Plasmarift's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Mystery Survival Escape 2]

I am glad you started posting these games to newgrounds again!

selfdefiant responds:

Me too! Thanks!!

[Blue Karma]

The game itself and the puzzles are good, but there are some design problems that I find with the game.
- All of the waiting that you placed in this game (waiting for the guy to use the shower, waiting to be able to do an action, waiting through the opening sequence, wait for the next scene to load, click rapidly through text you've read before because there's no skip button) gets really annoying after a while, especially since this is a game where exploration should be fun, yet you force the player to wait 2 second to do one simple thing (which gets even more annoying if you want to examine and do another action right after, because it makes sense to look before you leap). Had the game been any longer, I don't think I would have finished it due to impatience.
- My next observation goes with the first. You force the player to do arbitrary things in order to advance (you have to observe everything and talk to Alfred before you can exit the car, you have to feed the dog before you can leave the house, you have to talk to the two guys in front of the compound before you can open the door, where you are given a choice to agree or say no that results in the same outcome, you have to deal with text popping up at the beginning whenever you do an action that needs to be clicked to dismiss or can't be dismissed, which forces me to wait more, having to redo the entire game just to play the last rope lowering part when all I wanted to do was get that last medal). All of this is not adventurous or give me any feeling of freedom, especially feeding the dog; I'm on a mission that could result in death. I think Crunch can go a morning without food.
- I read some of the changes you implemented, which were good, but the holding down feature just doesn't seem like a good idea (I can't stress that enough).
- I like the art style of the game, the premise, and the puzzles, but the uncreativeness of the responses whenever you choose an option that isn't right (an example being "no") just leaves the game feeling empty when you could have clever remarks or words that relate to the situation, like trying to interact with one of the people on the street could result in "nah. I wouldn't want to get my hand dirty" or "I'm an agent, not a bully" or something along those lines.
- You don't have to make the guidance so "in your face" or so to speak. There are subtle ways to give guidance to the player without throwing it at them or even telling them, one way you've already put in is through the menu with the objective page. Another way is to take advantage of the text spouses generated by examining and touching objects.
- I like the touch of adding voice actors and a lot of them as well.

Still, good job on the game and I hope to see a sequel from you when you can find the time and let me know if you need more voice actors for it. Good luck!

SMKS responds:

Thanks for the feedback.

[Jumper 3: Stencyl Jam Cut]

Hey, long time, no hear from! I'm glad you released a game for the Stencyl jam (I had wanted to, but school work got in the way). I like the different art you put into it, as well as the music, though there are a few problems:
- on the last level, the track from the previous level continues to play as the new one plays, making for a somewhat annoying sound.
- The loading screen is kind of annoying. Maybe you can add some small in-between game to play while it loads if possible.
- The "touching the top of the ceiling death thing" is still there. I have an idea on how to get rid of it. Make the actual ceiling extend pass what the screen is showing enough to where a person can jump up and never wonder about dying.
- If you need voice acting done for your games, I'm here.

Also, take my name off the credits. although I would have liked to have helped create this, I don't think I helped. Good luck msn.

capner responds:

This was a revival of an unfinished game. I redid this game 3 times! I was never pleased with the results of the now lost builds. Its feels this is only 37% complete.

[Anarchy Reigns]

This game is pretty cool. I put a lot of work into it, especially for a game you only had a few days to make. I do think you should have the option to switch weapons though.

The controls work well, I didn't see any glitches playing through and I really like the art (and the fact that there are enemies walking in the background. I really hope you will continue this. Good luck in the contest!

APiotr responds:

Thanks a lot!

[Banish]

The game seems extremely interesting, but there are a few problems
- The fire button does not work for me. I don't know if it's because I'm playing this on a macbook or because I'm using Safari as my browser.
- I somehow managed to glitch their the wall by flying into it, right after a tutorial screen came up (the wall was the first one you find after crossing the hole where it explains how to fly. I flew into the wall near the top).
- The strange sphere near the beginning isn't explained.
- the drones that I created disappeared after a minute. Why is that? If there is a time limit on how long the drones can be active, then that should probably be stated, as well as when and why the drones would disappear. If it helps, there were people near by that they were following, but they weren't shooting.
- Why is scrap the same symbol as the tutorial instruction that you can move your mouse across? This might confuse some players.
- your option for changing the control isn't working. I'd suggest a more direct menu like text boxes (also, when you click on a function in the control menu, a window pops up, but the letters from the instructions bleed through it).
- do the new weapons unlock themselves as you kill people or is there some other trick to it?
- the holograph option doesn't work when you are being shot at. You might want to specify this.

I wish I could give you a better score, but the shooting problem is a big deal since killing is a major part of advance in this game. Still, the graphic are pretty cool and the concept is interesting as well. I really do want to play this, but the problems need to be addressed. I look forward to your next project. Good luck.

Unkn0wnOrigin responds:

Wow! Thanks for the detailed response! Appreciate it. I'll look into these issues today.
About the two things you pointed out, you'll understand the strange sphere at the end, and weapons unlock themselves once you recover a certain percent of your memory.

[Vesna]

Someone else already pointed out a lot of the problems that I experience in my first playthrough, but I've got some things to address that have to do with the changes:
- After beating the game and pressing the play button again, it took me back to the last check point. What should I do if I want to play the game from the beginning? You should probably put in a popup box that asks "Would you take to continue your previous game?"
- Following up from the last one, after pressing the play button and making my way to the boss, I found its inner legs and fangs were gone; they had shifted over to the right side of the boss area). After I died and came back, they were back to normal.
- Is there supposed to be a wall on the far right side? I managed to scale the right leg and make it there to be greeted by an invisible wall. Though a bigger problem is that it is possible to scale the far left leg and leave the boss battle without any way of getting back in to fight other than killing yourself to reset the stage.
- the boss is very underwhelming now that you've reduced the poison spray's spread and reach (though I will say that the spread was definitely way too much before. Making it a little bigger would make for more of a challenge to dodge, just not as large as you originally had it). The beast only has two attacks going for it anyway, the other being to stomp on the player. I'd suggest adding one or two secondary attacks, like icicles growing on and falling from its limbs, or ice spikes coming out of the ground.
- You've taken a lot of spikes off the walls, which I feel wasn't necessary. One of the walls was pretty tough, but not impossible to climb.

The main problem overall is that more is needed than fixes to what is currently there. I can't see anyway to make the boss decently challenging without making it unfair or impossible. There is little to no strategy needed in battling it, no "waiting for the right moment", no build up or changes in combat, and the most difficult part of it was standing on the beast since like the guy two comments below me pointed out about the edge clipping. I wish I could put it in words better.

Still, from your description, it sounds like you are going to do more with this and I really hope so. Do you need support for its development. Putting a link in the game could get you that. I really would like to see this expanded as there were parts that I liked, it just needs more added to it, more functions both in enemy combat and acrobatics. I wish you luck on your future gaming projects.

Sephern responds:

Thanks for your reply! We're not currently looking for donations. We are, however, looking for jobs. Our artist and I are currently talking about continuing or maybe going in a different direction with this game. We had complications due to miscommunication in our original project, and this version is slightly fixed up. If we have time to release our initial idea, I'd be a little more open to putting in a donate button, but as of right now we don't feel okay with asking for money when it's possible that we might not revisit the project. Your comment definitely makes me want to continue it, though. Thank you for the support!

[Cucco Chase]

The game is okay, but there are some problems.
- Trying to beat the game without a scratch is near impossible because some of the wood spawns near the edge of the screen, where a chicken can easily just charge out and hit you.
- you need to disable the right click option because you can just click and press play or forward to beat a level (how do you think I got the Chuck Norris medal? Still, the chickens start running at you so fast, you only have a second or so to click before taking damage.)
- on the bonus levels, whenever I am hit, I sometimes am unable to move, which leads to me taking more damage. (this might be a result of the chickens actually pushing Link around or something, but it makes staying alive during the bonus very tough once you get caught).
- Having a high score on this game isn't really fair as much of it is based on luck, examples being how close wood appears to you, how close the chickens move to the you in the second part, and to a lesser extent, the rise and fall of chicken appearances that may block your way to a fence post or near impossible to dodge in bonus levels. It only takes one of these variables to keep someone who did just as well as someone else from getting the high score they deserve, but this isn't a very competitive game and none of the medals are based on score (thank you for that) so it is not that important.
- the white text boxes aren't really an appealing part of the game, but I can't think of a better design. It just feels like with a few changes in some places, it'd look more like a game instead of a Powerpoint on menu screens.
- There is some bad text placement, like the yellow text overtop of the fence is hard to read. This is especially the case at the end of the where the "secret" is revealed; it's overtop of a chicken and I couldn't read it though I later found out what it was.

For the good qualities of the game, it definitely provides a challenge in the later levels just to beat it (sometimes in a frustrating way) and the game is a novel idea as the cuckoos have been a pretty big running gag in Zelda parodies for a while. I haven't found any glitches, which is great. I was sad the game was so short. It would've been cool if there was a level where you had to throw the cuckoos had one another to knock them out or use them to fly across gaps to get wood.

Still, this game is good and I hope you'll make more of them in the future. I think you'll get a few fans following you after they play this game.

TheCez responds:

Yes, beating the game without a scratch is nearly impossible, which is why I made the medal worth so much. And I had no idea about the right-click thing! I need to fix that definitely. And, yes, the not moving around for a bit when your hit is part of the difficulty. And yeah, the whole high score was a last minute thing I added by request from Giulliano, which is why I didn't make any medals for that. I honestly just care about the survival records hahaha. I see your points about the text boxes and text placements!
Thank you so much for all of your advice and opinions! I will take them all into considerations, and I'm glad you took the time for all this!

[Sheen's Drug Trip]

The game is pretty good though the joke is a little outdated (had you released this a year or two ago, it may have really hit home with people, especially considering I think Charlie Sheen is doing "okay" now). The graphics weren't extremely good, but I wouldn't expect that from a game using actual people's heads because trying to draw stuff to smoothly blend in with the actual people heads would be very difficult, even for advanced artist. I really like the gameplay and although I did expect to find glitches in the game, I found none so very good job on this. I enjoyed the game and enjoyed the medals though I'd seriously consider putting in a restart button. I look forward to your full game.

TharosTheDragon responds:

Yeah, we actually did release it on sheengame.com but then let the url expire I guess. We actually won't be releasing a full game but I'll consider your restart button suggestion. I figured people could just refresh if they want all the medals.

Update: I added restart buttons at the end. And thanks for the review, btw. I pride myself in making bug-free games (Ame Fury doesn't count).

[Monsters Time (Zombie) 3]

The spawn rate is way too high in this game, to where in a matter of seconds, the game begins to slow down to a snail's pace (usually I don't cast too much judgment on game creators, but how was this not apparent before uploading it?). The graphics are subpar and it is very easy to phase through certain walls for some reason, and the shotgun animation for the shot does not always work. Also, I've tried to shoot a zombie directly in front of me a few times and missed (also, if there are zombies behind another zombie, shooting usually takes out the ones in the back first for some reason. The game needs a lot of work, but I appreciate the medals (but the Newbie medal is not working).

dridiyassine responds:

Don't forget the normal zombie his health is 3 , and the big one his health is 5 and the bigest one his health is 15 :) Newbie medal is bugged in the script , im trying to fix it

[Piggies Rescue]

Technically the game works, but if you are a player trying for the medals, this game is way too difficult, as having the pig walk around when you are trying to aim makes for directing their trajectory to a specific path near impossible. Even the arrows aren't a big help as the pigs are moving so fast in the arrows wiggle around like worms (even if you saw the correct path line up, you'd need to be pretty quick to react).

Also, the arrow keys to move the map around probably would have been a better choice as it would allow you to launch pigs while moving the screen, allowing the player to keep up with them.

Still, the graphic are good and so is the concept (it just has some problems).