Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[wickgame]

You know, you didn't *have* to release a game you don't believe in just because of a game jam's deadline. Especially since half of the game consists of: "Make a Wick game" – "Uhh, I don't want to…"
But… there are multiple outcomes with several mildly amusing lines, so if I was generous, it could be called "a point-and-click adventure with branching narrative" – but not something I would recommend others to play, or in fact even remember next week.
Interestingly, the most hard-to-get ending is also the worst one because you get neither cheese nor a polymorphing hat. Yeah, and it's a pity that there's no restart button.

davidpuralocura responds:

you are right i didn't have to
but it has happened soo many times that i make something and don't post it anywhere
i think its funny talking on not making a game while it is one
i appreciate that you got all the endings and you are right that the hardest is the less rewarding
one, i guess next time i will have to look more into it
and you are right that i did not make a restart button(will try and and one)
thank you for the review
Edit:I added a restart button and a better ending for the people that get the hard to get ending

[Space Buttons]

A fine puzzle game, a pity there's only a few levels.

I think having so much open space to move outside of the central board makes the game massively easier because it allows you to fill a small chunk of the board, leave, move around freely and fill in another small chunk elsewhere. You need some empty space, but having less of it – or some inside the central board (i.e. only a part of the centre is filled with red buttons, the rest is empty) – would make you plan your moves more carefully and make the game more challenging overall. I completed the game mostly with trial & error strategy.

likliklik0 responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I'll try to use this to improve my future games!

[Super Hammer, Hiking on a mountain]

Well, it's very, very difficult; especially in later levels when touching spikes sends you all the way back, losing your progress so far. It has everything you could expect from this kind of game, including three bonus levels on top of it. All that's missing is a guy stuck in a cauldron. :)

[A Little Snake Game]

It's generally fine, although the controls can be a bit unresponsive (changing direction doesn't turn you immediately, but only at the end of a "cycle"), which makes going diagonally ↑→ pretty hard.
You can also crash into yourself by going backwards (e.g. pressing left while going right). That shouldn't happen; the opposite direction should simply be blocked.

PinkHedgehog responds:

Those are some fair points. I implemented so it's no longer possible to go backwards (and commit suicide).

Looking into making the game more responsive might be a bit of a larger procedure, and any potential update on that front might be a quite a while in the future.

[SIMPLE PLATFORM (Do Not Enter)]

Edit: The game was updated and works now.

Actually, contrary to what I expected, it's not half bad!

If I forget the graphics which are pretty underwhelming, it's a quite diverse game with many varied sequences and surprising twists. I mean, if you revamped the graphics, even with some freely available art if needed (e.g. Kenney assets, people on OpenGameArt.org…), it could considerably improve the quality. Now there's a lot of "plain colour" rectangles and overlapping tiles creating stairs – it's simply a bit messy.

Another thing you might want to reconsider is the first few moments of the game. You have one shot at a first impression, and you choose to waste it on pretending the game doesn't work. And it takes quite a long time until the game tells you otherwise.
The problem with this is that a newcomer might just take it at face value and close the game. You also can't move forward until you click on the "1 player" text, which is counter-intuitive. I just thought the game *is* broken because the player seemed stuck.
Since "1 player" is the only option and the first scene might put players off your game before it even starts, I'd remove it.
Imagine a really cool movie starting with a minute-long shot with a plain white screen. No audio. People would look around nervously, tell the cinema manager it's broken. Then the movie would say, “Oh, the movie broke. Let me fix it.” – and then it would start. No, such a scene would end on the cutting room floor almost instantly.
You can mess with the players for sure, but the players have to know it's intentional all the way through… which is not the case here. And doing this when the players aren't even invested in the game yet is the worst possible time.

The rest of the game is pretty good. You probably should be able to close the shop window by clicking on the shop icon again (not just via Escape). While we're at it, dark blue text on a dark green background isn't exactly easily readable. The jumping physics was sometimes weird, which was most noticeable when climbing "stairs" during the bridge sequence – you bounce a lot. And the spaceship boss probably has too much health – he's not hard (he shoots the same pattern of easily-avoidable missiles at regular intervals), but he takes a long time to destroy.

It's a flawed little gem. I was honestly surprised at the amount of content and various levels this game throws at you, but for plenty of reasons, it's far from perfect in its current state.

august000 responds:

I have never had such a good comment THANK YOU
I thought the same thing about the beginning of the game but I forgot
The ship at the end I do not know if to bring it to life or leave it
The character I did
I made the earth
I made the music of the beginning
and other sprites I did that's why they are so bad but I did not want to grab a google sprite as the character's sprite


If you see any spelling mistake, tell me why English is not my
language i speak spanish and all this is translated from the google translator until the game dialogues were translated into english



Thx Rallyx
Edit 2:The mouse shop character did my sister because she wanted to put some character

[Game (not finished, upload for portfolio)]

As @ermac98 mentioned, you shouldn't really show this project to anyone in this stage yet. The drawing you posted on your page is frankly much better if you want something to show to people.
Some notes this game – apart from not being finished, and from using placeholder art:
– The regular movement is too slow, running is almost too fast. I'd pick an average between these two and stick with it, otherwise, people will just hold Ctrl for the duration of the game
– Why does the dragon have to turn to face you whenever you stop? Wouldn't it be better if he kept looking in the direction he was going?
– No animation when sending a fireball.
– Fireball trajectory looks a bit too unpredictable and also goes in the same direction no matter what – even if you're walking left.
– Falling doesn't restart the game.

And so on. There's not much else to work it at the current stage.

[the stor]

Ughh…
The game honestly started pretty well, has neat art and I thought it was going to be good, but the ending is VERY frustrating.

For starters, you can't collect the coins, only food items. And there's no music or sounds.
I was also going to say the pendulum perhaps damages you too little (a big metal ball hits you in the face and consumes only like a fourth or fifth of your life) – likewise the spikes, but you're going to need all the health you've got left for the ending.

Near the end, it drops a hint in Russian – therefore indecipherable for all but a small minority of players – about falling platforms. It would still be alright because you could figure it out by experimenting – but the platforms fall instantly, not giving you a chance to react; and they also look just like regular platforms. If you fall through, you land on a bed of spikes. It doesn't kill you instantly, making it look like you could still jump out or move away, but you can't. It just very quickly drains all your health.
And if you memorize the right way across the bridge, you'll meet a "green blob" enemy which can likewise kill you almost instantly. It will also follow you and even jump to get you (before it gets stuck at the last crate or killed by the guard if you lure it out). Impressive AI, but you don't expect it and therefore after you finish a frustrating trial-and-error bridge, you'll get killed by a green blob.

Now it probably should be mentioned that even though death is common and almost inevitable, at least a couple of times, there's no checkpoint (!) and the game doesn't even restart when you die (!!!), forcing you to reload the page to try again.
I "finished" the game after roughly ten times because I wanted to see if the ending is worth it… well, the ending is ‘Walk to the edge of the screen and fall off’. Isn't that nice.

Honestly, it could be a good game. It has different mechanics, is quite fun at the beginning, but the unreasonable last part (with very unsatisfying ending on top of that) tarnishes the whole experience. Add checkpoints, invincibility frames if you want but most definitely *restarting the game* and an *ending screen*.