Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Question]

A neat little game. The art is gorgeous, and I just love the look-around effect with the parallax backgrounds.
But the story is kinda bland. Unless it is a personal story, it feels like something is missing. If this was a properly told story, the only justification for making the instant leap from "we started dating" to "we married" is when you want to focus on something which happened during the marriage (which is somehow tied to the intro, otherwise it wouldn't be necessary to have the intro at all).
But that's where the story ends. If you tore down the visuals and left nothing but the transcript, it couldn't stand on its own.

So I checked the original The Question and it made some things clear. You didn't exactly make a lot of changes in terms of the plot, right?
For the example project/tutorial, it's perfect, since a) it tells about creating a visual novel; b) it's short and simple in order to showcase just the core mechanics; and c) the story is bland and vague enough to let people expand or rewrite it in any way they want.
For any other reason, it's ‘meh’.

So, as a ‘proof of concept’ – yes, it's a neatly polished example project; but I hope you plan to create your own, more interesting stories in the future, too. Good luck.

[Zombie escape]

I couldn't load the game, unfortunately (Chrome, Edge).
From the browser console errors, it looks like virtually all sprite sheets you seem to be using ("spriteXX-sheet0.png", "tiledbackgroundX.png") couldn't be found.
Does the game load fine for you?

[TDS]

Well, there's a lot to unpick here.

It's an okay *base* for a game. There's a player who can shoot, a way to replenish ammunition and health, there are enemies and destroyable barriers… genuinely a lot, but not without some serious flaws.

The largest problem of the game, as I see it, is rotating the player and the enemies. The center of the rotation isn't in the center of mass, but rather at the tip of the gun/arms – which means whenever you rotate, you change position, a lot.
For the player, this results in unpredictable movement and for the enemies, this results in them getting stuck in walls. As a rule of thumb, characters who are able to turn on the spot shouldn't change their position when doing so.

The second problem is the lack of sound effects or music. There's not much to add, it simply throws a good portion of the game's atmosphere out of the window which lessens the overall quality and makes its flaws more visible.

Also when many enemies get stuck inside each other, they all harm you on touch. In other words, when you have three hearts left and run into three inter-locked enemies, you die.
It's a pity there's no way to restart the game if you die, you have to reload the page.

Since ammunition is scarce, you have to be careful not to waste it. It's not a problem that zombies kill you when you're out of ammo, but you can also be blocked by a box – at which point you didn't die, but also there's no way to continue.

The bullet exploding animation seems to have a frame at a different position.

And unless I'm mistaken, there's no victory screen either which makes the game seem unfinished.

It's a good start, but I think it needs a bit more work until it could be an enjoyable experience to play.

[The Annoying Square Rage Labyrinth]

Well, if you wanted to make an 'annoying' game, you've got to try harder to enrage the player.
There are no deliberately annoying game mechanics except for the platforms not allowing you to jump, which I encountered only once and could simply jump from the platform right next to it. And I took a guess and assumed the exit is at the top, as that's the most sensible spot to put it – and yep, there it was. Sure, I don't get to see a victory screen; but reaching it could basically be considered 'finishing the game'. You can also stick to the sides of platforms and walls and do a wall-jump which makes the game a bit easier.
Check out Cat Mario to see an example of a truly annoying game.

[Story Master]

I really like the idea, but I wasn't able to write anything yet ("2 players needed").
Like this, I think people will just pop in, see that there's nothing here and log out – at least I did, after fifteen minutes of waiting for somebody to join.

I think I'd drop the requirement; you should just let people write – but no more than ~50 words and a single consecutive entry. That way, even when nobody is currently logged on, a player can write roughly a paragraph of text as their entry and then check at a later time.

GMcLean responds:

That's a great idea, it looks like people are trickling in one at a time so that would probably work alot better. Something to keep in mind for a future project!

[The Curse of Malnoir]

A very good game, especially since it was made under time pressure.
Unfortunately, it largely depends on luck. The only time I won, I had two pieces of meat every night and used them both to save myself and the guard.

Without them, there's a little to no tactics involved. Once the werewolf starts chasing you, you've lost. He's too smart to be slowed down by buildings, too persistent to change targets. On the other hand, you get exhausted too quickly and even all your stamina can't be used to outrun the werewolf completely, just to prolong the chase. There's also no place to hide during the night (e.g. jumping into a haystack) and the guard is defenceless against the attack (it'd be cool if you could reliably save the guard by pelting the werewolf with a stone and making him chase you) and unlike you, he wanders about randomly, so letting him stumble upon the werewolf is an instant game over (and luring the werewolf away without a piece of meat, too).

All in all, I think the difficulty still needs a little balancing, especially the amount and regeneration of stamina, and your running speed. Basically, any feature which gives you a little edge over the werewolf and depends on your skill, not a randomly appearing consumable item.

And now that you have time, I'd change the ending pop-up. It took some effort to earn the ending! Show them hugging or something, don't just write 'Game Over' as if you lost. :P

punknower responds:

Thank you for taking the time to write me so much. You didn't need to do that honestly but I feel touched by such dedication. Thank you.

You are totally right, it is based on randomised object placement, and each time you get back an item, objects are reloaded and placed randomly. So you could stumble into 3 object in a day or none at all for 2 days. And I'm sorry if it brought you some meh moments during gameplay and I know it is not very efficient in its state.

All your recommendations are really good ideas and some of them were thought, like hiding during the night. We couldn't implement it because we wouldn't have time to balance the meat, the rock and the hiding to give each one a unique ability. For example, how long would you be able to hide? Can you hide only one time a night? Does the wolf lost himself when you hide? If he sees you and you hide in front of him, will he find you or go wandering like he lost you? Etc,
hese questions needed balance and balancing a gameplay is one of the most dificult tasks. So we decided against our will to simplify it in order to not give the player a too easy task. (I'm not explaining all that to look like a smartbutt, but I just wanted to share our vision)

And you are totally right, it needs balancing, especially what you outlined about stamina and that you could win a night without the use of critical items to give you a feeling of survival.
But let's say this idea born in this gamejam could be a base-prototype-idea for more polished and furnished little game. Still looking at this possibility if it gets some attention here and there. In its state as a game jam game, it's enough to have decent, constructive and pleasant feedback as you gave to me.
And yes the game over is a bit harsh and out of place. It's really not rewarding and well I wished I could have made that a bit better but I will remember your advice and will work on that on future project.

Thank you.