SquizofrenicCat's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[The 1000]

Extremely interesting premise for this game. I really appreciate the pad support, simple yet readable graphics and the effort that went into making it smooth, scalable chaos. The usage of the Newgrounds userbase as a generation of mook companions is an incredible idea. I actually had Tom Fulp himself come up and heal me before charging into the frenzied frontline, never to be seen again.

My one gripe with this at the moment is that, past the 10-15 minute mark, it turned into a hardcore idle game for me. Once the NPC infighting reaches the equilibrium there's nothing left to do but sit your character back and watch as the enemy healthbars slowly get bigger and inevitably push your army back. Basically I left the game running and checked every now and then, and after 1 hour I autonomously made it to top 3 of all time somehow. The game could instead just end with a boss - I saw there was one past the 1000 mark, but he just got deleted - The current "infinite" survival mode could be an unlock or a different option.

All in all, very promising work that feels inches from something groundbreaking. You totally could (and *should*) capitalize on this game concept before it gets stolen, it's a very fun premise that you can still refine quite a bit; more skills, on site constructions like towers, bosses, stuff like that. The userbase sampled mook generation could work on other platforms too; Steam comes to mind.

jefvel responds:

Thanks for the thorough review! My idea originally was sort of a territory regaining game, where you secure bases by adding NPCs to them, but had to cut down on the scope quite a bit. I’ll hopefully build on this in my future games though,with more content and less idling! Been quite burnt out lately so gamedev has been on hold sadly.

[Type Help]

It pains me to give this such a low score considering it's meant to be a submission to showcase and boost Ruffle (which is awesome in that regard), but unfortunately as a game it struck me as poorly tagged, designed, and presented. Clicking the Flash Forward badge at the start also made me unable to press the play button, forcing me to restart.

If you really wanted this to be presented as a user sandbox, it should definitely have been more straightforward and honest about it. Maybe the player could have started in a hallway with doors and could pick/enter any of the adventures within, maybe the first adventure (the one you've made) could have forced the player to interact with a "game-like" anomaly to get out of the cell, thus properly introducing the concept, but it just doesn't do any of that.

The "4th wall metagame commands" is something that just gets thrown at the player, completely for free, making it confusing at best, frustrating at worst. You penalize any sort of immersion the player managed to achieve in the first segment by forcing them to suddenly start using meta logic when it wasn't needed before. The game is straight up dishonest, as sometimes there are things you can look at that aren't listed (like the ceiling and floor on the cell), so I stopped playing.

An imp asking for an apple in a forest does not make it sound like I have to open a cheats menu, it should have been something more absurd to force the player to reevaluate what is being demanded of them.

The Red Demon "riddle" is some of the worst designed puzzles I've ever encountered in a text based adventure, specially since "sayonara" is a butchered informal term from the US; it's not even pronounced the way the solution infers. If the demon had said "THEY always say goodbye" it would have made a slight bit of sense, but again you're penalized if you pay attention to the game. The whole thing falls apart from the courtyard on, and it really feels like trying to play along with an 8-year-old storyteller that is bored, rather than trying to enjoy a game designed by someone who wanted me to have a good time and be invested in their work.

Sorry if I dragged on with this, but it legitimately pains me to watch how much of a missed opportunity this was. It's simply beyond me how it ended up the way it is, taking the goals you had in mind (embracing user content, boosting Ruffle, making an adventure). The engine seems to work, but everything else honestly baffled me. Keeping it basic and accessible would have made this a much larger contribution, but it went batshit for really no reason, driving its purpose straight off a cliff instead.

BoMToons responds:

*sigh* Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but I, personally, deliberately, chose to "hide" the concept from the player as a surprise. I like the idea of starting a game under one impression and then slowly realizing the game is about something else entirely (ever play "Frog Fractions?" or similar games? Ever see the new show "Wanda Vision?" How about an M. Night Shyamalan film? The Matrix?).

There's probably fair room for criticism on how well I accomplished that purpose, but as a story-telling mechanism, especially in a game, I think it's legit.

One thing I didn't like about Frog Fractions was that you had to play for a long time before finally uncovering the "secrets." (I played it a couple times and quit before ever seeing the depths of it, it was only after it gained hype that I realized it was more than it seemed, and even then, I just YouTubed it). I wanted to mitigate that issue with this game, so perhaps I rushed the "turn" a bit.

Having hidden objects is pretty normal (and necessary) in text-based adventures (and revealing information piecemeal in a game is hardly "dishonest"). The mere existence of unlisted items is hardly a criticism. If they're used poorly (mission critical, or without clues/hints), then yeah, complain. But the fact that the author doesn't list EVERY little detail in the official "objects" output is a stylistic choice and can lend to the building of intriguing puzzles by rewarding ingenuity/creativity. It also helps to reduce "noise" while still partially rewarding the player for trying creative approaches.

Rather than rage quitting that you got a joke response when you looked at the unlisted "ceiling," perhaps you could have said "hey, that's cool that the author handled that!" (It feels so obvious to be arguing this point, but hey, you brought it up.)

I'll be, and have been, the first to admit that the red demon puzzle is somewhat obscure. But I also recognize that it is CLEVER! Getting lost in a weeaboo breakdown of American vs. Japanese pronunciation/formalism is, I believe, really missing the mark and assuming that everyone who plays this game shares your intricate knowledge of Japanese language and culture.

There's also something to be said about the "text adventure" genre traditionally including ridiculously obscure puzzles... ever hear of the "Babel Fish" puzzle from Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy? There's a frustrating game! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf_2faXuxEo

On the one hand you say the puzzles are non-obvious, and yet you eventually figured them out!

As for the Ruffle link "taking over" the screen and forcing a refresh... ironically, that's a Ruffle bug (that I've reported an issue for on their github and documented extensively).

I hate having to "defend" the choices I made in this game... but it's definitely not a trivial attempt at the concept. I'm actually really proud of what this game offers with its engine. Maybe my focus on making the engine actually work and be useful robbed from the introduction/story. I know it's not perfect, in many ways it's an un-polished "concept" for a game, testing my abilities and the potential for an audience out there for something like this. So, in one way, the fact that you, at least, saw the potential, means it achieved my intention on some level. Of course it sucks that you ended up, ultimately, frustrated and disappointed... but maybe it will stick with you enough to help me refine it (as other, similarly disaffected reviewers have done), or maybe even take a stab at making something similar yourself, but to do it "right" and see what kinds of challenges that endeavor presents.

Thanks for the thorough review, I hope my candor in my response isn't too off-putting!

[SNEK: The Game]

Pretty cute simple toy, it's an interesting take on the classic Snake as you attempt to slow the progress to survive rather than aim at getting as large as possible. Of course, the problem with this premise is that this version of the game may never end, being designed as a ranked time trial, unlike the original title where there was a maximum length any player could achieve to end the playthrough (which was the well defined challenge that kept people playing it).

I cannot say I enjoyed the aesthetic very much. Mechanically, it stayed faithful to the classic nokia-3310 LED matrix, while the spritework for the snake/background/assets were very detailed; the choppy transition between each position on the grid contrasted a lot with the art direction to me. I feel there could have interpolated/animated transitions to make it look much more pleasing to look at.

I also did not understand why columns/lines of potions were classified as a single entity; probably to make picking them up easier. Maybe this could have been a different sprite that connected the flasks in some way. The way it is, the pickups seem independent, even though they aren't, and that's confusing design. As other reviewers pointed out, it's also hard to figure out what is going on at first, it took me a bit to really notice the potions reducing the size of the snake.

The Snake always seems to starts at the same position after the initial 3 second timer, with the first pickup never changing its location. This suggests that every time you start the game, you're in fact waiting 10 or so seconds before you can really start playing it. Randomizing it would be a good call, and a difficulty setting to increase the acceleration or even start the game at a higher speed would be much welcomed, I find.

Overall, it's still a funny experiment and even though I dislike time attack challenges it still got a laugh out of me. The music was a good choice, too.

Aprime responds:

At first I was going to reply to each of your points on why it was the way it was, but really, regardless of the reasons I did things this way, you're right - every single point you made.
I should get you to review everything I make, in fact, feel free to help yourself to my old work. Cheers,

[Karrion Killer]

Fun game, I enjoyed the controls of it. Very lenient with input, felt very responsive. Great work with that!

I think the creepy/fleshy art direction was very good for the theme, nice music too. However, the color scheme was absolutely putrid, and not in a thematic way. All enemies were shades of green, and would drop green splats, and also shoot green projectiles. In the later levels, the contrast no longer exists with all the mush; it becomes difficult to make out what is happening. Had contrasting colors been applied a bit better, with different colors for live enemies and for background splat details, it would have made the game less gross (mechanically) near the end.

Some mechanics like the enemy strength escalation and HP gain from Combos felt very off. It's very counter intuitive when the enemies up to a certain point simply deal 1 HP, then suddenly the bag head enemy takes away 3 HP and kills you instantly in the event you did not arbitrarily expire a combo to gain extra health. This got extremely confusing to me until I played a few more times, but it didn't feel like any sort of discovery, just that the game rules were being shown in an obtuse way.

Also, the game did not register my highscore, so that made me sad too. In any case, I still played the game to the end with a score of 12543 so obviously you guys definitely created an engaging work to say the least. I don't think I'd like to play it again, though.

ProsciuttoMan responds:

I think you've provided a largely fair assessment of the game, certainly.
The green colour scheme for enemies was chosen primarily just so that they stood out from the background and so the protagonist and the enemies could be easily distinguished from one another, and the baghead enemies are sort of meant as a much greater challenge compared to the rest of the game's cast.
I'll keep this in mind for future work :D

[Overlord's New Mansion]

Congrats on the engine! It's pretty smooth, and runs pretty decently.

As for the review; the game is tagged as challenging, obviously, but overall the only reason that it felt like it posed any challenge was because of the process of getting used to how the character moves. Acceleration and Inertia are both strange to get used to in this game. The dash being a stop and quick precision move, into no momentum into free fall, was not very fun to me. It is something you simply have to learn to control because it is its own problem entirely, and once you get it down it's not very rewarding or cool to do (unlike something that would simply propel me forward in an arc for instance, or straight down if I held down before pressing the dash). The box puzzle (which I'm glad only showed up once honestly) kept inertia for when you jumped, so you kind of had the worst of both worlds on display for the player with that in my opinion.

The level of precision doesn't match how the heavily armored Overlord looks, specially since he's really speedy on top of it. A lot of the coins felt unnecessarily finicky to get. You could easily dash by without actually picking them up, which again doesn't feel fitting when you're a big armored dude. I also feel like a lot of the challenges were purposely designed to lack rhythm a lot of the times to get people killed, which is fair game, but considering movement did not feel very good to me it simply did not make the experience enjoyable.

In any case, the game still grabbed my attention until the end and I got every coin + the golden armor. I suppose this means you definitely did something right, but I definitely do not wish to play it again, lol. Congrats on doing every asset, it all looks very solid, and ghost girl is cute.

saantonandre responds:

Thanks for your review, you did hit most of the undeniable soft spots and I'm well aware of them all since I didn't miss a single comment. I will treasure the all the critiques and keep them in mind for future projects. Thanks I appreciate the compliments on the engine and assets :)

[Wrath of Nightmare]

Considering this is basically a tech demo for your GB skills, I think you did very well specially since it is ported here on the web. Great job on that.

As a standalone game without any context, it is a bit lackluster. It's easy to get lost on what to do next if you stop paying attention, as there are no indicators of what Quest Item you are holding currently. It's also hard to keep track of the names.

I'm not sure if there was a pattern for the Lost Woods esque segment, but it seemed to be about Brute Force and memorizing the path (iirc original Lost Woods had an amplitude shift on the music for when you were next to the incorrect entrance); this made me almost fall asleep. In fact, a lot of the game seemed to have brute forcing and exhausting dialogue options, which is not a design I can say I enjoy.

The audio unfortunately was hit and miss; the snare in music that played in the village felt very grating for instance. I'd complain about no mute, but this is a GB tech demo.

To improve a game like this I'd add more dialogue per event to make brute forcing less painful, a map, a way to show the current item, and maybe a character log. I believe the map and the item display could fit in a "Start" menu. I'd also try to implement the audio cues for the Woods in some way.

TheEnkian responds:

A menu for quest items is something I'd like to add. Definitely a good addition. As for the woods area, there's actually an NPC that Jason directs you to if you speak to him outside of the woods and you can eventually find a guide for the way through. I left in the ability to brute force it if people wanted to rather than make that NPC mandatory.

I think my mistake with the village snare sound is that music was the last thing I added so I didn't spend an awful lot of time listening to the snare during testing. I can replace the song with something more fitting.

[Puzzle Crafter]

I played the puzzles, or adventure mode as you call it, they were pretty cute and relaxing. The music sets the tone for an easy-going atmosphere. That said, I'm not really sure what this game is trying to be, specially with the the mini game section and unlocks. It really feels like a little showcase of random stuff you've been practicing all packed together, and I guess it all kinda works at the cost of being very simplistic. I can't give much direction as to how to make it much better gameplay wise.

Sadly the audio mixing was not good, the booster platforms exploded my ears first time they showed up because they are much louder than other things. Also a big loss on the score from me is due to the level browse buttons that open external pages without informing me they're going to do that until I click them. Always be upfront about that stuff, like put a Google Drive icon on it or somethin.

larrynachos responds:

The original game idea was the level editor tbh. I like making level editors, and this was probably my most successful attempt. The adventure mode is just a demonstration of the mechanics. I'm not a very creative level designer, so I knew adventure mode would be lackluster. I was hoping to get more custom level submissions from the community, but I've only received 2 small submissions so far. I made the minigames section because I love minigames. It's a great opportunity to test smaller mechanics in self contained environment, instead of making a whole game based on a small mechanic. I also try to include medals and scoreboards in my games, to keep people coming back.

I'll have a look at the booster volume, it didn't really strike me as bothersome until the adventure mode level that used them. Thanks for letting me know! And good call with the google drive icon. I originally wanted to have an iframe element that would stay within the game so you could browse and submit in-game, but I didn't get it working in time. I'll revisit it and try to get it working for the next update!

Thanks for the feedback, you've been very helpful :)

[Graphing Tool]

I like the initiative, with some more refinements this could be really cool, in particular it is lacking a good interface for the user input. Unless I have the Math Object docs on me it's not very useful, these could be provided in the Gadget. It's also missing labels and units for the Axes in the data plot.

There could be some buttons for functions that return valid point data to the plotter, at least. This would have the user just press buttons and combine them for different results. The way it is now it's easy to misuse it to just parse JavaScript as opposed to plotting Math stuff (which is the purpose of this Gadget). Typing ;alert(''penis") was like the first thing I did.

mabell responds:

Yah, it just evals javascript and graphs.

[Interstate Drifter 1998]

Interesting concept and art design to go along. Particle and drift effects are really nice too.

Though, I gotta say I don't dig the camera always being centered on the vehicle with almost analog precision while controlling direction is digital, I found it easy to get uncomfortable specially when picking up speed since it felt unresponsive regarding where I wanted to go vs where the car was going (which yeah, is the game, but I don't feel the camera should assist in disorienting me). I feel if the camera just stayed still and making sections of the level change it could work better, at least for me.

Sound effects are very good, the music you picked really sets the mood.

Sadly I came across a bug in the 3rd section of the LVL2 Highway (I think) where my car just kept going Out of Bounds from level start until the camera reached the end, where then I just kept going Out of Bounds until my run ended.

UltimoGames responds:

the car switches direction, and the car physics follow along. It may take awhile to get the hang of it, and some people just don't feel it. I will fix the bugs, I am glad you like some parts of the game! thanks for the review SquizofrenicCat!

[Pico Radio]

Everything, by everyone.

deathink responds:

it sure is