Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Race_Game]

I like it; it's quite fun, although there's a couple of problems.

First, and mainly – the game does not restart when you lose (making 'highscore' pointless). Whether you crash the car or run out of fuel, the game does not restart. Now, I later found out you can restart the game with 'R', but it's not written anywhere. You shouldn't rely on people's ability to 'guess' the controls. What about a restart button on the screen when it's Game Over?
When you crash, you can also potentially get hit twice immediately afterwards (e.g. when hitting a wall). There should be some temporary invincibility.
I also did not see a single powerup until the 20k checkpoint (or weirdly, after I died). If you stand still and wait, some do appear,

I was quite thrilled to see a "boss battle", but I can't get past it. The car becomes invincible, drives in random directions (no matter which keys I press), bounces and you're also no longer colliding with items like spikes or powerups. I'm not sure what you're supposed to be doing (high score: 20,003).
And AGAIN, I later figured it out – the boss which looks exactly the same as your car (!) spawned and killed me before I noticed. I thought I was healed before the boss battle, instead, it spawned while I was close to the centre and "replaced" me.
But I think the checkpoint and especially the zoom out is a good idea. I'd at least make the enemy car blue to make a distinction.

As for other things:
– I'm not sure if 'Boost' is useful. It just makes you more likely to crash.
– Not sure what the "crowned bean" powerup does.
– The boss probably should get hit by spikes. Also, I feel your fuel runs out too quickly during this phase. You have to evade his attacks, but doing so makes you lose when you run out of fuel.
– Why do we need the compass? Surely we can tell which way the car is headed even without it…
– The whole page scrolls when pressing arrow keys, especially when you have the compass powerup. Try the workaround as described here:
https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/developer-resources/unity3d-webgl-support#wiki_toc_4

DerpGio responds:

I will try to fix many of these. First, I actually can't believe I forgot to mention the restart button, I know about the double crash and I think your idea is very good and I might implement it. The powerups are very random as they have a chance to spawn after a certain amount pf seconds, and I had to nerf them from spawning to much. The compass was implemented because one of my friends/playtesters found it hard to tell which direction they were going in and I will try to fix the page scrolling thing too.
(Spoiler alert)
The bean stops the car from acting for 3 seconds.

[Zapper]

Great idea, although it's not very much right now.
At first, I didn't know how to zap because it doesn't work very well long-distance, but once the robots get closer, it looks cool.
There's little point of giving you constructive criticism right now, since everything is probably going to change, but well…
– I'd pick better ambient music than a six-second loop – it works initially, but gets annoying quite quickly.
– The game window is quite small; consider adding a fullscreen mode without the IndexedDB part at the bottom.
– I'm not sure if the zap ability works on multiple robots at once; perhaps it should.
– What about jumping? There's a lot of obstacles which would help you slow down the enemies if you could jump over them
– You can fall off the world boundaries, but who cares at this point of development…

I think this would make a really great horror game, especially if the environment was darker and you didn't get the zap ability until later. At one point, I was cornered by the robots and even though they didn't harm me, I was completely unable to move until I blasted my way to freedom. Imagining that, in the dark, with creepier robots; running through a maze of dimly lit corridors, until you reach a large room where you're completely surrounded, panic and learn to zap through – I'd personally consider it far more interesting (and with a story-telling potential) than if it was a simple shooter about zapping hostile robots until they get close and kill you.

Good luck!

Trell13 responds:

Thanks for the ideas. That does sound cool. I'll probably do just that.

[The First Anomaly]

Is there any content so far besides the initial corridor? I tried to run in all directions but the "mist" is faster (presumably because sprinting doesn't work). If you're supposed to do something once you reach a dead end, I didn't figure it out (or didn't have the time). Your walking speed is a bit slow either way.
I didn't encounter any interactable objects. For a first time player, having ~3 seconds to *guess* what you're supposed to be doing, after which you get killed and have to replay the game is quite difficult.

A fullscreen mode would be nice and as JeffreyDriver said, 1.5GB is quite a lot, especially since a single corridor is all I can see. Heck, the demo you linked on the forums last week had a third of that; 522 MB.

Trell13 responds:

There's a couple rooms you can enter but without the sprint system the game is broken. I dont know how to lower the file size any lower but I can try. There are switches that you have to hit in different areas to unlock an exit. I'll have to test it more.

[TypeandJump]

It's fine, but I think the choice of words is sometimes quite odd ("dialoguesystem", "teamexplorer", "monobehavious") and they have a good chance of repeating themselves.
I also don't think it should be case sensitive (at first I thought the game is broken).

But I like the idea of jumping; it's more clever than just typing with a timer alone. Perhaps if you type your word really fast, you could jump higher/further. I'd also show how many steps remain to the top, otherwise, you don't know until the last moment.

hoanglong12 responds:

Thanks!!! I'm really appreciate!! :D !!! You really give me some feedbacks for my game

[kill asdf game ver.2.0]

There are only three options, currently, also there's no way to come back to the selection after picking "shoot" or "i like trains" (or it takes forever).

Also the fun of the original asdf was in how random and unpredictable it was, so selecting an option which plays out exactly as you would expect isn't all that enjoyable.
And since the train animation loops for a long while; then the sound should probably loop as well.

JeremyGonzalez responds:

Yes im fixing a lot of that in version 2.0 and about the looping thing. I did try to make it loop but it aounded very annoying and just bothering also i am fixing the shooting thing as we speak but am having a few coding problems

[snake 2.0]

Nope, sorry, doesn't work again.

Is that Unity WebPlayer plugin? That won't work (it has been unsupported for years).
If it *is* a Unity game, export it as WebGL, which will work.

However, from the source code I see you're embedding "my-first-game.py" written in Pygame which almost certainly won't work through Unity. But I can play it if I download it, though.
A simple snake game, although the movement is too slow and it's harder to change directions.

To embed a pygame game here, you'd need to build/export it in a HTML5 compatible format which is going to be a hassle, but seems possible (Pyjsdl):
https://gatc.ca/projects/pyjsdl/

Or you can use Repl.it to emulate Python online:
https://repl.it/languages/pygame
If you then put the "share/Embed" link inside a index.html file. This approach does seem to be working but looks ugly as hell because the rest of the Repl.it editor will be embedded as well.

If you can get Pyjsdl working, it should be technically possible to upload it here, too; but if you want to focus on web games, I'd really suggest using a proper framework/engine which supports HTML5 directly instead:
https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/creator-resources/game-dev-resources#wiki_toc_1
Especially if you've only just begun.

Phaser or GDevelop are both pretty simple; on the other hand, Godot has more possibilities and you can use GDScript which has a very similar syntax to Python:
https://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.1/getting_started/scripting/gdscript/gdscript_basics.html

Third time's a charm, eh? :)
Good luck.

animaes responds:

Thank u so so much really I was trying to do something for ages and u helped me so much really

[Wall Clip]

I think it's a great game. A very interesting idea, very well executed. I love all the little details like tilting the screen, freezing time when you break a wall, recolouring the player when you're fast enough etc. A lot of simple things like these together make the game more enjoyable.

I'm not sure if it's currently possible to return to the menu during the game (e.g. to switch from Hard Mode to regular mode). There's just the pause.
You could also add NG medals or global scoreboards to attract more players and keep them engaged for longer: https://www.newgrounds.io/
Also, you probably intended the Hard Mode to reset your score upon death (hence the "0") but collecting any coin afterwards restores your score to the previous value. Therefore people who suck at the game and die often will be able to get a much higher score than those who complete it on their first attempt. And for this reason, perhaps your total time should also be factored in your final score, otherwise everybody who collects all the coins will have the same exact score.

Prox276 responds:

Done! You can now change the Mode in the Pause Menu!

I have already added Medals in previous games but thanks for linking me to
newgrounds.io, I'm definitely going to take a look at it! :)

[Dot Destroyer]

Well done with your first game!

I'll write notes as I play, with some additional info, since you say you're a beginner.

Screen:
– You set the Newgrounds resolution in the project system way too large. To make it fit your game, I think you need to set it to 960×638 (600 height of the game, 38 Unity footer).

Menu, How to Play:
– In the fullscreen mode, it works fine, but the UI alignment and position is all wrong in regular resolution (I only see half of the screen). Check the Canvas anchors, assign them appropriately (e.g. the title to "Top", Back button to "Bottom Left" etc.). Also check the Canvas Scaler component (your elements should scale with the screen size). Then try to set the 960×600 resolution in Game View to see if it worked.
– Consistent capitalisation of letters…?

The Game:
Wow. Wow! This is amazing for a first game. It's a simple idea, really, but the little details you added make it all the more enjoyable. All the great particle effects, sounds and music help you avoid becoming bored quickly; but most importantly, you gradually introduce new kinds of enemies, so the players are hooked to see what's coming next. Shooting through several dots at once is also a nice effect.
Still, some things:
– The player spins around their geometrical center (i.e. including the cannon); but it'd look better if it spun around the center of the white dot alone. If it's a single sprite, moving its pivot could be enough (re-parent the transforms otherwise).
– Every text on screen has a different size, different font decoration and all of them are probably too large. Personally, I wouldn't let the "Score" occupy so much of the screen and move it under the highscore. And not use a number to represent the health (white dot icons instead). But this a matter of opinion and either approach is fine, even though it's at least recommended to stay consistent with the fonts.
– There's no temporary invincibility, so when you're surrounded by enemies when the game starts getting overwhelming, they're quite able to eat 3-4 health at once just because they all crash into you at the roughly same time.
If you'd like to change this, you could either add temporary invincibility, or (for example) lower the default max health, but create a small shockwave which destroys enemies in the immediate vicinity when hit to compensate.
But it's your game, you decide how (and if!) it's best to deal with it.
– The last new enemy I saw was the blue, fast one; so there are probably some I missed, but I thought it would be nice to include an enemy which doesn't approach you along a straight line which would make them harder to shoot. For example,
Curvy line: https://answers.unity.com/questions/363810/how-to-move-an-enemy-on-a-curvy-line.html
Spiral (equation): https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/16745/moving-a-particle-around-an-archimedean-spiral-at-a-constant-speed

But overall, it's a good game; really well-made for a first-timer. Good luck with your second one!

KarsonPilon responds:

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks for your feedback, I will take your ideas into consideration and will try to constantly make improvements!

EDIT: I have made some changes and the resolution should be fixed! Also added invincibility for a short duration.

[Gun-Ho City!]

It's a good start – and please continue working on it – but I have several issues with the game as it works right now. The major ones:

– The perspective is weird. It's top-down, but your collision box is flat, not just at your feet. Therefore you keep getting hit by missiles which should logically go around you, you bump your head into traffic cones if you walk too close.
– The worst offender of the above is the hospital: bumping your head into its *wall* immediately makes you enter and deducts $20. There's no confirmation screen, the interior is simply a transparent void, and you can still lose money even at full health.
– Leaving a building puts you in the middle of the road, instead of in front of the building.
– At first, I didn't understand the screen loops, and because you're standing on a road, I thought I'm supposed to explore the surroundings. That's not the case.
– The shops are the first things you see, before you even know what you're dealing with, before you even know what you're supposed to be doing. You should make it so the player at least encounters an enemy before they can reach the shop for the first time.
– It really does lag, especially when you walk onto a different terrain for the first time. What happens there? Perhaps there's some loading which can be optimised by loading gradually or in the background, instead of all at once.
– Enemies are somewhat optional. You encounter them at two exact locations, and they don't spawn unless you're nearby. They immediately walk away (which is great because you can't just stand and keep shooting them) and continue to chase after you, but you can just walk into the shop if you get in trouble and leave.
– Shooting enemies is a hassle. They shoot your oversized hitbox with perfect precision, but you have to position yourself perfectly to shoot them. If they miss, they just walk into you, and they can also come in groups and shoot barrages of bullets at once. It becomes very chaotic very quickly and you can't reasonably defend yourself.
– What's the goal? What do you achieve? Is there a victory condition, a sense of progression?

There are some minor issues to talk about, too (e.g. the position of your feet shouldn't change when you simply change the direction), but focusing on fine-tuning the details is unimportant when there are more glaring issues.

All in all, the main problem is that the game – the core gameplay – isn't all that enjoyable; at least for me.
Take a step back (put aside cash, ammo, upgradeable equipment) and consider what should be the one gameplay element to stay if you had to remove everything else. Or describe the game in one sentence ("It's a game about (…).").
"Shooting enemies, dodging bullets" might be an answer; in such case make sure shooting enemies is enjoyable, not frustrating (e.g. shoot with the mouse, make bullets larger, slow down enemies etc.) and you can actually dodge incoming bullets (limit the number of enemies, make the bullets slower). You could also spawn enemies from all sides of the map, not just from two spawn points, to make it less predictable.
But it's up to you – I'm just listing what might be viable options, but you might find out something works much better.

I hope that helped. It's a very good start, but the core design needs some tweaking.

jackwhite083 responds:

I cannot thank you enough for making this lengthy review! I am still new to the game engine i am using and i'm still figuring out what i need in my game and how to implement it.

-I am still learning about hitboxes and collision and i was not aware about the perspective issue so thank you for noticing it!
-I do not own a mouse so i never thought about using it for my games but i think now i should implement it in my games, maybe it could be optional to help me with play testing.
-One thing i am now learning about is how open world games load they're games procedually so i will learn how to do that when I am making my next large game!
-This game was mainly made for me to learn about how to create open world games so i only really uploaded this for the advice like this so i didn't add things like a story or a main goal as I wanted to move on to my next project so i can learn more.

Thank you again, it is people like you that make me want to make games :)