Troisnyx's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Arkhalis Beta Test]

Thoughts on playing this:

1) Movement is very unwieldy. It's fluid enough, but I've no real system where up really means up, left really means left, and so on. It's a twisty wheel thing where I've got next to no idea where I' m going to next and I'm leaving it all to chance.

2) What's that thing with the plus sign meant to be? An enemy? Or perhaps an upgrade to collect? Whatever it is, I pass straight through it.

3) The background gets hard on my eyes after a while. It might be worth replacing it with some terrain and walls, or a pleasing patch of ground.

4) That turret is nicely drawn; I hope to see more art along that line because I only have very little to go by.

5) The music is incredibly repetitive to the point of being headache-inducing.

At the current stage I would have classed this as *pre-alpha.* A beta would imply that the game is at least halfway done, there are enemies to shoot and there are bugs that need ironing out. The basic mechanics aren't even complete.

It would have been worth putting this in your Projects and perhaps PMing a few people you can trust to test the game for you, making the game visible to them. As it stands, I, and many others, feel the game is far from ready for public release.

MessagedGames responds:

This is my very first game I have ever created so I would not really expect much to be done for now,I am currently working on the background to be in front of the current rainbow background, muting the music will be an option soon, the moving mechanics are a work in progress.

Also, plus sign? What plus sign, please tell me how you got this issue, though you are most likely talking about the aiming icon.
Not too sure if the 1 star was very necessary though.

I am trying my very best at game developing.

I have made sure to change as much of the things you have told me to change and I hope it works better for you.

[Air Flip Drive (WIP)]

The game itself is decent. There are bits of it that feel disorienting (turns, especially within that really trippy rainbow-coloured level). A lot of it feels like I need to still get used to it. I did get decently far into it for my first few tries, at 1,000+, and I suppose that with a bit of practice, I could get further.

There are some controls that I don't find myself using -- the bunny hops, the drift mode. I feel I'm moving way too quickly in the level to justify using it; steering the craft feels like hard work.

I think the one thing that I would really outwardly call a flaw, a gash in the feel of the game, is the music. The level seems like a cross between F-Zero and Rainbow Road out of Mario Kart games, but the BGM feels anything but -- and there are parts where it's made my head hurt.

[EBF5 NPC Maker]

Quite a neat little dress-up game, I guess -- though I'd appreciate lots more inserts and options; it just feels still a bit too cookie-cutter for the time being. Anyway, I did my best with what was there and came up with these:

-------

3,3,13,2,2,2,61,30,2,2,2,2
4,3,11,2,2,2,61,30,2,2,2,2

General appearance of a member of a tribe that goes barefooted and unarmed. The creatures of the land of the dead do not touch them. They wear a deathly green, and their hair is black from coal and soot.

They all bear medieval English names, like Aldus and Kinborough and Randel and Tenny and Wybert.

In the case of 2,3,12,2,2,2,62,30,2,20,2,2

As the masks whiten and bleed, and as they temporarily gain the ability to levitate, they interpret it as an omen that one of their own, or someone who associated with them, will die soon. In many cases, it is true, though sometimes, the cause of death can be averted. When Matt and co. venture into the land of the dead, the masks whiten and bleed not for members of these people's tribe... but for Matt and co.

[Monster Eater]

It's a 2048 clone, and quite an addictive one at that. Docked a star because of a bug that's gone uncorrected; any score above 20K causes the game to freeze. You can still submit scores, but you cannot make any moves as soon as you get a certain kind of monster associated with 20K scores.

[Crypt Shyfter: Frostfall]

It seems to be working fine.

A lot of what could make this game better, and more immersive, boils down to the aesthetics at the end of the day -- which I'm sure you're well aware of. The writing is quite good as it is. Though I'd like to pitch some suggestions for the next one, if you do another:

1) I'm not sure how well Twine takes to drawn backgrounds, avatars and music. But if you manage to find a way ahead with that, that would add to its immersiveness.

Which reminds me; Hyptosis also sometimes does text-based adventures, but I'm not sure what he uses, and if he's ever used Twine before. But considering he's done fantasy art for, and written, games similar to this, maybe ask him for pointers?

2) I know this is going to take multiple rolls based on the random die and the choices you make, but I was beginning to wonder if outside of all these, you could have a joke ending? As it stands, there are three options per query / question / impasse that you arrive at, which is alright to start with, but I could very well imagine that in a future game, you would have certain questions that have two simple Y / N answers (or two options just like that), and some that would have a myriad of options (perhaps up to six?), including the most stupid ones.

Fallout Shelter, believe it or not, has some really funny option choices in quests and that's partly where I'm coming from; the other part is from playing some text-based adventures here on NG. But at this moment in time, I felt that the options were a bit too straightforward: Best ending / Normal ending / Bad ending. For example, we have not yet got the gem that is the Dog Ending of Silent Hill 2, which, given the possibilities in a fantasy game, could very well happen. XD

I don't know how many endings you were planning in here, but hopefully this could pave the way for some really nice sequels to come.

CaptainJackTHAC0 responds:

Awesome, thank you very much for the advice! I will definitely look into backgrounds and music for future games and talk to Hyptosis about his games.

I agree I will definitely need to include a few more endings in future games. As for joke endings, did you unlock the secret room by proving your worth? The endings triggered in their aren't necessarily joke endings, but really just a collection of hilarious ways to kill the villain using odd-ball items.

Thanks again for playing and sharing your thoughts!!

[Deterministic Dungeon]

Considering this is an RNG, I was wondering why there were no items to speed up and slow down the counters. Anyway.

The art was alright, and the gameplay got me sucked in during the first few levels. I think the trouble with this is that you'd be more likely to grind in the upper levels before going down. Tedium at its worst. I love the odd weapons in this game. A spork? Maybe a balloon animal? It'd be nice to include these in the field journal as well, to give us players a sense of accomplishment. And then have a New Game Plus feature so that if we're gunning for the 100%, we could have a few more tries on the gachapon machine.

The music is quite nice. Calming, in a lot of places. You wouldn't expect that of a dungeon, but it works.

The gameplay itself, on the other hand, raises questions like

1) How is it that the RNG moves four spaces once, and five spaces another when I time it to the precise second? This should NOT be happening. Unless you scrambled it instead of letting the selector move from top left to bottom right, this shouldn't be happening.

2) The skip function in making room layouts should be just as random as the making of the room itself. EVERY SINGLE TIME I skipped, the boss wasn't happy with his placement. There shouldn't be impossible scenarios like this every time the Skip button is pressed.

Alright game, I suppose.

PestoForce responds:

There are buffs to slow down the chooser, keep playing! Also, every weapon is in the field journal, look in the "special" section tab on the left.

[Authentic Octopus Game (Demo)]

I thoroughly enjoyed the game, and FINALLY got past the Doric / Ionic / Corinthian columns. Loved the humour as well, and just how smoothly the game played. I've supported this game on Greenlight -- all the very best!

squidly responds:

If you're ever stuck on greek art history again, just look em' up :P

[Find the pairs!]

A few things:

For a game created in that amount of time, I think I've seen better transitions and graphics than this. This is plain. I like that the card art was drawn, but you don't credit anyone.

In fact, you didn't credit the artist, and you didn't credit the musician, which was @Phyrnna. That track was from Bullet Heaven. Low blow, eh? That counts as stealing.

There's a bit of a delay when it comes to getting wrong pairs etc.

Want a real challenge? Come up with a game in 72 hours. People have done it and won prizes for it. You can do a lot better than this.

GSquadron responds:

On the credits section you can see who did the cards and they are fully credited inside the game.
The song is CC0 and I do not have to credit the artist. Here you can read more about it http://open.commonly.cc/
The delay can be upgraded in the shop. Second one.
People have done games in 72 hours but did use better engines than what I did. (Yet there is a difference in quality)
This is way beyond my skills considering I have made only two game engines so far.

Also remember, the 72 hours challenges are just prototypes and they had artists on their back. I had to do the gui all by myself and backgrounds.

Do you really believe that after 5 years of experience, I go and waste my reputation to steal others work? It would not be worth it and nobody would steal anything especially people who have been programming for years.

Anyway thanks for your comment! :)

[BulletHell Adventure]

Since this game took quite some of my time, here are my thoughts:

GAMEPLAY
The game itself was quite fun. The levelling up was a bit imbalanced, in that the number of bullets fired actually counted for more damage than the base damage multiplier, which didn't quite make sense to me. Also, the hitbox could have done to be where the mouse pointer / tablet cursor is. Because otherwise, it makes things absolutely confusing.

Otherwise, I finished it, got all the stars, and quite enjoyed myself.

GRAPHICS
The graphics were alright... I guess? They could have done with a little bit more finesse. For instance, killing a big angler would cause it to break into two small anglers. Even a quick animation or explosion for that would have actually added the effect. There, I really felt just how austere the game was -- I mean, you had an amazing title screen and amazing menus and then, you come to the enemies and think, what the heck? Why didn't the artist put enough time with this?

MUSIC
The music was excellent, but:

1) The looping was awful. There were cuts and noticeable breaks. Surely someone could have done with a 'wrap remainder' option when exporting this stuff...

2) There could have been a bit more variation. I've heard the same level theme over and over and over again. Sure, Adventure Island had that on the NES, but... in some of the stages, the music was actually changed. I think this game could have done with that.

VOICE ACTING / SOUND DESIGN
The sound design was alright, by and large... I guess there needed to be a bit more variety with the enemy death sounds.

The voice acting, on the other hand, was awful. Our Adventure Island hero had times where he sounded like an 18-year-old and an 8-year-old within the spam of 5 seconds, partly because he had dialogue and attack sounds going together within close proximity of each other. Also, all the bosses sounded almost the same in the way of voice. I know this is a cliché storyline, but the voice acting didn't need to add to the cliché by a hundredfold.

And speaking further on awful voice acting: the hurt sound actually does not play when you're in a dialogue sequence with a boss. If anything, you should pause until the hero and the boss have both finished speaking, AND THEN start firing the bullets. The hurt sound is often a way for me to start being aware of my surroundings, and without it, it makes the game confusing.

3.5/5.

[Father McLloyd]

Frightening, and a good test of memory. And it puts into perspective for me what an exorcism really entails. The jumpscare when you get something wrong is put to good use here. Now, where did I put that Manual on Minor Exorcisms... (yes, because that's an actual thing.) I need to read that to clear out what I saw.

I know the tagline in the game also contains 'Simon says,' but it's a very loose take on 'Simon says'.

The text accompanying the Halloween egg #1 is something I quite like -- I could imagine Fr McLloyd saying it in what is basically BBC English, and it'd sound absolutely perfect. That's the only time I see his written language here, because otherwise, his 'speech' is basically the actions we memorise, but I get a little Father Brown (G.K. Chesterton) vibe from it.

The art isn't necessarily the greatest -- but it does its job alright. Sound's pretty good; in fact, the biggest impact from the game came in the way of the sound, for me.

Small minus points for the one gripe I have with this. MCLLOYD IS NOT A FRENCH SURNAME! It'd have made sense if he came from Britain or Ireland and everything else would have made perfect sense, but France? Really? Initially that's what made my hopes fizzle out when playing this game, but otherwise, I was not disappointed.

4.5/5. *crosses self*