Kolter's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Crayon Poke]

Hello there again, Raiyumi. This is a wonderful game you've got here. You have a very consistent style, and indeed this is reminiscent of previous games like "A Kitty Dream" and "The Valley Rule," though much shorter than both of those. Briefly put, this game is charming and challenging, very fitting for short play for those who don't have much time in their hands. Of course there's more to say than that, and I will go through all of my opinions shortly.

Art Style
When I started playing this game I was thinking it seemed much like, "A Kitty Dream," and after I went to check who the creator was, it was you. My point is that you have a very distinctive art style and that's marvellous since it sets your game apart from other people's. The very distinctive art style is a definite plus.

Music
The music, though it does not change, is very atmospheric. It's very evocative of classic RPG games like Chrono Trigger or The Legend of Zelda series. I have not many issues about the music except that it doesn't seem to loop very well. There's a very awkward split second of silence when it loops, and while this is not as noticeable while you're playing, it is there. Nevertheless, I don't think this takes away much from the game.

Gameplay
This is the best part of this game. There's a lot of exploration to do, and many mildly challenging puzzles to complete. As usual, the actual gameplay is executed very well. The movement is seamless and the challenges are satisfying. The crayon-throwing in particular reminded me of Depict1, and judging from previous reviews by other players I'm not the only one who was reminded of Depict1.
The ability of the "weapons" to stick to the wall and be used as a platform was the selling point of Depict1. It is the same for this game, and like in Depict1 they can even be stacked to create bridges. This is a very interesting feature, and I also like how the function of crayons are not really explained to the player and the player is made to figure it out themselves.
While the gameplay is good, I can't help but feel it's a bit lacking. This game feels like a lesser version of Depict1. While it is good in and of itself, but compared to Depict1, there is less to do and it is not as challenging, and furthermore there is not as much of a storyline. This is understandable given the 72 hour period you were given to complete this project, so I won't be too harsh on that aspect. I think you did well considering.
Additionally, it would have been nice if the secrets actually served a purpose, i.e. if you collect all 4 of them you get access to a special thing that you wouldn't get if you didn't collect all of them. As it is, collecting them feels pointless even though you get a medal for completing this task. A special cutscene or a hidden room would have sufficed.
Furthermore, while your games have been very well done, I'm starting to think that you might benefit from a bit more progression. I'm not saying that your style is going stale, I just think that it would be interesting if you could explore more different aspects of platforming. You're so creative I feel like you can do much more than this! I'm not saying the platforming mechanics here are bad, but they are lacking in comparison to some of your previous projects. It's still very creative though, I'm just saying it would be great to see more unique gameplay straying away from your usual Metroidvania style of platforming which I believe you have perfected at this point.

Despite me offering some criticism I do still think that this is a good game, don't get me wrong. Overall I have an extremely positive opinion of this piece of work and it is very well-deserving of its front page status. Godspeed, and please never stop making games.

[Think Different]

Summary: This game is not too bad but it suffers from some issues. It's playable, but I wouldn't consider it great by any means.
P.S. Don't take anything I say personally, I'm only offering constructive criticism because I'm hoping you'd deliver better games in the future with loads of awesome!

Positive Things:
-Interesting concept of having a different game mechanic at every level, and also having to use the mouse in some parts
-Nice choice of music. The minimalist chiptune music by Erik Skiff fits in well with the atmosphere of the game. It sets a nice tone especially in the Hardcore Challenges. I think that one track is called "Come and Find Me". Very effective contrast between the Main Game and the Hardcore Challenges.

Negative Things:
-While the idea is interesting, it is hardly unique and it has not been executed extremely well in this game. There have been others who've thought of changing game mechanic on every level before, and they've executed it better. Examples I could think of that are in Newgrounds include, "The Company of Myself," "I Saw Her Standing There," ":the game:". I commend you on thinking creatively nonetheless.
-The level design could use some improvement. Some nice tricks were implemented but this does not feel like a full game. It needs more: more challenges, more mind-bending puzzles, etc.
-Overall the game was not that satisfying to complete. The controls were frustratingly clunky and there were no "a-ha" moments where you feel satisfaction for solving a hard problem. What you had to do in every level was clear from the get-go and most of the difficulty of the game relied on the clunky controls, not on the amount of mental effort required to get through a level.

Suggestions:
1. As others before me have said, please add arrow key support, it would be good for the future players, especially left-handed people.
2. The level design could use more detail, and also would be nice to have more complex puzzles to solve. The puzzles were way too simple.
3. Please improve the sensitivity of controls. Much of the difficulty of the game was a result of slippery controls rather than tough brainteasing puzzles.
4. Please add a button to go back to the main menu during the levels. Sometimes a player may not want to play all the way through. For example, I accidentally clicked on "Main Game" when I meant to go to the Hardcore Challenges, and there was no option to go back to the main menu.
5. When I did restart my browser I found that the Hardcore Challenge was locked again, when I've finished the Main Game no more than a few minutes ago. I'm not sure if it's just me, but it may actually be a problem. If so, fix this. Otherwise, ignore this one.

[A Kitty Dream]

Superb game!
Woah, this is pretty good for a game made in five days. The exploring worlds concept is implemented to brilliance in this short game. Everything works together marvellously: the artwork, the music, the gameplay, the controls, the challenges. The character movement is also really fluid so this helps with some of the tougher parts of the game.
The art style and gameplay does remind me a lot of TadakuniAmano's work, e.g. Tower of Heaven, Pause Ahead etc. It's probably no coincidence that you picked Billtron209 to do the music because he did the music for Pause Ahead, which was quality music by the way. No exception here, the music does a great job of establishing atmosphere. That is quite probably the most important role of video game music - not to try to show off but to mix in almost like it wasn't there. The music here does that well. The other ingame sounds are also soft and not distracting. It's so relaxing that it's almost impossible to get frustrated during the challenging parts of the game.
Other than the music I really enjoyed the gameplay. You wouldn't expect such hardcore challenges from such a relaxing game. No, okay, I'm exaggerating; they're not hardcore but they're sufficiently difficult. There are a number of tough puzzlers in the game that require a bit of thinking. Heck, even getting back up after getting the dash upgrade is a puzzle (hint: you can dash in any direction). Nothing beats the feeling of fiero after defeating a tough puzzle. So thank you for not making the game way too easy. My personal favourite was the "Heaven" level with the numerous block puzzles. I had a great time figuring out that the blocks didn't have to stay in their specified areas to unlock doors.
While we're on the topic of the "Heaven" level. The deception of the invisible platform in the "secret" area was just deliciously devilish. This sensation of being unable to reach a desired object is comparable to a cat chasing an uncatchable laser light (oh right, the main character is a cat. I couldn't have thought of a more appropriate metaphor). In fact, I realised this sort of mechanic was true for all the secrets, they're all just a bit out of reach. Getting all three secrets is a challenge worthy of a badge of achievement. However it's hard to get frustrated with such relaxing music and eye-candy artwork.
Hmm, I actually notice a motif of unprocurable thingamabobs throughout the game. For example, you can't finish the game without all the upgrades. The game does not allow you to enter or exit certain areas without the aid of upgrades. In this example the thingamabob is not an object but a place. I actually liked the fact that you made the upgrades necessary for further progression in the game.
There's this downfall of upgrades in some games wherein the inclusion of upgrades causes a decrease in the game's overall difficulty. There was none of that here. The inclusion of upgrades did not break the game and make it too easy. Here the upgrades are only tools for progression and not weapons of game difficulty destruction. Getting the secrets was still adequately hard with the upgrades (actually they were impossible without upgrades, unless you hack the game but it's no fun that way).
There's really nothing major to complain about here. I'd say it's too short, but it's a fair length considering the amount of time you had, and given the theme you're working with, dreams themselves feel shorter than they really are. I can definitely see a game that's a bit longer and more fleshed out. This game is brimming with great ideas but I don't think you have fully realised all the possibilities yet. Anyhow It doesn't change the fact that the game is pretty darned good as it currently is.

Raiyumi responds:

That's a pretty awesome review. Thanks for playing. :)

[SkySlayer]

This game has decent playability and enjoyability but it's suffering from numerous limitations. If I could summarise this review in one phrase it would be: this game needs polish. It's now time to explain what I mean by that statement.
I played through the first few levels and I admittedly got bored of them quickly. However, I played through the entire game so that I'll be able to give an honest and fair review not based merely on the first few levels. I was hoping to see a reasonable progression and more interesting levels with new things but I was terribly disappointed to say the least. The only real "enemy" you ever get are fireballs, and I don't think the fireballs even start giving you a tough time until level 46.
Anyway, I'll be more methodical now, listing things about the game that I think need work or were pretty bad:
1. The music. It's not very good and sometimes it doesn't loop well (levels 10-19). If you're going to make the music repetitive at least make it sound nice and not annoying.
Furthermore, when you fail a level and you decide to "Restart" there's a chance that the music would layer over itself and you'd have to refresh the webpage to get it acting normal again. Of course it would be all good until you fail another level and you have to restart it. You'll have the pleasure of listening to overlapping cacophonous musical passages (a.k.a. noise) once more. This needs a fix.
2. Upgrades. Yes the upgrades can be rather nice, except they don't function perfectly. For example, in the later stages of the game pressing "X" stopped working. The player could no longer balloon himself to float a little higher. I decided to check the shop if maybe the game reset the bought status of the balloons and strangely enough the third balloon icon was faded out apparently indicating I haven't bought it yet even though I was sure that I've maxed out the balloon upgrade already. So to make sure that I really have maxed it out I pressed the button for purchasing but it's not buying, probably because it's already registered as maxed out while at the same time it isn't. Anyway, the balloons were no longer working either way.
Another problem was that the game also stopped registering my usage of the air-jump upgrade. In the first few stages a boot icon would disappear if I used the air-jump upgrade, but during the final few levels no such change is present, so even if I've air-jumped 3 times already 3 boots would still be there. The only things disappearing are the hearts and the sword (of course the balloons are not disappearing because the game won't even let me use them).
3. Coins. Collecting coins after you have bought all the upgrades is pretty pointless. You'd probably be able to buy the upgrades early into the game. It would have been nice to have some purchasable things that cannot be maxed out, e.g. one-time-use items.
4. Level design. All the levels are very bland with only a few enemy types present. However the only enemy that can damage you is the fireball. Every other enemy seems to be variations of floating stepping stones. It's very disappointing how the levels don't change all that much and to add to this the objective never changes! That's correct, every single level you have to kill 100 things! This gets old really easily. As for the levels themselves the environment only changes in levels 10, 20, 30 and 40. Levels 40-50 have the same background, the only difference with level 50 is that it is a kind of boss fight. You might think the boss fight would have a different objective, but no, you still have to kill 100 things. How annoyingly boring.
Another issue I have with the levels is the scattered difficulty. Finishing most levels probably have more to do with luck than with skill. The more "opponents" there are and the less spread out they are, the easier it would be to finish a level. But of course opponents are randomly generated, hence why I finished level 47 faster than I finished level 46, I just happened to get lucky that level 47 had more "opponents" and less homing-missile-like fireballs than level 46. Difficulty in this game is only increased with the frequency of appearance of fireballs and scarcity of slashable opponents.
There's not enough progression. It's the same thing for every level. Finishing the entire game is just a pointless slog that's not even worth your time. Cutting down the levels or at least making them more interesting by adding more elements and more challenges would make the game more enjoyable and less arduous or boredom-inducing.
5. User interface/menus/controls. In the levels menu, if you have bought all the upgrades, they would overlay onto the level selection. This is bad design. The upgrades should not appear on the screen until the player starts a level.
There's also no pause or restart button. Yes you could easily pause/restart at the same time by dying but what if you don't want to die?
There's no button to go back to the main menu. While there's not really anything to this game other than the levels, not having a button to go back to the main menu is kind of like opening a book and ripping out its front cover so that the new front cover is the table of contents.
Why Z, X and C? Why can't you just have another click for the air-jump? X and C I don't have too much of a problem with though. Also how about an alternative control system? Instead of using mouse/trackpad use arrow keys for movement and spacebar for jump/air-jump then X and C for what they were before. Mouse control is fine though, the controls are probably the okay-est part of your game. That's saying something.
6. The whole game. I did try to give your game a chance but it's broken and overall not very fun or interesting . It could be good but it needs a stuffton of improvement.

[OCD Dreambot]

Rather frustrating.
This game could be fun but it isn't for a number of reasons.
The controls are really slippery! When you make the robot jump it is very easy to overshoot platforms and miss your target entirely, and sometimes this means falling into obstacles or having to ascend a number of platforms again, which takes me to my second point.
The battery dies really fast. It dies faster when you get hit by enemies or obstacles and also when you're jumping across multiple platforms. Other than the controls being flimsy I found a lot of platforms were awkwardly placed. They're placed in a way that the robot could make the jump if you were really really precise with your controls, and it's annoying when you're jumping multiple times trying to get on the platform and you either overshoot or you fall back down to where you came from. Sometimes where you came from would have an opponent in it and you'd get damaged. So your battery gets sapped both by the enemy and you missing the jump. With the amount of battery you're provided with you'll have to get the later levels almost perfect to finish.
Another major issue I have is the amount of backtracking involved! In later levels, difficulty is amped up not by more complex puzzles or anything of that sort but by making you have to go in circles every time you close a door, and of course if you miss jumps or get hit with obstacles your battery gets sapped really fast.
There's this other issue with the placement of the batteries. Sometimes the robot would have one bar left and I'm just two jumps away from reaching a spare battery, however even if I make one of the two jumps the robot would shut down before it could make use of the battery. It's like the game is set in a way that if you miss perfection by one step you can't finish. Master troll move game devs.
Also a setback that's keeping me from enjoying this game entirely is the lack of a reset button. You virtually have to die if you want to try a level again.
While the advice says to perform the levels in the dark. It would use up less battery if you get the level perfect, but if you're missing jumps and getting hit with things, you're better off turning the light on again to see what you're doing, especially with the amount of accuracy you'd need to finish a level.
Perhaps someone with OCD would be best suited for a game like this. Nonetheless, it's still mildly enjoyable.

thepodge responds:

Thanks for your feedback. The game was only made in one week so it was never going to be perfect - you definitely bring up a lot of points that are worth bearing in mind for future games or sequels.

[Wooper's Adventure]

This is a pretty entertaining game though there were some issues that I had with it.
1. The "Continue" button allows you to go to Lvl 1, Lvl 6, Lvl 11 or Lvl 16 even though you haven't even reached those levels yet. Yes, going to 16 is cheating, but that's the sort of thing the game should prevent. It would have been better if those continue levels were unlockables and were only unlocked after the player has passed through them.
2. The levels were way too small and the difficulty seemed to linger around a very small area. There were only a few things you had to do to finish each level. I would have liked more complex puzzles and a greater increase in difficulty such that the last level is like the peak of the mountain peak while the first level is the base of the mountain.
3. The menu layout. After you have made a choice there's no button to go back to the main menu to make another selection. This is a huge flaw. You need to have a Back button so if a player accidentally clicks a button in the menu they can go back and make another choice without having to refresh the webpage. This is especially annoying when there are 30+ second ads before the game.
4. Just a technicality but in the Quick Draw you had the following Pokémon, in this order: Beedrill, Charmeleon, Primeape, Pinsir, Mewtwo. I thought you were pretty clever and you arranged them in increasing speed, because this was true up to Primeape, but Pinsir is actually slower than Primeape. Below are the Pokémon in order from slowest to fastest based on Speed base stats:
Beedrill - 75
Charmeleon - 80
Pinsir - 85
Primeape - 95
Mewtwo - 130
Unless you had Mega Pinsir in there it should be in that order if you want to get really nitpicky.
5. Another thing about the Quick Draw. If I click "QUICK DRAW" and then click on the image of Scyther, instead of clicking on "Play" or "Instructions", "QUICK DRAW" reappears again and is not clickable. Now because there is no "Back" button to go to the main menu, I have to either pick "Credits" or "Fun Facts & FAQ" to get out of the screen. You really need to get this fixed.
6. If we took Pokémon mechanics into consideration, Wooper is Water/Ground and so Wooper is:
a.) Immune to Electric
b.) 1/2 x Resistant to Fire
But you had Slugma and Voltorb one-hit-kill Wooper when Voltorb and Slugma should not be very effective against Wooper. How about an Oddish instead of Slugma and a Sunkern instead of Voltorb?

These are most of the issues bugging me about this game. Other than this it's a pretty fun platformer.

OrangePylon responds:

Thanks for the in-depth review. I made this game six years ago when I was 13, and a lot of technical touch-ups (back buttons, menu glitches, progress-based continues) were either oversights or unable to be accomplished with my programming knowledge at the time. These would all be fixed had I made the game now.

#2 is the first thing I would fix if I were to remake this -- around level six or so is when the game is at its hardest, and the later levels focused more on the explosion power-up than on enemies, which made the game much easier.

Just as a side note, Newgrounds only recently added advertisements before games. When this was originally uploaded six years ago, nothing was intended to play before it.

The Pokémon in Quick Draw were generally arranged by speed, but Pinsir was chosen as the second last opponent because of it being a counterpart to Scyther. It was a stylistic choice. Also, Mega Pinsir did not exist yet.

Wooper in this game dies in one hit, so type effectiveness doesn't really come into play when you only have 1HP -- except admittedly in the case of his Electric immunity. Voltorb, however, doesn't use any Electric attacks in this game and instead mows Wooper down with, I don't know, either Tackle or Rollout. Either would at least affect Wooper, and would sufficiently do 1HP of damage.

If we're getting this technical, here's a freebie: I'm surprised you didn't comment on how, although Gen IV and gender differences had been released at the time, Woopette still has all four protrusions on her antennae. This was an oversight by 13-year-old me not being as big a Poké Freak as 19-year-old me.

I really do appreciate the critique coming from a Pokémon fan's perspective. I hate to plug my own content, but I'm working on a new Pokémon fan game, Pokémon Campaign, which aims to be much bigger in scope than this old flash. I'd love if you checked out its demo that's available and find any oversights in Pokémon canon, because I'd hate to find things that bug me like this after release.

Thanks again for putting so much time into your review,
-Lon

[Pixelo]

I'll split this review into two sections: 1.) things I liked about the game and 2.) things I didn't like about the game. I'll also append a tutorial to the end of the review.
Let's start with 1.)
This game is simple but at the same time can be quite a challenge. I've never played picross, but it is - simply put - addictive. It is likely you'll spend hours marking "dangerous" tiles with x's and shading boxes black to reveal the image that is hidden, only revealable by the code (the numbers outside the box). When the image becomes clear you get a brief feeling of success and satisfaction, and I think that was pretty nice.
Another thing that kept my interest in the game are the badges and the purchasable items. The upgrade system persuades to keep playing just so that you can unlock more things. This fits in very well with the mould of picross, because picross is all about unlocking images. The upgrades, badges, achievements and all those other things were a rather delightful addition. I approve the upgrades particularly, especially the ones that enhanced the gaming experience i.e. "ability to move edge to edge" etc.
I also like the fact that the music is not obtrusive and just acts as background sound rather than trying to steal the thunder of the game. This is essential in puzzle games, so kudos on making music that is not distracting. The changeable backgrounds are also rather fetching. "Do I want serene blue, calm green, passionate red, hmmm..." you might think to yourself. Well, you'll get the option to choose whatever you want.

Now, on to the things I didn't quite like.
For one, the tutorial was very confusing and didn't do so well in explaining the game. I've never played picross before so the rules were not intuitive to me. While I was watching the tutorial I was wondering what you actually had to do. At first I thought you had to copy an image from a template, but the levels had no such thing! I decided to just go into it, and pretty soon, I figured out by myself what the numbers meant, and I realised we weren't actually copying a picture but we were unveiling one using the numbers outside the box. The tutorial wasn't even helpful at all.
So I'll attempt to explain this game to anyone who is confused in the tutorial below.
I've read some of the reviews here saying there is no logic to the game. That is, in fact, false. There is a very consistent logic to the game, the tutorial just didn't explain it very well.
Another (some might say trivial) thing I noticed is the amount of grammar errors in the game. One glaring one was in the upgrades: "mark x prevent from filling out". This might not be a big deal to most people, but it gives off a really unprofessional vibe. I can forgive simple grammar errors, but ones like this should be fixed immediately. A suggestion would be: "Prevents marked blocks from being filled in", or something of that sort. I didn't take stars away for this, though.
This next one I have mixed feelings for. The largeness of the game and the number of puzzles. I think there are an adequate number of puzzles but the threshold for progression, in my opinion, is way too high. I do understand that you can get the Architect badge and use it to unlock more levels. Yes, the final level is the only thing you need to move on to the next section "Normal", "Hard" etc. There's a huge volume of puzzles to go through, and sloshing through easy puzzles repeatedly could easily become boring after a while. A more even difficulty curve might be nice. I don't have too much of a problem with this part though. Having more puzzles to solve is pretty cool. I just thought the rate at which you move on to the next puzzle felt too much of a slog.
Anyway, you get a 4.5/5.

TUTORIAL:
Say you have a 5x5 grid and it looks something like this:
2 2 5 1 1
3
1
1
3
3
The column with "2" on it means there are 2 blocks you want out of 5 available. If it's "1" it means there is 1 block that you want out of 5 and so on. Conversely, "2" also means you'd want to avoid 3 out of the 5 available blocks. You might want to "mark" these to prevent yourself from getting confused and forgetting you're not supposed to reveal those.
The same logic would apply to the rows. You should use both the columns and the rows to assist you with what blocks you should shade.

Now, let's try a 10 x 10 grid. This thing can get a bit more complex than it already is.
Let's say you get the following grid:
4 8 2 1
1 1 3 5 2 1 8 4 1 0
1
4
3
3
3
4
5
2 3
1 3 2
5 2

Oh no! What are those multiple numbers?! What do they mean?! Don't panic. The game didn't do a great job of explaining these numbers, but I shall reveal to you what this numbers mean.
Remember from the first 5 x 5 problem that "2" would indicate 2 blocks you want to shade and "3" you want to avoid? Well, you're still following those rules, but there's something more here, because when the numbers outside are more than one, it indicates that the blocks you want are split into segments. If it's a single number it's assumed that the blocks you need to shade are connected to each other.
Take for example, "6" in a column. In a 10 x 10 grid, 6 would indicate 6 shaded blocks in one column. These 6 blocks are all connected to one another.
Now, something like "1 3 2" in a column, in a 10 x 10 grid would mean that there are three segments separated by gaps in that one column. The first segment would be 1 shaded block long, the second segment would be 3 shaded blocks long, and the third segment would be 2 shaded blocks long. The important thing to note when you see these kinds of numbers is that these blocks are never connected even though they occupy the same column space. They'll always have at least 1 unwanted block between them.
If I could think of an analogy for it... hmm.
Okay, single numbers would be like trains. "6" would indicate a train with 6 connected cars going forward on one rail.
On the other hand, multiple numbers appearing in one row or column would be like cars. They're driving on the same road, but they're not connected. They're separated by some gaps. Let's think of cars as rolling containers here, because that's what they technically are. Also, when I say "car lengths", one car length signifies a block " Consider "1 4 1". 1 would be a solitary car. Then, in front of the car, a distance of 2 car lengths away, is a large truck. This truck is "4". This "4" is connected to 3 rolling containers. There's another vehicle in front of the truck, also 2 car lengths away in distance. It's another "1", a solitary car.
I hope this explanation helps clear up how to play this game to people who are confused,

[Jeff the Killer]

Fair concept, but I've encountered quite a problem. Holding "z", "m" or "shift" does make the character run, but after a few seconds he slows down to a crawl. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be part of the game, but it is quite annoying when the killer is chasing you and your character won't cooperate no matter how many times you press and hold the run key. I don't think it's got anything to do with stamina because the character only runs for a few seconds and it's impossible to tire out from running for that short a time.
I'm also taking away points for lack of originality. Obviously, Slender executed the idea in this game first, and I'd say probably with more success.
Anyway, I'm not entirely disappointed. It could be quite entertaining but it's not interesting beyond that.

Lenke responds:

is a part of the game, not sure if is better just let you run free, but it add more, you know it adds more....
xD!"