Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Desolation: The Beginning]

It is a good game as usual, but I'm still missing some kind of deeper story that would connect the individual chapters together. Background of the protagonist, his motivation, stuff like that. You hint something in the description, but nothing from that really shows in the game.
The music is fine (could be longer so it doesn't repeat as often though), puzzles are interesting - not too easy, not too hard.
It just might be good idea to update the clothes hanger a bit, because both its in-game model and its icon in inventory are quite hard to see. Then, it would be really helpful if the map showed not just the rooms, but locked doors and their colours as well, so we can locate them more easily after finding a new key.

I've also encountered a bug which made me start the game over - if you don't get the jewel in the toilet room ("A") during your first visit, you have to restart the game, because trying to enter the room for the second time sends you to the Dues Ox screen ("C") instead.

And I think by now you must have already taken a photo of every deserted building in the country. :)

selfdefiant responds:

Thanks!! The game has been updated. :)

[Hypersphere]

An interesting mechanic with diverse modes, it would just be neat if there was a bigger tolerance for changing directions - because when you return to the centre of the cross, you must be really precise to be able to change direction, which can't be done at high speed. And perhaps not every bullet should follow the white line, so you can avoid it by going left/right or up/down and not just by changing directions. Also, the order in which the bullets appear is not random, so it can be memorised.

AlbymaioDev responds:

Thanks for reviewing!
Well...I Realized after the first level was finished that it's a little hard but I also saw that if you press the two arrow keys at the same time everything'll be ok.
About the random order... If it was random the levels couldn't be in the right difficulty order...But I'll try to implement that.
And I know player can also use just two arrows to win but I'm also working on something like wrap so if the player reaches the end of the screen it respawns on the other edge.

Again thanks!

[Playing With Letters]

This is quite amazing. Not just the brilliantly matched creepy music, which is still calm enough to let us think, but the slow-paced writing style, the clues and how they are all bound together. You give us an advice in the first clue and we have to use it in the last. Great. Also, thanks for the hints in the titles.

I can only imagine actually being there, all alone, in a dark room with a note scrawled over with letters; and using them to decrypt a final message, to have a final moment of realisation. Creepy - and awesome.
Also, I've just noticed your note about the secret ending - this kind of interesting easter eggs is something I love when they appear in a game - although sadly I wouldn't find this one if you hadn't told us about it. I will definitely be more cautious in the sequel - and yes, I do look forward to it. Good Luck :)

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Your review is quite amazing ;)
It makes me happy to hear that the music fits well, while still not being too distracting. It's also cool that you realize how much the game is connected to itself. The hints in the titles are pretty necessary I think, and there's even a hint in one of the medals :p

Awesome! It's splendid that you can imagine yourself as the detective, as that is what I was going for. The secret ending is very important, and I think it'll be the intro of the sequel once I get to it. And it was very ridiculously hard to figure out by oneself, so I kinda had to put such a link there XD

Thanks for the great review :3

[Freddy Nightmare Run]

Pretty good game. It's good the difficulty was slowly rising and that was a new element introduced in every level (well, except the fifth one). What I noticed:
- The Soul Catcher going from behind seemed like needlessly added difficulty. If you don't jump at two exact moments per level, you die, no matter how many lives you have left. That's why the first level was also the most repeated one for me - the scythe swipes somewhere in the middle (not close to the ground), so at first I didn't know I have to avoid it by jumping. A tooltip "Jump!" at least in the first level might be handy.
- Sliding takes a while to take effect, so you can still get hit by swinging axe even after pressing down arrow
- The reload time of fireballs is too long to dispose of the two skeletons next to each other AND to collect the coins that are above them
- Similar problem; you can't collect some coins blocked by the "rolling in the ground" saw
- "To be continued" - I hope so, because the last level was a bit unsatisfying (no boss battle, as long as the others, no 'ending')
But those are all just minor things, the game is fairly enjoyable as it's now.

adytt responds:

Thanks for the review, the Soul Catcher is the most easy to avoid enemy by them all, you need to jump once he arms the scythe and you escape without getting hit. Prepare to shoot imediately after you escape the Soul Catcher as you will always encounter a skeleton.
Before starting the first level an instructions screen is displayed showing you to jump in order to avoid the Soul Catcher.
Keep Down arrow key pressed longer in order to avoid rising to soon an get hit by the balancing axe.
You don't necessary need to kill the two skeletons that comes together in higher levels, destroy just one and then jump to the higher platform and avoid the second one.

[Eyebleed Hypnosis]

Really interesting idea. Although my eyes probably do bleed as I write this review, I enjoyed the game. The music matches it very well, movement speed is just fine, the background moves fluently. And there's even a fullscreen mode and a scoreboard.
What might be an interesting thing to try (or as a 'hard' game mode) to make the white balls speed up and slow down accordingly to the music's pace. Also, do your secret medals work? If there's some additional trick you have to do, then they're ok, but if it's just about getting 5000 (10k, 20k) points, they might be broken.

And, is it just me, or do I suddenly want to support jupitron as our supreme commander and world leader?

jupitron responds:

Im at your feet, my lord.

[CopterDrop]

Pretty simple game, but I added half a star for the awesome copter design.
As for things that could be fixed: make us able to start a new game also with 'space' button, so we can replay the game faster; hide the "-1 flybys" every time we start a new game and possibly make sure the orbs don't appear immediately at the beginning of the screen, because those are almost impossible to hit.

marknashproductions responds:

Thank you for your advice i fixed your issues :)