Ralix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[A prototype of a typical platformer]

Hi, and good luck with your platformer! Couple of tips:
– Freeze Z Rotation. Your character starts spinning e.g. when you fall or bump into the thin wall. It even makes you unable to jump if you try to balance on the top of it.
– You can dash even in mid-air. Is that intended?
– I like that the jump has different heights depending on how long you press space
– Hold left immediately after reset. The camera fails to catch up (or move "smoothly") which results in some jittering
– You can slow down your fall if you "clutch onto" the wall. Perhaps this is intended. If it's not, add a zero friction Physics2D material to the collider.

Other than than, there's not much to talk about so far, but good luck with the final product nevertheless.

ScarfPin responds:

most of them are intended but thank you for pointing out the bugs

[Hole In One : Rage Fest]

I think the best rage games are games with perfect controls, with perhaps slightly unfair challenge (e.g. ‘Cat Mario’), or just overall very difficult (e.g. ‘Celeste’ or Hollow Knight's ‘Path of Pain’). You might get some inspiration from an old free game ‘A Little Eggy That Could’ (https://youtu.be/zqGCIvG67rg) in which you're an egg, with very precise controls, but it's easy to fall and break, and the platforming challenges get quite hard and eventually, you're flying all over the place.

I had to retry this game more than I could count, but its difficulty stems from the very simple fact that it's very easy to overshoot or undershoot a platform because you can't in any way change your direction or speed mid-air. Otherwise, the game is quite fun. If you take it slowly and carefully, the obstacle course isn't even that difficult – you're just gradually more and more frustrated by the controls.
Perhaps that's the effect you were going for; I'd personally prefer better manoeuvrability which would come with a more difficult platforming challenge (narrow ledges, falling platforms, spikes, fans, invisible platforms…).

MuziksPH responds:

Thats a great idea but i have to make a seperate game for that mechanics

[Space Cat: The Search For Food]

I think the game is quite slow in the beginning, i.e. it's very simple to avoid the rocks and collect all fish, but then it rapidly gets faster and more difficult, and I'd say eventually you get to a point when it might not be possible to *both* avoid all rocks and collect all food onscreen. I died after letting too much food pass by in the span of ~2 seconds, because the food was also being somewhat blocked by rocks.
I don't know the solution to this, but from my point of view, the slow build-up is the more important problem (it's common in arcades to get to the 'humanely impossible' bit, but the game should be fun and engaging from the beginning). You could try adding a little more variety, perhaps powerups; just to give the player something more to do. For example temporarily slowed-down time, a shield (which you can use to crash through rocks), a magnet for nearby collectibles, etc.
All in all, getting and maintaining a high multiplier is more important for your score than being able to last for a long time – but that's perhaps a good thing.

popcar1 responds:

Thanks for the feedback! Your review was very valuable! I'll try making it faster at the start and accommodate for it by slowing down the rate of change. I realize the game eventually becomes impossible but I can't think of a better alternative that isn't a timer. If a round isn't 1-2 minutes long people would just get bored fairly quickly.

[3d cube platformer wow]

It's nice to see a new kind of content from you.
(Does it mean 3D Kim Possible games are coming? I'm scared.)

The cube is very manoeuvrable which makes it possible to skip parts of the obstacle course – which is good, because the last section is difficult and you're going to be repeating the beginning a lot.
I think it really should be possible to rotate the camera (or do it manually in 90° steps) so that you always go *forward*. Especially jumping back when you have no idea what's there is a recipe for failure.
Other than that, shadows would be very useful, too, because in platformers they tell you where you'll eventually land.

ZabuJard responds:

3D KIM! ITS GOTTA COME thanks for review in seriousness <3 i will add shadows to next one soon! and maybe fix camrea as well X_X

[Deep Dark Cave]

I don't know.
I like the art style and colour palette, the idea of travelling through a dark cave…
But after a while, the constant flashes started to annoy me (it's hard to watch), and when the giant flying block killed me I lost interest because I'd have to go through the entire game again (and possibly many more times).

For the latter, consider adding checkpoints. Please. E.g. a torch you can ignite.

For the former… I'd recommend you to look at the gameplay of 'Candleman', it's a game with a similar idea about a platformer with limited light. You might find it useful as a source of inspiration (even though it's 3D).
https://youtu.be/HpIihc3devs
Key thing:
– You're never in a *complete* darkness, just bad visibility. So you're not necessarily forced to turn on the light just to move around. (your previous path is even marked by molten wax)
Only when you need to be precise in avoiding gaps or see further.

I think it'd work for your game as well – make the lighter limited (perhaps add a collectable refill), but make your close surroundings visible even in the dark (e.g. dark grey). A simple way to limit to "close surroundings" might be with a black png image mask with a transparent hole in the middle enabled/disabled in the foreground.
And to make it easier to watch, I'd try to make the dark→light transition gradual, instead of just flashy on/off.

HiNiceToMeetYou responds:

Thanks for the feedback, i'll be sure to take this advice on the next version of the game.

[A TRUE HERO TEST BATTLE Alpha V 0.0.1]

The animations are incredible and look very natural.

The rest of the game… I mainly had a hard time trying to figure out how to damage the enemy without being hit yourself. He has a longer range, a vaster health pool and hits you almost every time you come close. It might be better if the enemy followed a set pattern which left you an opening in which you can safely damage him. When he's unpredictable, you have to rely on luck or cheesy tactics, which is frustrating.

Shooting from your weapon also doesn't seem to do anything. And you can still move around and jump after your health falls under zero, with no way to restart the game.

And currently, since it's still in development, the environment around the characters sucks.

It looks promising (especially the fluent animations), but so far the game isn't really enjoyable.

batitono responds:

Thanks for commenting!
I will consider everything.

[Break blocks]

All right, a couple of notes:
– Dragging the paddle with your mouse is a terrible way to control it. It's hard to figure out and you have to hold the button for the duration of the game. Just make it follow your cursor position.
– When you have a magnetic paddle and multiple balls, all of them cling to you, but you can release only one
– I'd make some blocks take more hits to break (but slow the spawning accordingly)
– Every level consist of basically waiting until you get 'Super Ball' powerup, after which you steamroll through the level. This could be balanced by the bricks which take more hits to break, so even a super ball would bounce off them.
– The expand/shrink powerups don't expand/shrink the paddle very much
– Sometimes there are too many powerups onscreen. I'd limit the maximal number which can be there at a given time (to +- 3)
– Pause button doesn't work
– Getting 'Game Over' doesn't stop the balls, so you can get Game Over and Level Complete right after that
– Sometimes the ball bounces in an almost parallel direction with the paddle, which makes it take a really long time to get anywhere. I'd perhaps restrict the minimum angle to at least 15°-30°.

So currently, it's not a very interesting game to play, because controlling the paddle is really a chore and all the blocks are exactly the same.

orangecity responds:

Thanks for your feedback!