Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Slope Xtreme]

It's a good game.
The movement is enjoyable, it's visually appealing, and plays smoothly. There are various obstacles introduced as you go on, and there are even quality-of-life features like marking the spot with your previous record.

But my biggest issue by far is not being able to see where I'm landing. Countless times I missed the ramp or bumped immediately into an obstacle because the ramps are obscured by the ball or the cyan trail behind you.
And since you don't have extra lives or anything, and even the initial area is not a safe zone, missing a jump or bumping into an obstacle is fatal. And after roughly fifteen tries and at least eight early deaths, I sort of lost interest.

Also I initially opened and tried the game on your website on a phone, and while it allows you to start and play and the controls respond to taps, it is definitely not playable that way (you're too fast to react well on a phone, and the launch key still mentions the spacebar).
If it's not meant to be played on a phone, consider showing a warning / disable the game when somebody reaches your website and is not on a desktop computer.

Edit:
Yes, it's genuinely much better now! I played a few rounds, and no death felt “unfair” and I was able to get much further. I updated the rating. Thanks for listening to feedback!

(Also, just in case you didn't know about it, Newgrounds has a built-in achievement/scoreboard system you can use to lure more players in:
https://www.newgrounds.io/
https://github.com/PsychoGoldfishNG/NewgroundsIO-Unity/wiki )

m9think responds:

Thanks for your detailed feedback! I've made some adjustments to improve the gameplay experience based on your comments. Hopefully it feels better now! 😊

[Bonefields]

This is a really fun game, and quite well-polished for a prototype.
I love the gradually expanding ability pool based on abilities you've already collected and all the new enemies introduced along the way.

I would overall increase the size of the UI, the tiny pixel text is hard to read, but the icons are small, too, so I didn't really pay attention to the UI at all with the exception of level-ups and health.

I wrote some comments during my first playthrough, and then my second playthrough contradicts a few points, but it might be useful for you if I keep the first-time player experience up.

FIRST:

I suppose I'm missing some kind of emergency abilities, something to use when you're in a pickle to either escape quickly or clear enemies.

I'm spending most of the game running in circles to control the crowd – the best AoE damage dealer seems to be the poisonous breath, but to use it effectively, I need to get close enough to likely get hurt.

And when I know I'm in danger (low health), or the path is blocked, I can't do much about it (like dash through enemies, temporary invincibility, defend block, a health item marked on the map, manually-triggered powerful attack with a cooldown etc.).
I see "roll" mentioned on the stat screen, so perhaps that's the ability I was missing, just wasn't lucky enough to get.

3:40 minutes

SECOND:

I didn't read the controls properly the first time (I started the game and there's no time to reread stuff during the game) and didn't know about the dash.
It is of course a game-changer, now I can get out through tight spots and avoid being hit by projectiles if I know something unavoidable is coming.
That allowed me to survive much, much longer (11 minutes).

I thought it always seemed better to pick new abilities instead of upgrading the existing ones (five attacks spinning around you is going to deal more damage than three strong spades), but having five strong spades + two sheep made me change my mind.
What do you think about introducing bonuses that might combine two of your abilities? It might bring your replayability from finding cool new combinations.

Forget about wanting an ability to defend myself. I have the dash.
I instead thought it would be really satisfying to dive into the ever-increasing crowd of enemies with a powerful AoE attack and slice a few dozen. But none of my abilities seemed capable of doing that, and with half of the enemies shooting random projectiles, coming close was always a gamble.
So I had to accept I'm never going to out-damage the enemy spawn rate if I can only control the direction of attacks, not frequency. So I ran around, trying to survive as long as I could.

It was becoming somewhat monotonous towards the end. The enemies all walk the same way (no one for example goes towards you along a curve, with a dash, teleporting behind you, slightly faster to force you to treat certain enemies differently). You can't clear or thin the enemy horde too much as I explained above. So you run in circles, chipping off at the edges, and collect radishes from time to time.
I would love it if there was some goal you have to do from time to time, to make you move to a certain spot on the map instead of running clockwise along the edges for five minutes.

And could the chicken do something interesting to help?

---

As you seem new to Newgrounds, note you also have the free option to introduce medals & scoreboards which tend to drive more people to your game – and more importantly for this stage of your project will give you a gauge of how far people get before losing.

That, or "Events" (= custom analytics) can help you prototype and balance.
https://www.newgrounds.io/
https://github.com/PsychoGoldfishNG/NewgroundsIO-Unity/wiki

Thanks for this, and good luck with further development!

rumyoonomicon responds:

Wow. thank you for the playing the game. Tho yeah it really is a prototype and some stuff that is really a QoL that supposedly be there in the first place is missing, I'll have those change be added for the you and other players as well. And yes I'm new to newgrounds. I kinda want to post my game here as well. I'll look up to the links you provided with heartfelt. Thank you! :>

[Pool Smith]

A game about collecting leaves, but unfortunately, the core gameplay mechanic doesn't work most of the time (and that's not an exaggeration). The clicks don't register.
Rarely do I manage to collect a leaf – sometimes I'm lucky, but most of the time I'm walking around a leaf in circles, trying to find a better angle, yet no amount of clicking works.

That's the most important flaw which completely overshadows everything else I could say.
And there are many other potential problems:

– Presentation. Collecting leaves should feel satisfying (the entire game is about it), but when you do collect them, they simply vanish out of existence without a sound, visual effect or anything.

– When the game is over, you cannot ‘Retry’, you can only Quit. Wouldn't you rather want people to play the game again? Furthermore, quitting a web game simply causes the screen to freeze which is almost never a good idea.
‘Return to menu’ would be better, but since there's not much you can do in the menu, ‘Retry’ is the better choice.

– The leaves may land on their edge.

– When the leaves fall outside of the pool, they hover above the ground.

– I would expect the leaves to cause small waves after falling into the pool.

– The water doesn't feel like water, more like a mirror. It's not translucent, you cannot see the bottom of the pool. It's completely solid (but I understand it would be complicated if you couldn't reach the center of the pool where most of the game takes place).

– The reflected parts of the pool in the water look wrong.

– The ‘white’ leaf doesn't look much like a leaf.

– When the protagonist is a capsule (which is perfectly fine), disable the shadow so it's not obvious.

– The UI elements in the game are weirdly stretched, with blurry edges. Check the documentation about 9-slicing, it could help you:
https://docs.unity3d.com/6000.0/Documentation/Manual/sprite/9-slice/9-slicing.html

satovamp responds:

Thank you for the feedback. I am trying to sort some of those issues. The restart only restarts during gameplay which I'm not understanding and something seems to be messing up the colliders for the leaves. The build definitely came out buggier than the solution. I will update it as I fix it. ;-)

[Cut Short]

I would never predict the final sequence. Very interesting; a very cool change of pace.

But I feel like you don't have long enough breaks to return to your primary goal, and mainly you also can't effectively make sure the house stays okay. (And it also could become pretty laggy at times.)
So the best tactic is probably to try to outrun the inevitable and find the right balance between that and mowing.

A cosy game about lawn-mowing, with the most intriguing twist at the end.

AleuxGameDev responds:

Thank you for the feedback!

[Maze 1]

It's a maze game, it has a start and an end, but it's very barebones.

Everything I see just says “default” me.
Default Unity scene, default skybox, default material, probably default sun placement (why do you need sunlight at the top of the walls, but keep the playable area mostly in shadow?).
As a result, everything blends together, so my biggest challenge wasn't the maze (which can be traversed fairly quickly), but figuring out if I was looking at the left/right wall or the floor when I quickly turned around sometimes.
Please consider using something to make the walls and the floor stand out, something that is not the default grey.

Some walls don't touch at intersections, so you can see outside the maze occassionally.

If you're using planes, make sure players can't see the edges or look from the other side. Your signs turn invisible from the other side, for example.

I mentioned the capsule shadow and some effect when you reach the victory sign under your platforming game, it applies here as well.

If you're preparing a harder version of the maze, consider adding something to do as you traverse to keep people engaged. It could be as simple as collecting coins thrown around the maze to accumulate a high score. Because running around in tight corridors with nothing else until you reach the end will probably fairly soon feel boring.

Good luck!

Edit:
Sorry, by effect I meant to do anything that underlines your victory, like a final “oomph” that concludes the game.

If you simply see a sign saying “You win”, it's fairly boring, because you can see the sign even from further away and nothing happens when you reach it.
If this was a race, it would be akin to winning when you see the finish line, but no response from the crowd or anyone else when you cross it, so the runner then wonders if that's it, or if there was supposed to be something else yet.

Usually, you want to trigger something to tell the player the game recognizes the victory, a small celebration – for example, a fanfare/applause sound, particle effects (fireworks etc.), or write the “You win” text across the screen.

WindowsTechNerd responds:

I have started making games and also I wanted to make this game in one day but it was almost bedtime so even though I knew how to apply a skybox I didn't have time and also I forgot to change the lighting because I was rushing. And also please tell me what's the effect at the winning sign. I would like to know for an update. I can upload a update of this but I can't edit the project ever since I deleted It on my disk and from my projects list. By the way I used to be Roblox dev. Thanks for telling!

[Infinite Runner Afterlife]

It's mostly a challenge to stay focused on a mundane task.
The game looks nice, definitely; but the gameplay isn't super interesting.

The trick to the game is learning to jump slightly sooner than you think is necessary, because if you jump before the flame hits you, it's already too late.

Then… all there's left is repetition, as long as you are able to. The pace doesn't change, there are no new mechanics, the music doesn't change, the backgrounds don't change, etc.
If you remember to press the spacebar at set intervals, you can keep it up for as long as you wish.

Around 750 points, you realize that's all you're going to see in the game, and around 1500, I mostly decided to give up. If I made it to 5000 to get the final achievement, I would have probably quit immediately after.

Most of all, the game is missing variety, something new thrown in the mix every now and then to keep you on your toes.

Also kudos to you for adding medals and high scores, and crediting everyone whose assets you used.

KobatoGames responds:

I get what you mean. I had made it to be a casual runner where you could relax and enjoy the environment. Maybe I should make that a separate mode and try adding a regular mode as well where the speed increases and it's more challenging. This is also my first time adding medals, so it's possible I set them too high.

[Pop Dot Endless]

It's a quite simple game concept, but executed well. Fun for a while, but after a few minutes, you've seen all there is to this game, so all there is is beating your high score.

A couple of tips for improvements:

– Art consistency. The main gameplay area is a smooth circle, with a smooth yellow disc and a red bar. But, all text resembles a large digital clock or a billboard display, not smooth at all. Then, the hearts are pixel art, and the speedometer is “smaller” pixel art.
You should ideally pick a certain art style, and stick with it throughout.

– Gameplay-wise, I think there should be a way to gradually recover hearts if you play well. Or other bonus (score) or reward if you hit the bar first-try before passing through because I think you want to encourage fast-paced gameplay and should reward players who take risks instead of waiting several cycles before popping. You could also subtract a point for passing, but a bonus reward feels nicer.

– The speedometer seems unnecessary; I can see how fast it is going. The only useful information is that I “maxed out” the speed, but that's also something you can tell rather quickly.

– Hard mode will forcibly reset your current game without confirmation. I feel you should only allow switching whilst your score is zero.

– Padding. “Pause”, “Hard mode”, “Pop dot” and “Change direction” are all differently-aligned

– You could probably shorten “Change direction” to “Reverse” so it doesn't have to be two lines.

– Shouldn't the loss of life reset the speed?

– As with any Newgrounds game with a high score, consider using Newground's built-in system for scoreboards.
https://github.com/PsychoGoldfishNG/NewgroundsIO-Unity/wiki
It's one thing to try to beat your own high score, it's far more motivational to try to beat a “global” high score.

Overall it's a nice little game; thanks.

Edit:
Thanks for your response!

That's a fair point about resetting the speed; you're right, it could encourage making a strategic mistake (or overall triple the baseline for a “good” score without bringing much new to the table).

About the leaderboards, I think I forgot there were any, because I started playing for a while, and then they only show up when you pause. I didn't pause. And since I saw no NG scoreboard/achievement tab under the game, I simply wanted to make you aware of that option in case you'd be interested in it.

Eazymode responds:

TYVM for the feedback, I appreciate all of this, truly. I'm trying to learn a lot and I will definetly keep all of the things you mentioned in mind.

- I love your idea of hitting the bar first try actually super cool.

- Yeah the speedometer feels a bit incomplete I do agree haha, I was mostly trying to learn how to add animations and effects, I originally wanted the speedometer to be a bar for when you get a streak of 20 without losing life you can press a button to get life back, but decided not to.

- I'm really struggling with alignment, I need to look into how to fix that more 100%

- I tried loss of life reseting speed, it ended with making me feel whenever I make a mistake I want to reset + It almost felt encouraged to lose life at higher scores to make it easier, so I decided not to.

- I didn't use the newgrounds leaderboard, but my leaderboard is definetly global, the server might've been down when you were playing?

Thank you so much for your input man, it's my first game and im learning so much

[Pitfall 2024! Ver 1.1 Fan Made Homebrew]

Well, it's definitely a more forgiving and pleasant experience than the original Pitfall as I remember it.

The movement is fluent, it's so much easier to swing on a rope. It's also good that the rolling logs don't outright kill you but you only trip because you stumble into them all the time, jumping over pits.

The jump distance is quite short, but that's probably a good thing because it's exactly right for the spacing of obstacles, and since you can't change direction or anything else mid-air, a longer jump distance might not be that big of a benefit.

I like how you can buy more lives with a sufficient score.

I think the shrinking pools of boiling tar or quicksand expand a bit too quickly, so you have barely any time to react and your timing has to be quite precise. Or perhaps what bothers me is not knowing the exact boundary where it begins/ends (one time I ran right into a pool of quicksand which was gone when the level started).

It feels like the rainbow trail behind you should make you run faster or something; I don't feel any real effect.

As for ideas, I think the underground is a bit underutilized – or at least was in the portion of the game I experienced; it could make for a welcome change if you had to traverse several screens through the caves and some unique obstacles there.

Buckar00 responds:

Thanks for the review. I've tried to keep to the original layout of the game so all 255 screens are the same layout. You're right, it meant the jump had to be short to feel like the original.

Have you tried going back and playing the 2600 version? You should be able to find one online.

The logs are a pain there's one that's static when you run left that I hit every time. There's some definite tweaks still to be implemented.

[Space Jetz Scrollerz - mobile touch and keyboard]

It works as a game and all the elements of a space shooter are in it. But it's not polished in the slightest, and overall, it's just not very fun.

Primarily, there's so much visual clutter on the screen. Backgrounds blend in with enemies and circular projectiles, some enemies look like formless blobs, and the powerups aren't immediately recognizable as powerups (for all you know, they could be enemy missiles). Enemies also take as much as 1/7 of the screen's height, so you can't ever have many enemies at once to make some fleet formation, which is a staple of the genre.
There is too much going on so you can't focus on what's important.

Controls are fairly clunky as well, sometimes keyboard controls just don't work at all, and when they do, your movement isn't terribly fluent. You also can't move and shoot at the same time, which is half the fun in a space shooter game.

The power-ups in my opinion don't last very long for you to appreciate them, and I don't feel like the game progresses at all, as you rank up your score (e.g. by having increasingly harder or more frequent enemies show up). As a result, when the controls happen to work, and you get into a certain rhythm, you can keep it up mostly as long as you want and get a game over when you become sloppy after becoming increasingly more bored.

It's a good start, but it has a long way to go before becoming a fun game people would like to play more than once for two minutes.

ZOSUStudios responds:

Thanks for the feedback! It was made primarily as a mobile phone html game and then expanded to be playable on computers.