screen and don't turn around nor vanish, which looks like a bug.

Quality of life suggestions:
– show an indicator of your progress through the level, so you know how well you're doing and how much is left
– give an option to restart if you feel you ruined your chances

The boss battle was quite fun, although some attacks (jump to the other side, shooting) were too quick for my taste, you barely have time to react even when you see it's coming, especially when you are mid-attack yourself.
Also if you have separate hit points, I feel that every hit should knock down one or make some sort of visual change… if you need an unknown number of hits to remove a hit point, the indicator loses all value. At that point, just have a health bar. You could also knock off teeth in the hit point icon if you need space for more values.

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Overall it's a fun little game, good luck if you decide to take the concept further.

[Space Jetz Scrollerz - mobile touch and keyboard]

It works as a game and all the elements of a space shooter are in it. But it's not polished in the slightest, and overall, it's just not very fun.

Primarily, there's so much visual clutter on the screen. Backgrounds blend in with enemies and circular projectiles, some enemies look like formless blobs, and the powerups aren't immediately recognizable as powerups (for all you know, they could be enemy missiles). Enemies also take as much as 1/7 of the screen's height, so you can't ever have many enemies at once to make some fleet formation, which is a staple of the genre.
There is too much going on so you can't focus on what's important.

Controls are fairly clunky as well, sometimes keyboard controls just don't work at all, and when they do, your movement isn't terribly fluent. You also can't move and shoot at the same time, which is half the fun in a space shooter game.

The power-ups in my opinion don't last very long for you to appreciate them, and I don't feel like the game progresses at all, as you rank up your score (e.g. by having increasingly harder or more frequent enemies show up). As a result, when the controls happen to work, and you get into a certain rhythm, you can keep it up mostly as long as you want and get a game over when you become sloppy after becoming increasingly more bored.

It's a good start, but it has a long way to go before becoming a fun game people would like to play more than once for two minutes.

ZOSUStudios responds:

Thanks for the feedback! It was made primarily as a mobile phone html game and then expanded to be playable on computers.

[The Great Blob Journey]

You know, if this was done in less than two hours, that's mighty impressive. Please take the score as a reflection of this being an unfinished game with no ending, in which you run out of content in three minues.

There's kickass music, fluent platforming, character animations, moving platforms, collectibles, background, AI enemy – and a secret room which was awesome to discover. And I love the messages in the pits.

As for things to consider:
– the main goal of the game, i.e. have a way to finish it (obviously)
– I would expect the collectible mushrooms to do something eventually if you track them down, either as a currency, or cause some other effect. But if they are important, please don't reset them with death, as falling down a pit in a platforming game is more or less expected to be common.
– Pixel size consistency. In a pixel art game, you should strive to have all pixels the same size, here it's all over the place (e.g. the protagonist vs the tiles)
– When you change the colours of the environment, I'd expect the gameplay to make a shift as well. E.g. you start on the grass with easy platforming and enemies, and “ascend” the mountain to a snowy area with harder platforming, harder enemies or I don't know, slippery ice.
– Look up the “squash and stretch” principle; it could help you improve the protagonist's jumping animation
– The text feels a bit “blurry” and is harder to read, and the font size + colour is all over the place

Overall there's not much else to say, but it's an extremely well-done prototype, so I hope you continue and do something great with it. Good luck!

LiquidVolt responds:

Yo! Thank you so much for this!
Ill keep everything in mind

[DuckJump]

The dinosaur game was my first thought. It's quite similar yet different.

– Mostly consistent, appealing visuals. But try to keep consistent pixel size – the world has large pixels, the up arrow has smaller, and the score has the smallest. That doesn't look good; a pixel in a pixel art game should have the same size everywhere.

– Awesome accompanying music

– There is no immediate visual response to pressing the right arrow to speed up, so you initially have no idea if it even did anything. It could do some speed-up effect as a response.

– Since you can slide infinitely, the birds don't pose much danger. You don't care how high they fly, you can boil the game down to “keep sliding all the time and jump over rocks”.

– Sometimes I encountered obstacle combos that seemed impossible (a bird between two rocks close together), but perhaps it just needed a very precise timing.

– The score doesn't grow at a rate that feels good; you can run at lightning speed and the number increase doesn't seem to match your “speed thrill” very well

– This in no way belongs under the “Visual Novel” genre

– It would be nice to track your high score; it would give you more reason to play for longer

– The hitboxes aren't all that precise, sometimes you get a game over showing you not touching anything, just because the invisible colliders larger than the sprites grazed each other. But well, it's a pixel-art game, inaccurate colliders are more or less a staple of retro games.

It's a cool little game that remains enjoyable for a good while; well done.

someguy323 responds:

I have changed the genre, at the time I didn't see an endless runner genre so I chose the most opposite thing I could find, but I found a genre similar enough to endless runner so I changed it

[Crypts of Chaos]

This is a good game, a great prototype and a solid base to build on. You can see all the effort put into it, and the potential. But there's a lot of room for improvement.

1) I completely agree with Shenroncrafter about being able to turn in an instant, and on the spot.

This is a game about hitting enemies with a sword. I didn't find a way to do that safely.
When enemies get close, they attack within a microsecond. You cannot block, you cannot roll in the opposite direction and it puts you miles away, so you slowly turn and run. Then once there's enough distance, you slowly turn and hit them. But if you're close to hit them, they're close to hit you. Which you can't deal with.
Health potions become a necessity, and your skill can only delay the point when you need them.

Please let us turn like humanoids, and/or block attacks.

2) Second reason why I don't enjoy the game too much, is the lack of game feel in the combat.

I whack an enemy with a sword, and I don't feel like something happen. No hit reaction, no effect, mild screen shake on death, whatever. You're watching the protagonist lose blood, but the enemies don't even flinch. The small goblins don't even have health bars, so I simply swat the air wondering whether the hits even connect before they fall to the ground.

3) There's just a single attack. If all I can do in combat is either the same old attack, or leave combat, it's going to get boring quickly. This is a roguelike, but what use I have for endlessly replayable levels, when the one thing the game stands on is not replayable?

Take a good look at those pressing problems, and the game will improve 100%.

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Then when the core gameplay is more enjoyable, you might want to take a stab at the following:

– What makes playing more than a few runs compelling? Would some sort of progression make sense? So you get to see more content later on (and the player is aware there's more to look for)?
Content could mean new enemies, new weapons, new obstacles, new environment; you decide.

– What is stopping me from rolling past everything? Does the game ever require me to kill enemies (e.g. locked door before I kill everybody in the room), or do I benefit from it (e.g. XP, currency)?

– Animation layers. When you swing the sword with your arms, your legs should continue the walking animation.

– You seem to hit as you begin to swing, not when the sword is at its most swinging power which you would expect. This may be confusing, especially combined with the lack of hit reaction.

– The game freezes as it generates the level, a second or so after giving you control. I'd prolong the loading and block the player until all is done, instead of letting the player move for 1 second, then having a 5-second lag, and then being free to continue.

– The Controls screen is really bad. Dark text on dark background, it's a long wall of text instead of highlighting the important parts, the text overlaps if you're not in the full-screen mode

– Just for the heck of it, I tried to play with a controller. You can *move* without animation, and probably do nothing else. Just for the consideration, if you want to expand the game. Players will eventually want to play with a controller, and it's easier to start controller-first than trying to fit mouse/keyboard scheme to fewer buttons.
The new Unity input system should it make it easy to map both controller and keyboard to the same virtual actions without needed to go through some big loops.

– Quit Game button is unnecessary in a WebGL game, all it does it freeze the game – there's nothing to "close" except the browser tab which people can do themselves

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I really do think it's a fine game with a lot of potential, but as of right now, I think I would feel done with the game after three dungeons; starting to be somewhat bored and believing I have seen everything the game can offer.