Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Enkid]

A neat game!
I like the idea, it might be a good base for a great platformer game if you decide to invest more time in it. It is probably the best you could have accomplished in such a short time frame.
Some things you might consider improving:
– There's a lot of walking on dirt. I completed the game and didn't feel like there was any challenge, any real danger. The jumping was quite ordinary and enemies (just one kind of enemy) ceased to be a problem when you became able to shoot. So maybe… more enemies? More kinds of platforms? More sources of water (e.g. rain, waterfall, geyser)? Health? Whatever you want.
– The third guy is probably slow by concept and that is fine, but remember to speed him up a bit if you decide to make the levels more challenging (or it's probably going to be a bit frustrating)
– Play a sound when shooting fire?
– (Just a personal note) It's helpful for some players if you can avoid using "Z" as a control key, because in whole Central Europe (and few other countries elsewhere) "Z" is switched with "Y" on keyboards and that makes controlling the character a bit unfriendly.
– I found water that didn't kill me:
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/68d78bcaebf563d16d7ddbd2d3730981
– A game-breaking bug that made me start the game over. If you step on breakable platform and let it break and reappear, it won't break for the second time (it seemed like more platforms were generated on top of each other). In this particular situation, you won't be able to proceed further:
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/e22cf32674a0a094407395ee90915296

Hope that helped a bit and good luck in the competition! :)

leronir responds:

Wow, nice review!

I really appreciate your time to write it all down. We noticed dthe breaking platform bug, but assumed it won't be a problem, we're so wrong haha.
We will let the game fastest in general, increase the speed of all characters, we just can't do it while the game is on trial, because it wouldn't be fair.
Also, we really want to improve the game design and level design in general, your notes will be considered to do that.
I didn't know about the "z" "y" button, originally it would be "x", maybe we change back.

Thanks for your feedback!

[Epic Adventure]

Well, that's an improvement! In the interface, atmosphere, game mechanics… yeah, I'm looking forward to the next game. Some other stuff:

• I definitely didn't think about "borrowing" a torch from king's castle. Well, a tip for the next time. Also, let me appreciate that now your walkthrough button links directly to the video, not to a list of all videos

• You can't close either of that king guard's dialogues

• Nice Majora's Mask reference… kid with sword and shield = adult :)

• There were some things you've probably prepared for the next chapters (colourful flasks, water/raft, cart, horse), but their descriptions hint you should think about them in the current one ("how do I smash the stable's lock, so the horse can move the cart?") – which is not necessary yet

• I'm highly suspicious about dragon eggs that almost never hatch. :)

• How do shields work? I tried "blocking" an attack from the slime, for no effect
↑ About this, if you plan to make combat more common element in this series (as I would assume from the shop and the level system), you might want to consider improving the combat mechanics, because "click until it's dead" gets quite boring after some time. Something simple, really, e. g. adding three icons hovering over enemies' heads: „slash“, „stab“, „block“ (+ „toadstool“). Just to make things a little more interesting, while still maintaining the overall adventure feel.

Hope that helped a bit, good luck with the next chapter. ;)

selfdefiant responds:

Thanks! That was a lot of help. :)

[Survive Day 2]

It really is a strange island.
There's an aztec disc with germanic runes and non-aztec numbers next to an indian temple and a tribal village. The moon stays always at the same spot in the sky no matter which direction you look, enlightening a sun-filled beach with orthogonal palm shadows.
A true world's wonder. :)

selfdefiant responds:

It truly is a mystical place, it reminds me of a dream.

[you just gotta let it go]

I would probably gave you more stars if it had an "ending" of some kind. Now it's an interesting, emotional idea, singing while waiting for the train, but the singing eventually stops and there's nothing much to do – and nothing at all happens.
I am not eager to actually see the result of a collision with a train, but you could – for example make the song gradually louder and the train gradually quieter, then make the screen fade to black, insert a few seconds of complete silence interrupted by a train horn… maybe. It's your game, anything is good but in its current state it seems a little bit unfinished.

POTEC responds:

absolutly objective assessment. this game kinde of testing, and little chalenge to me like "Anyway you most compete some product". I see all my misstakes, but I'm glad that people are watching and do reason remarks. I dont wont work on this any more, but i think about new game and
I'm sure this will be mach qualitatively and this will be realy "game", in the conventional sense.
(sry for my english)

[Rage Quit]

Just one level?
It is an interesting concept; building a tower while dodging bullets, but you movement speed ought to be faster.

chriscost0318 responds:

I'll update the controls to be faster thanks :)

[Agrovania]

Interesting. The weird backgrounds, the music and especially the tickling clock in the first room surely support the idea of a not-very-sane person. The overall atmosphere was the best thing on this game, aside from that, it was quite simple and short. But it is definitely something you could build on if you decide to create a more complex project.

newgroundsHatesMe responds:

for the most part, i don't think short is really a bad thing. most of the games that inspired me the most were long things, but a lot of them were also very short things. I think complex systems are good sometimes, but other times they can distract from the main point of things. Right now, i'm just trying to figure stuff out, i've been doing this stuff for about a year on and off, i feel like i'm starting to understand some things better, but i like the idea of doing lots of small things to figure out bits and pieces before i try a big thing. and ambition is weird, i'd rather know roughly where i'm going with something, and stick with that, rather than fill it up with stuff that doesn't feel necessary to me.

thanks for the thoughts

[Not Real]

I'm sorry for the lower rating, but this needs more work.
While I think this game has potential and set the atmosphere quite right, there was no clever tactic to avoid/escape the creatures (also, isn't there some text written next to their heads?), you just have to hope they won't be there when you enter a room. This is much harder in the first room, because you can't leave and you need to get the key on the other side, but there's a monster blocking your way. I never managed getting past it without losing a heart.
Then there's that distorted perspective when you go up/down; but that could work if you – let's say – meant to show that your mind is playing with you (since you see some scary faces from time to time). It's quite interesting until you get used to the effect.
Perhaps some of the items don't blend quite well in the surroundings (e.g. the first key) and the music might get repetitive after a while. Also, I had to play the game in fullscreen mode, otherwise I wasn't able to move after starting the game.

Like I said, I believe this could work very well, but it needs some tweaks.

kingsirdrmr9 responds:

Thank you for the comment.

Our game was made in a very limited time; even less so than other classes had. I feel if we had a whole semester to work on it, it would've been more polished. However, we managed to give off a good impression thanks to our artwork and atmosphere. At this time, we aren't allowed to continue work on the game, as we have to do this all over again with a new game by early December.

[Yeti Run]

Alert messages are a terrible way to handle any kind of in-game notifications. They block the whole page, not just the game window, and you have to close them, so if it weren't for your menu screen, I wouldn't even be able to write this review without an interruption every three seconds.

The game itself is quite simple (so is the graphics), but it can provide some entertainment for a while. If you wanted to work on the game further, you could for example add few different models of trees (now there's just one model of everything), try to make the obstacles blend in the background more (because they don't do at all now) and possibly improve animations. Also, for some reason you begin with -1 Deaths, that's probably a bug. Good Luck.

MapleLeafGames responds:

I'm sorry and i do understand the issues, but i only made this project to have fun. I really don't care what other people think because if i like it and my friends like it, then that's all that matters to me.

P.S, If you want to get by the alert messages just press space when they come up. :)