Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Ketch Up and Down]

Wow, it's a well-done game. "Hardcore vertical Flappy Bird?" :)
But honestly, there are so many additional mechanics, like different kinds of food to collect, gradually losing jump power, danger at the top and bottom of the screen, changing orientation.

On PC, if you use the mouse, I'd make right-click change the orientation, so you can play without using the keyboard at all.

Edit: Of course, you have my permission. There's no "copyright" for ideas and all reviewers mostly want to help you make the game better. So, yes, definitely; you're free to use any idea the review might have given/suggested to you.

Max-B responds:

Tnx Rallyx,

Something like that ...

I like the mechanics of Flappy Bird however hate the direct and dumb game cloning.
So I've mushed it up with my own shticks :)
The aim was to have as less controls as possible thus i decided to toggle one button for side movement.
At first I made spiky platforms slide down but found out that game play was a bit linear so i decided to add another item to collect upon reaching the top or the bottom, to make it more challenging :)
I like your input about making the right-click change the orientation, i might even implement it with your permission ;)

[missed messages.]

Sorry. Uncaught exception whenever I try to start the game, and since you disabled exceptions in build (resp. they're disabled by default), it doesn't say anything more specific.
Does the game work for you? If not, do you want to upload it again?

I can't say anything about the game now, but as for the menu:
– Quit button is pointless in a WebGL game
– The music is pretty loud until you lower the music volume

But judging from the screenshots shown on Steam, the game looks gorgeous.

---

Edit: The game was updated and works now.

zephyo responds:

Yea it works for me across browsers and devices, that's weird! Can you let me know your browser? Also I enabled exceptions now

[Sneaky Rooftop Escape]

It's so great to see you try new things – and the game turned out more than fine!
I hope you liked working with Unity and we'll see more of your games made with it in the future (especially since Flash ends in 2020 :) ).

I dig the little details like items moving to your inventory when you collect them, the interactive rotating cube, or the animated menu. You could also make the "orange levers" animated, too, so they would move gradually, instead of just shifting to position.

One thing I'd suggest about 3D adventure games, though – add a way to highlight interactive items. There's a lot of detail in the background and literally anything could be interactive (doors, windows, posters, mailboxes, plants, cocktails…). Add an outline ("outline diffuse shader") on mouse hover, show its name in the text box, change the mouse cursor to "hand" (Cursor.SetCursor)… anything.
But it's not fun to have to click on everything in a scene. I've said it about your "asylum" games before and there, the objects usually seem out of place somehow (different perspective, size, lighting)… here everything looks like it fits in the scene and the collectable/interactive items just don't stand out.

The text is a bit blurry. Perhaps it's because it's resized, perhaps there's a wrong filter used. Would this help?
https://youtu.be/ccYJOT7bUUY
Or try TextMesh Pro which renders the text in a better way and allows you to use more complex text effects:
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/essentials/beta-projects/textmesh-pro-84126

Also, I'd try antialiasing to see if it improves graphics. For example, the policeman has jagged edges which don't look too good when he's moving. Post-processing effects can also help you improve the overall feel – if you wanted more vibrant colours, for example.
https://youtu.be/IkRMMcPBFsc
https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/PostProcessing/wiki

I'd fiddle with the shadows settings in Graphics and on your lights, because now some objects look like they're floating – see the postbox. The shadows should start where the objects touch the ground.
https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/83596/why-are-shadows-not-snapping-to-the-objects
Ambient Occlusion effect might also give the scene a more "natural" feel.

And finally, it's absolutely possible to add medals and scoreboard to Unity games… I've done it a couple of times before. You need to enable the new API in Project System and then continue from here:
https://bitbucket.org/newgrounds/newgrounds.io-for-unity-c/
There's a working example for unlocking medals on the page. There's no scoreboard example, but it's very similar to that.

I wrote more than I thought I would, I hope it was helpful. :)
Good luck with your future games! I'd love to see a low-poly asylum game at some point. :)

selfdefiant responds:

Wow, thanks for all of that! I will definitely be following your advice. Many, many thanks!

[Don't burn your asshole]

Weird game… but that's probably what makes it more appealing.
I like that there are multiple endings for every step of the process, although neither is terribly surprising… but I wish there was a command like "Wait" which would discard the remaining time and let us see the ending straight away.
Thanks for the to-do list, because I would be completely lost without it. The commands are rightfully quite bizarre, and before I noticed the list, I had been trying commands like "walk left", "lie down", "use coffee", "help" which of course didn't work. I'd mention the to-do list in the in-game instructions though.

I think the in-game text seems a bit too stretched horizontally. And the input field absolutely should auto-focus because it's a bit annoying, having to click on it every time even though you normally don't need to use the mouse.
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/UI.InputField.ActivateInputField.html

The tragedy and the true horror of this game is that I now know the process of self-administering an enema and I actually looked it up to see if you got it right. Btw, is it a "nosel" or a "nozzle"? :)

Edit – Great, I bumped the rating up. The title screen still has a typo though ("Perfiorm"). :)

Booanimation responds:

Thanks for the Rallyx I really appreciate the feedback! Just finished working on your suggested edits the input field is now on autofocus and fixed the text as well as adding the additional instruction. :)

[rush]

Pretty good.

At first, I was annoyed that every death sends you back to the start, but it seems like the level order is random, so it doesn't matter that much. Although some levels are harder than others, so there's some luck involved, too.
I'd experiment with the right click to see if the game would be better if you could also turn into the opposite direction depending on where you click (i.e. turning clockwise when clicked in the right half of the screen, anti-clockwise for the left half).
Sometimes you can get stuck when you run into a wall and then you can't slide along it, but have to return a bit which is time-consuming. Would assigning a zero friction physics material in Unity help?
One time I finished a level with zero seconds left and died instantly when the next one loaded (before the additional time could be added).
I also think you could zoom in a bit, because usually, the level takes up only roughly a half o the screen. If the levels get bigger or more complicated, I think I'd appreciate being able to rotate the camera (e.g. by holding the middle mouse button and moving left/right).
The sound effects seem pretty muffled in comparison with the loud music.
And technically, it's possible to get the same level twice in a row. I'd prevent that from happening.

An idea for a new game mechanic might be moving up/down or being unable to stop moving in some levels – but introducing new mechanics is harder when the level order is random. But there could sometimes be an optional collectable item in hard-to-reach locations which would replenish your time. Or multiple connected islands. You decide if any of these would improve the game.

Overall, it's a pretty fun game for a while. I'm not sure about its replayability, which should be the main concern in an arcade game. Perhaps randomize more things than just the level order and put something interesting at fixed milestones (e.g. a larger level at 5th, 10th, 15th (etc) level milestone) to give you something to look forward to.

swoopae responds:

Thanks for your feedback! I considered adding a level editor and the community levels getting randomly selected. I'll probably implement most of these in the next update, highschool exams kinda taking my whole life rn.

[What to do?]

Good idea. I got the message without reading the explanation, but it took a few minutes because I was looking for some sort of "secret ending".
I think the execution could better – the Wait button should be always at the same position on the screen for convenience, but you could add fade-to-black transitions for even more waiting. Also, the button gets focused if you click on it and afterwards you can just hold enter to cycle between the texts super fast – which probably isn't what you want.

janosbiroleite responds:

Thanks.

[Tap Tank]

It's fine… but starts being repetitive pretty quickly. I could keep going for a long time, but soon enough it starts getting boring. No new elements get introduced and it doesn't get progressively harder.

Because you can only skip between platforms in one direction and the skipping is fairly slow, you also can't reliably collect every gem which appears on the screen even if you try.
Additionally, the score count is too small and harder to read, and the YouTube link in the menu points to the wrong game. But you'd frankly leave a better impression by uploading *that* game here.

tiago018 responds:

obrigado vou melhorar

[The Wizard's Scroll]

Quite enjoyable game, but not without problems.
I like the style – nice art, catchy music, the sounds are okay. It's an action game rather than a platformer because your movement is rather slow (in comparison with other platformers), so this is not a game which should require you to make complicated jumps or react quickly – which shows the most in the boss arena (trying to quickly jump between platforms, or jumping from the edge of one isn't exactly the simplest task).

Slowing down the player when you charge (or hold) a big fireball is the right decision, but in my opinion, shooting small fireballs shouldn't slow you down at all. That makes shooting while jumping more difficult than it has to be.

I feel like there's a slight problem with pacing – the beginning is okay, the end boss is hard, but the middle part starts getting boring after a while. Occasionally, a new enemy gets thrown in, but the difficulty doesn't really change. I remember thinking "how long will this keep going yet?" roughly in the middle.

I don't know about the crystals. First, if you right-click, you shoot all at once for the number of crystals you have – not just one per right-click (completely unnecessary for every enemy except the boss).
Obviously, you want to save the crystals for the boss battle, but during my three playthroughs, I always managed to die on my first attempt – which means all of the crystals are gone. Perhaps save the current amount of crystals when you pass the checkpoint, so when you die, you only lose the crystals in the current section? Otherwise, I don't see much point in collecting them.

As for the pixel art, I noticed the pixel size isn't consistent. Sparks from the crystals and the flames are smaller than the individual pixels in the walls. Then the "charging" panel and boss's health have round edges and the ball of fire returning you a safe location isn't pixelated either.
It's not *wrong* to have an art style like this, it's just not what some would call ‘true’ pixel art.
Also to me, the solid black tunnel at first looked like an entrance to another location because there was no door nor a portcullis to block it.

And after defeating the boss, the game promptly kicks you back to the menu as soon as you leave the area. That is the video game equivalent of "Fuck you". Add a final, 'reward' chamber, or at the very least show an ending screen. It took some effort to get to the end – but you don't celebrate the victory.
That's like meeting the person who won a race and being like, ‘Okay. See you next time.’

Uh, and you also got in one of the most common problems with Unity games on this site – if you use "Standard" WebGL template instead of "Minimal", you have to add 38 to the vertical resolution of your game in Project System for the footer, otherwise, your game gets cut off slightly.
And since this is Unity, you could potentially save the player's progress between playthroughs in PlayerPrefs if you wanted. I. e. adding a Continue button to the menu. Just for convenience sake, but this game isn't that long to make it a necessity.

But overall, I think it is a pretty good game.

IceDrumGames responds:

Thank you for this review. Yes, my game has all mentioned problems. I will try to fix them as soon as come to the computer. Thank you for critisizm.

EDIT:
-Fixed slowing down the player.
-Fixed immideatly fireball for crystals. Now it's just one per click.
-Added EndGame screen.
-It's still not "true" pixel art but now without round edges.

Again, Thank You for advices.