Unknow0059's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[POOM]

Cool. I like the PiCO8.
My game froze though, so I won't finish the first chapter here on NG. I would've, but now I won't.

freds72 responds:

can you reproduce?
what is on mobile or browser?

[In the Time of Pandemia]

The five stages of grief don't exist.
About the game, I didn't find it particularly enjoyable but this was a worthwhile gamification experiment.

kikill responds:

Thank you for your feedback, Unknow0059.

[Factions]

I love the sounds and the music and the simplicity of gameplay. It plays more like a puzzler and less like a complex RTS, which I enjoy. Couldn't beat level 10, but it was fun.

Frenchie14 responds:

Pretty close! There's only 12 levels. Use slow time (hold Space) to your advantage!

[Bakus Adventures]

Nice. You should be proud that you finished a project.
1. Next time, don't do mixels. It's when the pixel size is not constant. 'Mixel' is a pixel art term that is shorthand for Mixed Pixels.
2. In the second level, in the bridge, before the jump there is a checkpoint. Right after the jump there's another checkpoint. Don't put checkpoints so close together, it cheapens them.
3. The bosses aren't telegraphed well, it's hard to tell what state they're in because the sprites don't change much. It's a readability issue.
4. Add invincibility frames after being hit. It's possible to get stuck in a knockback loop where enemies hit you and you get knockbacked and then you hit another enemy which starts it all over again.
5. Add a pause indicator that indicates that the game is paused, in the center of the screen, or with some other image change such as changing the color of the game.
6. Attacking is possible while paused. It shouldn't be.
7. It's impossible to jump off the top of a ladder because the character is in the neutral climbing state. He should only be in a climbing state when not on top of the ladder.
8. It should be made clear to the player that touching the eagle that drops projectiles that hurt does not hurt. The eagle can be used as a platform but the game doesn't teach you this.
9. I liked the fact that I could skip most combat encounters with platforming, because the combat is poor.
10. I liked that I could equip helmets by walking over them. But I should not grab helmets if I already have one.
11. Apparently I can get damaged after dying. That shouldn't happen.
12. For some reason I can float at arbitrary moments during the cyclops boss. It should be made clear to the player what is causing that and when/how it happens.
13. There should be a delay between attacks so that I'm unable to spam them.
14. The total score should only be displayed at the end of the game, since this is not a roguelike nor is it an arcade game.
15. The graphics for the cyclops' laser are truncated. They should have some sort of effect at their endpoint so that it doesn't look weird. Like a shining 'hit' effect.
16. The cyclops should stand still while he's 'lasering'. It's unfair for him to turnaround instantly when you try to move around him.
17. You should replace the 'bat flying downards' graphics in the cyclops level with some sort of particle that would make sense to be falling in a cave. Because it doesn't look like those things are flying bats. They look like falling particles. Bats have a certain flying pattern, and that pattern is not falling downwards.
18. The fight with the cyclops was really not fun. I had to spam jump and attack to kill him, instead of using the designed way of battling him to defeat him.
19. Add a hit indicator for when bosses are hit just like normal enemies. Otherwise, it's impossible to easily know if an attack landed or not.
20. When I'm hit by the Minotaur's ground pound, I die instantly even though I have 2 hearts left.
21. (This is wann3's point summarized) add keyboard support to the continue screen.
Try not to worry about the score I gave. The point is to improve, not to seek good ratings.
IDK if you should fix these issues by updating this game or if you should learn from them and implement them in your next project. Your call.

2020/06/09 Updated review:
Fixed: 2 (third level actually), 4, 5, 8 (replaced by block), 20, 21
Everything else has not been fixed.
New or updated issues:
7. At first I thought the ladder issue had been fixed, but this issue is present specifically in the second cave level, where the platform-eagle used to be.
10. In the first cave level, the only equipable helmet is the first one. You pickup the second, but don't equip it. The third and fourth are not pickupable. It's rather inconsistent in the second cave level, too.
12. I cannot tell whether this got removed altogether or whether it was not triggered during my fight.
18. The cyclops fight is still not fun and you still don't fight him the way he was supposed to be fought. This time I cheesed him with the bow from afar. I don't remember if I had it in the previous version, but I don't think so. The boss has been trivialized, which makes fighting him less of a pain, but ultimately doesn't address the design issues.
22. The controls in the title menu don't actually tell me what the controls are. Those are just icons that represent in-game actions, they're not controls. The controls are those in the description: XZSCD. And of those controls, Spacebar (Attack) is missing.
23. You can move your character in the title menu. It seems you shouldn't be able to, because he slides on the floor instead of walking.
24. You added totems. The player doesn't know what a mechanic is for unless you teach them. You have not taught the players what totems are nor what they do.
25. In the (new) cave level after the cyclops, there is a section with two ladders and two moving blocks. If you fall off straight down from the first ladder, you die because of a pit. If you fall down from the second ladder, you don't die because there is a collision box off-screen preventing you from falling and dying.
26. The aforementioned section is bullshit. Sometimes when you climb down the first ladder onto the second moving block, you are pushed either left or right, which makes you fall and die. If you manage to get onto the moving block, you will be pushed by the wall to your right, because it clips your head. The game is unfinishable. Playtest your game before making any sort of update to it. I feel insulted.

juanfilix responds:

Thank you for your feedback! is really well done and complete , i agree with you in most of the points you say
1. i do the mixel thing because i was in a hurry to upload the game so i took some sprites that dont match with the style because you can't create anything perfect, first you create them and then you improve it and perfect it.

2.the checkpoints is so close because people wanna fight again with the boss when they die
immediately

3. i agree with you with the cyclop boss , you cant tell when you landed a hit on them, but minotaur close has a sound, and maybe its because there is not tutorial for the fights but when the minotaur gets weak after he attack and closes his eyes , thats when you need to hit him

4.The invincibility frames and pause indicator are great! i love it and i will definitely implented them , the eagle has already been replaced by an appropriate jump platform

5.the attack while paused and in the die state are fixed now in my current version of the game i need to upload it soon

6. I think the combat system is not poor maybe i need it to make it more fast but i am proud of the combat system in general

7. you are not longer able to get hit after die in my current version
8. the cyclop make you float when he activates the laser because otherwise you cant not being hit by them

9. in the original game the attack have delays but me and most of the people who tested my game before the realease dont like it, because it feels like odd and not fluid

10.
the bats uses the same sine behavior that the leafs so maybe its weird of looking i will change the patron for a more realistic one
11. the cyclop one was my favorite ! because you really need to focus and change weapons fast jump block to defeat him isnt unfair its just hard, because its a boss after all

12.the minotaur instant kill alerts you long before launching the attack with sound and animation so you can run but maybe install kill is unfair, i think like 1 hearth maybe?

13.the keybord thing is something that many people have told me here in newgrounds and I will change it obviously

and finally I am worried about the score since thanks to this newgrounds I choose if I can reach more people, or the game is not worth it and should be forgotten

I know I deserve the score because the game has many errors, I just ask if they can raise the score when I update the game if they really believe that I deserve it since that way I could reach more people and my dream is that someday this game will be done famous

[Adpocalypse (Prototype)]

it feels nice to control the character - I like the snappy controls.
And I didn't really think much of it before I saw a review below, but it's great to control the character with WASD instead of arrow keys and ZX or whatever other strange keys. If it matters to you, I used Space and not W to jump.
Please get rid of all the mixed pixels (aka mixels) though.
As an aspiring artist it's a sore to the eyes I cannot overlook.
Also, you should hue-shift the darker/lighter color shades. Hue shift towards blue/purple for dark/shadow color shades, red/yellow for light shades.
This will go a long way in not making the colors look dull.
I recommend you join the /r/pixelart discord if you can - community feedback on top of resources will help you along way in this visual facet of the game.
Overall I liked it. I don't really have much feedback on shooting the enemies and player-character positioning, other than its kind of inconsequential/not particularly interesting, which doesn't help you.

SheeplessDreamr responds:

I'm so new to all this game dev and pixel art stuff (literally started this project using only Ms paint[it's all I had]). Can you inform me on what mixels are and other tips (dm me). Thank you 😊

[BugBots]

Squares are topics/points. Pluses are additional points. Minuses are just comments.

■ Interesting movement. I've never seen a mouse-relative movement system like this before. I like the concept of that, but it's not done well.
You can capitalize on that by trying to design the game around it or change it to make it more approachable to new players.
If you choose the former, a feature to consider could be locking on, so the player is less confused while moving around - the mouse snaps to the closest target or the next. Could be dumb, though - lock-on features are hard to make good.
+ It would be interesting to add a feature to instantly turn the player around.
+ You could also try getting rid of moving forward and backward altogether, be that literally (by making the player not able to do so with W and S) or by design (having the levels, enemies, and gameplay in general, make that the most fun or most effective way of playing).
+ Maybe the aiming could be slower to make movement less jarring? That and the cannon rotates separately from the body. That might change the game too much though, so I don't mind this not being implemented, but you should look into making the movement less jarring.
+ Another idea for making it less jarring. Have the movement be relative only to the direction you're looking, not to how centered on the screen the cursor is.
I don't think there's a need for the movement to take into consideration how close the aim is to the center of the screen.
I still think you should be able to rotate around where you're looking at, so don't set that pivot point to be too far away from the player, but also not too close.
+ Alternatively, you can Not do that, but make aiming inward or outward slower.
+ You can also try making the game pace slower. The fast pace of the movement and bullets is better fitted for level design with open/larger areas.
+ It might be worth looking into whether the aiming reticle should stay still in relation to the player UI or to the environment, and seeing whether either is any less jarring.
+ I think it would be good for the player to see their turning diameter. Meaning, a circle that intersects with the aiming reticle, whose diameter is of the distance between the reticle and the player.
+ If you end up giving up on this style of movement, you can just make it like BubbleTanks 3, AwesomeTanks, Hotline Miami, or any other top-down shooter. I think that would get rid of some uniqueness of this, but if you just can't make it work, it's understandable. It's a lot of development time to make this work well, you might just wanna be familiar with typical top-down shooter game design before trying to break the mold.
- I just noticed you can change the control style. While I'm glad to have the option, you should design your game around one of those, not both. I personally was having what I can only describe as frustrating fun playing with the first Control Type (A). Note that I'm biased in regards to this because I like Rally racing games - you wrestle with the controls in that as well, though there are tactics to it in those games.
+ It seems that I move faster diagonally than forwards and sideways. I'm not sure.
- From here on I played with the Control Type (B).

■ You should make item pickups more visible. In the off-chance they're coloured according to my vehicle's colour, remove that feature.

■ I'm not a fan of most obstacles being timed obstacles that are closed most of the time. It would be good to have breakable ones (see Awesome Tanks) to break up the pace (the animation and sounds go a long way to making the breaking feel satisfying).

■ It would be good if the game pointed me to the next nearest crystal (whether it's physically near or near in terms of pathfinding is up to you).
+ Alternatively, you can implement a minimap showing you where the close ones are, and that shows you where you have gone (with a traced path), without spoiling the level.
+ Remove the red and white 1/8's of a circle that instantly spawn in rotation around crystals on crystals you've already collected (in case you died and have to get them again)

■ The enemy that is stuck to walls and shoots you bricks the performance of the game. Fix that.
+ They also shoot WAY too fast. They're not a fair enemy. Give them a cooldown, at the very least.
+ They also take way too long to kill.
+ They also seem to crash the audio engine at times. I'm not sure if that's what's happening - it stops and comes back after a couple of seconds.
+ The enemies with what look like shields around them seem to take just as long if not less time to kill than the enemies without. That doesn't make sense to me. If they're supposed to be faster, make them a triangle instead. Purposeful visual design.
+ Make the fact that enemies are taking damage more visible.
+ Add ranged enemies that can follow you. Either make them move more slowly or shoot at a slower rate than turrets.
++ Okay, I found the fly looking thing that follows and shoots you. They're way too fast for the close-quarter levels we have here. They turn way too quickly as well.
+ The single wall that rotates towards you turns way too fast.
+ It's easy to get stun-locked if you find yourself in a bad position. This encourages you to play cowardly, by running away, picking enemies one by one, or cheesing them. Not to mention the quick walls and extremely fast projectiles.

■ I noticed you can shoot projectiles out of the air. The game is basically asking for you to implement missiles. If you add them, don't make them turn too quickly, and have a certain lifetime.

■ The standing turret fires too many rounds quickly. Make the enemy more telegraphed - meaning, you should be able to better tell what it's gonna do next, in a way that doesn't trivialize the attacks of the enemies by making them too easy to dodge (meaning, in a balanced manner). You can do that with charge-up sounds and limiting the turret rotation speed.

■ It doesn't seem like a good idea to put 1/8's of a circle that instantly spawn in rotation around crystals unless you can avoid the collision glitches when they inadvertently spawns on top of the player. Alternatively, you can use the rotating circles with an opening (rotating obstacles) instead.

■ The aim is off the further away from the player the aiming reticle is. https://streamable.com/m6hnu That seems like a bug to me.

■ The shuriken weapon also lags the game, albeit less than the wall enemy.

■ The level design should not be maze-like: that kind of design is not fun - it doesn't respect the time of the player. Coupled with the timed obstacles, even more so. Now, that actually might Not be the case, it might just be that it's unclear where to go next. If so, see the above.
++ No, it's not just unclear. It is designed like a maze. Some corridors lead to empty rooms. They must have something.
+ I think the walls would look better if they connected to each other instead of having holes.
+ I think the floor textures should vary in different sections of the level. At least in pattern.
+ I think the background would look better if it had a vignette effect on it instead of being a solid color. That would be great, but experiment with what looks good - maybe a slow animated smoke-ish looking texture, or a slow animated noise texture, could look good. Might ruin the clean look of the game though, it really depends, also can't be too distracting. Experiment. But the vignette would go a long way.
++ I just noticed the background is actually just the part of the wall that's darkest. That can look better. Add a gradient that gets darker the further away from the wall it is.
+ Vary the hues of grey in the game.
+ Have the player get a checkpoint upon collecting half of the crystals. This might not be necessary.
++ Yes, it's definitely necessary.
+ Have the gfx of particles that you and enemies shoot decelerate as they get away from the center of the impact.
+ You could make the foreground stand out from the background (the floor and the void behind the stage) by adding shadows around the walls, around enemies that are off the ground, and turrets(specifically, the part that moves). See "Darkwood".
+ Get rid of the stubs sticking out of the corners of the walls. Took me a while to notice, but it doesn't look good.
+ Have a stage select screen and make the game have less stages, or make them better paced.
++ The game is horrifyingly long. I'm legitimately considering not finishing it. I had to make a map myself to finish one of the levels.
+ The spinning obstacles could be substituted by a door that you must wait for a little second before it opens. Or breakable blocks.
+ The player's cannon should not collide with objects. The hitbox should be consistent.
+ I have seen this thing many times http://prntscr.com/p4h8ui and I have no idea what it is. If it's an item you're supposed to be able to pick up, I can't do that.
+ I assume I'm on the last level. NEVER make rooms filled with enemies without any thought put into like this, it's Extremely lazy and Not fun. This sucks big time. It also sucks that it lags so much. That kind of design tells me a game is not worth anyone's time.
- I hope this is your first or second game because this is really a chore to play. I've been playing for 3-4 hours, this is not okay for a browser game.
+ Have toggleable autofire next time; instead of hold to shoot.
- I finished it. http://prntscr.com/p4hfia (at 20:18; I started at 16:11) That was not fun. Please, have people playtest your levels.
+ If the game is supposed to be insect-themed, have more insect-themed enemies instead of random shapes. I thought this was a surreal world apart from the player and two enemies looking like insects. Give them legs, antennae, wings. They're supposed to be robots, that's fine, make them and the levels look more appealing instead of this dull grey. You can start doing this just by varying the hues of grey. I think the game would be more visually interesting if the environments were a mix of robotic and natural aspects and objects, though mostly natural. Use big/medium objects to show to the player the scale of the world, as well, like Pikmin.
+ One thing I noticed at the very last room (with enemies) in the game - the 1/8's of a circle that instantly spawn in rotation around crystals, well, they're not centered. It's almost as if a different object altogether is being loaded in (I hope that's not the case) a very very slightly different location. It's off-center.
- At the end of the critique I was gonna give it a 2.5 and tell you to imagine it was the rating that has a guy with a smirk on his face. I'm not doing that anymore. I was content writing this during the first 90 minutes but now I'm just exhausted.

Somehow, I still have a bit of energy to be patient enough to write this: Ultimately, you should be proud that you finished the project. It's a game. Games are hard to make, and any project is hard to finish. Don't get attached. It's a stepping stone for the better, future you.

BlueFireArts responds:

Thank You for your input! Yes this is my first game and was exhausting to make. I am planing on make my next game very soon with will be 3D (and simpler). I can make a few changes but I am not sure if I am able to do a lot of them with my limited scripting skills. I made 95% of all the scripts (which was a nightmare at times).

I'm surprised this was difficult and took 4 hours, I showed off this game at an indie expo in Boston and one of the players finished it in 15-20 mins. This version is the same as I showed off that day. I wanted to make it challenging, but I did not wanted make it too difficult. I am getting mixed feedback which is interesting, but I am happy that people are playing my game.