Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[rush]

Pretty good.

At first, I was annoyed that every death sends you back to the start, but it seems like the level order is random, so it doesn't matter that much. Although some levels are harder than others, so there's some luck involved, too.
I'd experiment with the right click to see if the game would be better if you could also turn into the opposite direction depending on where you click (i.e. turning clockwise when clicked in the right half of the screen, anti-clockwise for the left half).
Sometimes you can get stuck when you run into a wall and then you can't slide along it, but have to return a bit which is time-consuming. Would assigning a zero friction physics material in Unity help?
One time I finished a level with zero seconds left and died instantly when the next one loaded (before the additional time could be added).
I also think you could zoom in a bit, because usually, the level takes up only roughly a half o the screen. If the levels get bigger or more complicated, I think I'd appreciate being able to rotate the camera (e.g. by holding the middle mouse button and moving left/right).
The sound effects seem pretty muffled in comparison with the loud music.
And technically, it's possible to get the same level twice in a row. I'd prevent that from happening.

An idea for a new game mechanic might be moving up/down or being unable to stop moving in some levels – but introducing new mechanics is harder when the level order is random. But there could sometimes be an optional collectable item in hard-to-reach locations which would replenish your time. Or multiple connected islands. You decide if any of these would improve the game.

Overall, it's a pretty fun game for a while. I'm not sure about its replayability, which should be the main concern in an arcade game. Perhaps randomize more things than just the level order and put something interesting at fixed milestones (e.g. a larger level at 5th, 10th, 15th (etc) level milestone) to give you something to look forward to.

swoopae responds:

Thanks for your feedback! I considered adding a level editor and the community levels getting randomly selected. I'll probably implement most of these in the next update, highschool exams kinda taking my whole life rn.

[Calc Attack]

Uhh… two questions here:
a) Who is your target audience?
b) Is this a game, or an exam?

Because call me a masochist, but I finished the game. I was curious to see the ending, but it's not really worth it. It's just as underwhelming as the rest of the dialogues.
"You mastered calculus!" "You win!"

As for question a) – judging from my experience, you need to be in a senior year of high school or start attending university to be taught limits, derivatives and integrals and enrol in an advanced math course to know how to solve differential equations (not to mention you need to remember the process well enough to apply it here).
That's a very, very small target audience which means most people will either close the game straight away or just go with trial & error and memorize the correct answers.

For the above reasons, you're very unlikely to see any advanced math to be a requirement to complete a game. I don't even recall seeing a simple linear equation in a game before.

----

As for (b) – at first, I was quite intrigued by seeing limits. If you're fine with having a tiny target audience, you could make something unique, because as far as I'm aware there's not a game ‘for mathematicians’ like this. HOWEVER, my main gripe with the game is that solving math problems is really all there is. You could remove everything and keep the format just:
"[Math problem]. Pick solution: a) b) c) d)"
and the game would stay the same. At which point, it becomes an exam. You don't really "fight a boss", you "click on an answer".

You have to make it enjoyable. Why doesn't the player go to different rooms, collect items and solve ONE math problem for example to open a lock? Why doesn't he move around while fighting the boss?
Or solve a math problem to get extra lives.

Basically, it's an interesting concept, but the game needs content. It needs to keep going, let you do something enjoyable – not to make you stare at an equation for a few minutes.
As for the difficulty, I draw the line at being able to calculate the result in my head, except maybe some rare exceptions at the end of the game or during especially tough parts of it.
Derivatives are fun and quick (if you know how to calculate them to start with), limits need you to understand the principles but still can be done but the moment you ask me to calculate an integral of a fraction or differential equations (!), I'm going to phone it in with Wolfram. Or just guess and potentially restart the game a few times.

And there are a few bugs/mistakes, too:
– The play again bug which you seem to be aware of
– Using keyboard keys moves the page around. I think you need to "preventDefault" of the keyboard keys you're using. See here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamemaker/comments/3fnayp/html5_game_causes_webpage_to_scroll_when_arrow/
– Wolfram thinks the answer to one of the limits is wrong:
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=lim(x-%3E6)+(((x%2B3)%5E(1%2F2)+%2B+3)+%2F+(x-6))

Again, I like the concept and hope you'll build upon the idea. It just needs to be less of an exam and more of a game.

[Farming Carrots]

Well done.
I wanted to say that I wish there was some way to upgrade the carrot patches in the first half of the game because collecting "1" carrots when you have "100" carrots available is a bit pointless, but then came the second half the game, making it unnecessary, because the progression rate is all right up to that point.

I'd almost tell you to ditch the first half or at least hint there's a goal you need to meet because I nearly quit when it seemed like it's going to be an endless clicker game.
The second half is much more enjoyable, with all the different carrots and rules you learn along the way. It was a challenge to complete the last part of the game but not frustrating or anything. Actually pretty fun.

But a slight complaint about continuity: orange carrot is worth "1" then "5" but purple carrot is "5" then "2", making it less valuable than the orange one later on. That makes the first half of the game even more pointless because established rules are thrown out of the window.

Also, thanks for the colourblind mode. I don't need it personally, but it's great to see developers who keep accessibility in mind, especially in games like these which require you to know the colours displayed.

Good game, great half of a game. :)

[CUBE SPEED]

This is great for a first game!

This type of game turns up on Newgrounds quite often but your version is amongst my favourite ones. The movement feels just right, the difficulty is neither boring nor impossible, I love the score counter which makes you feel the sense of 'rush', and unlike so many other people you don't restart the level immediately on contact with an obstacle, which is very important to understand what exactly happened and to give you a little time to prepare for your next try.

I managed to jump over the obstacles by going over the edge and quickly back again which makes you spin and propels you in the air. No need to fix this 'bug' though, as it is a pretty risky move requiring a lot of luck to pull off successfully.

It's a simple game, but if you decided to expand it (or as tips for your future games):
– SOUNDS. They make a part of the atmosphere and enjoyability of a game. Many games wouldn't be as fun if they had no sounds.
– The edges of objects are jagged which is most visible on the flickering shadow of the red cube. Perhaps try antialiasing if it helps (in Graphics settings in Unity).
– The score should be passed between levels. The score resets when you crash which is fine, but because it's not passed between levels, a player with no crashes ends the game with the same exact score as the player who crashed all the time.
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Object.DontDestroyOnLoad.html
– Quit button is pointless in a WebGL game. "Play Again" would be much better.

If you decided to add more levels, keep in mind the "road" doesn't need to be a straight line – it can be curved, go up or down, get wider/narrower, split, have gaps in it. There could be a harder path with double score and an easier one. Just some ideas.

Anyway – well done and good luck with your future games.

[Sewer Sweeper]

Good for a prototype. I like that it's displayed as if it was a TV screen, the graphics are also all right. Shooting and damaging enemies work perfectly.

Nevertheless, what's the goal of the game? Currently, you can't lose (no matter how many enemies slip past you) and you also can't win (i.e. by defeating several waves of enemies).
If it's supposed to be an endless game, you ought to display the current score and the game should get gradually harder.
If it's supposed to be a game with different levels (based on the information about "Location"), you should show "remaining: 20" or "Wave: 3/7" or something like that, and then move to the next location.
Currently, the enemies also get stuck at the edges of the screen if you let a lot of them pass through you.

In both cases, I think the enemies should take fewer hits to kill and there should be more of them. And different kinds (e.g. tougher ones requiring more hints, enemies which switch places when shot etc.).
As for the main character, he doesn't appear as if he really is in the sewer – he casts no shadow on the sewer walls and moves along a circle even though the sewer is a 16-sided prism. Another game mechanics might be to make the water slow you down slightly, so you'd have to decide whether to go through it or rather cycle around. And the enemies also always overlap you even though they should be in front of you at some point, which makes you look flat.

There are also no sounds nor music.

Overall, it's a very good prototype – but as a full game, it's incomplete.

[What to do?]

Good idea. I got the message without reading the explanation, but it took a few minutes because I was looking for some sort of "secret ending".
I think the execution could better – the Wait button should be always at the same position on the screen for convenience, but you could add fade-to-black transitions for even more waiting. Also, the button gets focused if you click on it and afterwards you can just hold enter to cycle between the texts super fast – which probably isn't what you want.

janosbiroleite responds:

Thanks.

[Tap Tank]

It's fine… but starts being repetitive pretty quickly. I could keep going for a long time, but soon enough it starts getting boring. No new elements get introduced and it doesn't get progressively harder.

Because you can only skip between platforms in one direction and the skipping is fairly slow, you also can't reliably collect every gem which appears on the screen even if you try.
Additionally, the score count is too small and harder to read, and the YouTube link in the menu points to the wrong game. But you'd frankly leave a better impression by uploading *that* game here.

tiago018 responds:

obrigado vou melhorar

[Planet Defender]

It's a playable space invaders game, nothing terrible, nothing great.
The problem is that there's not a lot of going on – it's just ‘shoot everything’. Even the original Space Invaders had more content: barricades, different kinds of enemies, increasing speed and UFOs for bonus points:
https://youtu.be/UZlEXl9xgR8
Because your game plays out more or less the same every time, it will get boring after two or three rounds.

Interestingly enough, even a victory results in a Game Over screen with 500 points – another reason why the game doesn't have much replay value. There's no ‘beating your high score’, just ‘get 500 points again’. You should probably restart the game but keep the accumulated points to see how far can people go without dying.
A restart button on the ending screen would be welcome, too.

Also, whenever you shoot, the enemies do as well – I don't know if it's supposed to be a feature or if it's a bug. The player is surprisingly fast and the shots have no cooldown, so the best tactic I found is to constantly move left and right and keep shooting in order to avoid enemy attacks which probably isn't what you intended.

Overall, it's an okay game, just not interesting enough.

[Snake Survival]

It's a very basic snake game.
I guess it's alright if you're a beginner but there's not much to talk about. The one single gameplay mechanic works and the speed is chosen well. Minimalistic art style suits the game well.

As for tips for improvement:
– The resolution is too big, so it would take quite long to fill the screen up. I'd make the snake and the dots at least twice as big.
– There are no walls, which gives you the impression that you can leave the screen and reenter at the opposite end, but instead, you crash. On top of that, it's hard to tell where the edges of the screen are because Newgrounds has a very similar background. I'd add a wall around.
– The eating sound should ideally be a single *chomp*, not two at once which might be slightly confusing.
– There's no score, so you don't know how well you're doing.
– Please don't use alerts for anything related to the game. If nothing else, they're annoying and after a while, browsers will start blocking them.

[The Wizard's Scroll]

Quite enjoyable game, but not without problems.
I like the style – nice art, catchy music, the sounds are okay. It's an action game rather than a platformer because your movement is rather slow (in comparison with other platformers), so this is not a game which should require you to make complicated jumps or react quickly – which shows the most in the boss arena (trying to quickly jump between platforms, or jumping from the edge of one isn't exactly the simplest task).

Slowing down the player when you charge (or hold) a big fireball is the right decision, but in my opinion, shooting small fireballs shouldn't slow you down at all. That makes shooting while jumping more difficult than it has to be.

I feel like there's a slight problem with pacing – the beginning is okay, the end boss is hard, but the middle part starts getting boring after a while. Occasionally, a new enemy gets thrown in, but the difficulty doesn't really change. I remember thinking "how long will this keep going yet?" roughly in the middle.

I don't know about the crystals. First, if you right-click, you shoot all at once for the number of crystals you have – not just one per right-click (completely unnecessary for every enemy except the boss).
Obviously, you want to save the crystals for the boss battle, but during my three playthroughs, I always managed to die on my first attempt – which means all of the crystals are gone. Perhaps save the current amount of crystals when you pass the checkpoint, so when you die, you only lose the crystals in the current section? Otherwise, I don't see much point in collecting them.

As for the pixel art, I noticed the pixel size isn't consistent. Sparks from the crystals and the flames are smaller than the individual pixels in the walls. Then the "charging" panel and boss's health have round edges and the ball of fire returning you a safe location isn't pixelated either.
It's not *wrong* to have an art style like this, it's just not what some would call ‘true’ pixel art.
Also to me, the solid black tunnel at first looked like an entrance to another location because there was no door nor a portcullis to block it.

And after defeating the boss, the game promptly kicks you back to the menu as soon as you leave the area. That is the video game equivalent of "Fuck you". Add a final, 'reward' chamber, or at the very least show an ending screen. It took some effort to get to the end – but you don't celebrate the victory.
That's like meeting the person who won a race and being like, ‘Okay. See you next time.’

Uh, and you also got in one of the most common problems with Unity games on this site – if you use "Standard" WebGL template instead of "Minimal", you have to add 38 to the vertical resolution of your game in Project System for the footer, otherwise, your game gets cut off slightly.
And since this is Unity, you could potentially save the player's progress between playthroughs in PlayerPrefs if you wanted. I. e. adding a Continue button to the menu. Just for convenience sake, but this game isn't that long to make it a necessity.

But overall, I think it is a pretty good game.

IceDrumGames responds:

Thank you for this review. Yes, my game has all mentioned problems. I will try to fix them as soon as come to the computer. Thank you for critisizm.

EDIT:
-Fixed slowing down the player.
-Fixed immideatly fireball for crystals. Now it's just one per click.
-Added EndGame screen.
-It's still not "true" pixel art but now without round edges.

Again, Thank You for advices.