Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Isometric World Alpha 0.41]

It looks pretty cool. There aren't that many blocks, but the pixel art of those present is very charming. But I'm missing several quality-of-life tweaks.

– Select a block or slope by clicking. Cycling through all of them with a space bar is too slow and inconvenient.

– Some sort of mild snapping on blocks or working with curves between the current and last known position. I wanted to remove a big chunk of the world, but if you move the cursor too fast for the framerate to catch up, you'll skip blocks. Same with drawing too quickly.

– Moving the camera is clunky. I'd expect it to work like the Hand tool in graphic programs, this feels like you're using the screen as a gamepad stick with max speed around the edges and zero in the center, no matter if you're moving the cursor or not.

– Just two layers are somewhat limiting. And I can't always tell what the result will look like after I place a block. Especially with the tall building.

– Undo/Redo. At least remember one step so you can take back bad mistakes (a long line of blocks with a single stroke should still count as one step).

– Some sort of export option. Ideally not just a screenshot, but a serialized text version that can be used further (let's say you design a world here that you want to use as a base in a game engine) and re-imported in this world creator to make edits.

– The background clouds don't move fluently at all.

Overall it's a good idea and quite visually appealing, but I don't think it's truly usable at this stage yet.

Kehmicle responds:

Some of these things ive heard from folks and some I havent, very in-depth review I thank you greatly for it.

When I return to this project ill start by addressing these changes first!

[Shoot seagulls with an Airsoft Sniper]

I think this game is more than anything else a patience test.
The seagulls come at fixed intervals and move at a fixed speed, so they become predictable. It can be relaxing for ten or so shots, but then you notice there's no gradual increase in difficulty or evolution in gameplay (e.g. if new elements got introduced).

I kept going until 50 to be sure there wasn't anything else that appears later. After giving up, though, I found out the game never ends, even if you let seagulls fly past the right edge of the screen. So what is the goal? Keep clicking on seagulls until you get bored and close the game?

Unfortunately, the scoreboard doesn't seem to be working either, so there's not even that incentive to keep playing.

[R-Cube 1.4]

I don't have much to say about the actual puzzle; it's a Rubik's cube, it's well-known and you made it work and visualize it pretty nicely.
Just a few notes since you plan to work on the project further and publish it on other platforms.

– It would be better if the “Solve” button had shown you the steps towards completion, so you can learn
– Equally, it'd be nice if you could (optionally) skip the mixing steps
– You can glitch the cube when you rotate while mixing is in process.
– I wasn't able to rotate the bottom (and middle) row horizontally; it always does a different move. If it's too tricky, consider adding an option to rotate the entire cube if you drag outside of it (you would also then not have to look at the same three starting colours all the time, and could inspect the finished cube).
– Players will love it if you included a switch between different backgrounds
– "Guide" menu is coming soon, but for now, there's no Back button, so once you go there, you're stuck

RCPython responds:

Thank you for response!! Thank you for writing large a comment!! Yes I am currently working on anthor project so when I am done with that I am straight coming to R-Cube 1.2! Bye and have a nice day!

[untitled]

It's not too bad, mechanically. The movement is very fluent and there are seemingly no technical issues. At the very start, I was wondering if I should be avoiding or collecting the falling objects, but that became clear soon enough.

It's just that it gets boring fast. I get the first five and expect a change of gameplay that never comes, and around the tenth point I have already lost interest in the game but kept going up to 35 just to confirm that yes, there is nothing more to this than what I've already seen.

You've got a solid base here, but to keep players engaged, you should gradually increase the stakes and difficulty. Shorten the intervals between spawning the falling items, or make them faster (but not so much that it becomes impossible). Spawn multiple at the same time at different speeds, or in manageable patterns close together. Spawn harmful items you have to avoid. Or temporary obstacles (why else have the jump, anyway, if everything is on flat ground?).

There's also no pause (or grace period before you first move), so I keep dying over and over while writing this review. This could be a good place to show the score from the previous attempt (perhaps the all-time high score).

About the score, consider if you want to allow it to fall below zero (which looks slightly weird), or if you even want to subtract points when you lose a life in the first place – because that means your “final score” will always be 5 points lower than what you were looking at just before you died. Your score (and potentially high score) isn't shown when you lose, either.

Overall it's fine and has potential, but currently, you have no reason to play this for longer than thirty seconds.

[Seraph - Demo]

It's a great game, even as a concept. The gameplay is very enjoyable, aesthetics are pleasing. Dashing mid-air until you run out of “stamina” is a cool concept. And I loved the tutorial with the ghost clone of yourself showing you around.

I probably missed a couple of optional areas since the road I chose seemed to be the correct one to reach the boss. I was wondering what the flames you're collecting actually do, since I've had a full bar for the latter half of the game. I passed it to the tree (?) which recoloured my animations but I still don't really know what changed (was it a damage boost of some kind?).

I'm glad for the checkpoint system, and it's placed very well so the game never becomes frustrating because later on, it's quite easy to die with all the floating danger and spikes. Even the boss's health is saved. Death traps send you to the last safe platform, too.

The boss himself seemed more like a challenge during the ascent, the actual boss room was very easy. As long as you keep moving, you're invincible, and the boss doesn't change tactics, so it's really about dashing up to him a few times and he's done for.
He's a giant skull; I'd add a few directly damaging attacks aside from the exploding skulls you've already seen.

Yeah, the no sound/music is a shame, and would definitely be my number one complaint if this was supposed to be a finished game.

It is a very good game in all regards, I'm excited to see where you take the concept.

Magiclaw responds:

Thank you so much for the great feedback!
The recoloring animations is actually all the flames do. I tried thinking what I can do with it, but this feature was added on at the very end when all the platforming was already completed. For sure it can feel underwhelming, but it's a feature that I wouldn't be fully happy with unless it wasn't this very short demo..

As for the boss, I'd agree it's a little easy, it could benefit indeed from different attacks, but tbh when I play tested this game on my friends a few had really hard times with it so while it could be harder, I think currently is a good-enough middle ground, at least for the 1st boss.

Thank you so much for the positive comment :)

[Slime Jump]

Congratulations on finishing your first game!
Even though there is space for improvement, what you have now is a pretty solid game in all regards, well done.

The main thing I'd suggest to improve is art and level design. A big thing in pixel art is making sure “a pixel” has the same size in all artwork, for consistency. Here; spikes, trampolines and moving platforms have the largest pixel sizes (making them seem low-res), then the main character and portals, then the detailed trees and static ground (making them seem high-res in contrast).

As for level design, gameplay-wise it is pretty good, not so much aesthetically.
The interactive/scripted elements seem to be scattered around the level somewhat randomly – i.e. they are exactly where you need them to traverse the level, but they don't seem very “cemented” in the world, like they are really meant to be there if this was a real world.
Especially in Level 3, it seems like everything floats in the sky without rhyme or reason, even more so when it's coupled together with the pixel art consistency mentioned above.

I feel the main character's jumping animation is slightly off.
If I imagine how a slime should behave when moving:
1) Going wider on the ground in preparation for the jump (which now happens mid-air)
2) Jump, moving up taller than wide (which now happens only for the trampoline)
3) Normal shape when reaching the top of the jump curve
4) Falling, being taller than wide again
5) Hitting the ground and being wider
Something similar is shown here: https://youtu.be/haa7n3UGyDc
You have all the frames you need drawn already, they just need to be timed and used better.

Additional suggestions for improvements:
– Background music would help a lot

– If you fall into a bottomless pit, should you play the death animation, or simply fall below the edge of the screen (the former implies there's solid ground or a row of spikes just below the edge)

– Is there any point when you *don't* want to be teleported when touching a teleport? They are one-way only, too (even though the blue one still plays the sound). So why have a button prompt at all and not teleport automatically?

– In some levels, you start behind the edge of the screen – and sometimes you're left, sometimes right – so it may take you a sec to figure out where you even are

– You set Newgrounds to a very large resolution, but your game actually only uses a fraction of that. And a part of the text (like “Level 3”) is cut in the standard resolution, anyway

In Unity, you should anchor the text to a corner of the screen, and then if it's set to be “10px away from the top right corner”, it will look the same in all resolutions.

– Level 5 (both standard & fullscreen resolution) has both teleports off-screen, and you have to guess where they are

– Quit button is pointless in a WebGL game and simply freezes the game (if you wish to quit, you close the tab) – instead, you should have a Main Menu, Restart or Level Select button here.

[Karate Battles]

This is definitely a big improvement over the first version.
Now it feels like an actual fight, and the opponent fights back. And there's a joke if you win.

What could use improvement now is probably input handling, so the controls feel more fluent and responsive. E.g. while holding an attack key, you are blocked from moving until you release it (there isn't a timeout or priorities etc.). I can stop mid-air by jumping and holding K, and wait there until I have an opportunity to kick the enemy who cannot hurt me up there.

But really, what a leap from the first version; well done!

DoubleItch responds:

Thanks!
I did try to fix those but with the method I'm using to code I don't think the way I was doing the coding in order to make that not happen wouldn't work, but I still accept the positive notes.
And I'm glad you enjoyed my game.

Oh there's also a bonus if the timer runs out. it can go 3 ways depending on the health

[I tried remaking Street Fighter 1]

It's a good start; the core mechanics are there, the animations and pixel art are stellar, but unfortunately, there's very little gameplay yet.

If you figure out the controls, you can easily win by repeating any single attack; the enemy makes no effort to engage in combat with you if you stay far, or react to your moves when you come close.
When the opponent collapses (and floats above the ground), he still has a bit of life left (not to mention he uses your name and icon). You can walk behind his body, but your feet still touch the ground in front of him, and you can briefly appear even lower partially beyond the bottom edge by performing certain moves while jumping.
The parallax effect is nice but slightly confusing because even though the perspective of the background *and* foreground changes, your character's doesn't, so it looks a bit weird.

I know you mention you're going to be updating this, and you're probably aware of most of the issues mentioned – but we should still be rating the current version, not the “potential” of the game.
Good luck with further development!

DoubleItch responds:

had to delete my previous reply so I could do it again, but I have sort of updated my game, although it was more like I changed it completely, but I promise it should work a lot better. here's a link. https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/882645

[Hungry Knight Demake]

It's a solid remake; nevertheless, it's pretty hard (it has a faster pace than the original) and occasionally a bit buggy. The Knight turns invisible in the map's lower part, making navigating difficult. Probably my most common cause of death was enemies spawning directly underneath me; so I think there should at least be a brief window after they spawn when they can't deal damage yet, so you can dash out of the way.