RaIix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Sketch Ball Fun Mobile Game]

The problem is, nothing ever changes, there's nothing to break nor collect, the ball doesn't speed up, so all you do is click at regular intervals to gain a single point. And sometimes not even that; from time to time the ball just bounces from left to right without coming down for up to twenty seconds.

*Boing*–click–*boing*, *boing*–click–*boing*, *boing*–click–*boing* isn't really "very addicting"; it's actually rather monotone. If you lose, it's mostly because of losing patience, not because the game gradually became harder.

[Lost Escape Castle]

I faced the same problems as the other two reviewers. Couldn't find the box with the letter lock (and ended up with scanning each screen waiting for the cursor to change) and I had to watch the walkthrough to figure out Gilroy – if it's meant to represent the WW2 drawing as Stefanielouise says, then I believe it's spelt "Kilroy". No medal here either – the "medal unlocked" popup shows up, but the medal doesn't get unlocked.

I often wonder how certain tasks in your games can somehow produce a key out of a nowhere. Tasks like watering a plant. Feeding a squirrel. Or putting three pearls on a bracelet. That's the kind of thing which drags down the quality of your games towards the generic escape games the portal is filled with. Your games aren't just few screens cluttered with out-of-place clues and puzzles; they're better! At the very least, you are consistent and loyal to your setting. So why always not to logic?

This is one of your shorter games, no need to nitpick further, but what I appreciate here though, is the explanation in the beginning (exploring & twisted ankle & no cellphone sounds definitely better than "you woke up in an abandoned house and the door is locked.") Also, thanks for getting rid of the redirect in the end.

selfdefiant responds:

Thanks! I don't know about the logic. I try to stay as real as possible. I guess you are right about a necklace giving a key. I will come up with some more realistic ideas. It was just a word I came up with, no intention other than that was meant. Thanks again.

[The war of all wars]

Sorry, I tried three different browsers and multiple page refreshes, but the game simply doesn't load. The Construct 2 bar shows up fine, but then there's just an endless white screen.
Is there even a game to load, or is it only a test so far (judging by the elaborate description)?

Potato83 responds:

whats the matter? do you want it red?

[Sorting 1A]

It's quite good idea and can be enjoyable for a while. The graphics are good and fluent, the moving coloured lines and the combo support the fast-paced feel very well – but if you are quite confident in your ability to spell out the alphabet in order (if not, the letter you should pick is even shown at the top), it gets repetitive. Aiming for high score, levelling up and maintaining the highest possible combo keeps you entertained, but not indefinitely. You can't even pick a wrong letter – there's no penalty either, aside from wasting time. Why not add some variety or different game modes (unlocked as you level up)?

Just as an example:
– Don't show every letter of the alphabet consecutively. Start the game with handful of letters and add new ones randomly. Player will still select "the lowest" letter, but now it requires a bit of thinking.
E.g.: KGDZ → (D selected) → KGZ[U added] → (G) → KZU[A] → (A) → KZU[S] → …
In this case, you'd probably have to prolong the combo timer for a bit.
– Selecting wrong letter results in lowering the base score of all currently displayed letters by 2
– Negative value letters you are supposed to ignore (max 1-2 per screen, will disappear in time)
E.g.: "A -3" – if you pick it, -3*Combo will get subtracted from your score; you should instead pick "B 6". "A -3" disappears as you do.
– "Scrabble mode" - form a word from letters displayed (although this one is definitely easier to say than to implement)

Also, the fullscreen mode Unity adds in WebGL export is quite a mess here, but since fullscreen mode isn't needed for this game, I wouldn't bother with fixing the layout on different resolutions. Instead, I believe you can choose "Minimal" template for the export which doesn't add the "Unity WebGL" bottom panel with the fullscreen switch (nor there is a loading bar).

[Scary Maze]

It could have been better. In comparison with the original Scary Maze game, this one falls a bit short, because:
– You use arrow keys instead of mouse. Therefore it's not hard to follow a straight line, you don't need to be careful.
– There's no penalty for bumping into a wall, so you don't even need to be precise.
– In the original game, there was only one jumpscare at the very end when you needed to be really focused and probably close to the screen as well. Here the jumpscares are triggered at specific intervals, thus the first one will scare you, the second one might scare you, but the others are just annoying because you already expect them.

Also, the movement speed ought to be a little faster and the graphics is quite plain. But at least you were pretty creative with the jumpscares; there's a big variety of them, so it doesn't feel like you are being shown the same picture over and over. One problem here, I think the collision detection gets turned off while they're being shown, and you are able to pass through walls if you keep holding an arrow key.

Creativity2005Team responds:

I used Scratch to make it so it's not really possible to fix the collision bug when a jump scare pops up. I can improve the game I know it's long and a little boring. I will add more jump scares just because. This is my version of the scary maze game. Hopefully I will get to that.

[HÄŌS]

I agree wholeheartedly with TakuaDE. The sounds used really do sound like someone's moaning and it's a great idea to wait for you to move until a level starts – it's annoying to be killed right after a level loads.

My complaint would be that I nearly quit the game because I couldn't figure out what to do – it took me a while to learn you have to hold & release a key. I've been trying to change colour to cyan and collect matching balls or hold a combination of buttons to create an opposite colour instead.
It's okay to not tell us everything – but the fun is in learning what to do in the game, not what the controls are. So as for instructions, I'd just update the instructions to something like "Arrow keys for movement / hold & release WASD to emit sound waves".

In the full game, boss battles sound cool, multiplayer might be fun, but if you aim to create hundreds of levels, make sure you add new kinds of enemies. That doesn't just mean new colours and new button to hold; you could invent more creative (and difficult) ways to dispatch an enemy. E.g. a red ball you can't kill by yourself, but you can lead the comet to kill it. Half-coloured ball which has to be turned white by holding a combination of buttons. Or you can make a level where you can't touch the walls, the walls have a different shape. Or obstacles, powerups etc. Whatever you think would fit in the game while adding something new every couple of levels.

Good luck. It was a pretty interesting and original game, albeit sometimes a bit frustrating.

[Kitty Cat Adventure: Block Breaker Edition]

Looking at your games, I think I recognise where they come from. :)
It's great to learn with a tutorial – but try to make the end result different. That's the point actually. You want to learn to create your own games, not to make something hundreds of others have done before. This is the result of a course section, but you made very few alterations (in all of your games actually). Ideally, after completing a course, you should look at the game and say: "I have the basic gameplay now, what could I add/change to make it a better game? To make it my own game? A *complete* game?".
There's plenty of things you could do. New kinds of bricks, more lives (!), powerups, score, different art etc. Be creative.

Tutorials are designed to teach you stuff a broad audience can put to use, so the end result is always kind of bland, short, core gameplay with little to no original elements. Even if other people don't recognise it's from a tutorial, they'll see your game is "good enough"; in other words "average", thus "3 stars".
If you want to be a game developer, especially indie, you need to sprinkle the game with something fresh, new, intriguing to captivate the players – which really just comes down to "your own ideas".

Just some advice. The games can be a good base… you simply need to incorporate more aspects you could call your own in them. Good luck in further learning.

EthanBusse responds:

I totally get and agree with you! I've been off the development path with school and work, but I've started making games without using tutorials / Udemy. :) So once I have some time off school, I'll finish the small original stuff!

Totally appreciate the support! Thanks!

[Flappy Troll]

Yeah, why not make one of the most frustrating games even more frustrating?

I'm a bit tired of Flappy Bird clones already, but this was a good idea. The problem is that I barely got past the first pipes because the Fly key often changes in between them and there's almost no time to read the instruction, yet alone react. It might be good idea to block the key change if you are passing through the gap between the pipes. Outside of that, it's still a tad annoying, but it's possible to react before you crash into something. But anyway, it's a fun idea.

MrKvr responds:

Thanks for your feedback! I understand the points you make, this is just the first version of this game, I'll improve the fly movement and key random generation to avoid this in the next version! Thank you so much! :D

[Newgrounds]

This has to be the most surreal thing I have seen around here in a while.

Let's sum it up. You start off on a large, shiny green plate with a floating cylinder model nearby. There's nicely done water below it, but if you fall into it, the dark sky turns blue, waterline disappears and the ground looks like mountains. And if you fall off the mountains, you land on a "beach" (whose texture is watermarked) with walls around you, sun and vertical clouds texture in the distance. There's plenty of palm trees – one of which is burning – and every palm you walk by starts burning as well.

Wow. Kudos for originality, but aside of what I mentioned, there's really nothing else to do.

[Land of Legs level trial]

Well, it is a slight improvement from your previous game, although I don't think it's enjoyable nor captivating enough for people to actually *purchase* the rest of it (even more so if you "just started using flash"). If you want to earn (a little) money, rather try adding Flash Ads in the menu or something.

It's still in development, so there's a lot of work ahead of you, but let's say you could improve the movement a bit (faster walking, longer jumps – it's a platformer game after all). Perhaps the character might be smaller as well. And instead of spikes slowly draining your HP, you might just kill the player outright (falling in the pit will drain most of your life anyway). Sometimes you pass through the ground if you fall.
Anyway, if you are a beginner, you started off quite well, now just focus on improving what you have. Needless to say, the game needs more variety, but it's logical since it's just the first level now.