Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lost Escape Castle]

I faced the same problems as the other two reviewers. Couldn't find the box with the letter lock (and ended up with scanning each screen waiting for the cursor to change) and I had to watch the walkthrough to figure out Gilroy – if it's meant to represent the WW2 drawing as Stefanielouise says, then I believe it's spelt "Kilroy". No medal here either – the "medal unlocked" popup shows up, but the medal doesn't get unlocked.

I often wonder how certain tasks in your games can somehow produce a key out of a nowhere. Tasks like watering a plant. Feeding a squirrel. Or putting three pearls on a bracelet. That's the kind of thing which drags down the quality of your games towards the generic escape games the portal is filled with. Your games aren't just few screens cluttered with out-of-place clues and puzzles; they're better! At the very least, you are consistent and loyal to your setting. So why always not to logic?

This is one of your shorter games, no need to nitpick further, but what I appreciate here though, is the explanation in the beginning (exploring & twisted ankle & no cellphone sounds definitely better than "you woke up in an abandoned house and the door is locked.") Also, thanks for getting rid of the redirect in the end.

selfdefiant responds:

Thanks! I don't know about the logic. I try to stay as real as possible. I guess you are right about a necklace giving a key. I will come up with some more realistic ideas. It was just a word I came up with, no intention other than that was meant. Thanks again.

[Scary Maze]

It could have been better. In comparison with the original Scary Maze game, this one falls a bit short, because:
– You use arrow keys instead of mouse. Therefore it's not hard to follow a straight line, you don't need to be careful.
– There's no penalty for bumping into a wall, so you don't even need to be precise.
– In the original game, there was only one jumpscare at the very end when you needed to be really focused and probably close to the screen as well. Here the jumpscares are triggered at specific intervals, thus the first one will scare you, the second one might scare you, but the others are just annoying because you already expect them.

Also, the movement speed ought to be a little faster and the graphics is quite plain. But at least you were pretty creative with the jumpscares; there's a big variety of them, so it doesn't feel like you are being shown the same picture over and over. One problem here, I think the collision detection gets turned off while they're being shown, and you are able to pass through walls if you keep holding an arrow key.

Creativity2005Team responds:

I used Scratch to make it so it's not really possible to fix the collision bug when a jump scare pops up. I can improve the game I know it's long and a little boring. I will add more jump scares just because. This is my version of the scary maze game. Hopefully I will get to that.

[Kitty Cat Adventure: Block Breaker Edition]

Looking at your games, I think I recognise where they come from. :)
It's great to learn with a tutorial – but try to make the end result different. That's the point actually. You want to learn to create your own games, not to make something hundreds of others have done before. This is the result of a course section, but you made very few alterations (in all of your games actually). Ideally, after completing a course, you should look at the game and say: "I have the basic gameplay now, what could I add/change to make it a better game? To make it my own game? A *complete* game?".
There's plenty of things you could do. New kinds of bricks, more lives (!), powerups, score, different art etc. Be creative.

Tutorials are designed to teach you stuff a broad audience can put to use, so the end result is always kind of bland, short, core gameplay with little to no original elements. Even if other people don't recognise it's from a tutorial, they'll see your game is "good enough"; in other words "average", thus "3 stars".
If you want to be a game developer, especially indie, you need to sprinkle the game with something fresh, new, intriguing to captivate the players – which really just comes down to "your own ideas".

Just some advice. The games can be a good base… you simply need to incorporate more aspects you could call your own in them. Good luck in further learning.

EthanBusse responds:

I totally get and agree with you! I've been off the development path with school and work, but I've started making games without using tutorials / Udemy. :) So once I have some time off school, I'll finish the small original stuff!

Totally appreciate the support! Thanks!

[Jump ball]

For a test, it's actually pretty good! Both the music and the bouncing sound is relaxing, the difficulty slowly increases, the environment changes (well, at least the platforms do).
Just in my resolution, if you play in the fullscreen mode, the interface becomes a bit messy. Even normally, the top text ("Record.") and the green crystal get cut in a half.
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/d545ff1012de1daab534117fb6a7d436
But beside that, great job!

POTEC responds:

Oh snx. Actually this is test job for game designer post,I made a couple of days. I just needed somewhere to download it to show.I did not expect that someone will see it. UI problems related to the fact that the game is designed for smartphones(android ver link below). So I think soon I will correct most of the problems and add features (skins shop for crystals) (sorry for my English)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/p4m8txuqvjklhlw/JB.apk?dl=0

[The Arcane Archer]

For some reason, the game doesn't work for me… neither in Chrome nor in Edge.
All text in the game is missing and I can't shoot anything with the arrow (or perhaps I didn't figure out how, but it's hard with no instructions).
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/2b5fab8aacd0fc54802c1b7b51fdf974
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/e8f277cf3bf6167681a147e1a170bdd1

FeudalCrest responds:

Okay, I'm working on the string issue right now. About the shooting problem, can you specify a bit more about it? Does the arrow not shoot at all? Thanks for the feedback by the way!

[Sabrina:Adventures Of The Witch Cat (Demo)]

I think it could be good if you continue working on it, but so far it's just bare bones with some problems.

– The camera doesn't catch up with you which means you are constantly running close to the right edge of the screen. And you are so fast there's almost no time to react to possible danger. I guarantee you everybody who played this game for the first time died by running into the first zombie.
One time I even encountered a bug when a zombie supposedly killed me (the camera stopped following me), but I didn't die and could move around fine.
Also, there's no need to fill 50% of the screen with the ground - I'd much rather see what's above me.
– The controls for a platformer game have to be really good, but they feel a bit stiff.
For instance, you have no control of your jump. It's always the same arch. Take an example from Mario - there's some standard jump (going right and jumping), then a long jump (running right and jumping), but you can also slow down mid-air or even jump backwards a bit (jumping and pressing/holding left mid-air).
In this game you can't really make precise jumps, you often have to go back a bit to be able to jump to the exact spot you want. E.g. you jump forward more than up, so if there's a zombie right next to you, you die by ramming yourself into it.
– I don't know what the blue blob is, but if it's there to prevent you from going too much to the right (and almost always kill you), then there are better ways to do it (e.g. a huge rock in your way).
– Sometimes if you land on a zombie's head, it doesn't kill you, but as soon as it swipes it arms, you are dead. Either it should kill you right away, or not at all.
Also, the purple hair zombie is harmless.
– I don't think the idle animation is necessary. If you run somewhere and make a tiny pauses for the camera to catch up to you (or to wait for the zombie), the cat slowly reverts to it's idle state every time.
– If you are going for a spooky atmosphere, a rotating cat flying off the screen spoils it a bit (main character's death in a horror should be scary, not comedic).
– The game probably should restart by itself, not wait for you to press R.
– If a zombie falls from a ledge, it doesn't fall nearly as fast as the cat (→ inconsistent gravity).

Having said that, I can see the potential in this game. The spooky atmosphere is done quite right (also pretty well supported by the music), the cat's moving animation looks good and the snowing is a nice addition.

monkeypantyhose responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I'm gonna to work on all those points! Oh and that blue floating is a spell that the female zombie does(i know i know.... zombies don't do spells ), probably can't see it cause of the camera. And yes this is just skin and bones. I didn't wanna make a whole project just like this level and then have to implement the changes all over the place.. so this is just for feedback. Glad you liked the concept. And opening unity now....

[Hungry Worm]

The controls feel a bit unresponsive. Sometimes they won't react and this is the kind of game when a wasted time equals death. For example, try to make tiny squares with the snake, either you aren't going to stay at the same spot or you will go way off when an arrow key doesn't respond.
If it's not possible to make a turn at a moment (e.g. you are leaving your current tile), the snake should turn as soon as it becomes possible.

Also, since it's entirely a keyboard game, it should also be possible to restart it just using the keyboard. Here it returns you back to the preloader, you have to click "Play" and then also "Start" every time you die.

christianeugeniovgs responds:

Controls are a lot better now, im going to keep polishing them though.
you can press any key to start.

[Slavery Triangular Trade]

Well, at first I thought it's going to be just another plain idle clicker game, but very soon I was proven otherwise. This game actually requires your attention and was fun, especially in later stages when everything became a bit intense. The game's topic is also interesting, you don't see originality very often in this genre. By the way, the "Science !" popups were quite funny, too.
What I think you should improve though, is the graphical interface. In online games, you have just a couple of seconds to impress the player and both because this game has a slower start (before you get the knack of making money) and the GUI doesn't look that good, some people might just quit.

E.g. the menus are somewhat simple (plain text in semi-transparent boxes), try to decorate the buttons slightly and choose some kind of captivating background for the title screen. But the thing which quite bothers me, is the unnecessarily large log area which covers a part of the map (which is not used, but still) and the ships which sail below it all the time.
Also, in later stages you don't have the time to properly read the log, but messages pop up in high frequency. I'd suggest you to keep the text, but assign a specific colours or use icons. You can't possibly read all the messages, but because they are generic and repeat themselves, all you need is to register what kind of message it is through your lateral vision.
For example, if you saw some red text appear in the log, you'd immediately know either slave or soldier died without even reading it. Or something like "(red) ▼ Tobacco: By order of the king, prices of tobacco dropped by 20 %.", "(green) ▲Sugar: Fire in sugar factory.". Just try to make the messages recognisable at the first glance and, please, resize the oversized log area.

Just one thing that came to my mind now is that the ships sometimes bundle together and sail in one large group, so instead of constant, steady flow of goods, you get one big haul of goods which most probably won't fit in your warehouse and then several seconds of nothing. Maybe you ought to place the ships more evenly on the trade route.

In the end, there's also something like "You completed the game in 6 months, 46 years" which should probably be reversed (months aren't as important as years, which is why the years should come first).

But anyway, as I said, it's an interesting, quite enjoyable game; well done!

Sebbernery responds:

Hi !
Thank you very much for your review and your advices. It's very valuable for us, game developpers (especially for me as a beginner). I'll try to update the game later using your advices.

Thanks again !