Plasmarift's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Dead-Alive Episode 1 [Debug Build 0.4]]

I pressed the "..." option and it went back to the title screen so I had to restart. I went out of the stall and got killed then I tried to press the restart button, but it didn't work so I had to quit and restart. I chose the right stall, proceeded, read that there isn't anything else and had to restart to see what the left stall had (a dirty toilet).

Having to sit through the opening animation three times in a row with no option to skip was extremely annoying. You shouldn't have uploaded this if this is all you had (you should also tell the player up front that this isn't finished).

Outside of what I wrote so far, I like the animation style, the storyline, and the choices. Just make sure you implement that skip button and let me know if you need another voice actor, let me know and I can help out.

bb-panzu responds:

the "..." glitch i still haven't figured that one out. and i did program the skip button. I just need to make sure it is visible next time. or maybe i didn't give it a proper hitbox. Oh and I DO need a voice actor. It has a type of man voice.

[Return to Earth]

Definitely a good game though I have some ideas and thoughts on it.
- I've only come across one glitch and it was soon after getting the dash ability. I went to the left through the passage way and dashed upward to find myself stuck in the way. Dashing seemed to only make it worse.
- For the weapons you can buy, the randomization gets annoying, especially when you get a weapon twice that you really don't want (that's 100 coins down the drain). It would be cool if you could collect weapons and use the number keys to select them (or cycle through them with the E and Q keys or something). Maybe have some weapons that you can only get through finding them or pieces of them.
- Speaking of coins, because of this setup, I was considering just skipping opening up the metal boxes until later because they are the only source of health in the game (other than respawning) and leaving them there until I get more coins ensure that they won't be wasted if I happen to die in the game.
- You've added so much great art to the game, but you give the player very little interaction with the world; only a few metal boxes to destroy, some enemies in flowers, and some switches. The world is so cool looking. Try to think of ways to let the player be a part of it or to let them engross themselves in it. Maybe allow the player to examine specific things, have the ground or environment react to the player being near it sometimes (I noticed the rocks that glow when you are near them. That's cool), allow the player to do things with the broken electronics like destroy them or break lights. I know you've included some secret areas, but I'll address this later on.
- I like the puzzle aspect of reversing your position to solve the problem. Perhaps try taking this a little farther as I see more potential there. I wouldn't want the game to become solely about puzzle solving because it seems like exploration is, but a few more would really make the game better in my opinion.
- The enemy designs are cool, especially the bosses (even though the first one doesn't scare me, there is something very intimidating about its open mouth yelling at you). I think you'll need a few more enemy designs to keep the game from falling into monotony later on in the game. you also might want to look into new ways of introducing some enemies rather than having all of them come out of flowers except for the ugly charging one (it's annoying when I can see where the enemy is hiding, but can only attack it by luring it out. Still, I'm not sure how changing this would affect how many other gamers see the game as this could be seen as good by others). One thing in particular I'd like to suggest is to have areas where enemies are coming at you in rapid succession because the dash ability and time reversal would really aid in this being a fun experience for the player, being able to move out of the way of enemy attacks, reflect some attacks, and undo the damage done (for skilled players at least).
- Whenever there is a screen transition, it may look better to make the entire screen black than to leave the right side of the previous level there while it loads.
- Perhaps give the option for players to change the control setup in the menu.
- For me, the map really doesn't help much because it seems over simplified compared to actual game. When I go into a room, it feels like there are paths going off in all directions and it's hard to keep track of where I am at all or where I should be going (since you can't backtrack out of the first boss lair). This was just my experience though. One thing I would suggest would be to add the option to close the map after opening it up.
- The music is really good. Maybe two more tracks for the full version. A mute button might be good.
- So far, I've found two secret areas, minus the vent areas. Do you think you could slightly (like, extremely slightly) change the secret area entrances to make it so the observant player looking for them can find them. It could just be a pixel or two difference between other ones. Otherwise, you just have players placing bombs everywhere and waiting three seconds for them to explode. If that's the case, then the secrets really aren't worth looking for because they take up too much time waiting. It's already annoying enough having to wait for the bomb to go off to open up areas I have to go through (will the new bomb upgrade not only open up the rusty looking block paths, but also be faster?) I get that you don't want the bombs to go off instantly because then people would be spamming it like crazy.

This is a really cool game, especially for only being an alpha. I don't know if you plan on selling it or not, but if you do, can you possibly make it available on macbooks?

Good luck in your developing. This is going to be good!

RitchieRitual responds:

Wow thanks for such in depth feedback, I will take some serious time to go through and analyse all that you said, thanks very much.

[Red Jumping Hood]

The game was definitely fun and I liked the pixel graphic, but it was kind of disappointing to find that collecting the berries didn't do anything at all. I thought maybe if you got enough of them, you'd get an alternate ending or something, but there wasn't one so what was the point to having them in the game?

imperfectgames responds:

Thank you Plasmarift! Sorry to dissapoint you ;) I was a little tight on time, so ultimately the berries served just a purpose of giving the player some extra challenge - without any reward, unfortunately.
Having an alternate ending based on berries count sure is a cool idea (Wario Land anyone? :d) - I will keep that in mind!

[FIST OF AWESOME]

As cool as the art, concept, and story is, I don't understand the appeal of these games. There's no difficulty in fighting any of the enemies (including the bosses), there's only one special move, and half of the time, I'm just waiting for the enemies to get back up so I can do more damage to them (and it gets really annoying). If I could do damage to them while they are on the ground or if they had special attack patterns that required me to attack and dodge at certain times, it would be fun, but, as it stands, I'm just going through the motions as there's no challenge. Even the grab move which keeps them from getting knocked down gets old.

Still, I wish you luck in your game developing career.

ifightbears responds:

Hi Plasmarift, thanks for playing and for the very detailed feedback!

All your criticisms are completely valid (although there is a stomp button - W on keyboard - to damage felled enemies). If I make a sequel I'll definitely be looking to add more variety to the enemies :)

Thanks again for playing, and I wish you luck in your game playing activities!

[Castle Of Horror S01]

This game could have been pretty good, but it suffers from a few things:
- From what I could tell, collecting the coins does nothing. The best incentive for collecting things in games is when you feel like you've accomplished something by doing so, whether it's through an actual award, such as unlocking a new level or feature, getting a medal here on Newgrounds, or unlocking a different ending, or even if there was no award, having the coins disappear when you collect them and seeing the counter go up tells the player they're accomplishing something. However, the coin counter resets once it reaches a certain number so this made me feel like I was wasting my time (you could program it so when you get a certain number of coins, you receive more health or your health refills if it isn't full).
- the sword attack: why is there a cool down feature on the attack button? Many of these enemies appear one after another so this forces the player to wait until the meter goes back before they can attack again. What's worse is that if you hit the button too early when you are waiting for the meter to go up, nothing happens and the meter still goes down. I understand the idea behind a cool down feature for a weapon, but this isn't the game to use it in.
- controls. I read the previous comment so I understand the setup. However, I would suggest before the game begins that you either give players a choice between a few control setups and/or tell them to customize the controls themselves if they are unhappy with them.
- I'm guessing you didn't play the game a second time in a row when you tested it, did you? (or at least not without shutting down the program and starting the game up again). You should always do this because after I beat the game and pressed the play button again, the game restarted, but the main character was invisible. He could still take damage though and when he died, you could see he was wearing the knight outfit.
- Keys again? I understood the need for keys when you go through the game once, but why do you make the player get them again when they are backtracking through the level to kill enemies? The whole point to getting a key is to unlock an area, the award being that that area is now available to you and yet you undo this.

There were good things about the game though. Being allowed to go back and kill the enemies that were a pain in the butt is a nice feeling. Other than the one glitch I mentioned, I didn't find any others. It was also a nice touch to have the ghosts constantly look at you whatever side of them you were on.

Still, the game needs more content, specifically new enemies and new challenges in platforming and perhaps other things that can be destroyed like boxes.

I wish you luck in your future of game design!

[Supermuzhik 2]

The game is fun, but for some reason, it keeps slowing down on me at certain moments, like right before I've beaten a level and other moments that are a little more critical like when I take serious damage. I haven't had any trouble like this with other games in a long while so I don't think it is me. Regardless, the game certainly offers a lot in options (with the many different weapons) and it seems like this sequel can get even more frantic with the speed at which you can pick up people and objects to throw them (I also like how you made tossing enemies unable to the player. This makes it much tougher).

I hope others will enjoy this game as well (though please look into the slowing down issue).

[Sneak Attack]

Whenever I press and hold the spacebar, the page just suddenly scrolls down (I've clicked on the game to try and center it to prevent this, but it doesn't work. It happens every time). I'd suggest adding a different button to use for the "search" feature or to fix this problem.

endernoobz responds:

Thank you! I will definitely change the search key.

[Skullbreaker II]

I couldn't tell you if the game is good or not because I can't start it. Some computers don't have F1 -F9 keys or they don't function the same way (my computer does have them, but they have different functions that control the computer like screen lighting so I can't use them to interact with the game).

VassilisKa responds:

Hi there bud. Thanks for your feedback. Ironically I have the same problem with my laptop, which made the development process a pain in the butt. There is a few ways to fix this problem, your (fn) lock is on, either hold the (fn) key while pressing F1 or take the (fn) Lock off, usually (fn) + esc. If this doesn't work, you can find numerous other ways to do it if you research. I'm sorry your experience was bad, hopefully my advice can help change your experience.

[Sanguine 2]

I managed to complete the game and found your "here lies" little thing. At times, I really liked the game and, looking back on it now, if I were to go through it again, I'd probably look like a pro gamer. However, I did find some problems with it.
- It's good you included the key configuration function though I think you should have made it more clear and explained it in that menu that popped up. I went in there hoping to change a key and left thinking it was only there to test them (I know the menu said key configuration, but I've played a number of games that had functions that were miss leading or didn't work). Also, why did you set the buttons the way they are? Having the main functions (jump, attack, chain) on the same line of the keyboard seems like a good idea. If this is due to having a keyboard that has the letters in different places, you could always have more than one button for a function to cover your bases.
- Although I'll agree that having a tutorial every 5 steps is annoying and I like the idea of gamers figuring things out on their own, it would be a good idea to design the game in a way that fosters the learning of the game (I notice in one of the early levels, you have two checkpoint straight up and down the map to ensure the player touched them. This is a good idea. I believe you also showed the player breakable walls and, if the player was paying attention, you could follow a little monster at the beginning to where you can get blood and extra lives). However, it took me a while to find out how to use the hit-able objects to propel myself up. The first ones I came across were knobs that turned when you hit them so I first thought I had to hit them to unveil a platform or something. The way some levels were set up, it definitely clicked in me that "somehow these things are supposed to help keep me in the air", but it wasn't until I died and had to maneuver in the underground, where there were a bunch of objects, that I finally got that I needed to hold down jump.
- It's true that slippery controls are in other popular games and that they can add something. However, the games you listed off in Hylarn's comment are games where you jump on enemy's heads to kill them, if there are any. In this game, you need to approach enemies and press the attack button, but since the controls are slippery and you need to be pretty close to land a hit, you're extremely likely to slide into the enemy. If exact positioning in this game wasn't required, I'd agree with you, but with the enemies and the chain hook thing, it made the game frustrating, especially for the bosses.
- the chain was probably the hardest thing I had to learn, not because the concept of using it was tough, but because there was a delay to it being thrown out, meaning you had to time it correctly to make sure it hit the target. This goes back to the slippery controls, but it also has to do with a specific challenge, namely this:
|
fall from here |
| the ledge
|_________
^
place chain here after falling

Trying to do this is frustrating, especially when you keep going back and forth between a slow speed at 0 health and faster one with health. To me, I could never fully get the timing down. I also had this probably with swinging the sword since I believe the swing speed goes down when you don't have any more blood (I just can't switch between those modes of timing in my head).
- The fact that humans could shoot through the walls was annoying, but it could argued that it made getting caught more treacherous and undesirable. The only thing I would have liked would have been a gauge on how far the humans could view (and the fact that when they stop changes their view would have been nice to know).
- Why did you only introduce the "special button" near the end of the game? On the first or second world seems more appropriate. I know the player could have always pressed it, but the tombstone that said to do it seemed very strange.
- Why not make the character automatically grab ledges and have the down button let the player slide down the ledge?

However, there were a lot of things in the game that I did like:
- The enemy designs and attack patterns were all unique and interesting. You had to strategize to take down some of the tougher ones.
- Although there weren't too many collectables, there were still rewards for exploring, namely rest spots for blood, extra lives, and the bonus weapon (the bonus weapon was pretty cool and the fact that it took a hit for the player made it that much more important to have).
- Throughout the entire game, you continued to add new challenges, whether by combining old ones or introducing new mechanics. It was interesting that you made finding secret passages mandatory by the end of the game (or at least for some levels).
- I think my favorite level was near the end, where there were 3 hidden passages that each led to a different challenge (one with poles, one with people, one with chain). It was probably the most difficult for me too. The word puzzle was also cool.
- The fact that you could use humans as shields against gun fire was pretty interesting (I actually didn't figure that out until after I started writing this comment and went back to check). It comes back to the strategy, making sure you grab the person who shoots twice instead of the gun next to them that only shoots once.
- Although I found the weakened state when you are out of blood to be annoying, it definitely added a feeling of vulnerability to the playing experience, making health that much more important.

There was probably more stuff I liked, but right now, I'm tired and it's time to go to bed soon for me. Despite the hardship and frustration, it definitely was an experience, which is not something I can say about a lot of games I've played. I look forward to your future work.

RayBeckham responds:

Awesome review, thank you for taking the time to go into detail!

I put the input keys the way they are because I have a few old keyboards laying around and setting up the buttons in a line was causing ghosting on those. It was a guess that it might reduce issues for people. I'll add some instructions about the key config in the menu.

I'll add in some more tutorial stones in a future update, for both grabbing ledges and bouncing off objects. Holding jump to rise higher just feels like something imbedded in my brain from most platformers ... but I can't expect players to know that.

The sliding stays. Git gud.

I threw the special key tombstone into world 3 so that there would be something just for fun in an otherwise 100% raw challenge zone. I'm not committed to it having to be there, though.

Having to manually grab a ledge means you have the possibility of not grabbing the ledge. A possibility of failure means there's risk... A game without risk isn't as fun, in my opinion.

I'm glad there were many other things you liked. Again, thank you for the review and i'll try adding some things that make the game easier to learn.

[Praying Simulator]

It's definitely an interesting game that presents a challenge (I feel like a lot of your other games before didn't present much of a challenge gameplay wise) and it also has a message though I'm not sure everyone will agree with it or understand what exactly your trying to say. Nevertheless, it certainly is artistic.

If you don't mind me asking, I'm curious. Do you hate religion? That's kind of what I'm taking from this.

JackAstral responds:

Thank you, I really appreciate that :)

It's complicated- I grew up Catholic, but have very mixed feelings on it now