Troisnyx's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Block Disco]

Lovely short game, and quite a nice idea for LD. The music fits, the graphics fit nicely.

My only frustration, which really gashes a lot, is that I am NOT used to WASD. Arrow key controls would've been massively appreciated here. It feels unnatural, as a right-hander, handling all controls with the left hand. >_>

[Christmas stocking]

The GOOD:

1) Splendid choice of music.

2) Very homely graphics.

3) At least there's the autopause function when you leave the screen, e.g. for a review.

The BAD:

1) The gift targets in the Classical stages aren't triggering as well as they ought. Sometimes it doesn't record when I've drawn a line of peppermints over it.

2) Sharp spike in difficulty starting Level 8. You've basically made this into the Touhou of match 3.

3) On the harder stages, whether you win this or not depends on COMPLETE RANDOM CHANCE. That is, if you're lucky enough not to have your stocking filled by dumb teddy bears.

4) You're expected to play easier levels multiple times to beat the harder ones. How is that really replayability? Those are stages you've felt proud of beating, you want to go to the next and you want it to only have a REASONABLE chance in difficulty. For those of us who don't have as much patience, the game gets very old very quickly.

3.5/5. A lot of work went into this, I'm aware, but it really hasn't been the best experience for me. Plus points for the effort, graphics and music.

[Bubble Pop 2PG]

Tut, tut. If this is annoying for single-player, imagine what it would be in co-op.

GAMEPLAY
This is the area where I gash the most points. The ghosts appear in places where you are relatively safe, half the time appearing SPLIT SECONDS after you have gone to safety. This takes out more health than you are able to recover with the power-ups that come about.

SOUNDTRACK
Kinda fun, I guess, but doesn't detract from the annoying gameplay -- if anything, it does aggravate it. I've had to keep it muted.

GRAPHICS
Fair, I guess. Not the most stylised, and I can't find much that stands out.

If this was done in the time span of 48 hours (say, for a Game Jam), I'd have been more forgiving about it -- but considering this has been developed and released at a relatively free period, I can't support this.

2/5.

[word puzzle]

I'm afraid I have to agree with MessiaH.

1) No background music, and option to mute. While it does work in my favour as I often have music playing in the background, your choice tracks would be MUCH appreciated here.

2) There is no indication as to when the game ends. Is this endless, or is this after a set amount of levels?

3) The first level is insanely easy, and then after that, the rest of the levels become immediately difficult. Don't get me wrong, I have completed them within the time limit, but there's no gradual progression.

4) No keyboard integration. This game borrows a similar concept as OMGPOP's Swapples, but the one thing which Swapples DID RIGHT and you DID NOT was this-- KEYBOARD INTEGRATION. It is tedious to click and drag every single letter when you have a timer running against you. Speed typists, myself included, are going to be easily frustrated with this game when they realise that their best method of finding words against a timer is handicapped.

5) The visuals are..... meh.

So in short: aesthetics are meh, there is no simplicity, functionality is lacking, difficulty progression is off the rails, and you haven't really put in a personal touch. I am a fan of well-done word games, and seriously: this one FALLS FAR OFF THE MARK.

Key to improving this:

1) ALLOW KEYBOARD INTEGRATION DARN IT.

2) If you're running this on a dictionary, make sure it is Oxford or something widely recognised.

3) You've got a timer running; make the game fast-paced rather than slow, drawn-out and tedious.

4) For visuals, consider something a *little* more vibrant. The blue-and-white colour scheme is okay for starters... until you realise the entire game is blue-and-white. That makes it really boring to look at. Try considering basing the tiles off Scrabble -- they're that colour for a reason. People's eyes are caught at the sight of those tiles.

1/5.

saathvikputhran responds:

ok .I dont think there will be a sequel made by me for this game but if I make one I will definetely add music, nice colours,great graphics,tougher challenges.If I will not make a sequel I can make another type of puzzle game.I hope you understand me.

[!BETA! little bullet hell]

Some thoughts.

1) Side-scrolling bullet hells aren't very commonly seen around here, so it's nice to see one coming from you.

2) Why are there no mouse controls? A lot of us who have handled vertical bullet hells have found it far easier to handle it with the mouse because of the hitbox, it's easier to do precision navigating through fields of bullets with the mouse.

3) It works fine for what you've given.

4) Depends on what graphic style you want to shoot for. Are you going for a Touhou-ish style, something from Epic Battle Fantasy, or a Western cartoon style? Or are you going for something completely quirky? You've only given us the enemy without backgrounds or even a glimpse of what the player character looks like, so we can't say much for now. If you have any concept art whatsoever, put a screen or two up!

leonidoss341 responds:

thanx for comment and advises :D

[Guess Words!]

Um.... there's no Submit button.

shajby responds:

the submit button is displayed from word 2+, otherwise you would be submitting score 0 :)

[Defend The Priest]

I like the idea of building a presbytery for our little priest character here, but..... the game itself is bland. Sound effects are fair, graphics are fair, there isn't much to be wanted nor anything to engage, it's just another bland time-killer which I cannot spend much time on without feeling empty inside.

For once I want my priest-related and presbytery-related games to be heart-stopping and tear-jerking, darn it!

2/5.

[Sole Gunner: Mini (DEMO)]

This gives a mix of a style between Final Fight, Super Contra and Mega Man. Regardless of whether that was what you were going for, I like that feel very much. I love the level design, and the regular enemies are fairly easy to avoid, except for that one gun which blocks your way and seems to have homing bullets (this really feels like bullet hell...). Admittedly I like the regular enemies -- they look like they've been fitted for a Kirby game of some sort *coughcoughKirby'sAdventurecough*

The bosses can sometimes be hard (I have a feeling one of the bosses actually has HOMING bullets, rather than normal bouncy ones). I don't know how, but I managed to finish the demo. The control scheme is great, as is the music and the general ambience.

For a work done in a single day, this is impressive!

For the finished work, I would suggest:

1) a story and level progression a la Final Fight. This would mean different ambiences, different pieces of background music, and a motivation for all the shooting and killing. Who is our antagonist?
2) Checkpoints. Because right now a Game Over means instant restart from the beginning, which can be kinda frustrating at times, especially when we've gone quite far into the game.
3) Varied enemies?

I await the final version of this work -- there is a lot to be anticipated! :D

4.5/5.

[Brutal Strike]

Alright, points to ponder. Here's some background information for you.
I run a PC, Intel Celeron, Windows 7, 2.5 GB RAM. I am a Supporter on Newgrounds, meaning the ONLY Flash running on this entire page is this game (ads have been disabled). I will mark headers as I go along.

UI
The UI looked like something from really early PS2, or really late PS1. I don't really know if there was anything particularly special about the UI to add or take away any marks... it was clean, but it just wasn't my taste.

SOUND
Practically non-existent. My comments on this in relation to the game in general will be later in this review. I emphasise: solid sound is key to a good game, and this really didn't give me any enthusiasm to play.

GRAPHICS
You stuffed a 3D game into a Flash, which is impressive. The graphics are, once again, between late PS1 and early PS2, which is probably understandable for a Flash of this size. However, considering I DO NOT have any other Flash stuff on except for this game....... the severe lagging here is inexcusable. Loading times are slow, selection times are slow, even the time taken for tracks to show up is immensely long.

CONTENT
There seems to be a lot of effort thrown into cars, tracks, characters, even side functions, which is great! My only pickle is, with cars, tracks and characters, is there no means to show, say, the acceleration, speed, handling and difficulty for each? Is everything going to be the same?

OVERALL COMMENTS
Now I know a humungous amount of effort has been put into this game, but the key points of any game, to any player, are 1) functionality, 2) atmosphere. And if these two don't work out well, how can it be a great playing experience?

There are perhaps many of us who could try playing over on Facebook, but there are some of us, who for space constraints and loading issues, resolve to playing on Newgrounds (especially if we are Supporters rather than ordinary members). If it doesn't work on the site with lower bitspace -- Newgrounds in this case -- how are we to trust that it'll work on Facebook?

Although credit is due for your hard work towards this game, this is one thing where I must honestly say, downgrading the graphics for functionality's sake would've worked really, REALLY well here. Or, if you cannot compromise on the graphics, then take whatever time you need to make sure the functionality and atmosphere side can be enjoyed across all sites. Because at this moment -- and I trust you can make it better in future -- it seems like you tried to make a really flashy thing, but it's fallen flat on its foundations.

This is one thing for which I cannot honestly give the rating you'd expect.

3/5.