Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lorem Ipsum: Reckoning]

I'll tell you, this is a great idea, even though as a game it's short and simple. In the beginning, I fell quite deep below zero, but ended up with roughly twenty points as the remaining words were closer together. Perhaps I should have warmed up with "the quick brown fox" beforehand. :)
Anyway, you should have probably added some sort of restart button when the game is over.

[Winter quest]

It was nice. Heartfelt Christmas story with a great choice of music and beautiful graphics.

However, since it's an adventure game, I wish you'd let us do some things on our own. For example, if you click on a branch, the boy automatically uses the branch to reach the present. Or if you click on the birds, the boy throws them nuts. That should be the player's job to figure out (select item from the inventory and use it). Currently, it feels more like an interactive movie than a game (also supported by the fact that you aren't allowed to go further until you complete everything on the current screen). That isn't necessarily bad though, surely it helps to portray the message the way you want. And as a simple detail, there's custom cursor for walking, but no custom cursor for interacting with items.

But anyway, it was a sweet short story. Merry Christmas!

[Throw Rocks at Boys]

Well, I see two really bad flaws in this game. If you hold space bar, you create a "rock wall" and instantly dispatch of a column of boys. There's no time interval between the rocks. So all it takes to win is to hold space bar right at the start of a level and wait for the enemies to crash into it.
And the second problem, the difficulty is increased by adding a row of boys every level. But there's no limit either, so if you reach level 9, you die. Instantly. It's because the grid has grown too big, so right at the start of the level, enemies touch you.

As for other things, there is no sound and the graphics are too simplistic (rocks have a black background, boys' sprites have a green border, the white lines behind the rocks are unnecessary and at the end of the level, rocks fly above the "Level Up" button, not below it). Also, screen boundaries are a little off, so both you and the boys can move off the right edge of the screen, but you can't reach the left edge.
Then I could probably say there's a little variety, e.g. there could have been more than one kind of enemy, power-ups, anything. But shooting the target at the top every once a while is a nice idea.

If you are a beginner, don't worry and keep learning, perhaps with a different tutorial. Everybody must create a hefty amount of inferior games before being able to create the great ones. Good luck.

shawndabob responds:

Thanks for your honesty, and yes I was trying to learn at the time. I am now slowly trying to learn more... maybe even see if there is a course I can take at a local facility or something. Thanks for playing it though.

[Mission Escape: Library]

I appreciate you added medals to your games once again. As for the scoreboard, you should probably award points (some value divided by time), not directly the time, because then the lazy, slow-witted players like me show right at the top. :)
And I liked the game, too. The puzzles were diverse, and while usually after getting three pieces of something your games end, here there was still an underground level to go through. Apparently the Tab button is blocked now, which is only fair, so we are not tempted to cheat every now and then.

My minor complaint would be about the bookshelves; the background ones look all the same and the front ones are just flipped, which is quite noticeable and breaks the immersion a bit (perhaps recolouring the covers of few books might help). I am also not really sure what I am looking at when zooming in to the green couch. Is it the armrest? Perhaps, either way two green rectangles might be too simplistic to depict a part of a couch. But that's okay, it's not really that important for the gameplay.

[Bleep Sheep]

Now that's a creative use of one room! Good job!
On top of that, the transitions and your movement are really fluent, and although I usually dislike time limit, here it forces you to take risks, which – with the fact you can't stop and everything around you shifts – creates a constant flow of challenging action. There's also double jump and air dash which can help you but also kill you. I'd say that was very well spent twelve hours. :)

Aaants responds:

Thanks!

[Pure Fire]

The graphics are really good, however the game itself feels repetitive. There's no new aspect later in the game (an enemy, obstacle, power-up, consumable item, anything), just more and more of the two kinds of enemies. Cool to play, but just for a short period of time.

[Amelia]

Quite short, but good enough for a LD entry.

There's just small problem that the recoil from shooting can hurl you through walls (especially in the narrow corridor). The movement animation is quite shaky, too.
And I wasn't completely happy with the AI either – you can shoot each enemy in the game from distance and the bystanders won't react at all, and will wait to be shot too. On the hand, if you do come close enough, everybody will instantly turn in your direction and shoot directly at you, even when they can't see you. All of them shoot together at the same time, and then again after a fixed period of time.
Not to mention there's only one kind of enemy.

But I understand there is only so much of what you can do in two days. :)

xinelu responds:

:) next time i eill work on a proper AI, but thamx for the review!

[Witness]

Is there any content in the game so far? I walked all around the place twice and found nothing to interact with. Also:

– Why is it so hard to walk a straight line? You bend slightly to the right when going forward. The camera's also not positioned at the height of an average person. And when you tilt the mouse up, you can turn it around in full 360° circle, so if you want, you can walk upside down. Jessica must be a cool art teacher.
I'd recommend you to save yourself a lot of trouble and use the "FPS Controller" from Unity Standard Assets/Characters. You just drag the prefab to the scene and there you go, flawless movement and camera control (just disable jumping if you don't want it).
– Is there no ceiling? I'm not completely sure, but it looks like it. Either way, there should be a ceiling.
– "Press Space to continue…": Well, pressing space didn't do anything.
– The gate to the gallery protrudes out slightly
– The window blinds disappear if you go near them
– Even though it looks "more decorative", there's no purpose of a door if there's a big gap right next to them (door to the hallway with lockers)

I apologise if I missed some of the game's content, but if there was more so far, it should be a warning indication to you that somebody can play through the game twice without finding any interactive thing at all. Good luck if you develop this further.

adglenn94 responds:

Hi there,
Thank you for the feedback. This is a first project of mine so I was expecting several problems. However, with feedback such as yours, I can take some notes to work on a patch that I will release later in the week! Thanks again for the feedback and I would love to hear your thoughts later this week after the update happens!