Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[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.

[Platformer]

The art and controls are fine, but the main character definitely shouldn't be facing us the whole time. This game literally consists of jumping on five platforms – and there's no win screen, nor the ability to restart. Not to mention that both the spikes and the mushroom hover slightly above the ground.
If the game was about 10-20 times longer and had more mechanics, I wouldn't object, but like this, you can complete the game within fifteen seconds without much hurry.

[Plane Fight (My first ever game)]

It's fine for a first game attempt.

– There needs to be a way to restart the game when you die – via a button or at least by pressing a key (e.g. 'R').
– The sprites should definitely use transparency in order to avoid the white boxes around.
– When the player shoots, he probably collides with the bullet which "pushes" him out of the way. He probably shouldn't be colliding with his own bullets in the first place.
– What about sounds or music?

As for health, you'd basically do it in the opposite way to the score. You'd start with "score" 5 and each time you're hit, subtract 1. If you get to "score" 0, the player dies.

AspiBoi responds:

Thanks for the help. I will add all of those things in my next game.

[Shadow Of Deception]

I think it's great, *incredible* for a first game. I have nothing negative to say about it.

Of course, as soon as you feel the game is starting to get interesting, it ends, so more levels (with possibly new gameplay elements gradually introduced) would be appreciated.

– In the last level, using the third fireball isn't necessary for completing the level (you can flip the lever by jumping and attacking mid-air) – that's probably not what you intended.
– The browser console spawns *a lot* of warnings you might want to check, mostly stuff like: **ERROR**: Error calling method from signal 'puzzleComplete'.
– After finishing the game and starting over, I was unable to enter the door to the second level.
– It's better for user experience when you do not force fullscreen – instead, offer it as an option in the menu.

That's all that comes to my mind. The game is short… but very well done.
Good luck with your future projects!

VivAZ responds:

Welcome Rallyx,

Regards to the console warnings it is due to the way i coded the game in an unusual way. I went with if it works i don't care approach which was wrong. I felt after creating the "last level" that I learned so much and that I feel if people liked the game I wouldn't mind redoing everything especially the code since I know I can do it better! I am quite interested in adding new levels, enemies and make it a bit more story driven! I would also want thank you for letting me know about the 3rd fireball I will fix that as soon as I can asap!

Thank you once again for the feedback!

[Save Yourself!]

Well, the first question has to be – do you even use the built-in Physics engine for movement?

It's a bit hard to tell because the movement is very laggy, even gravity. Without seeing your code, I can only guess. If you "AddForce" to a Rigidbody2D component or set its velocity; that's physics which will result in more fluent movement.
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Rigidbody2D-velocity.html
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Rigidbody2D.AddForce.html

Please don't move the character by adding small increments to transform.position. You'd have to Slerp the value to make it smooth and that's not what you want to be dealing with.
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Vector3.Slerp.html

Also, all movement and physics should be handled inside "FixedUpdate", not "Update".
For camera stuff, it's best to use "LateUpdate" with some script for smooth following (don't add it as a child of the player if that's what you're doing).

You should also flip the character's sprite when moving left (or set the "x" scale to -1).
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/SpriteRenderer-flipX.html
Then you might consider adding animations.

For some reason, my hearts keep disappearing even when I do nothing at all. If it's meant to be a timer, then I probably wouldn't use heart icons to represent it because when you lose a heart, it usually means you made some sort of mistake.

There's something wrong with the resolution of images because it skittles around while you're moving.

And so on. All in all, I'd suggest you to find a good tutorial series and try to follow it. I think almost everything I mentioned will be covered in any decent platfomer tutorial in more detail.
https://youtu.be/UbPiCgCkHTE?list=PLPV2KyIb3jR42oVBU6K2DIL6Y22Ry9J1c
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=unity+platformer+tutorial

In conclusion, I don't think the game is particularly playable in this state just yet, but don't worry, you'll get there after some practice.
Good luck!

SolIgnis responds:

wow, thank you very much! I didn't expect this much feedback at all! It makes me happy. I will try to improve, I hope to post more and better games. Again, thank you very much :D

[Azumi and the Vertical Slice]

I think it's genuinely awesome. You nailed the era perfectly – I knew as soon as I saw the spinning "Yes"/"No" options. Then came the high-res pixel art, sounds, fonts, health bars and fast-paced action. Brilliant. Three cheers for blast processing!

Combat and movement are very fluent, and the animations are top-notch.
Try to restrict the input inside the game only – currently, up/down arrows scroll the entire page.
And if you make a full game out of this, consider allowing us to rebind the controls; for the sole reason that half of Europe has Z key elsewhere (QWERTZ + AZERTY layout).

My only real complaint is that I'd like to have a downwards (and possibly upwards) attack. Throwing stars diagonally isn't enough when you're falling and the ground is full of enemies. It'd also let you perform a jump + downwards attack combo.
Later on (perhaps as a powerup), it'd also be cool to cause damage while dashing.
Maybe the death sequence is a bit too long. I wouldn't slow it down as much.

But overall, it's incredible! Good luck with the full game.

[Cube Down]

I genuinely love the idea, it's a good, fun game. I never encountered a disc which would be impassable, so props for that. You could even add an alternative "hard mode" which would only let you touch a disc once.

As for possible improvements:
– The top disc is always the same – good – but sometimes it's rotated in a way that you fall through to your death down below. Perhaps make the rotation of the top piece fixes as well?
– It's not good to make the players hold a mouse button for the entire duration of the game, I'd make it move left/right straight away without holding (or add a toggle, as suggested below).
You could also "lock" the cursor because now if you go too far to the left (or right), you could get stuck because you reached the edge of your screen with the cursor.
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Cursor-lockState.html
– Add SOUNDS. Sounds add a layer of enjoyability to your game. Try to play e.g. Mario with and without sounds to see the difference. Of course, you can add background music if you want, too.
– Graphics could be improved as well. Some faces aren't visible. I don't know if it's intentional, but I'd guess it's because of backface culling (faces are visible only from a single side, so you need to flip face normals).
– Add better background than a solid white colour (e.g. a sky)
– The score count isn't very visible

In endless games, it's always difficult to motivate players to continue further. But this game is fun; that kept me going for quite a while. You could also display the player's high score (to challenge him to beat it) or add a layer of competitiveness by posting the score to the Newgrounds public scoreboard, so players can compete with each other.
https://bitbucket.org/newgrounds/newgrounds.io-for-unity-c/
http://www.newgrounds.io/help/components/#scoreboard

Finally, I think the game window size you chose in the Project System doesn't seem right. Just use whatever resolution you chose in Unity (Project Settings/Player) and add 38 for the footer if you use the Standard WebGL template, nothing if Minimal.

[Fear]

I'll say what everyone is saying – the controls are unresponsive.

The main problem, which you might want to consider fixing, is not being able to change your mind once you start moving. You press A – that's it, now you have to wait until you fully slide to the left before you can move again. What about interrupting the current movement if you press the opposite direction? And perhaps making it slightly faster?
You basically have three fixed "1 2 3" points on the screen where the player can be, so hopefully, it wouldn't be too hard to swap the current movement target e.g. from 1 to 2 mid-way.

As for loading times, I suggest you try the free add-on "Scene Streamer". It should be perfect for your game since you essentially have a single long corridor which you can load in parts.
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/utilities/scene-streamer-38168

Then I think the game doesn't exactly invoke "Fear". If it wasn't for the music, then there would be nothing scary at all. I also like the colour scheme shown in the thumbnail much more.

If you wanted to add another gameplay element, you could consider jumping (e.g. over a hole or a small obstacle).

Some bugs/other things I found:
– Go from left to right and right to left very quickly. Quite often "D" will get stuck and you'll be unable to move right for a while.
– Die on the upwards slope. Now if you restart the game, the slope modifier will still be applied and the player will fly up.
– In the console, the game complains about a missing MonoBehaviour on game object 'GM'. Are you restarting the game correctly?
– Graphical bugs – the ground seems to flicker. There's either a problem with the material/texture or it's two objects overlapping each other at the same height (so the engine doesn't know which one to render)
– It doesn't look (or sound) like the sphere is rolling but perhaps it is
– 'Level Failed' message looks exactly like a button but it isn't interactable. And perhaps wait a short while before showing it – sometimes you don't even realise what hit you.

It works, there's some gameplay, but I wouldn't exactly consider it finished or enjoyable.

DARKBLUESHADOWPRODUC responds:

I am working on them, will soon update.