Kolter's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[DATE FIGHT]

This is fun as a novelty game but overall does not have a lot of depth.
First I want to point out the parts of it that are appealing.
Randomly generated characters make for a large variety of individuals with unique 'personalities' and movesets. Even though the variations are simple, this made for more interesting gameplay.
The selection of player moves available also allows for a variety of gameplay allowing you to mix and match play styles.
The interface is simple and easily understood through simple fiddling with keys; no tutorial is necessary. The memes were also occasionally amusing even if they got old after a while.

However there are a number of things that could use some improvement. I will not necessarily refer to these as cons but they do limit my enjoyment of this game.
I'm going to start with something simple. The game needs a Cancel button. There have been times when I clicked 'Edit Profile' accidentally when I didn't actually want to edit the profile. Another problem is the fact that dates disappear and move on to the next one when you move away from the main screen even if you did not swipe left. This makes it annoying when there is a date available that is the right level and I want to check moves or check the options, and I come back to a candidate that is not as ideal for gaining experience or money. Now on to the other things more involved with gameplay!
The game is missing balance. What I mean is that there are moves that are evidently better than previous moves and have no penalty for being better than the older moves. Obviously these moves will see the most use because they are the most practical. The only thing that could be considered a penalty is their higher price, but even that is a low barrier of entry.
In Pokémon games more powerful moves tend to have less PP or have lower accuracy, and this adds an element of risk to using the moves. Use it too much and you'll run out of it, use it in a crucial point of the battle and you have the fear of missing.
Adding PP would not only be beneficial to discouraging overuse of powerful moves, having a limit to move usage is good in general. This prevents players from being able to spam healing moves infinitely. Admittedly this problem could be gotten around by using buffs. (P.S. While buffs are spammable, I believe the buffs and debuffs actually top out at +6 and -6 respectively but the message box does not display this fact. Do you think you can employ a quick fix that says "x's y cannot go any higher."? Thanks).
Nonetheless adding PP might also lead to more interesting AI. Perhaps you could employ AI that prioritises saving PP for example. At the moment the AI seems to buff when you debuff, debuff when you buff, or else attack when they have something useful enough against you or they have no other options. This might be an oversimplified view of the AI's activity but should be an accurate overview (correct me if I'm wrong). Adding a PP system might allow for more complex strategies.
Talking about more complex strategies, there was a time when an AI attacked my player with 'Hope' when I debuffed them to -2 Def, and the move did a lot of damage. Can you confirm if debuffs affect the damage output of this move? If that is true, that is a neat effect. I do feel like moves could use more secondary or conditional effects. An example I could think of is for 'Interrupt' to have a 10% chance of preventing the opponent from having their next turn.
I understand that this game is a parody type game and is meant to be simple, but when you have achievements like "swiped right/left 1000 times" and "had 1000 successful dates", you need to give players a reason to want to attempt those achievements. At the moment, this game is rather barebones and after you've gone on 10 or so dates you've basically seen the whole game, there is no incentive to keep going beyond that point. The battles are the same, you could keep using the same strategy and win every time. It just becomes a grindfest with no foreseeable reward other than an achievement. Adding extra elements to this game and making it even the slightest bit more complex would really assist in improving its longevity and keeping it fun.

Overall this is an enjoyable game but only in the short-term. I see a lot of potential for a more entertaining game if aspects of it could be better fleshed out. Even if you don't flesh this one out hopefully your future games would also offer good entertainment value. Despite the middling score, do know that I had a blast with this game even though it was only for a short while. I hope you continue developing more entertaining games in the future. Peace out.

BigBossErndog responds:

Wow, thank you for the really in depth response!
I'll definitely be taking all this into account for future games! :D

[Swords and Souls]

This works really well as a faux "idle clicker game" and it was enjoyable for quite some time. Particularly, I liked being able to customise your character, the training minigames which were very fun skill games, the collectibles in the home, the Easter Eggs and the medals, and the semi-turn-based mechanics of the battles which was very interesting. Indeed, this is very very good for a Flash game. Nonetheless it could be better. Here are some suggestions:

1. The typical progression of the next more expensive weapon being stronger than the previous one was very vanilla, very characteristic of the idle clicker mechanic. It would have been preferable to have a choice of strong weapons so that all but one weapon fall by the wayside. I say take some inspiration from Fire Emblem and Pokémon, and implement their "one weapon more effective than the other" mechanic.
For example, Fire Emblem has the weapon triangle which goes like this:
Swords beats Axes
Axes beats Lances
Lances beat Swords
You could have used this instead of making "the strongest sword to beat them all" the last purchasable item. It requires no thinking at all to get to the very end and just use the same sword over and over again regardless of your opponent. You could include a weapon swapping mechanic in the arena, whereby if you see an opponent with an axe, and you're wielding a lance, you can decide to switch to a sword so you have an advantage.
I can see this playing into other enemies too. Like bows being more effective against birds and apples, but not very effective against enemies wearing armour. Poison not affecting those mushroom opponents, and being not very effective against opponents wearing steel. Fireballs could be very effective against armoured units and plant-based enemies, Ice magic would be very effective against flying enemies and also plant-based ones. There are many more I can think of, but I'll leave it there because I think you get the point.

2. Put a limit to the amount of skills and talents you can buy and/or equip. It's so easy to make your character invincible and just max out everything. If you limit the amount of equippable skills and talents this makes the gameplay a little more complex so players are not only relying on a single strategy to just plow through the game. They could swap abilities around to better suit their needs. This would fit in well with another suggestion I'm going to make (see #5).

3. Make the enemy characters smarter. All enemies were very boring. It was just kill this and kill that. Their attacks were all the same too. Even the boss characters! They don't use different spells, they don't get critical hits, they don't activate abilities, they don't get skills or talents, not even *SPOILERS* King Sir Scarow gets, and he's supposed to be the guy honing your skills! it's just headbutt over and over again! This doesn't make sense. He should at least be able to get a critical hit in. *SPOILERS* If you made the bosses much more remarkable it would have been better. All the battles are quite unremarkable. Even though I praised you on your interesting battle mechanic, all the opponents take almost no skill to beat especially if you've grinded up sufficiently. You should penalize players who just grind and overpower their characters without thinking.

4. Add a better story. What the hell is the point of battling in the arena? Are you just some dude who wants to kill a bunch of monsters? Why does the Scarecrow guy even take interest in you? Why are you so special? Aren't you just some stupid weakling? And if he's like the master trainer in all of the realm aren't there stronger warriors?
Heck even if it's just a generic good vs evil story. This game doesn't even develop plot regarding you and that woman in your house, nor does it explain why there are missing children everywhere. You don't really get anything from collecting all the missing children except for a trophy.
I think point #3 can also be added to this element. You can make the hero save the village from a dragon who collects rubies and diamonds, or maybe there are evil ravens stealing people's bags, or maybe a child-murderer in the loose who is super strong.

5. Add more "battle spots" that aren't the Arena. ALL of the battles take place in the arena. It would have been nice to have other places to go to, make them unlockables because this game got boring super quick. Maybe there are some dragons in the mountains? Or maybe a cave full of trolls? Sea enemies like sea serpents and pirates? There are soooo many options.

6. Improve the post-game! There's not much to do after you beat the final boss, save for continuing to play the minigames to try to beat your highscore and improve your stats, and playing in the Arena to fight never-ending opponents. After a while there's really just nothing to do anymore and improving your stats to ridiculous amounts becomes rather tedious and unrewarding, especially since the opponents don't really get genuinely harder. They're just a higher level, they don't become more complex, their attacks just do more damage. And if grinding is your game and that's what you find fun, that's good for you, but I prefer to be challenged in another way. The additional maps suggestion would be good for post-game, and maybe multi-player is a good idea too, especially if you implement all the other things i've previously mentioned. You could even include character classes. That would be great.

Anyway, in summary this is a fairly good game, but it's lacking in a lot of aspects. I'll give you a 4 anyway, because I think this deserves AT LEAST a 4 because it's a really good independent flash game. So with that said, if anyone bothered reading this review, yes I do recommend you play it despite all my criticisms. It's better than a lot of "idle clicker" games out there (even though this game really is nothing like an idle clicker). Have fun!

SoulGame responds:

Wow, thanks for this impressive review! Since you put so much efforts into this I'd like to try and answer you on the points you mentioned:

1. Although I love Pokémon and Fire Emblem, I've never been a fan of the Rock Paper Scissor system. It does bring a lot of depth to Fire Emblem since it's a strategic turn based game involving multi units interactions, but I always found it dull in Pokémon where it comes down to "oh, a fire type, okay, go Squirtle" this is a no brain :p (unless you go in advanced meta PvP) and I think it would be the same in S&S since it's basically one on one fight.

2. I agree

3. Couldn't agree more! I've great plans with enemies pattern system which will be quite unique in S&S2, and true epic boss fights are planned!

4. Definitely going to fix that as well in the sequel, I've already written down a bunch of stuff concerning Sir Scarow past, the exploration of the Neverseen, etc. with lots of new NPCs with depth and character.

5. I almost added that in S&S but realized I didn't have the time needed. So, in the sequel, you'll be able to travel around! Beat troll in cave, goblin in forests, and dragon in mountains :)

6. It's really hard to design end game. I have a few more idea to make S&S2 end game more engaging tho. But no multiplayer, that's just not technically possible for me.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to write all that! Much appreciated.

[Anna and Bruno's Birthday Run]

Very entertaining game This game reminds me, very much, of the Bionicle Toa Mata Platform Game from the Toa Mata Nestlé Promo CD - a promotional item found in many Nestlé cereal boxes back in 2001. I've had the pleasure of playing that game when I was much younger. The similarities are unmistakable: the scrolling platforms, the increasing difficulty as you get to the later stages of the game. It's probably just a coincidence though.

I commend you on how charming this game is. I especially like your choice of music and the cute visuals (even the bloody splatter when you plummet to your inevitable death or hit a thorn is kind of cute). I also like how the platforms are randomised. It seems people don't like this but everyone would be bored to death if all the same platforms appear each time. It is unfair sometimes (I got a high score of 99 on my second play-through after missing an impossible jump, for example) but that's just the way it is. I have no problems with that.

I will raise some points that I found annoying - mostly the balloons. It's quite frustrating when you're on a platform and you don't really want to step on a balloon but you bounce of it anyway. I thought, at first, that the balloons were either poppable things (they weren't; stomping on them multiple times didn't do anything) or something you could use to help you, which is true in some instances but for the most part they were a nuisance bouncing you around when you don't want them to. I'm not saying get rid of the balloons; they're part of the game's charm, but I do hope they weren't so annoying and bouncy when the dog's paws are already on a platform. Nonetheless, this wasn't really such a huge hamper to the game's enjoyment.

I don't really have too many negative things to say about this game. It's plays like one of those viral mobile games - simple and easy but not really too interesting; the only thing keeping you playing is the prospect of beating your high score. And for that reason I agree with CyberDevil that you could add a leaderboard.

Another suggestion I have in mind is to have unlockables, similar to what theplayer234 said. New backgrounds would work really well. Maybe the platforms could be made to look different too, e.g. snow instead of grass and sharp icicles instead of thorns. I remember the Bionicle game I played had unlockable backstory cutscenes for each character when you collected all the things you had to and finished their part of the game... if I remember correctly. I'm thinking too much here, but you get my point. It's fun as it is but adding more stuff would make it better.

To be honest though, I got bored after I got 100+ and I didn't want to play anymore. I know this wasn't really meant for me, or anyone else here anyway, so I understand if you don't want to bother with a leaderboard or future modifications. As a gift for your girlfriend this works really well. It's simple, cute and fun. It doesn't really matter that it's imperfect. It's great for what it is. Plus, you always make really good games so godspeed to you!

SeethingSwarm responds:

Wow, thanks for the awesome review and all the feedback! :)
I'm really glad you liked this little game of mine. I've never heard of the Bionicle Toa Mata Platform Game, so it's just a coincidence, but it's nice to know that this game brought up some nostalgia within you. I like all your suggestions. New backgrounds, unlockables, a leader board etc., would be awesome. If only I had more time to work on this, but unfortunately I'm extremely busy with other projects. Anyway, thanks again for the comments! I'll keep your suggestions in mind for future stuff!

[Ultimo Soccer UDC]

Great idea, but not executed in the best way.

It appears that most people reviewing gave positive reviews based on the pixel art aesthetic and unique gameplay. What worries me is that this game has an average score of ~3, but not a single negative review! This means people are not pleased with a lot of things but they're not telling you what those are. I think you, as the game developer, deserves to know what people are not pleased with.
Some people have raised some issues, but no one really went into enough detail mostly because they have not played through enough. However, I finished the game before writing this review so I can give an honest opinion, and not judge it merely on initial impressions. But before we get to my criticisms, I will give you praise for the potential of this game and the originality of the gameplay.

All the issues of this game could be summed up to one thing: It is often difficult for the wrong reasons. It seems that some people didn't even get past level 4! But of course, just saying it is difficult and leaving it at that is not enough so I'll provide you with more details. I'll list, numerically, some issues I had with the game.

1. Why can't you unlock any gold medals until you unlock the 3rd character? Even after unlocking the 2nd character and running through the whole of the first level, I was still not awarded the gold medal. I was stuck on a score of 3300 and a silver medal, and this is only the first level! I was only able to get the gold medal after unlocking the 3rd character. The amount of precision required to get a gold medal is incredibly high.
2. Why aren't you allowed to slow down? I understand your comment about backtracking slowing down the pace of the game, but completely removing the option to slow down is unjustifiable. Om the description you state that "gameplay=WASD or arrows". I've tried pressing the "W" key or the up key repeatedly with no results. You can speed up but you can't slow down at all! This makes it so easy to run past the ball in error, and also increases the chances of you crashing into obstacles through no fault of your own. This is especially problematic with the moving cardboard players. If you're barrelling through the course at a constant speed and you're not able to slow down you will crash into them no matter how skilled you are. I think I only managed to get past them in the last level by bearing left and wishing on my lucky stars that they don't come back before I reach the other end. Dodging with precision is made more efficient with a slow-down button. Even racing games have brakes on the cars!
3. The difficulty curve is awfully skewed. I'm not sure if it's just me but levels 5-8 actually felt harder than levels 9-12. This is probably a result of the change in player skill level. Though I like how you modelled characters to fit the series they play in. For example, character 2's long (though imprecise) running kicks work really well in levels 5-8 but not as well in levels 13-16. Though everyone else but player 1 seems to play well in levels 1-4. Basically, starting out is really difficult then it seems to get a little easier. Personally, I kind of liked the fact that as you unlocked more you can do more, but maybe you could have made the introductory levels play more like introductory levels rather than alienate a lot of players from playing the rest of the game through its difficulty. Instead of allowing players to get a good grip of controls, they're thrown in and they are forced to grapple with great difficulty. Sink or swim.
4. Sometimes the control gets stuck. This happens most of the time while running. I would press left or right but the player would continue going straight. This is also a problem when a player is running and I want to change the direction of the ball while the player is running, since the game wouldn't recognise the controls. This is a true hindrance preventing the acquisition of gold medals.
5. Not enough reward for amount of effort required to comfortably handle the game. People play games for the effort to reward ratio. They expect to get more rewards than the efforts they put in. If we wanted to get less rewards than the amount of effort we exert we'd play real life, and at least we'd get real life rewards then. I think you could fix this by pacing the game better, allow for sufficient build-up of difficulty and increment the rewards with the same increment in difficulty. With the way it is now most of the levels are just frustrating and rather tedious. It doesn't begin to get a little fun until later, and even then the amount of fun received for the amount of frustration experienced does not balance out.
6. More levels? I could see this possibly being a phone app. Maybe extend the length of the series and add more levels for each series. I think you may even add more of the first levels to help the player get acquainted with the controls so that they don't get daunted with the difficulty.

Overall, I see a lot of potential in this game and that's where most of my points are going. 2 stars for a potentially super amazing game, and 1.5 stars for how it is now: mildly entertaining but not enough.
I think I may have repeated myself a few times, but hopefully I've gotten the point across now. What I'm trying to say is, make the game difficult for the right reasons, i.e., success in the game is mostly reliant on the skills of the player. This is all you really need to take into consideration.

UltimoGames responds:

thank you for the impressively detailed review! UltimoSoccer: UDC is developed with mobile phones in mind, all the feedback I get on this HTML5 browser version will be taken in consideration and put in the advanced mobile version. I want to make this game the best mobile soccer game ever! :)
so, thank you mr Kolter for helping me out!

[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. :)

[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

[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!"

[Color/Shift demo]

Pretty simple game. Not extremely challenging, but enjoyable nonetheless. It was funny how it often told me I needed to reset even though there was a way out. Quite a good concept you have going. It felt kind of lacking though. Perhaps it needed a greater degree of difficulty or more levels.

jacobalbano responds:

More levels are definitely on the way! I'm hoping to turn this into a commercial release of some sort, but I wanted to see what people thought of it first.

The reset button is finicky. I need to make it smarter.

Glad you enjoyed it!

[Seven Jumps]

Firstly, if you have not played past level 2, you are not qualified to review. If you are going to review a game you need to have played it first before you could even try to begin forming an opinion about it. Really, you are not qualified to comment on a game if you haven't played all of it. Likewise, you are not qualified to comment on a movie before you've even seen it.

Now, on to the review. This game is conceptually interesting, but is practically annoying! But before we get to the latter part, I should point out some positive things - things I liked about the game. For one, I quite enjoyed the original soundtrack; It fit very well with the mood of the game and it enhanced the gaming experience. Additionally, the homage to old NES and SEGA platformers is executed nicely, with fitting music and graphics for each level. The enemies looked like threatening 8-bit entities of evil intent, and the pixels really make for a genuine 8-bit experience.
However, there are more things I don't like than I like, and forgive me for being critical, but I am only voicing an opinion. You may or may not agree with it, but nonetheless, here is what I think.
In a good game, there is an even balance of fun and difficulty. This game did not have that. It seemed like the difficulty was notched up too much. Actually, what I mean to say is that the game is actually more annoyingly difficult than challengingly difficult. Now, before you say: "OMG, ur just 2 n00b 2 finish da game!" I've actually finished the game twice prior to writing this review, so yes, I was able to finish the game so trash that argument. Anyway, back on topic. The game relied on the simple principle of jumping up onto platforms and reaching the top. It's kind of like a mixture of Mario, Donkey Kong and Snakes & Ladders. There's a difference though, Donkey Kong and Mario are challenging but not excruciatingly difficult, and even if they could be, there was a point to it all. When you think about it, some of the best games ever created have an ultimate goal, and a destination. For example, in Mario, your goal was to save Princess Peach; in Zelda, it is to save Princess Zelda; in Donkey Kong you also have to save a princess; in Portal, you get the promise of cake and in Portal 2 there is a continuous unfolding of the storyline and occasional revelations which maintain your interest; in Fallout 3 there are various quests you can undertake and there are also main quests which lead somewhere. Other than this, good games can also be good puzzlers, such as Tetris, or can promote communal interaction, like the previously mentioned Snakes & Ladders. This game didn't engage in either of those two, which it should have been focusing on. While, yes, it was an interesting concept: getting up to the top level, it kind of felt like it had no direction at all. Why was the man doing that? What was the point to it? That was probably why you lost a lot of people at the second level, there really is nowhere to go here. It just gets increasingly more annoying, and indeed I say annoying, not challenging, because this game is far more frustrating than enjoyably difficult.
People did mention something about feeling a sense of accomplishment after finishing it, but after having finished it twice, I really wanted something more from it. The ending didn't feel like an ending at all - it didn't explain why the things were happening in the game, nor did it add to the feeling of accomplishment I felt. It was kind of just an absolutely disappointing ending, I would say *SPOILERS* but there really is nothing to spoil. The ending is not so special. Yes, there are good games that are not really about the finish but about the sense of accomplishment that can be gained by it. However, the frustration far outweighs any sense of accomplishment that can be exhumed from this game. The ending really is anti-climatic, and it felt like all the jumping was for nothing. And to add to the insult, the jumping across platforms stopped being fun after two levels. It just felt repetitive and obligatory, like I just had to finish the game, not because I was considerably enjoying it, but because I just had to.
In hindsight, maybe that was your intention, to test the limits of the people playing your game. Nonetheless, I wish the game was a bit more complex than it was, concept-wise. It just felt like a surface game. I think if you were going to make a game which seems totally pointless, like this game, it would be wiser to make it a high-score game. That way people would have a reason to try your game again. Because I tried your game twice and I had the same feeling of dread each time. It was really not that fun at all. It was at first, but when you introduce the disappearing and materialising platforms, it becomes needlessly annoying. But then again, maybe it was your intention to torture gamers for no reason at all.
Now, while my opinion might be more negative than positive, I do think this game has potential and some tweaking might improve its quality. Perhaps changing the levels around, adding more components, more levels, more variety. It really was just too much of the same thing, and that's probably part of the reason why I'm more easily frustrated by it. However, I do commend you on creating a different atmosphere for each stage with the music. Main problems in summary: not fun enough, not enough variety, lacks a goal/purpose, does not offer challenging puzzles but instead relies on really frustrating game mechanics conspiring against the player, and does not have an engaging storyline. Anyway, that's about it. Don't stop making games. I hope to see you take on future projects. Please don't be discouraged by my review. I'm not hating on your game. I just think it's an imperfect piece of work, and I'd rather be honest with my opinion than just rate it 5 stars, say "awesome game! and leave it at that. I'd prefer to tell you what I think so that I could help, hopefully. :)

ax23w4 responds:

Thank you for suck a long reply!

About gameplay and experience. I wanted the game to be pretty short and finite. So I limited myself with a small game screen, only 7 levels and a very few gameplay rules. If this game had to contain more stuff, I probably wouldn't complete it because of my short attention span :). And since it's so short I tried to not remove the difficulty it had, keeping it short but challenging. I named levels backwards (from 7 to 0) with a purpose, so player could see a progression towards the end and would know exactly how much there's left. I suppose the idea was that player would see the goal: to complete this countdown. And gameplay by itself is really basic but I tried to perfect every detail of it and I honestly can say that I really like it. Of course I'd like it more with bigger levels, better graphics, more enemies, and maybe some power-ups... But that wouldn't allow me to complete this game in a week. And that would be a very different game.

About difficulty. I've played this game so much while I was making it that I'm beating it in less then 5 minutes every time now. I've heard that all game developers have this problem. Before posting this game to Newgrounds I've tested it for a bit on another site and got feedback that it was too hard so I simplified it :) It really looks pretty fun to me. I don't want to say that people are wrong about difficulty. They're right! But I do want to keep this game as it is. 7 levels, simple rules, and a challenge to get to the top.

And about the reward. For a game this short, i think that ending is just fine. Plus, when you beat the game, you can download a soundtrack. If only other games developers would do so... I love game music. So I thought it's a good reward.

For me - this game is almost perfect for what it is. It's simple and honest. It doesn't tries to be anything else.

And thanks again for your response. I really hope I'll be able to complete few more games in the future.