Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Jump Pads]

You know what? It's fine. Very good for a first game. I'm sure I couldn't have pulled off an endless game when I started, so big props for that. You even save/reload the high score between page reloads which is a nice touch.

It still looks a bit placeholder-ish (simple geometrical shapes, solid-coloured) which is probably fine for this game but could be further improved. The menu background is also quite close to the default Unity blue and the sliders in options are as default as they get. Try changing the font and use a different image in your future games, so it is "less recognizable".

And having a Quit button is pointless in a WebGL game, since it does nothing at all. Some developers circumvent this "flaw" by freezing the game or by loading a full-black screen. *Don't* do this either, please – if people want to close a WebGL game, they just close the tab. You can just delete the button or disable it in WebGL only, with something like:
if (Application.platform == RuntimePlatform.WebGLPlayer) gameObject.SetActive(false);

As for the gameplay, I would love to be able to control the ball with the mouse. Arrow keys and WASD are fine, but this game requires precision and "Mouse X" axis would allow you to slow down/speed up as much as you wanted. Or you could simplify your controls by simply making the ball's "x" position equal to mouse's "x" position at all times.

Also, if you had slightly more time before landing (= if the jump arch was higher), you could have more elaborate obstacles. Now all you have time for is avoiding a spike and the best strategy is to limit your movement to a minimum and stay close to the center (at least that's what I found out). You could also add collectables and alternative paths if you want (e.g. a simple path to the left, or a "difficult detour" with a collectable +10 points to the right).
But that's probably making the game more complex than it has to be. I'm just looking for ways to motivate players to press further, as that becomes a problem in endless games once you stop introducing new elements.

As for motivation, did you know Newgrounds has a public scoreboard? Competing with other players for the highest score is much more fun than trying to beat your own high score.
https://bitbucket.org/newgrounds/newgrounds.io-for-unity-c/
http://www.newgrounds.io/help/components/#scoreboard
You can shoot me a PM if you need help setting it up if you decide to use it in this or a future game.

Two bugs I encountered, the latter occasionally froze the game on (re)start.
– Falling pad (missing script):
The referenced script on this Behaviour (Game Object 'falling Pad (2)') is missing!
– Restart bug:
"A script behaviour (probably UnityEngine.Audio.AudioSpatializerMicrosoft?) has a different serialization layout when loading. (Read 32 bytes but expected 36 bytes)
Did you #ifdef UNITY_EDITOR a section of your serialized properties in any of your scripts?"
Welcome to Newgrounds and good luck with your future projects! :)

JaafarRammal responds:

Thanks a lot for your help, you're very kind.
I will try to fix the bugs

[Zig Zag 2]

It's alright. The core concept is pretty good, although the main flaw here is that it gets boring after a while (let's say around 20-30 score mark). The problem is, the game doesn't change (i.e. doesn't gradually get harder or more challenging), therefore there's not much of an incentive to play further. You could keep going indefinitely, but eventually, you make a mistake out of sheer boredom.

Consider these ideas/game modes for improvement:
– Speed up: Your speed gradually increases. The crystals now only take 1/3 of the path's width, so you have to make a turn at a precise point in order to collect them. Collecting a crystal resets your speed back to normal.
– Obstacles: Apart from the red "Turn" button, "Jump" and "Crouch" has been added. There are now obstacles which appear sometimes, forcing you to pick the appropriate option (e.g. jump over a gap). The road sometimes also gets wider/narrower.

Either of these (or a mixture of them) would probably help players feel a bit more in control and make the game test your skills, not your patience.

As for minor things:
– You're using the Standard WebGL template which has the footer, which means you need to add 38 to the vertical resolution you set in NG Project System, otherwise the game window is cut off.
– I believe this free texture (if I'm not mistaken and it is "Hand Painted Stone Texture" from Asset Store) also had a normal map included. Please use it or generate one otherwise. It's supposed to be stone, but the reflected light makes it look like it's flat. A normal map would make it appear more three-dimensional.
– 'Press to start' – press what? It's Enter, but it's not written onscreen and I had to figure it out via trial and error. How about pressing the red button to start the game?
– If you walk very close to the edge, the game plays 'fall state animation' even though you're not really falling yet.
– The 'Score' font doesn't match the font of the rest of the game.
– It'd be cool to see some sort of background underneath you instead of the plain orange

Nevertheless, it a good game; I'd try to think about more ways to keep players engaged, though. Good luck with your future projects.

Madhurchugh responds:

Thanks for the ideas.Really appreciated
I'll be releasing updated version soon

[Block Run 3D]

A fine, simple project but perhaps too simple to be enjoyable to play. I think you should add all the obstacles in a single scene, not switch between several to maintain the feel of continuous motion. Splitting the game into levels usually means a crash only sends you to the beginning of the current level, which is (unfortunately) not the case here – even a single collision means game over. And perhaps increase the left/right speed and decrease inertia.

Also, the waiting period, before you reach the obstacles, is too long. Even half (third?) of the time is more than enough to acclimatise and the long wait makes every game over more painful. Not to mention being instantly kicked back to the main menu can be pretty annoying.
Finally, the 'Quit' button isn't needed in WebGL and you need to add 38 to the vertical resolution of your game if you're using the footer (alternatively you can build the game with 'Minimal' template).

This can be created in Unity in approximately an hour. It works, but I don't think there will be many people 'impressed' by the gameplay.

MoonZoneStudios responds:

Thanks this is super helpful

[Geometrical Apocalypse]

For a first game, pretty good! It's a simple, but well-made project. I like the fact that the background changes colour every now and then and the little shake whenever you kill an enemy which makes it more enjoyable.

Although it's a bit pity the gameplay doesn't change much. The enemies get faster and appear more often – great!, but there's no new gameplay element introduced as the game progresses. Another weapon, temporary power-up, new kinds of enemies, a boss – you name it.
Anything which would make me believe game at score 2000 would play differently than a game at score 1000 or 500.

As for the details:
– I think the animated title in menu scene looks a bit wrong (jaggy movement with a sudden skip at the end, plus the outer glow is cut off at sides
– Since you have a fullscreen switch in the options, you don't really need the footer (which is cut off in half because in the Project System, you need to add 38 to the vertical resolution of your game). In Unity, you can build the game with a Minimal template to get rid of it.
– "Quit" is pointless in a WebGL game since all it does is freezing the game (it can't close your browser or anything)
– The black background (1000+ score) makes it hard to see the crosshair

But I'll repeat – for a first game, this is actually quite good. Welcome to Newgrounds!

ShayaanAmir responds:

Thanks! I'm working on an update which will fix all these issues. I'm also adding more enemies. Appreciate the feedback!

[The Burning Locks]

I think it was great. I liked the story; it's a pretty good idea.
However, I'd have probably chosen a slightly more contrasting pair of colours. Also, the fact that movement keys are the same as "interaction" and "continue dialogue" keys meant that a number of times, I accidentally inspected an object (or entered a memory) twice in a row.

[Diamondstep_DEMO]

Wow. The game is amazing. I have nothing negative to say about it.
There are loads and loads of game mechanics which get gradually introduced, the difficulty slowly increases (easy in the beginning, pretty hard in the later levels), I absolutely adore the art style, and since it's a bit dark, the colours nicely stand out. There are also collectables which reward those who take risks, controller support etc. I even accidentally noticed you can change the colour of the main character! Cool! The level design is superb, too.
It would take *long* to list everything I enjoyed about the game.

I didn't finish it, though, because despite reaching multiple checkpoints, the continue button didn't work after Game Over. If that's what is supposed to happen, then what is the point of the flags anyway? Only to load the game if you quit mid-way through?
This is perhaps my only true complaint.

As for the minor stuff:
– The keyboard is set up for the French layout – ZQSD, correct? I'd perhaps add an option to switch to the much more common WASD. Luckily, you can use arrow keys, too.
– Level names look like they've been pulled straight out of the game files ("wood_11", "night_4" etc.). Does the underscore make it look better? I'd say it'd be better without it, but that's up to you.
– Sometimes the art style is inconsistent, as in some objects' pixels are larger than others. The breakable platform seems slightly out of place to me (in comparison with the rest of the environment)
– The game over screen shows the base blue colour, not your actual one (e.g. if you change your colour to red, the game over screen probably ought to reflect that and show a red face)
– You could also try adding medals to make the game even more popular:
http://www.newgrounds.io/get-started/

Once more – great job! Well done and welcome to Newgrounds.

Andostress responds:

thank you so much^^

[Platformer]

Not bad for a first project; actually quite all right. The controls are fine and fluent, there are no bugs I could find, and there are at least two kinds of enemies.
Although there's space for improvements.

– First, there's no victory screen. Just an end flag which leads nowhere. It doesn't take a lot of time to add a "You win!" screen but helps you a lot to feel you "completed" the game.
– The game is too short to truly enjoy it. You can complete it in under a minute.
– Perhaps it's just me, but the game resolution feels a bit small. I'd change it a bit, make it larger. Not to mention the resolution on Newgrounds (the black area around) was chosen too big.
– I know Kenney gives away free assets, but these platformer sprites are a little bit too recognizable to be usable as anything else than a temporary placeholder because too many people use them already. If you don't want/can't draw your own, check (for example) OpenGameArt, there's a lot of free stuff, too.
– The health mechanic is a bit confusing.
• Things which hurt you take away half a heart. But an empty heart still doesn't kill you (might be confusing).
• Getting hurt three times subtracts a life and restarts the level. That is okay.
• Losing all lives restarts the level and refills your lives, too. Since it does essentially the same thing as the previous bullet point and there is no game over, it means you have infinite lives. You could just as well have written ❤ × ∞.

Good luck with your future projects. :)

[The Caretaker]

Two things:
– This is not the kind of background music which allows you to read and think about long paragraphs. Ominous music is fine, but this too intense even when there's not too much going on in the dialogue. The key to good horror is knowing how to use *silence*. Although I liked that you play sound effects at certain times; that's a good idea.
– This is not the kind of background picture which allows you to read long white paragraphs. It's colourful and changing which makes reading harder. In contrast, the dialogue lines come in a black box which is way more convenient. I'm not sure if the backgrounds could be considered "disturbing visuals" – there are too many filters and it's too blurry to fully discern what they represent, although sometimes you can guess.

For the above reasons, I couldn't really get into the story. I read it three times just to confirm what you say results in the same response (which is a no-no – why even have the choice, then?). There's also an unwritten rule in literature that you shouldn't use digits for common numbers ("20 something years", "80 bucks") unless it's too complex or a scientific calculation etc.
The story itself just didn't ‘grip me’ enough. There's not a lot of going on except for a barrage of (repeated) swear words which can't magically make your story more intense. Unless I missed it, there's no truly thrilling moment or a plot twist and boils down to "a woman murderer is calmly arrested for desecrating graves". But perhaps there's more and I just missed it, partly because of the distracting music and backgrounds.

[Golf World]

It's fairly good; although could be better if there were other kinds of obstacles – e.g. different terrain types, interactive (moving) elements. Sometimes I thought the ball is inconsistent – it sometimes stopped on what I'd consider a hill, and sometimes (the very end of the last level) it kept rolling on a slightly tilted surface despite being really slow.
I'd also write the total number of holes somewhere; I almost quit because the game got too repetitive in the end. Which is fine since there are only nine levels; but if you added more eventually, you'd definitely have to introduce new elements to the gameplay later on.

[Birds Way Home!]

I'm sorry, but the controls feel just so wrong. Flapping wings in mid-air doesn't actually move you up a lot, which makes jumping between platforms difficult and frustrating. You also get stuck a lot and the project resolution is unnecessarily large, not to mention the two-second music loop which would get annoying no matter how good it is.