Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[MAZE-GENERATOR]

It's really not much…

First of all, it's not a “generator” (there's no random maze here that gets procedurally generated), it's more of a drawing tool on a 10×10 grid. Furthermore, you don't see it top-down but in perspective, so any maze would be relatively hard to design, especially since there are zero customization options. And if you manage to create a maze after all, there's no way to “play it”, export it, or share it with someone else. I would probably have a better experience designing a maze by coloring cells in an Excel sheet, and it would be a more flexible and portable solution.

Looking at it as a game doesn't add much more merit to either. It's definitely not a “puzzle platformer” as categorized. To its credit, there's a sound, a way to restart the maze, and what is there works without bugs; but it still feels like a game of Snake in which you have to move manually 1 tile at a time and can't win or lose.

I can see it as a base of something cool if you decided to build upon the idea, but as of now, I think most people will click around a couple of times, close the game and forget about it soon.

lucasoliveira1992 responds:

Arigato

[All the King's Men]

This is honestly a brilliant concept for a game. I was hoping the king himself would join the fray in the final level for absolute mayhem, but still, what a fun idea.

I think making the scoreboard “Level reached” is a strange choice because it puts everyone who completes the game on the same score. Perhaps “Fewest defeats on game completion” would be more varied?

Good luck in the game jam!

3p0ch responds:

Thanks, and good call about the scoreboard -- I've updated the NewGrounds version with a death counter.

[The Ruins Of Ishgar!]

I think the stylized graphics are super nice, and it's a well-made game overall, but if I were to focus purely on the gameplay, I'd definitely have some comments.

– Why does the screen shake so much? It genuinely almost made me dizzy until I got used to it.
Also, this is a game about precision, if the screen shakes, it increases the difficulty, but for the wrong reasons.
– “Collect the coins” – uh, there were coins?
– I wouldn't rotate the health bar. Usually in other games, even when your character moves, your health bar remains firmly horizontal. And since most things kill you either instantly, or after three hits at most, you could even do away with the health altogether, and show the damage on the ship itself (e.g. by adding cracks, smoke, or recolouring parts of the ship).

It's still a very lovely game to play for a bit, although after finishing the first level and going through a tight tunnel in the third level, I felt like I have seen everything, and nothing new was introduced in the remaining levels until it was over.
I'd consider adding a bit more challenge at least to the final level, something you haven't seen before – like rising lava, flying upwards, moving enemies; something like that.

[Bit Gunner]

Pretty well-made minigame, a pity it doesn't go any further.

– I like the little things that make playing the game feel good. The stretch on the gun when shooting, the sound effects, the clear contrasting colours. Love the sweating sprites when you lose health.
– There's no increase in difficulty, no new enemies, and hearts are plentiful, so you pretty much lose when you get bored
– How about a counter for enemies killed connected to a global scoreboard (https://www.newgrounds.io/​)? It could prolong the lifetime of the game.
– After you die, you have to click on the “Start” button twice to restart. It first begins to play music, and then the second click loads the game.
– You can't shoot from a corner.
– Occasionally, dying enemies have a weird animation.
– The enemies may spawn right under you which depletes your health bar rather quickly before you move out

A fun little game, no doubt, but there's currently no reason to play it longer than a few minutes.

TrIckyJack788 responds:

The new update is out, and almost all of these cons are now patched. I didn't put a global leaderboard system, but I did add something else ;)

[Froler Run]

I think the gap between the final points tier and the rest is so extreme that you have no reason to ever “play it safe and slow”.
Also, I wouldn't make the box fall immediately after the start, but rather after your first click (so that new players don't instantly lose until they figure out what's going on). And maybe consider awarding the points on “bounce”, not on touch – because currently, you will always get the minimum of 5006 points, even if you do absolutely nothing.

This kind of game makes you bored really fast unless there's some competitive element. I would at least keep track of the player's best score, so you at least compete with yourself – or much better, connect it to Newgrounds scoreboard so that people may compare scores with everyone else.
https://www.newgrounds.io/

NassimSoftware responds:

Thanks for the feedback. Didn't know about the API. Yeah my game definitely needs a lot of improvements.

UPDATE : I have integrated the newgrounds API to keep track of scores.

[Happy Piggy Farm]

I'd say it's a pretty cool game with quite an original premise.

Rather easy. You need to spot the two pigs that would become your “boundary”, eat a bit and then simply wait it out. That's true until the very last level, though, when the margin is small and you have to really pay attention.

There aren't too many levels altogether, so it's not that repetitive for the short while you're playing, but if this was a longer game, it would need to figure out how to keep the player moving (source of danger? hunger? varying apple sizes?), so you'll naturally lose weight or run into food by accident, so the whole level isn't based on calculating the average value and hitting the sweet spot.

But overall a good idea and a solid game.

[mini knight game]

I think it's a quite fun game, well done.
I like the art, the movement feels fluent, the jump distance and gravity feel just about right.

Yet overall, the game isn't terribly long – if you didn't always have to start from the very beginning, you could breeze through in two minutes. There aren't many game mechanics in play either, the danger consists solely of pits and spikes – although that is “sufficient” when the game is as long as it is.
I like the fluent transition when you walk between rooms; it looks great.

As for possible improvements:
– Sounds or music. If a game has neither, it usually feels a bit incomplete. Don't underestimate the effect a few chiptunes played when jumping or dying can have on the game's enjoyability.
– If you make the game any longer in the future, I'd seriously consider adding checkpoints. Repeating the same intro room for the 100th time just because you died to something seven rooms ahead will soon start to test your patience.
– You start the game by jumping into a pit which is an odd choice considering you spend the entire game avoiding falling into pits.
– I'm not a fan of the screen wipe after death; especially since it's top to bottom, so it takes an entire second until you're able to see where you're going after you respawn. I died way too many times by walking into the first pit while the screen wipe was still halfway through the screen.
– There are some tricks to make platformers more enjoyable, here I'd look specifically into the so-called “coyote-jumping”, i.e. be able to jump even a tiny bit after you leave the solid ground: https://youtu.be/vFsJIrm2btU?t=70
Here you have the opposite, and when I stand firmly on the very edge of a platform, I can no longer jump, which makes the controls seem unresponsive sometimes.
– You should probably prevent the player from walking back beyond the left screen edge. It can (and will) kill you off-screen.
– “You won” screen message is fine, but might seem a bit lazy. You completed the game; it's an achievement, so show the player something nice. Like the knight walking up the stairs out of the dungeon to broad daylight, finding a treasure, saving a princess… anything, really.
Here, you can still die even after you win because there is a spike on the side of the screen.

Don't get me wrong, I still think it's a pretty good game, but there are definitely a few ways to bring the quality up a notch without having to make major adjustments to the gameplay.

ReallyDumbNut responds:

thankyou so much, it is one of my first games. but still I am for sure going to use these tips. thankyou so much for taking the time to type this out.

[Edd Clicker!]

It's a bit simplistic way to do a clicker.

The graphics and the theme is nice, but there's no end goal, no reason to go past the initial score. Usually, you would have rewards and unlockable secrets in exchange for a high score, not merely ways to increase the score increments. There's no scoreboard either, so you're really only challenging yourself to see a large number, and that's it.

The clicking itself doesn't offer anything special either – the click hotspot doesn't change, the gameplay doesn't change, so there's no harm in simply starting an auto clicker and letting the score pile up while you don't have to pay any attention at all.
And if you do, you'll have very soon seen everything the game has to offer.