Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Crash Dude [VERY EARLY BUILD]]

As a test of the character controller, I'm actually very impressed.

The character moves fluently, I never got stuck against an obstacle. Controls are responsive. The default movement is quite slow, but you also have running, so the default movement would allow you to be precise (no need right now, perhaps if there were dangerous obstacles like spikes).

I love the animation of enemies being punched off-screen. However, there's no point in which attacking is not the correct response. Your punch efficiently solves all enemies in one strike. I needn't dodge or run away. Perhaps if there was a timer or a need to get somewhere fast, jumping over enemies would be more efficient, since attacking stops you in place, but you also have headbutting (which is a great mechanic, by the way).

There is a shortcut I found by jumping + headbutting to skip a portion of the course, which again leans into appealing to speedrunners who thrive on moving at top speed and finding shortcuts.

Sometimes when running down a slope, you start gliding instead of sticking to the ground.

Art-wise the game certainly has space for improvement.
Right off the bat, the rule of pixel art is to have all “pixels” maintain consistent scale, which can't be said here due to the various scaled-up variants of the orange slope which often has huge pixels in contrast with the rest of the screen.
Then the player doesn't neatly stand on sloped ground, in fact, whenever you're on a slope, you're almost certainly hovering and your feet don't touch anything.
Then there's the fact that the environment is just geometric shapes, but I accept them as a part of the test level. I could even imagine them in the final game (if they get a more unified look and consistent size).

The primary reason for the lower rating is the lack of content. There are mechanics, and those are pretty well-made, but it's a looping track from sometimes randomly resized geometric shapes, so besides killing enemies, there's not much to do, no “goal” after completing a lap around.

Bubandstuff responds:

Thanks for your feedback! I will try to fix as much as I can.

[Madman's Maze DEMO]

I can't load the game (loading doesn't seem to even start); it seems to fail with:

[UnityCache] Failed to load 'https://uploads.ungrounded.net/alternate/6641000/6641108_alternate_308329_r1.zip/Build/DEMOMADMANSMAZE.data.gz' from indexedDB cache due to the error: RangeError: Array buffer allocation failed

This usually means the game is trying to allocate more than the browser allows (not sure what your WebGL memory settings are, but from the console, Maximum Cache Size seems to be 1GB which is a lot).

JoniHollow responds:

If the game doesn't works, you will play the game here:



https://dobleboyzomber.itch.io/madmans-maze

[ASTROboost!]

The game is fine. The gameplay is good, and the ship's controls are responsive.
There are several levels, each of which is noticeably different, and the difficulty gradually increases. There could be a few more, and the game could have some polish.
Mostly graphics; the effects and making moving objects + foreground stand out more – especially in the final level, it was problematic to tell what belonged to the background and what were obstacles. UI text also isn't very consistent – several fonts and colors are used, and sometimes it's a bit blurry.

But the worst offender here is the login flow. You are required to “register” to play (which will put off quite a few people), and it does not work well at all. The text input fields only react to clicks along a tiny line in the middle of the field.
Even if this was okay, I'd recommend allowing people to play even without registering. If it's only for the leaderboard, ask them for their name when the game finishes. Like this, a good chunk of people will close the game as soon as they see they can only Login/Register and there's no Play button.

Edit: The login flow was updated. Thanks for listening to feedback!

ubccbu01 responds:

Thank you for your value feedback. I am going to change follow your recommend.

[Platform Jumper]

It's an okay platformer.

The main problem is that the levels are mostly the same. I didn't even notice you start over from Level 1 again until after I died a few times. The distances to jump are getting wider, but other than that, there's too little variety (coins are placed haphazardly, there's only one kind of a platform, and it's all mostly placed in the same horizontal line).

It's hard to control the player's movement; you move very fast left and right, and even though you jump high, gravity is too much to really take advantage of it.

Also, since the entire game is controlled with the keyboard on PC, it's not very convenient to have to use the mouse in order to restart or continue to the next level.

All in all, it's a fine game, but despite being procedurally generated, you don't get a lot of incentive to continue playing past the first few levels (at which point it might yield better results to just hand-craft twenty levels that are actually interesting to play).

IdeiGenialeGMD responds:

im trying to fix that. i noticed that too. thanks btw ti works on mobile either

[Princess or Dragon]

It's a lovely Choose-Your-Own-Adventure kind of game, well done.

I have never seen the choices in this genre done using cards; that's a nice spin on the format. I also love how the cards start moving when you hover over them and how the continuation of the story is on the other side when the card turns around.

Sometimes, I wished there were three options to choose from, mostly because it's usually easy to mentally eliminate the one worst option, but it takes more thought to pick one out of three.

I don't think the game uses the inventory well so far… The only item I really used was corn, and I acquired corn just moments ago. Then I “lost” horses but probably didn't get to use them much, and I didn't see the use of any other item during the demo. You probably shouldn't be saving all items for some epic showdown with the dragon, you should be using those regularly to get used to it.

I couldn't get gripped by the narrative. I knew where I was and what I had been doing, but it jumped all over the place without a clear sense of direction or main goal. At least that's how I perceived it during my first and only playthrough.

1) You leave your village home, and guards need you to come with them
2) No red flags that I recall from the guards. You can even be polite, but you decide they're suspicious and need to flee (only a single option in two flavors)
3) You start stealing in the market (no option to avoid it)
4) You decide to go see the king after all. You go where the guards were taking you.
5) King tells you the story, instantly accepts your help offer, gives you resources
6) You revisit your home again, and leave immediately after you grab a fairly generic item.
7) Forest, marsh, village… end of demo

At this point, there are so many detours which don't contribute to the main story that I barely recall there was some dragon and a princess – most of the time, I focused on anything but that, so when the pinnacle moment comes in the final game, I worry it won't feel great because there wasn't much of a preparation, foreshadowing etc.

Also, you should link your Steam page directly in the description and in your profile; it took a moment to find. I think your thumbnail picture is needlessly erotic – I had different expectations about your game and was pleasantly surprised it wasn't, in fact, a cheap thirst trap; but a pretty nice adventure game.

The princess also looks somewhat younger in your static picture in comparison with the trailer, and wears different footwear. The short description itself looks a bit lazy – with emojis and a missing full stop. The long description also needs more pictures – you have a beautifully drawn scenery, use it!

There's a popular free course with tips about making a stellar Steam page that draws players in, consider taking a look; it might help:
https://howtomarketagame.com/courses/

In any case, good luck with the ongoing development, and I wish you a successful Steam release later on.

[Polycity]

It's a cool game, but perhaps just a bit fast.

Something to consider: What is my incentive not to shoot all the time?

My best run was sticking to the 2 o'clock position (which has very few obstacles), and just keep still and hold the spacebar. Only very infrequently did I need to adjust my position.
Enemies are too fast, and bullets aren't reliable when you move around (they're spaced out and not too large), so moving around is risky.

Is that the intended gameplay?

You could slow the enemies a bit, and perhaps ensure at least 1 obstacle in 5 will be heading towards your position (forcing you to move).
Possibly do something like “the score doesn't increase when shooting” or have bigger bullets with a longer delay.

Edit:
The issue with everything being too fast right off the bat was a bug, and has now been fixed.

vertette responds:

My hope was to make moving around a risk between staying alive and getting score, which is why the waves get semi-random at a certain point to disencourage sticking to one position for too long. Maybe "homing" enemies and walls would've also been a better solution though.

[Charisma]

Actually quite nice. It's smartly written so that the best way forward isn't just endless praise but engaging in conversation and returning compliments.
Sure, half of the game also involves simply selecting the option mentioning art, cats, or anime, but the game isn't long, and you have to learn these details first.

If you plan to add more dialogue, you could try to play with both aspects. I.e. keeping up an interesting back-and-forth instead of repeating the last word she said, also perhaps weighting in your latest responses (e.g. she thinks you're insincere if you compliment her 3 times within 5 conversations).
And with more dialogue, there's the choice if you want her to have the same hobbies and interests every run (so players can learn), or randomize them, so you need to learn and make associations during the conversation (but that would require a much kinder timer).

I don't know what the timer is based on, but it seems tied to the number of questions asked rather than your progress (or perhaps both?). Unfortunately, it means it keeps speeding up, so a couple of times, I was close to the end and made a mistake, and then it was so fast that I could barely even read the question, let alone the options or make a choice.

The “persist” option after she rejects you and leaves sounds a bit like being a stalker, though.

Additionally, in a pixel art game, it's important to ensure all pixels have the same size, and your world pixels are much larger than your text font pixels, for example.

Very well done for a game jam game, though. It's a reasonably scoped project that feels complete.

[Hunter]

I think this is unfinished to the point that I don't know what to “review”.

What are your goals with this demo playtest?

Are you looking for feedback? I could write a page of problems, but I wager you likely know about them.
Do you want to get the game in people's minds early? This won't help, there's not much to place the game in the back of your mind or get you hooked.
And what tips regarding design can I offer when the only gameplay is walking out of a room and shooting a few stationary skeletons?

I'm going to rattle off some notes.

– First impression, it's *way* too dark. Even for a dark, horror game, you should have some light somewhere to mark the path or provide contrast. The fires are the only bright thing I found, and they do not provide light. The skybox is pitch-black, too, and no real sky is like that; there's always a bit of light.
Perhaps check the game “Witchfire” which seems a bit similar to yours conceptually, it might give you some inspiration.

– Movement inertia. You're sliding over a wooden floor as if it was ice. It should stop you quickly (check the Physics material assigned to the floor or player).

– Skeleton AI and animations. They are the only enemy I found, and therefore the only example of gameplay. They are happy to be shot from a distance without aggroing on you, they move without animations, and when they start attacking, you *will* get hit no matter how far you stand as they perform the animation (seemingly no hit on impact, rather when they start the animation).
Why am I killing enemies, anyway? A rhetorical question to make you think about the design. Do they block my path forward? Do I get rewards or experience from killing them? Otherwise, wouldn't it be preferable to go around them?

– Jumping something feels weird. Trying to jump onto tall objects often blocks me from moving forward, even though I jump above them (can I change my direction mid-air?).

I started writing examples of missing collisions, minimap feedback, and getting stuck in a table (and the burning cart) I tried to jump on… but really, this is no time for that amount of detail because most things need work to become functional.

Of course, I wish you luck, please don't take it as dismissing the game out of hand. I hope you continue with the project, but at the moment, it still isn't in the state when people would actually be “playing it”, let alone enjoying their time.

[Pants Trouble: A micro-adventure about pants]

It's a lovely and creative game, but ends way too soon. Definitely understandable for a game jam game, though!

As for feedback, I struggled for a while to find the input keys to advance dialogue (X/C) and interact with items (Z/C). I probably pressed every other key (Space, Enter, arrows, WASD…) first.
Probably because the dialogue input prompt looks like a down arrow, and the interaction input prompt looks like a circle. Which doesn't help you to find the correct keys to press.

Then probably the battle with pants started too soon (I know it says Think Fast, but I was still in “reading dialogue” mode), I had almost no time to prepare or realize what was expected of me. Ideally, it should at least pause for a moment.

Love the melting Castlevania-style game-over screen!

The score is mostly indicative of the length, otherwise I think the game is a very good start if you plan to continue with the idea.

Congratulations on your first game on Newgrounds!

TeamCardboardBox responds:

Thank you for your feedback! We've officially decided to continue working on the game, now that we see there is a "market" for it.