TapathyWR's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[ART GALLERY COLLAB]

This is probably the greatest collaboration to ever be uploaded to Newgrounds.com!

Take it from me! I'm New Ground!

Aalasteir responds:

Thank you, Mister New Ground!

[Gyro Gear Tournament+]

This game does have a lot of potential, and the sprite work and artwork is very well done! I think once it's more fleshed out and polished, It'll be wonderful! The idea of a beyblade-style fighting game with different stats, a story, and unlockables has a ton of appeal

Unfortunately I do have to echo the common criticism though, the controls are very unclear. Pressing enter to review the controls is a good idea, but showing the buttons used without listing their use or how to use them makes it wildly unhelpful. I was only able to win via dumb luck, as there's really no input telling you if your button presses are doing anything at all. Perhaps additional animations would help with this?

I look forward to a more complete product in the future!

rotcivsette responds:

That was really helpful and insightful! Thanks for the feedback. I'll be working on at least a help guide and eventually a tutorial for the story. And you gave me ideas about the feedback animations, thanks!

[Watching You - Prototype]

You've got a base for a game here, but not much else yet. I'm keeping in mind that this is a prototype, and you're already aware there's a lot to be done. The design of the level itself is actually quite nice, and I'd say it's the best part of what you've got done so far. The menu options and the instruction text need to be drastically downscaled to a smaller size, as does the actual HUD when in game. If you have HUD elements overlapping, that's a sure sign that they need to be rethought. The guns look nice enough, and I won't speak much on the combat as it's obviously very in progress.

The major thing about this prototype that is a big no for me is the mouse look. I can't tell if it's the sensitivity or the speed, but it feels very off. Almost as if every movement you make with the mouse is getting dumbed down and slowed. Definitely something to think about.

I look forward to seeing improvements! :)

[Gloom]

I went into this without any expectations, and it's not bad in the least bit. It works as a simple time killer, and provided you're not expecting a fully fleshed out experience it's a fun time. Obviously this was more of an experiment than anything else, and you did manage to come up with a good method of progression; collecting logs is easy to begin with, but the more you gather, the farther away you have to travel to find them, and the more baddies you need to micromanage. The beams of light were a good choice for alerting the player to danger, and while I would probably find them obnoxious in other games, the already simplistic nature of this game gives the mechanic room to breathe.

Some critiques I can offer:

The wealth of information provided in your description would probably have been better off in the game itself. Maybe a page for detailed instructions? If you just jump in and play, you'll find yourself a bit overwhelmed, especially by the game's biggest problem, the mouse look. There has to be a better way of keeping the mouse in check, because having to manually recenter it yourself every time you make a particularly sharp turn? It's awful, and it adds a layer of difficulty that is nothing more than artificial, without any fun to be gained from it; It feels like busywork.

I haven't had a chance to play it on mobile yet, but I'll definitely be checking it out to see if it controls a bit better on that.

In regards to other player's complaints regarding enemy speed, it seemed alright to me for the most part. I say most part because I feel like I did encounter some anomalously speedy creatures at only two logs, who could zip out of the way of my attack at near point blank range. This was admittedly rare, however.

I look forward to seeing more from you!

Kwing responds:

Thanks, this is some really great feedback!

I admit the light indicators are rather big. I wasn't really sure what the alternative was (AS2 can't control left/right audio channels, and I didn't want the player to constantly be turning around looking for new enemies.) I suppose I could make a smaller indicator, but I do think a visual tell is pretty important, especially considering the insta-death mechanic.

I only added the information into the description once judging for the Game Jam began. My original intention was to give the player no guidance and let them discover the mechanics for themselves. Unfortunately the low scores (player scores, not review scores) that I noticed for the first couple of weeks indicated that people were REALLY struggling, so I put a full strategy guide in the description to help them out a bit. Looking back I think having a bestiary might have been a good middle ground - a player is free to fight a new and mysterious enemy on their own, but if they get killed by it they can look up information for that specific enemy type.

I've responded to this a bit in other reviews but I was pretty frustrated with the shift lock and it seemed like the best I could do under the circumstances. After seeing how Doom Triple Pack runs with the "click and drag" mechanic, I think it might have been a good idea to have shooting happen exclusively through the spacebar, so that the player could click and drag the mouse off-screen to pan farther in either direction (then again, this is completely useless if you're playing in full-screen...) Camera controls are something I'll definitely look into if this ever gets a sequel.

Just to clear some things up, enemy speed is dependent on the strength of the fire and your proximity to it, NOT the number of logs delivered. This means you can encounter impossibly fast enemies immediately after delivering your first log, provided you're too slow in delivering the next one, wander too far from the fire, or both. There's no direct correlation between number of logs delivered and enemy speed, but there is an INDIRECT correlation in that the part of your search which takes you farthest from the fire will be the most difficult, and the longer it takes to find and retrieve the wood, the more the fire will die, causing enemies to become more difficult. Similar to my comment about making enemy types ambiguous, I did consider adding information to the HUD which would tell players how fast enemies were moving, but in the interest of immersion I made the HUD as minimalistic as possible (hence why you don't even see your score until you die.)

[Battle For Sanity 0.0.1 (formerly Unnamed_RPG)]

A fun little game! For a first time RPGMaker project, it's very decent! I was going to go off on a whole spiel, but I think pharrex covered just about everything I'd say. That's an outstanding review.

In regards to the typos and dialogue, I'm a professional editor by trade, and I wouldn't mind taking some of my free time to help you go through the typos and tidying up the dialogue. If this becomes a more serious project, keep that in mind!

DepressedHarold responds:

That is a great offer. I am not really sure, where I will go with this project in the future, but in any case having some help with the dialogue would be a nice relief.
How would this actually work in practice? Would you give me a list of mistakes and recommended changes or would you edit things in the game itself?

[Drop Cannon]

It's a good little time killer! It's not anymore complex than it needs to be, and it's simple enough that anybody can sit down and understand what's going on enough to have loads of fun with it. The art is super charming, and all the colors pop really well, which is a huge plus. The option for keyboard control is great, especially for poor suckers without a decent mouse. If I had to offer criticism, I'd say the difficulty never really picked up like I expected it to, and after a while the invasion segments started to feel like padding more than anything else.

Can't recommend enough, would make a good mobile game for sure. Ruffle is looking more and more viable to me, and I'm glad I was wrong about my initial thoughts on it!

[Phrozenflame RPG]

A lot of memories here. If only the second game were still in a playable state. Big Sad.

[Christmas ADVENTure 2018]

Uh... I can't get this thing to work. I get the logo at the beginning and then a black screen. I like the concept from what I've read in other reviews, and I don't wanna vote based on a thing I can't use, but I just thought I'd throw out that I'm having issues with it.

ninjamuffin99 responds:

SHIT SHIT HOLD UP WE GOTTA UPDATE ITS COMING REAL QUICK GUYS HOLD ON THE GAME IS GONNA BE BUSTED UNTIL I UPDATE

[Forsaken Bacon]

It's a start, but it's not finished or ready to be uploaded. The controls work well enough, but the gameplay is about as basic as it gets. For the love of the holy walrus cut the bacon sprite out all the way, it's not cropped right. I suggest a less ear grating choice in music as well.

Finally, what would go a long way in this game is Invincibility Frames after taking damage. Get close to a Bacon and they can just take you from 10 to 0 like that.

Not a bad start though, keep trying!

Afrogames2018 responds:

hi sorry it didn't meet your expectations although i will look at the feedback you provided and make the changes necessary. please just bear in mind though this was my first attempt at a game and i wasn't expecting other people to be interested in my project so thank you for the feedback i ll get to work on updating it.

[Dig2China]

A fun little game to kill time. The graphics and audio are charming, but that's to be expected from Puffballs. The core concept is brilliant, touching upon a topic many a child has dreamed about. The game runs very smoothly, and upgrades seem consistent, which is a hard thing to achieve in this type of game. The game CAN become a bit of a grind once you hit the mantle, and this can hurt it's playability in some aspects. However, even with this slight delay, you did an excellent job at making the player want to keep going. The little animation of the kid filling the hole, all the while cursing your tenacity is a great touch, and I found myself having to tear myself away. A great game with room for more.

-Christian.