Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[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.

[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 ;)