Troisnyx's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Rocket Fish]

The title graphics, UI and transition animations are great. Not sure what I can say about the actual gameplay itself -- it's a real pity you get knocked DOWN by the bird, rather than have the option of bouncing off some for distance bonus à la Toss the Turtle. That gashes points for gameplay, but you've got added points for UI.

What really annoys me is that there has to be an ad EVERY TIME you finish one round, rather than have it done and dusted at the beginning. Look, we know you're looking to earn with this game. But you ain't gonna get far if 1) it's the same ad every time, 2) the gameplay has to be interrupted by it all the time. We gamers get frustrated... and I am certainly frustrated at this. How are we even going to go through the process of unlocking more items if we have to be interrupted each time?

3/5.

PixelKick responds:

Thanks for your comments, they are helpful to me! You shouldn't be seeing an ad after every round, so i'm investigating that and will have it resolved. Thanks again! (UPDATE. FIXED THOSE ADS)

[Newgrounds Holiday Worm]

Let me just say right off the bat: I had uncertainty writing that music track, but I'm glad many have enjoyed it. Looking really good. Kudos to everyone.

Also, 3 out of 4 medals for the time being -- I'll break the Flash later. :P

TurkeyOnAStick responds:

:) Merry Christmas!

[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 :)

[Motorjoust]

I did enjoy this game very much. Having been used to Excitebike and having beaten a lot of the records (except for Stage 5), this came almost naturally to me. Only because this game used a real physics engine, I had to take the damage at the spikes like a champ.

I would like to suggest a Restart option -- because for stages 5 and beyond, it is possible to get stuck in a stage if you make a wrong turn, and then not be able to get out of it. I specifically had this in Stage 5 -- although I've beaten it, I decided to try it again, and sometimes we make mistakes. In this case, the mistake was irreversible and I was stuck.

The music is really good (good on ya, Frootza!) and so was the artwork. The VA reminded me of the few NES games that had voice clips (the only one I've ever played being Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, mind you). The story was simple but quite a solid premise for a motorjousting tournament.

For something assembled in two weeks, this is one of the best games I've seen. It's not pretentious, it's rather realistic about what has been done within the span of two weeks, it has endearing and sometimes hilarious characters, it gives you a sense of achievement when you've beaten each level. If you had no time limit on this game and you had all the time in the world to iron out bugs, etc., or if you're considering making a version 2 of Motorjoust, seriously, go for it. I want to see this game's engine, storyline etc. in its full glory. Who knows? I certainly imagine that it'll have much better prospects -- a lot of avenues will be opened with this game.

4.5/5.

WingDemon responds:

Thanks for playing it! I agree with most of what you said, and if we do make a sequel we'll make sure to do something about it! About the restart button though, pressing the ESC key allows you to exit back to the character select menu from where you can restart the level. so there's that. Anyway glad you liked it!

-Wingy

[Newgrounds Tetris]

Time to give my two pence.

AESTHETICS
The aesthetics are rather plain -- you submitted this in 2008, but the graphics look like a 2000 novelty. Back in 2008 they had streamlined, better-looking skins than this! While I know you had a yellow-and-white BG on the back for Newgrounds colours, perhaps tone it down a little bit? With all the pictures on the Tetris blocks AND the background, it's kinda hard on the eyes.

In fact, I might as well be bold enough to say that the entire layout of the game looks like a website from between 1998 and 2000, when everything was running on HTML1. That kind of design normally warrants games no more than 2 stars.

SOUNDS/MUSIC
This is where I gash the most points, unfortunately. HOW MANY VERSIONS OF KOROBEINIKI DO YOU WANT IN THIS DARN THING?!

Korobeiniki was the default theme and evoked a lot of nostalgia, sure, but there were *other* themes that invoked nostalgia, you know. Comparing the Nintendo and Tengen versions (for NES), we had Korobeiniki, Technotris, Bradinsky (which would've been nice!), Karinka, Troika... and the list goes on. The only other theme I ever saw was Technotris, which was great to hear, but other than that... the music selection has been left completely wanting.

Now granted, I know StencylWorks didn't exist back in the day. If you had Stencyl, you'd have been able to insert more MP3s rather than bulk the game up with WAV files. But taking into account the limitations you had then, surely you'd have just capped it at *two* Korobeinikis, and look for other classic Tetris themes?

Also, no sound effects when the lines are cleared? No drop sound effects at all? No fun. It's even less fun when the music has to be turned off just because of these versions of Korobeiniki that I'm hearing to no end, it makes any gamer fed up.

PLAYABILITY
It played like a normal Tetris game..... except.... far laggier and far less exciting. I've noticed that hitting the Down key makes a hard drop, but here's the problem: *THE HARD DROP DOES NOT PLAY LIKE A HARD DROP.* It's just a slightly sped up version of the soft drop. If someone were to speed-play his way through a Tetris game because it calms him down, or because it makes the game more exciting.... well, this game fails on both counts.

And in addition to that, the lines clear very, very slowly -- and WHY THE BLAZES are they clearing one after the other? Is there no script to clear all lines at once?!

I have to gash even more points because, from what I read in a response you posted, you simply reskinned Gauss' Tetris game. You did nothing to make it better. And that's why a lot of Tetris games (with the exception of Mario Tetris and Fliptris) are simply not memorable. Now don't give me the old chestnut about 99% of Tetris games being slow and sucky, and that you decided to follow suit -- it doesn't make your programming or your skinning stand out, it only puts you in the light of a bad coder.

And on an equally serious note, the loading for this game was terribly long and drawn-out. What on earth is the file size of this thing?!

VERDICT
Long, drawn out, laggy, unexciting, uninspired design, too many uses of Korobeiniki. Overall, it's quite a chore to play this game.

Tackle all these issues, STARTING FROM THE DESIGN (since you skinned it!) and perhaps I could consider adding a few more points.

1/5.

black-father responds:

didn't you waste your time writing all this? :P

plus this is a flash tetris.. do you expect it to be as great as PS3 tetris or gameboy tetris? definitely not, and its not worth ranting

[Intuition keys]

Tough luck, mate. I won.

And that being said: is this supposed to be a variation of the Red Button game, where you're expected to keep pressing that button until it goes around in a complete loop? If that was what you were going for, congrats. If you were thinking of inciting rage with this game, boo, you fail.

For my part, I remained calm throughout the entire game, doing the entire 26-alphabet sequence every single time until the right letter was hit. It helps that I type like a pianist.

Now if this game were meant to be like the 'Press that button' game, you probably don't need sound to trigger someone's rage. Good call, I guess, by not putting in any sounds: you helped a calm person play much calmer.

4/5.

wertolet responds:

Yeah, first idea - it's a rage game, but i make it more easer and calm for players. So now it's just a find a button game.
Thank you.