Jaswir's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Black]

In some of the puzzles the game screen is too big (like with the pool balls)
Don't see everything on 1 screen, needed to scroll. Also the idea doesn't seem so new anymore after playing yellow and red which made it less fun for me.

[Spider-Man The Game!]

Loved the level where you could swing between buildings dude!
Somehow the bombs didn't go off when I collided with them tough.

Your third game already, keep up the good work man !

[Little Knight]

Amazing idea.
Finally a super easy platformer, with not arrows keys, aswd and many other keys for switching weapons and attacking. No just 2 keys.
Like the mechanic where you bounce back upon hitting a wall!

Some frustration solving gameplay finetunes:
Make pressing (R) restart the level.
Make pressing (P) pause the game.

Some gameplay fun increasing finetunes:
Make it possible to jump again when you hit a wall, this feels like a possibility but isn't.
Make it possible to jump against a platform and use it as a wall, did this sometimes felt possible, but didn't bounce back.

Like how the shell becomes black when it dies.
All in all great job on this game.

[Wrong Turn]

Wow dude, this is really amazing for your first game if it is.
My first game was absolute poop. And still most are quite bad.

I liked the connection between the title and the game play: "taking the wrong turn can kill me. "This makes the game stand out among other games.

I also liked how there come new obstacles as you progress through the dungeon.
The alien, slime then the ant and the GOLEM! Although the game is about progressing through the dungeon, I actually found it more enjoyable to kill monsters.
Would have wished killing them made me stronger. Maybe you could add a leveling system to your character, where each kill provides stats to upgrade your hiker? e.g. speed, strength.
especially if you follow the suggestions to remove the turn waittime.
Also wanted to buy something with the coins. Perhaps you could make it so that you can buy armor/ weaponry with the coins?

From the description I get that you wanted to complete a full game.
Well nicely done, with the well polished art and music it truly seems like a fully finished product.

FacemanFoothand responds:

Wow, thank you so much! You have no idea how much that means to a beginning dev like myself! The game was originally planned to be done with after release, but from all the positive comments and great criticism, I am considering doing a re-release in the future with a much more fleshed out game!

Thank you for playing, and thank you for the great review!

[Laser Bricks]

Has a clear goal: move and shoot bricks.
Fun that you can unlock other guns.

levels take too long to complete.
So long that I make stupid mistakes and die.
and then have to do the same again.
feels very frustrating.

Would suggest making levels feel shorter.
Reduce distance, increase ship speed, increase ship fire power.

[Hookshot]

Good game has loads of good mechanics in it.
Would change the waiting for the controls and make it up to the player to choose direciton, that way the game dynamic and will be much improved;.

[Coffee Warz]

Liked the office theme.
Hitting colleagues and drinking coffee to heal.
Liked the level system, it is just like Pokemon!

I understand this was a gamejam game and you had limited time, but if you had more time I would suggest the following:

Played the game twice to explore new things, but it seemed too much of the same hence I lost reason to play. The floor number is just a value, and has little meaning on it's own as a high-score, you need to give the number value. For example the player levels up and gets stronger, new abilities are unlocked. Floors get new weapons, enemies etc.
Where is that machine gun?

You already build a level system. This could be a great way to add value.
I already noticed you got stronger when you level up, display this! So it is clear progress is made. You could unlock abilities like dashing, magic spells like fireball (stick rpg),
super saiyan like abilities get stronger unlock ability to do kamehameha.
To make it more interesting you could give the player points on level up to
develop certain skills: strength, mana (for kamehameha), charisma (manipulate colleagues to become your allies). This way each time you die you have more reason to replay, you could try a different "way of life" each time. Become the strong pure or pure charismatic, or a mix of some.

Also I would expect when you go next floor you get better weapons.

PS: if you did ad new abilities, weapons, interesting things start doing it after the first level up or floor complete, then I wouldn't have missed it.

[Super Grower]

At first I was kinda pissed I thought someone cloned Tough Growth.
But then I got really surprised. You actually took it a whole other direction.
It is much more of a challenge game and well implemented too.

I am very grateful you are teaching me how I could have solved many game design flaws in Tough Growth. The teleport effect, here is much clearer that something is happening, because the line continues from the position outside the screen.
You have no clue how many hours I tried to solve that issue: making sure to players that the teleportation was intended.
I also feel with the more challenging gameplay teleporting is much more of a skill than a hack.

But the best thing that surprised me most and I think truly proves your ingenious
level design is the way you made many random things in Tough Growth
requiring pure skill:

I felt this a lot with the bullets that chase you, because they pile up so you have to strategize how to pile them up in a way that you can manouevre. With the normal bullets of your first shooting enemy you can just randomly move, removing the need for skill.

The purple chasing rockets make a path, which make me think how can I form the path in such a way that it won't block me. This skill was especially tested in level 13.
I think you could have done more with that. What I do like more about these purple rockets
is that this solves another design issue I had with Tough Growth.
In Tough Growth with the orange triangles that shot long beams, the beams blocked the players movement, but it often was random. Here because the projectile chases you
and then forms a path this randomness is taken care off! And once again something became skill based instead of requiring pure luck like in Tough Growth.

In matters of improvement I think there is still one major flaw in both our games.
The food spawning feels random.
Leading to a more luck based gameplay then a skill/ strategy experience.
I wonder if you can find a solution for this?
Or who will be the next that does something with this mechanic and what clever solution they may come up with.

I suggest you put this on Kong, and inform Armor Games about Non-exclusive licenship.
You can make some bucks with this.

I think an easy way to improve Super Growth significantly is by adding some polish. The game design is truly high quality, but it is not coming forth as great because of the basic primary shapes. They make it still feel like a prototype.
I think if you add some more texture to the shapes, or add some glow like shaders to the game. Or another way of making it feel less like a prototype.
The game would actually improve a heck of a lot in matters of perceived quality.
Currently Super Grower is a diamond that does not bling.
Make it bling MrNannings! And give credit were credit is due.

[O D E S S A]

Innovative: Asteroids + Repairing your ship while battle,
Wow that's such a cool idea mate.

In the fourth level I felt this experience really strongly ELPandito.
The laser shooting moving purple ship waves made it really fun
had to really focus and figure out how to aim the rocket launcher
on them before I could survive the level.
Constantly I had to switch between fighting then got hurt and had to fix
and then more fighting and got hurt again had to fix.
A couple times the ship even blew up that was so cool man!

I assume this is the feel you are going for with this game.
Based on that I shall give some improvement points.
In the first 3 levels I barely had any difficulty
with the ships. Everytime it got difficult I found this cheat.
I could hide in the ship and fix and when I came back
it was cleared up again. This prevented me from
getting amazing experience of level 4.
Perhaps you could make it so you can only repair your ship when you haven't been attacked
for a certain amount of time? This might add major excitement the kind that would benefit such a feel.

Other point. Right now I don't feel like the gas tanking platforming
adds much to the game.
I suggest removing it and focusing completely on the fighting / repairing part.
You could turn the gas part into like a shop, every time you visit a shop on a different planet
with different items. By destroying ships you would get some kind of space currency which you can then use
to buy grenade launcher rocket, upgrade your ship etc.. etc..
This would enable you to fully focus on the fighting / repairing part and getting that awesome
feel.

Keep up the good work dude.
Send me a pm if you going to continue to this game, I would like to follow.
This game got me so hyped, I want to make my own space game now.
And I don't have any passion for space games whatsoever ;)
So imagine how a space game enthousiast will like your game.

PS: I player your game with a mouse
and think the first 2 levels were way too easy, level 3 was good intro to weapons
and level 4 was perfectly challenging for me.
and I played with a mouse, that might have helped.

ElPandito responds:

Hello Sabooo!

First of all, thanks so much for ... well, all this haha, having tried it and enjoyed it and put some thought into it! <3

I think you might enjoy playing the game at higher difficulty levels then (unless you already did and you're just super good?? :O) At the beginning of the game, you can hit the 'EASY' sign with your wrench, and it will adjust the difficulty. It affects the game pace, how much damage things deal to you, how fast you can repair parts etc.

Yeah this kind of crazy multitasking is what I'm going for! Haha.

"Perhaps you could make it so you can only repair your ship when you haven't been attacked for a certain amount of time?"
That's actually a pretty interesting idea! I'm not sure it will be necessary if the amount you repair for each hit is a lot lower, like on Hard difficulty (because then even if you keep repairing, if you take a couple of hits while you're tabbed in the ship you might just die.)

About the exploration mode : I think you're totally right. The exploration mode was somewhat rushed and not very polished, but most of all, it's totally beside the point, as this isn't what the game is about now that I think about it. You know, when I read your comments about the exploration mode, I actually felt a lot of relief, thinking "Wow, I don't even need to fix that thing, much less even make it at all!", and truly it would have been a *LOT* of work to design proper enemies to fight in that mode.

About currency : I will add a form of currency! Woo! It will be called "scraps", and it will be basically scraps of metal you get from blowing up enemy ships, which you can then use to craft things, or trade for goods. (It makes average sense but ay, haha.)

Actually, I will PM you! I could really use some feedback! I haven't worked on Odessa for a while, but I just got back to it, and I plan to polish it and send a demo to publishers (!!!).
(It's not 100% certain I'll end up working on this though, I recently sent a build of an other project called Glitch; ... So I'll go with whatever the publishers want more, if ... well, if they're interested at all haha.)

Yeah the gamepad controls are totally broken anyway LOL. Fixing that right now.

Yo, again, thanks! It was good reading your comments!

Joseph

[Pirate Star]

Pirate Star:

Unlike other similar games, I love the warp animation in this one.
It really gives the space traveling feel to the game!
Also the upgrade system for the ship and crew works well.
Spend a lot of time trying to upgrade my foes.
Fought the easy units and accumulated credits. Soon I found the pirate star
and noticed it was much harder. Here I decided to first upgrade to the max before going there again.

When players have expectations of a reward and you don't give it it is really frustrating
and stops them from playing.

The easy units gave little credits about 100 so I had to get more another way
because this would take ages. Once in a while I saw other units that kept beating me
and since they were stronger I expected if you killed them you would get a lot of credits (500 - 1000).
Which I could then use to upgrade to the max and go to a pirate star.

After losing about 5 times against this unit and having to start over all again.
I was like alright this is the last time I will do it again, because I don't like to keep dieing
and have to do everything all over again.
Then I upgrade to like 4 damage per ship (fighters too) and 8 health both (I believe)
And I fought the other units again, expecting way more credits.
After killing them I got none. That felt so frustrating I quit.

I suggest giving loads of credits when you defeat these units.

Another major frustration point for me:
I expected enemy placement to just be click some point in the area, but some areas were invalid
and it took me a long time before I understood why. It is so your fighters won't shoot eachother.
What you could do is add like a red area in a row once a fighter is placed, so it is clear no ships can be placed
there anymore. This way I would have understood way sooner.

A slight frustration point:
The warping is cool and all, but when I was traveling a lot trying to collect credits.
It is annoying to have to look at the warp all the time. Also when you overuse something cool
it loses it's awesomeness you know. Imagine someone you always expected to be just a regular guy
suddenly pops a backflip, you'll be like wow amazing dude! While if the same guy did it every class
you'd be like. Yeah alright showoff.
Perhaps only use the warp for special moments?
When you travel inbetween dots you are actually traveling a much farther distance then just 1 tile at a time.
Just like a warp travels a lot of distance. What if you only used the warp when traveling from dot to dot?
And used something like just a fire burst that lasts 0.5 second or so for the other travel?

All in all fun time waster. I believe your game has a lot more hidden potential to it
and by removing these frustration points and by removing these frustration points
you could get a step closer towards revealing this potential.

exaltedguy responds:

Thank you for the review! Those are excellent insights, several of which we hadn't really seen before. On the part about the powerful enemy that you randomly run into. That would be the end boss that appears randomly to taunt you. He should be in a red ship. You actually weren't defeating him. If you pay close attention to when you were "defeating " him you'll see that it's not an explosion but a warp rift that appears. Also, you'll notice that the fighters get left behind. In addition, if you find that you're losing a fight, there's nothing stopping you from warping away.

We're planning on making a sequel to pirate star and many of your suggestions will be implemented there. Thank you very much!