Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Shadow Grinder]

Ah, yes. The happy meal handheld games, Tiger games, Nu Pogodi game… the lamest way to make a game, but still, they did the trick when nothing else was available.

I don't recall this particular game, but I like how you framed it with the speaker and switches. The game itself looks very authentic as well (judging by the art), although it might be confusing when the 'short' platform suddenly becomes long when it reaches the left side of the screen. I also don't understand the 'S' in the top-right corner, but I presume it means 'speed' which increases over time.

Very well done. I mean, it's not a game I'd like to play for too long, but as a recreation of the original, I believe it does a terrific job.

PKTORA responds:

Tbh I'm not sure what the "S" is either. Most likely means speed.

[Maintenance]

A great game! I love how it starts, how the main menu is a part of the game. It took me quite a while to figure out what you're supposed to do at the very beginning – I assumed I need to avoid the bugs and somehow get into the rooms, which were all locked. I really didn't want to go anywhere near the scary critters, as I imagined they'd attack and I didn't want them any closer to my screen…

The individual rooms were great; I really wondered what they'd be like once I got there (by the way, if the Update function in your game does nothing, it's wise to remove it completely :)).
Although I hoped there would be some more challenge and more interesting puzzles than 'walk to everything and press 'E'', which is probably the most important thing, but I understand you probably had some time constraints.
The background noises like the people talking in the design room were a nice touch.
The inventory slot/icon design is somewhat plain and uninteresting, though.

When pressing 'Start' in the end, I had some trouble in positioning myself properly in order to be able to select it, I think the raycasts (or whatever you use there) is a bit wonky.
The final music is the victory theme from Heroes 3 – sounds great, and matches the ending, but isn't it copyrighted? If so, you should probably replace it with something else to prevent the game from being taken down.

Anyway, for a jam game, it's definitely a very solid entry, and stands well as a meta-game on its own.

boticelly responds:

Thanks for the detailed review!
I'll have to check about the music, thanks for noticing.

[Size Is Difficult]

I think it's an interesting, original concept; well-executed. I definitely did enjoy the game.
The levels are fairly straightforward, I didn't think any of them were particularly hard to figure out, but solving them in practice might have taken some time. You could consider adding new 'puzzle' levels, or, if it makes sense, action levels (i.e. moving environment or enemies would force you to act faster or more precise).

I had a slight issue with the controls. My 'jump' sometimes wasn't registered even when I was on the ground and I'm not sure why. It's also somewhat common in platformers to add tolerance for pressing jump a bit too soon (e.g. ~0.2s) before you actually touch the ground, or after walking off a ledge, for cases when the player doesn't hit jump at the exact frame.
And since the entire game can be played with keyboard except for the one horizontal size slider, I'd consider adding keys (Q, E…?) for manipulating the slider without a need for a mouse.

The character can also stick to walls if you move towards them while in mid-air – if this is unintentional, consider giving something like a PhysicsMaterial2D with zero friction to the character to avoid this to an extent.

Still, for a game jam game, pretty impressive! An original idea with a proper beginning and end, albeit slightly wonky at times.

RealGamesss responds:

Thank you so much for your comment!

[The Wow Game]

Great idea with all the rule changes and replaying the same levels differently.

thebarfyshow responds:

Thanks!

[Mad Mad Blocks]

It's an interesting original game, I don't recall seeing anything like it before, or at least anytime recently. For a first (Unity) game, I think it's awesome.

There's a lot of useless unused space on the right (since you only move up and down), you could move the red line slightly to the right. The difficulty also stays the same during your entire playthrough; I'd consider starting slow and gradually increasing the speed (to a fixed max limit). Or gradually moving the red line to the left, if it starts e.g. in the middle.
I was about to say sometimes there's no time to dodge the blocks if there's a lot of them coming in a vertical line, but it's perfectly possible if I speed up using Shift (and I love the added detail of not being able to touch the walls).
It's also generally a good idea not to restart the song when you restart a level (keep playing it with an 'audio manager' which doesn't get destroyed):
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Object.DontDestroyOnLoad.html
Although this background music is pretty monotonous so it isn't as apparent.

This game is all about the high score, too, so you could also consider adding a scoreboard (build-in in Newgrounds), so players can compete with each other. More here: https://www.newgrounds.io/
Medals and scoreboards usually attract more players.

Good luck with your future games!

Raeino responds:

Thank you for your feedback!

To increase the difficulty I've made the blocks to spawn more frequently over time (still with a random pattern), but it seems to be just slightly noticeable. Also I was worried that increasing their speed could make the game too hard, surely I had to experiment more.

Also I didn't know about Newground's scoreboard system, I'll definetly consider using it.

[My Ghost and I]

Very well done, it's a great game in many ways, with many cool gameplay mechanics, and I enjoyed playing it.
I feel like it could have a couple more levels, though. Just creatively combining the things you've already learnt. The final level introduced the interesting mechanic of possessing people in a rather simple level, which is great for showing something new but doesn't quite match the expectation you might have for 'final level'.

gmitchell28 responds:

Thanks, yeah I agree that there isn't enough levels especially for this type of game. The first 4 levels are extremely basic and more of a tutorial for mechanics so more levels would be ideal.

I had lots of plans for enemy NPCs and more puzzles but ran out of time before my Uni deadline was due (I spent far too long in Photoshop).

[Chilazer]

Not bad for a first game.
However, it's a bit too fast and gives you no chance to recover when you make the slightest mistake. I would at least make the purple enemies take like 1 out of 3 hearts, so that you have a chance to complete the level and don't have to choose between crashing into a pillar and being shot.
In countless of tries, I only got past the three pillars once (they're too close to each other), only to be immediately shot by other enemies.
Also, a pro tip – if your first-person character is a plain old capsule with a floating gun, disable the shadows on the mesh renderer, otherwise, everybody will be able to tell.

RywarGames responds:

Thank you for all the tips!

[Swingin' Reswung]

Whoa, easy with all those post-processing effects. Bloom is kinda cool, especially with so many things glowing, but the motion-blur makes it harder to see what you're doing, especially in a game like this which needs you to be laser-focused.

I've had a lot of problems with the rope not appearing when I clicked sometimes (evidenced by a plethora of NullReferenceExceptions in the console), even when I started spamming the mouse button.

I'd say 'holding' Z and X to change the rope gradually instead of repeatedly pressing and changing the rope in large steps would result in more fluent gameplay, but of course, I can't be sure.

You also don't see too far ahead (and there's no a priori warning), so until you memorize the sequence, the majority of revolving saws will probably hit you.

(Also you need to add 38 to vertical resolution in Project Settings if you use the Unity footer.)

Nicely done; I see the improvements from your previous versions, but the sometimes unresponsive controls make it more frustrating than it needs to be.

nulledwine responds:

Thanks for your feedback!

Yep I probably added too much motion blur, I'll tone it down soon.
For the rope not appearing when clicking, I'm gonna look into that. Thanks for telling me.

Dunno why I didn't think about holding Z and X.

Thanks again, I'll be working towards fixing these things.

[Convergence]

There are so many things I like about the game… the tutorial is great (brief, and to the point), shooting enemies is fun, the white/green colour contrast, the final battle with all your comrades.

However, I'm not sure about the story… it feels like I'm missing something. The dialogue at the beginning made it seem like there's a mystery to uncover – but in the end, it's just ‘kill the big bad guy’. The reason might as well be running out of time because of the game jam… but I wouldn't exactly call the ending ‘a satisfactory conclusion’. But the gameplay is pretty good nevertheless.

Edit:
Thank you for clarifying the story. I got that pandemic analogy and the importance of team effort in the end, but as for the rest… I think the main thing which undermines the "alone, hopeless" feel is the radio communication throughout the game. You're constantly talking to an authority figure who is comforting you – so you're feeling neither completely alone nor hopeless.

Imagine this: the main character doesn't have anyone to talk to, the radio is silent (in truth, you're too deep underground to get any signal). He fears he might be the last person on Earth. In hopes of leaving at least some legacy, he records his thoughts on tape (so you can basically keep saying the same things which he already says in the game).
He goes further, but there's no improvement, the enemies only get stronger. Then he runs into "the main boss" and thinks he's done for, but suddenly, reinforcements appear and you defeat it together.
At least that's how I'd go about it if I wanted to make the player feel lonely or depressed until the very end.

VascoF responds:

Thanks for the review, glad you liked it.

I guess my idea for the story didn't really end up being very clear. The idea was that you were supposed to feel alone and hopeless throughout most of the game (which originally was supposed to be longer to increase this feeling), and then at the end the player discovers that there were many teammates in the same situation, and you all came together in the end, and this would be an exciting, happy end. This was all supposed to be analogous to the pandemic situation we're facing now, it's kind of how I feel about it.

Edit: Thank you for the clarification, it's very helpful. I see what you mean; the feeling of loneliness/despair could be stronger. I wanted the radio to tell some parts of the story (and it's also a better analogy to what's happening now), but didn't have time to make a long enough game to space out the radio transmissions more, and have the player play through various days.