RaIix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[LLamas Proto]

Well, okay…?
Four short minigames, but what happens after you complete them? The game is missing some sort of conclusion… be it going to other cities with new minigames, or simply a final challenge.

Also, your character is maybe going too fast, the bushes make you spin (freeze rotation on the rigidbody if this is unwanted), and you can get stuck at the borders of the screen. I checked the browser console, too, and you're constantly outputting debug numbers every frame which might be unwanted.

Drag0n1x responds:

Hey Tank you for the feedback. I recently upload a more complete version( still not the final)

[AlienRun]

You didn't differentiate too much from the GDevelop tutorial… some of your changes are making it worse – like the inability to harm enemies, or the instant death if they touch you (although I'd have accepted if you had ~3 hearts, so there's at least some room for error).
But I really appreciate seeing the level is at least complete and you can actually finish the game.
Be more creative with the level design, though, because I see the same chunks of content being reused several times throughout the level. Also the music is so ear-piercing that I had to mute the game instantly. But the rest is fine.

[My First Game]

This is absolutely incredible. Speaking as someone who browses the Under Judgement games section a lot, you managed to represent so many of the common types of ‘first games’ which appear here. All that's missing are bare-bones Construct 3 platformers, but those probably don't even qualify as games yet.
Nonetheless, I agree with you. Everybody has to start somewhere, and doing simple clones of well-known games is probably a good starting point – but I do enjoy creators who finish the templates and put a creative spin or their own touch on them before hitting ‘Publish’.

I also like the shaders you used, and the fact that the games gradually get harder and harder as new elements are introduced.

Great idea; perfectly executed.

HealliesGames responds:

I'm glad the game reflects your vision.
Thanks for the review and for playing, Rallyx!

[The Dark World]

Very good; it's a well-made puzzle platformer.
I like that at first, it seemed like you're some sort of monster… and then suddenly, you rescue a baby, which makes you wonder if it was the character's motivation from the very beginning. I now notice it's shown in the intro cutscene, but due to the art style, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it the first time around. Perhaps it made a larger impact that way.
The ending is powerful… is there just one (just making sure I didn't miss an opportunity to react)? I also like all the scripted falls, e.g. the first one when you push a wolf off the roof and crash into the car. It's a nice touch.

As for possible improvements, I think killing the wolves takes too much time and many keypresses… four or five would probably suffice. Otherwise, you have to press space around fifty times in the teleporter corridor alone.
I'd also make the game window's resolution fit the actual game – the game has quite nice, greyish art style which is however letterboxed between purple bars because of the resolution.

[The Fancy Pants Adventures: World 4 part 1]

All right, there was a bug which is now fixed, so for the proper review:

I love it. It's more of the same game we all know and like, but still, new elements get introduced and they are wonderful additions to the formula.
No need to fuss over the details; put simply, I always liked how great the platforming feels in the game. You can jump, bounce and make various twirls, and none of the other abilities (rolling, sliding, attacking, ink pen) interrupt this flow.
I also appreciate the effects (pen swipes and collecting spirals). The cat-ripping-scenery effect was also quite nice. I think this part of W4 didn't end with anything that significant story-wise (but it's good we got to test the ink pen, at least), but since this is only the first one, it's probably fine.

I kinda forgot you have a pen at the beginning which made dealing with the ninjas quite a chore. It could help to see the controls written somewhere, at least in the comments. 'S' for jumping isn't extremely common either.

Possible problems
– I'm not sure if you can take off a hat after earning it (only replace it for something else)
– I tried the gamepad option, didn't work for me (Xbox One controller). Does it only work for certain gamepads / certain platforms?

In any case, it's a great game.

[[BTNverse] There is nothing here.]

I did not expect what is going to happen when you collect the final upgrade. I think it's a brilliant idea.

I was originally going to say one-hit death is too harsh, but it's actually perfectly appropriate, especially since the stronger enemies serve as barriers until you collect power-ups.
Also thanks for adding things like the minimap, otherwise hunting for that one forgotten 'enemy' in the last stage could have been frustrating.

Really great, well done.

adriendittrick responds:

Thanks for reaching the end :)

[Learning project #1]

It's fine, but since it's an endless game, it starts feeling repetitive eventually. For me, that mark was around ~35 when I felt I'm seeing similar patterns.
Of course, it's perfectly possible to lose, but I think I could keep going for a good while if I played it safe and stayed near the centre.

From a game design perspective, endless games have to have 1) good replay value (tick), and 2) evolve over time – which I don't think this game does. And without new elements being introduced, it's a matter of time before you lose out of boredom (instead of lack of skills).

A couple of ideas:
– Over time, slowly speed up the red block, or add more of them. This is the simplest way to add increasing difficulty to the game, but it does put some upper cap on the score if you don't stop increasing since there comes a point when it isn't humanely possible to continue anymore.
It also doesn't really add anything new to the game, it just makes more challenging, but shorter.
– Add a "challenging dodge" every, let's say, 20 points; stopping all blocks from spawning for a while and spawning a scripted red block pattern – e.g. waves, or concentric circles with gaps…
Make a couple of those, at least to cover 0–200 points.
– Add a slow-moving "gold block" every once in a while which you have to pick up, otherwise you lose.

And by the way, you can have an actual scoreboard. Newgrounds has a built-in scoreboard system you can use. See API Tools in the Project System, and this:
https://bitbucket.org/newgrounds/newgrounds.io-for-unity-c/src/default/

Its-Kaleb responds:

Thanks for the tips (especially for the score board) , I will work on it more

[Blockio]

Good. A simple platformer, but the movement feels fluent and the controls are very responsive, so it's fun. The final level felt perhaps a bit too harsh and took really a lot of retries to complete.

The problem is that your score is kept even if you die, so the easiest way to get the max score is to die a couple of times and kill enemies again and again.
You should probably save the score at the beginning of a level, and reset to the value if you die.

Also, have you considered adding medals/scoreboards to your games?
https://www.newgrounds.io/
I think it would attract more players and add some more replay value.

[Jamboy CANDIE]

It's nice, I like the style and the story sequences in between the levels.
The platforming experience is all right, but mainly it felt quite unresponsive. I can't count how many times I missed a jump because double jump didn't work, and the wall jump was troublesome as well. And fluent movement and good controls mean everything in a platformer game.

But the rest of it was fine. A couple more details:
– It was unclear which key affects which door. I collected a key and pointlessly kept jumping into a door, but it wouldn't open because it needed a different key (and keys unlock doors instantly instead of requiring you to go to the door, so there's probably no need to display the key onscreen).
I'd use a matching colour for the padlock, so that you don't need a lemon-coloured key to unlock a pink lock.
– The pumpkin has an exclamation point next to him. At first, I thought it's a "NPC" and you're supposed to talk to it… well, you're not.
– The number of jams you have can go below zero when you die (and probably shouldn't).
– The arrow keys move the entire page. See here for the fix:
https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/developer-resources/unity3d-webgl-support#wiki_toc_3

I think fixing the double jump's responsivity is the most important change to make, the rest of the game is quite good.

Nesteaboy99 responds:

Thank you for your review! I'll keep your feedback in mind for my next update

[Rena Game]

I thought using pictures as bosses is the weirdest bit… then came the hoverboard bit and pizza… and the ending.

But I did like the boss fights; the first duo boss took me the longest to beat, because instant death after being hit once in a bullet-hell game is quite crazy. But I think they were the most developed of them all, with the multiple phases etc.

During the second boss in Papa John's I think I encountered a bug – the bullet ratio multiplied every time I died, and once after dying I respawned in the middle of the ground and couldn't move. And then I found out the 'Continue' button only works until you refresh the page, so I had to redo the game again.
The cheat code came in handy, but you probably shouldn't give it out in comments, otherwise nobody will play the game normally (instead, show it after completing the game, or if somebody dies too many times).

tobyalden responds:

Thanks for the review! I just fixed the continue bug.