Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[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.

[Enemies And More Enemies]

Sorry, I can't get the game started; and I tried multiple browsers.
The browser console reports a missing resource ‘chão-sheet0.png’, if that's any help.

[Curse of the hideous hag head]

Was it really too hard to create a couple more scenes? More choices, something which would make you actually think? You could create a nice simple point and click game just by jumping between scenes like you already did.

Right now, unfortunately, the game is basically:
1) Click to lose
2) Click to win

Not a lot of fun, is it?

[Fishy Wishy]

Oh, people are going to be nice… but you're kinda making it harder for yourself by openly telling them. Throwing in the disclaimers as if you're already expecting an argument just finishes the job. Now, can I really believe the game is going to be awesome before starting it, when even you don't seem all that convinced?

As for the gameplay, there's not much to talk about. It's done well, sure, although it's eerily similar to another rather fun game which has however been done to death already. The problem isn't making a clone, the problem is that 95% of clones of this particular game don't bring anything new apart from a different art style. How about different shapes of obstacles, death mechanic, collectables… anything? Retain the signature movement, but try to add your own touch to the *gameplay*.

A little side note about the pixel art, though. If you decide to go for that particular art style, there are some guidelines you need to follow.
– First of all, consistency. If most of the game is pixel art, there shouldn't be any graphic which is not ("High Score", the ground).
– When you die, two thin black lines appear. That suggests you didn't set the camera, canvas, sprites or something to be pixel perfect – which can cause seams like this when you move.
See if this approach helps to solve it:
https://youtu.be/CU4YjSZNTnY
– No antialiasing or compression. In sprite import mode, set the Filter mode to 'Point (no filter)' and make sure you're not using a lossy image format like jpg (e.g. the dead fish looks blurry, and the ground is one big compression artefact).
– The font looks… hand-drawn? That's cool and all, but it results in bad spacing between the letters and uneven thickness ('w', 'g' or 'y'). There are plenty of free pixel fonts you can use, even for commercial use, for example this one:
https://www.1001fonts.com/orange-kid-font.html

It's a 'good enough' game, especially from a beginner, so please do continue and improve; but the fun in trying out a new creator's work is from seeing your creativity and ideas despite some flaws here and there, not the ability of being able to accurately replicate a well-known game. Please keep that in mind before completing the mobile version – and good luck.