RaIix's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[mini knight game]

I think it's a quite fun game, well done.
I like the art, the movement feels fluent, the jump distance and gravity feel just about right.

Yet overall, the game isn't terribly long – if you didn't always have to start from the very beginning, you could breeze through in two minutes. There aren't many game mechanics in play either, the danger consists solely of pits and spikes – although that is “sufficient” when the game is as long as it is.
I like the fluent transition when you walk between rooms; it looks great.

As for possible improvements:
– Sounds or music. If a game has neither, it usually feels a bit incomplete. Don't underestimate the effect a few chiptunes played when jumping or dying can have on the game's enjoyability.
– If you make the game any longer in the future, I'd seriously consider adding checkpoints. Repeating the same intro room for the 100th time just because you died to something seven rooms ahead will soon start to test your patience.
– You start the game by jumping into a pit which is an odd choice considering you spend the entire game avoiding falling into pits.
– I'm not a fan of the screen wipe after death; especially since it's top to bottom, so it takes an entire second until you're able to see where you're going after you respawn. I died way too many times by walking into the first pit while the screen wipe was still halfway through the screen.
– There are some tricks to make platformers more enjoyable, here I'd look specifically into the so-called “coyote-jumping”, i.e. be able to jump even a tiny bit after you leave the solid ground: https://youtu.be/vFsJIrm2btU?t=70
Here you have the opposite, and when I stand firmly on the very edge of a platform, I can no longer jump, which makes the controls seem unresponsive sometimes.
– You should probably prevent the player from walking back beyond the left screen edge. It can (and will) kill you off-screen.
– “You won” screen message is fine, but might seem a bit lazy. You completed the game; it's an achievement, so show the player something nice. Like the knight walking up the stairs out of the dungeon to broad daylight, finding a treasure, saving a princess… anything, really.
Here, you can still die even after you win because there is a spike on the side of the screen.

Don't get me wrong, I still think it's a pretty good game, but there are definitely a few ways to bring the quality up a notch without having to make major adjustments to the gameplay.

ReallyDumbNut responds:

thankyou so much, it is one of my first games. but still I am for sure going to use these tips. thankyou so much for taking the time to type this out.

[Annoying Platformer]

Well, the game seems to throw an exception after pressing Play, which is kinda annoying by itself, I guess. :)

– "To use dlopen, you need to use Emscripten's linking support."
– "DllNotFoundException: Unable to load DLL 'user32.dll': The specified module could not be found."

Why does it even have DLLs…?
https://forum.unity.com/threads/include-c-dll-in-webgl-build.371130/

Also some shader errors like:
"Hidden/PostProcessing/MultiScaleVO shader is not supported on this GPU (none of subshaders/fallbacks are suitable)"
(Did you use WebGL1 instead of WebGL2?
Or a feature beyond OpenGL ES 3.0 – e.g. compute shaders – which won't work on the web?)

The game looks quite interesting, and it's obvious you've poured a lot of effort into it, but unfortunately, I can't get it to start.

Floflelw responds:

im sorry for that. To get more compatebillity with controller i had to use some windows dlls, wich now wasn't my best idea. I'll remove it and rebuilt the game.

[Click to cat]

It's an alright clicker. Not bad, nothing particularly fun, though.
At least there's a sense of progress with the cat changing, maybe only three are too few and they are quite far apart, considering there are no upgrades for the clicking speed.
Also, I'm not sure whether the scoreboard actually works or if it's just a placeholder (nevertheless, I wouldn't display the length of the list: "length 2").

As for medals in Scratch, see this guide:
https://lajbel.newgrounds.com/news/post/1208986

Timaru responds:

Thanks for the feedback!
I will update and change some files soon, and thanks for the medals guide :)

[Gedaria]

It's an ambitious, aesthetically pleasing and charming little indie game, no doubt. However, it's still a bit clunky and (at least here) quite buggy.

I tried a couple of times to get past the supervisor. Sometimes he gets stuck at the right side of the screen (so you have to commit suicide to try again), when I finally beat him and got the letter, I saw no way to progress further (both sides of the screen were blocked, the boss is still playing his defence animation and the letter didn't disappear).
I hope it's not intentional (i.e. “you finished the demo” after two screens of gameplay). If it is, it should definitely end with a message telling you as such, perhaps with a link to your Steam page.
I would check the browser console here; it has a pretty long list of warnings with resources it failed to load.

Overall I wish the controls would be more responsive. This is most visible when you press 'Space' to defend, and still get hit because the animation didn't progress enough yet. I'd rather have the boss telegraph his attack, and then hit quickly (which you can also deflect quickly) – so you don't have to figure out at which part of the animation should you hit space.

Other notes:
– the leaf health bar is really creative
– I'm instinctively drawn to use the tip of the leaf as the cursor hotspot, but it's actually its top, which is a bit weird
– The resolution on Newgrounds is *massive*, so you have to zoom out quite a bit. How about a fullscreen mode? (Or perhaps you tried that, and it didn't let you in the way you do it:
“Failed to execute 'requestFullscreen' on 'Element': API can only be initiated by a user gesture.”)
– It's nice that you support a lot of languages
– The gameplay shown in the menu is a cool idea (but I think at one point you show the edge of the area with no background)
– The branch in the boss fight respawns in front of and dialogue and the letter text
– I think there should be an animation for jumping
– I wouldn't say dráb = supervisor; see https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dr%C3%A1b

Hodně štěstí. Zatím jsem vám dal wishlist. :)

GeorgeBooP responds:

Greeting from team Gedaria!

Thank you for your kind reply and suggestions. First of all the game was primarilly meant for PC as downloadable exe file. Then I remembered this beautiful page. I said to myself I must publish the game here aswell!

So I have just downloaded one addon to the game engine, exported for HTML5 and hoped it'll run. Heheh, so yeah there might be some bugs.

Second the "field level" isn't the only level in this "DEMO" there are three levels in total. The other two are much larger. I honestly don't know why you weren't able to progress further. I have to look at it!

Once again thank and take care, Viktor Zwinger
from team Gedaria

[Perpendicular Monkey]

I must say, for a two-day game jam entry, this is an incredibly well-made game! Fun, visually polished, with music and animations; everything.

Maybe the only drawback is that the game is too short (naturally). Just when you feel you got past the introductory levels and you're playing the main part of the game, it ends; even though you were hoping to see more of the challenging puzzles, perhaps with new gameplay elements later on.

But even so, it's still a pretty fun and high-quality game even if I didn't know it was made in two days.

Biebras responds:

Thank you for your feedback!!! We added new levels!

[Red Path]

I think you might be onto something here. The core idea and gameplay loop is pretty fun, but whoa, it can be so frustrating sometimes. It feels like a great prototype (makes sense since it comes from a game jam), but to make it genuinely enjoyable, it would require some polish (visual, too).

While playing the game, sooner or later you're going to realize the key to victory is overusing slow motion. Since you can't stay still, slow motion can give you the time necessary to look around, think and properly aim – and if you no longer deal any damage, you can just let go for a moment and immediately start slow motion again. Other than that, there are no penalties, so there's no reason *not* to use it.
But I think the game is more enjoyable when you at least start aiming and shooting outside of slow motion and only resort to it when necessary.

And for the love of God, please leave the camera alone. Perhaps it's a collision bug (I hope it's not intentional), but sometimes when you jump near the red line, the camera instantly snaps to a different angle which botches your jumps and makes you lose nine out of ten times. Another reason why it's a good idea to enter the slow-motion hallway through your jump.

Some other suggestions:
– I wouldn't damage the player *immediately* when you pause – rather in bursts, starting e.g. one second after standing still. So you can still turn around or start aiming without having to do it in slow-mo.
– To prevent overuse, perhaps the slow-motion mode should be a depletable bar that you can recharge by successfully shooting enemies – BUT then you'd have to make the rest of the game a bit easier to make up for it.
– Maybe the red path would look better semi-transparent (so that it doesn't block your view)
– You shouldn't see the red path under you if you're falling directly down
– Slow health regeneration? So making a small mistake isn't a burden for the rest of the level, sometimes forcing you to restart.
– I have a lot of "MOUSE_MODE_CAPTURED" errors in the console

By the way, with Godot, you could even add medals (in-game achievements) or scoreboards to prolong the life of your game (more people would play, and also return to unlock medals they missed): https://www.newgrounds.io/get-started/
It's also a nice metric to see how many people got to various stages of the game. I can't imagine a huge portion of players actually completed the game.

Personally, for now, I gave up in the Tightrope level because I realized what stunt I'd have to pull off to return to the starting point (after finishing the rest of the level, even), and it would take a lot of very frustrating attempts. Although it's a pity I didn't reach any of the bosses you mention, because those would no doubt be interesting, too.

But I see the potential there; it could be a great game if you work on it further – something like a new Superhot.

TrollHunterX responds:

Thanks for the feedback.
I've put the cheat codes in the description, if you want to see the rest.

[Malachi's Game Demo]

Edit: Errors fixed.

Still, I think the game is too short. It's one short level, and still not quite polished.
Some feedback:
– going left makes you fall endlessly (and reload the page)
– wood blocks have no collision
– there's no need to add the first checkpoint so close – just set the first save point to your initial position
– running out of lives also makes you reload the page
– dying to enemies resets you back instantly; usually, it's good to give at least a brief delay (so the player knows what happened)
– same with completing the level
– the music loop is too short; in a longer level, it would probably get annoying soon

Malachi1289 responds:

fixed

[Altered]

The game is a lot of fun, even though it's really difficult.

I think my main gripe is just that – the enemies are too good. Sometimes you find yourself in such a position that you simply lose, usually when several of them spawn simultaneously and ambush you. And then the slightest touch, and it's over.
I probably wouldn't change the speed or AI of the enemies, but I would consider adding something to help the player evade ambushes. Like:
– dash (skip through enemies, with some cooldown)
– 3 lives, temporary invincibility
– powerups (e.g. "shield" which breaks when you're hit, dual colour…)
Probably the first suggestion is the most in-line with the spirit of the game.

As for other things:
– Sometimes the enemies stopped moving when several of them bumped into each other, even when I was a different colour. But it was temporary since other reinforcements came and made me move.
– When a game is played entirely on keyboard, it would be nice to be able to restart it with keyboard as well. This is a game you replay A LOT, and you have to grab the mouse every ten seconds just to click a button.
– If you use the bottom bar (Unity standard WebGL template), you need to add 38 to the project's resolution in the Newgrounds Project Settings, or the game ends up being slightly cut off.
– Thanks for adding the medals and scoreboards!
– And I certainly like the tactical element of deciding whether you want allies around or not or kill them to gain points.

And by the way, it's really cool that you open-sourced the game, too!
It's interesting to see how others code logic in their games, and I wanted to check what the enemies are told to do. Amazing how something can seem like a pretty clever AI when it's just "go directly to the player and jump randomly". :)

Also about the code, if I may offer advice:
– If you used Input.GetAxis (and Input.GetButtonDown for jumping), you'd instantly have arrow keys, WASD and gameplay support in your game.
Or use the new input system, although it's slightly more difficult to set up.
– I'm not sure why you're dealing with parsing Hex strings, you can have Color variables directly. And initialize them with hexadecimal numbers, too.
Color playerColour = new Color32(0xEA, 0xBA, 0x6B, 0xFF);

Jervaited responds:

Hello, thanks for the review and suggestions to the game.

Specially the Dash mechanic to the game in reference to your suggestion, it does seem to play better with it :)

[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