RaIix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[His Strange Friend]

I was about to give this a higher rating, but just when it starts getting more interesting, you end it right in the middle of a tense scene.

There are also some smaller problems… e.g. the text goes beyond the borders of the screen ("E to kick ball"), Papyrus isn't really great font for entire sentences, typos (its/it's, khow/know, lasy/lazy, dont/don't…) and the movement is pretty wonky.

On the other hand, I like the drawings and the scenes, the funny faces – it has potential.
Especially the last scene in the dark forest is very good; I love how your eyes get shifty as you walk. Also well-chosen music.
All the more reason why the abrupt 'The end' feels like it comes out of nowhere.

It this was a movie (and it is an interactive movie, really), you could sum it up as:
"An adult guy gets scared of a dog because he saw a scary dog as a child."
There's no underlying message and no proper ending.

[snake 2.0]

Nope, sorry, doesn't work again.

Is that Unity WebPlayer plugin? That won't work (it has been unsupported for years).
If it *is* a Unity game, export it as WebGL, which will work.

However, from the source code I see you're embedding "my-first-game.py" written in Pygame which almost certainly won't work through Unity. But I can play it if I download it, though.
A simple snake game, although the movement is too slow and it's harder to change directions.

To embed a pygame game here, you'd need to build/export it in a HTML5 compatible format which is going to be a hassle, but seems possible (Pyjsdl):
https://gatc.ca/projects/pyjsdl/

Or you can use Repl.it to emulate Python online:
https://repl.it/languages/pygame
If you then put the "share/Embed" link inside a index.html file. This approach does seem to be working but looks ugly as hell because the rest of the Repl.it editor will be embedded as well.

If you can get Pyjsdl working, it should be technically possible to upload it here, too; but if you want to focus on web games, I'd really suggest using a proper framework/engine which supports HTML5 directly instead:
https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/creator-resources/game-dev-resources#wiki_toc_1
Especially if you've only just begun.

Phaser or GDevelop are both pretty simple; on the other hand, Godot has more possibilities and you can use GDScript which has a very similar syntax to Python:
https://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.1/getting_started/scripting/gdscript/gdscript_basics.html

Third time's a charm, eh? :)
Good luck.

animaes responds:

Thank u so so much really I was trying to do something for ages and u helped me so much really

[Wall Clip]

I think it's a great game. A very interesting idea, very well executed. I love all the little details like tilting the screen, freezing time when you break a wall, recolouring the player when you're fast enough etc. A lot of simple things like these together make the game more enjoyable.

I'm not sure if it's currently possible to return to the menu during the game (e.g. to switch from Hard Mode to regular mode). There's just the pause.
You could also add NG medals or global scoreboards to attract more players and keep them engaged for longer: https://www.newgrounds.io/
Also, you probably intended the Hard Mode to reset your score upon death (hence the "0") but collecting any coin afterwards restores your score to the previous value. Therefore people who suck at the game and die often will be able to get a much higher score than those who complete it on their first attempt. And for this reason, perhaps your total time should also be factored in your final score, otherwise everybody who collects all the coins will have the same exact score.

Prox276 responds:

Done! You can now change the Mode in the Pause Menu!

I have already added Medals in previous games but thanks for linking me to
newgrounds.io, I'm definitely going to take a look at it! :)

[Scarred - Demo]

It's a great game, and I look forward to seeing the rest. I agree with the others – genuinely well-made, and it's nice to see a horror game which doesn't use cheap tactics like jumpscares which have just the immediate effect, but throw all the built-up tension and scary atmosphere down the drain.

'Z' is also an awkward key for the reason that it's placed in physically different positions depending on your region/language, too (English: ZXC…, Central Europe: swapped with Y, French: AZERTY). Just use Enter for inventory and Spacebar for interaction, unless you plan to do something more important with those keys.

Also, I'd try getting someone to proof-read the script, I noticed several typos (e.g. "adress" instead of "address", "quite" instead of "quiet" in your description here). Inconsistent letter capitalisation sometimes. And check how many times you used the word "gross", I saw it in descriptions so often that it started to become quite noticeable.

[Dot Destroyer]

Well done with your first game!

I'll write notes as I play, with some additional info, since you say you're a beginner.

Screen:
– You set the Newgrounds resolution in the project system way too large. To make it fit your game, I think you need to set it to 960×638 (600 height of the game, 38 Unity footer).

Menu, How to Play:
– In the fullscreen mode, it works fine, but the UI alignment and position is all wrong in regular resolution (I only see half of the screen). Check the Canvas anchors, assign them appropriately (e.g. the title to "Top", Back button to "Bottom Left" etc.). Also check the Canvas Scaler component (your elements should scale with the screen size). Then try to set the 960×600 resolution in Game View to see if it worked.
– Consistent capitalisation of letters…?

The Game:
Wow. Wow! This is amazing for a first game. It's a simple idea, really, but the little details you added make it all the more enjoyable. All the great particle effects, sounds and music help you avoid becoming bored quickly; but most importantly, you gradually introduce new kinds of enemies, so the players are hooked to see what's coming next. Shooting through several dots at once is also a nice effect.
Still, some things:
– The player spins around their geometrical center (i.e. including the cannon); but it'd look better if it spun around the center of the white dot alone. If it's a single sprite, moving its pivot could be enough (re-parent the transforms otherwise).
– Every text on screen has a different size, different font decoration and all of them are probably too large. Personally, I wouldn't let the "Score" occupy so much of the screen and move it under the highscore. And not use a number to represent the health (white dot icons instead). But this a matter of opinion and either approach is fine, even though it's at least recommended to stay consistent with the fonts.
– There's no temporary invincibility, so when you're surrounded by enemies when the game starts getting overwhelming, they're quite able to eat 3-4 health at once just because they all crash into you at the roughly same time.
If you'd like to change this, you could either add temporary invincibility, or (for example) lower the default max health, but create a small shockwave which destroys enemies in the immediate vicinity when hit to compensate.
But it's your game, you decide how (and if!) it's best to deal with it.
– The last new enemy I saw was the blue, fast one; so there are probably some I missed, but I thought it would be nice to include an enemy which doesn't approach you along a straight line which would make them harder to shoot. For example,
Curvy line: https://answers.unity.com/questions/363810/how-to-move-an-enemy-on-a-curvy-line.html
Spiral (equation): https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/16745/moving-a-particle-around-an-archimedean-spiral-at-a-constant-speed

But overall, it's a good game; really well-made for a first-timer. Good luck with your second one!

KarsonPilon responds:

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks for your feedback, I will take your ideas into consideration and will try to constantly make improvements!

EDIT: I have made some changes and the resolution should be fixed! Also added invincibility for a short duration.

[Gun-Ho City!]

It's a good start – and please continue working on it – but I have several issues with the game as it works right now. The major ones:

– The perspective is weird. It's top-down, but your collision box is flat, not just at your feet. Therefore you keep getting hit by missiles which should logically go around you, you bump your head into traffic cones if you walk too close.
– The worst offender of the above is the hospital: bumping your head into its *wall* immediately makes you enter and deducts $20. There's no confirmation screen, the interior is simply a transparent void, and you can still lose money even at full health.
– Leaving a building puts you in the middle of the road, instead of in front of the building.
– At first, I didn't understand the screen loops, and because you're standing on a road, I thought I'm supposed to explore the surroundings. That's not the case.
– The shops are the first things you see, before you even know what you're dealing with, before you even know what you're supposed to be doing. You should make it so the player at least encounters an enemy before they can reach the shop for the first time.
– It really does lag, especially when you walk onto a different terrain for the first time. What happens there? Perhaps there's some loading which can be optimised by loading gradually or in the background, instead of all at once.
– Enemies are somewhat optional. You encounter them at two exact locations, and they don't spawn unless you're nearby. They immediately walk away (which is great because you can't just stand and keep shooting them) and continue to chase after you, but you can just walk into the shop if you get in trouble and leave.
– Shooting enemies is a hassle. They shoot your oversized hitbox with perfect precision, but you have to position yourself perfectly to shoot them. If they miss, they just walk into you, and they can also come in groups and shoot barrages of bullets at once. It becomes very chaotic very quickly and you can't reasonably defend yourself.
– What's the goal? What do you achieve? Is there a victory condition, a sense of progression?

There are some minor issues to talk about, too (e.g. the position of your feet shouldn't change when you simply change the direction), but focusing on fine-tuning the details is unimportant when there are more glaring issues.

All in all, the main problem is that the game – the core gameplay – isn't all that enjoyable; at least for me.
Take a step back (put aside cash, ammo, upgradeable equipment) and consider what should be the one gameplay element to stay if you had to remove everything else. Or describe the game in one sentence ("It's a game about (…).").
"Shooting enemies, dodging bullets" might be an answer; in such case make sure shooting enemies is enjoyable, not frustrating (e.g. shoot with the mouse, make bullets larger, slow down enemies etc.) and you can actually dodge incoming bullets (limit the number of enemies, make the bullets slower). You could also spawn enemies from all sides of the map, not just from two spawn points, to make it less predictable.
But it's up to you – I'm just listing what might be viable options, but you might find out something works much better.

I hope that helped. It's a very good start, but the core design needs some tweaking.

jackwhite083 responds:

I cannot thank you enough for making this lengthy review! I am still new to the game engine i am using and i'm still figuring out what i need in my game and how to implement it.

-I am still learning about hitboxes and collision and i was not aware about the perspective issue so thank you for noticing it!
-I do not own a mouse so i never thought about using it for my games but i think now i should implement it in my games, maybe it could be optional to help me with play testing.
-One thing i am now learning about is how open world games load they're games procedually so i will learn how to do that when I am making my next large game!
-This game was mainly made for me to learn about how to create open world games so i only really uploaded this for the advice like this so i didn't add things like a story or a main goal as I wanted to move on to my next project so i can learn more.

Thank you again, it is people like you that make me want to make games :)

[Fast Math 2]

I wondered what kind of math question you'd show and how exactly the difficulty would increase. Unfortunately, it's all just additions and subtractions with a slightly larger numerical range over time, which isn't really that impressive.
I'd introduce new operations – let's say, every fifteen questions: multiplication, division, fractions, or go all out at later stages with stuff like "sin 90° = 1", "log2 (8) = 3", "derivative 2x = 2" etc. It would make the game more interesting because of the bigger variety and by making people wonder what comes next, thus keeping them engaged for longer.

It also needs some balancing. I got to question #25 until I got bored and started clicking randomly without even looking at the question, which got me safely to question #63 when I ran out of time (and could probably go further if I clicked faster).
Consider these options:
1) Increase time deducted for a wrong guess. While it's very good that you don't lose after the first wrong guess, it shouldn't be possible to try all four options before your time limit runs out.
2) Use a "total time" bar shared by all questions. A successfully answered question on the first try increases the timer, a wrong answer does nothing – thus if you make a mistake, you have to make up for it with a chain of correct answers.

But mainly, endless games need to introduce new elements to still simulate the sense of "progress". This doesn't have it (yet).

[Golem Platformer]

Okay… is it just a single level?
It's a fine prototype for a game, but it just doesn't have enough content. You're done within a minute.

Also, I have a few tips for improvements if you plan to work on this further.
– There are no sounds. Games with sounds (and possibly music) are instantly more enjoyable.
– The dystopian background is quite cluttered and the foreground with the player doesn't stand out as much.
– For some reason, jumping on the platform at the beginning of the level restarts the game even though it looks exactly the same as the ground. The actual ground hovers a bit above the bottom end of the screen (there's a small gap).
– The cave exit has thin white artifacts around it, and it looks like you saved it as *.jpg, and then attempted to fill it with a paint bucket, which resulted in the uneven fill.
– There's an invisible barrier at the top of the screen, which makes it harder to collect the topmost coins (you have to jump precisely underneath it)

All in all, it's a good start, and I hope you'll continue to work on this, but I don't really think it's a fun game to play at this stage yet.

BanaCompany responds:

thanks for the advice

[the awesome adventure of blue guy]

Well, even games "meant to be bad" are doing it for a purpose and they usually go over the top, so there's no mistaking of the true intention. Cat Mario is so very frustrating that it makes hilarious. Also once you learn the pattern, it's not overly difficult to get through the section up until your next trap. And it has checkpoints.

This is just frustrating. It seems alright at first, but then you realise just how much repetition is involved. The lack of checkpoints is the main flaw of this game. You didn't use many traps (except the missing floor at the beginning of the fourth room and the shooting spikes), but most rooms require very precise platforming skills – a mistake results in a one-hit kill, taking you all the way back to the start.
I died so many times in the third room, and finally lost my patience in the bouncy room – too many spikes to jump over very accurately. I wouldn't mind the room as it is, but not when a mistake means redoing five rooms all over again.
You should put a checkpoint before every section where you expect the player to die a lot.

Also, the music probably shouldn't restart whenever the game restarts. You're hearing the beginning of the song disproportionally more often than the rest of the song.

conarpizzaman responds:

the whole game's purpose is to piss you off
everything was intentional

[I keep Forgetting]

Pretty good idea, and with an inspirational message.
Simply executed – which is good. I feel that the more flawed and simple the game is, the more it fits with the core idea.