Plasmarift's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Jesse's big secret]

Honestly, it seems more depressing than interesting. The poor guy has everything bad happen to him and not even his own family helps him out or the production studio? Also, there are a lot of plot holes:
- There's a difference between being charged with an offense and having to serve jail time. Jesse didn't go to court over the offenses, one of which the airlines admittedly made a mistake.
- Most, if not all, security rooms are going to have security cameras, usually to make sure security officers are doing their jobs right and to verify what happened in the rooms. The footage would have shown that it was an accident.
- It's one thing to have the worst circumstances befall a character, but it should at least make sense. Why wouldn't Jesse be on the fly list and why wouldn't he be identified by the studio? The only explanations are that the assistant that gave him the tickets rigged these things because she wanted to get him in trouble (but how could she know the incident on the plane would happen?) or Jesse is insane and imagined the whole filming studio situation or the filming studio somehow set this up to make a live action series on a guy that gets sent to a women's prison to avoid getting raped while trying to hide the fact that he's a guy. This plot seems more like its unfolding as a porno rather than a legitimate story.

Also, the dialogue begins to become repetitive like the whole rape conversation in the jail cell. Sorry to be so negative, but I went into this with intrigue only to be kind of let down. Still, I wish you luck with the project.

[The Blind World]

The game concept is interesting, but the gameplay makes it extremely difficult if near impossible to get the best ending:
- when jumping on the treadmills, it either launches the player too low or too high, which will often cause the player to hit the saw blades (it doesn't seem right that the saw blades cause instant death in many cases.
- if you land on top of the sword guys, you can't jump and can only fall left or right and doing so will lead to the guys to attack the player. Also, in confined areas, like trying to reach the leader, you can still be pinned against walls.
- The demon red dog and robots often can get stuck on the player or under them and get damage taken away (the dog one happen when the player is too close hitting it while it is vulnerable and it comes back to life, causing the player to get stuck underneath it.
- Also, in the first encounter with the dog, it is tough to jump over it because the margin for error is so small (plus, if you fail to, you can get pinned against the wall.

I look forward to your next game.

[The Epic Gang]

I'm actually very upset right now because I spent over three hours playing the game, saved multiple times, and then closed the window to come back to it later only to find out it didn't save. I even started a new game to see if the save feature worked at all and saved at the first save point and when I loaded the game again, it still didn't save. I don't know why this is. Perhaps look into it? I'm using Google Chrome as a browser.

As for the game, it is good. The gameplay is engaging, the items you can collect encourages exploration, and the fairy that heals you is a nice upgrade for the player, but there are some problems.
- As others have pointed out, the English is bad. Next time, just ask someone to look over it for you. I'd gladly do so.
- You can still use the flasks even if you are at full health and have no ailments. I think you should disable it and have the game make a sound to alert the player that using it would be useless (I accidentally pressed the wrong button and used up a number of my flasks when I was at full health).
- Although you offer the option to change the controls, why not have multiple options for the controls? (have the default set up and have the keys z x c s be another option for controls). Also, even when you change the controls, you still need to use the default controls when interacting with puzzles and the pause menu. Why is that? Also, why can;t the player change the controls in the pause menu during the game?
- a map would be very appreciated because it is very easy to get lost or to forgot where something is (I had remember coming across a lock that needed the key of sorrow so I decided to go looking for it when I found the key and it took a long time to find it). Plus, it gets very tiring backtracking through monsters while your aimlessly trying to find something you already passed. Maybe have a map where it contains markers that show that a locked door and chest are in that area. You could also have it where an area isn't revealed on the map until a player moves through it.
- The enemy designs are good, but some of the enemies back away when you try to approach them to attack, which is very irritating (especially since the enemies can float off of the platforms out of reach) because it forces the player to bait the enemies more in land so they can attack).
- You don't offer any explanation of the what the ailments do to the player, like curse and inhibition. You might think its apparent, but having a clear explanation would also be nice, especially for the inhibition one (maybe an area in the menu?). an explanation for how exactly the fairy works would have been nice as well.
- often times, you leave little to no room for the player to fight. In a number of instances, this can be interesting and perhaps even fun and challenging, but when you corner a player in a room with a large number of enemies, this goes from fun to just annoying. You really need to strike a balance with this.
- Why is it that the environment does not affect the monsters at all? Why not have explosion hurt them when they can hurt the player?
- The second boss (the fire guys), this one seems a little unfair. You leave the player very little time to strike at the boss since they constantly try to pounce on you (since they rarely due so in sync with one another, trying to attack during this time will usually result in the player's death). I chose the berserker option at the beginning and basically focused a lot of power into attack, yet I still struggled to take them down because my attacks took away very little health. I'd suggest having it so detonating a bunch of bombs near them will hurt them. Otherwise, I don't know how to go about doing the battle.

Still, I want to say I enjoyed the game, but the fact that it didn't save really hurt me and I don't know if I want to go through the game again.

DarkenSoft responds:

We are sorry about that.
But it's strange because It works to us, you can try to update your browser or cancel the cookie.

It's our first attempt to create a game and we made a lot of mistakes.
Thank you for the feedback.

[Apollina´s Spell - Greek antique parody]

The game is good, but there are a few things wrong with it:
- Although others don't seem to have a problem, none of the medals are unlocking for me. Do I have to beat the game for them all to unlock?
- The english in this game is kind of bad. You should really get someone to go over it for you.
- A few times, the time it takes to load is a little too long.
- ChronoNomad has a point. The player doesn't always know what can be used to kill enemies (jump on them or stab them) until its too late.

[Kill! Kill! Street Level]

People seriously need to read. If instructions aren't in the game then you check the description (though I will admit that you need to be very direct with the rules, such as stating "Your goal is to kill all stickmen without anyone witnessing the murders. Click on objects to move and activate them.") Still, the game works and this isn't the first game to do something like this, such as the ClickDeath series so I don't understand why people are confused.

I think you did a good job on this and I hope you make more, though I have a few suggestions.
- Right off the back, you have a timed event where within the first 10 seconds, the game will end if you don't kill the guy on the roof. By this point, players are still trying to figure out what they can click on so having this right at the beginning is frustrating. Maybe have a timed event like this activate right after the first time a player clicks on something or add a pause button where all action freezes and the player can't activate things (though still have it so their mouse will change whenever they move over something clickable so they can learn what to click on).
- There's a bug. If you click on the car to make it fall over while the guy isn't underneath it and then you click on the skateboard, the guy will grab it and then point at the car as if someone was killed and you lose. Is that intentional?
- This isn't necessarily bad, but I was able to press the tab button to find all the clickable places. It helped me figure out how to beat the game.

I look forward to your next game. Good luck!

ssjbryando responds:

Very late response. But very good points, thanks!

[Oh! I'm Getting Taller!]

The game is very good. I really like the art style, the music is fitting and exploring the game is fun (although it gets a little annoying when you need to back track because you didn't know the route you were taking was going to lead to the end). Still, this can't always be helped.

I have a question though: I confront the ghosts yet when I return to talk to the girl, she just asks me the same question, as if the event never happened. Was I supposed to let the ghosts get me or is this a bug?

elfgamesworks responds:

Is not a bug, it's a lack of dialogues. You did well passing the ghosts, is just her that don't gives you feedback. How mean! ;D
Thank you for your feedback, this will be fixed in the future updates. ^ ^

[Shadow Arts]

I really like the mechanic of the game, but I think I ran into some glitches.
- After I beat the second boss and the battle ended, the screen went black. When I reloaded the game and tried to start the story up again, it just took me to the level with no Talia or characters and I had no control over anything except for the menu options. I even tried to go to the campfire through the options and the screen came up black again. This happened twice: once on Newgrounds and a second time on Y8.
- Unless you press something, you will continue to run right after the battle. Is this intentional?
- I tried clicking on the Survival button, but it doesn't work.
- Talia repeats herself in the second level right before the boss with the hammer (she says something about the camp. This line came up earlier on in the level.

There are also other problems that I noticed:
- There is no way for me to reset my save game except for emptying my cookies.
- You offer no way to customize the controls and I really feel like it is necessary for this game or the controls just need to be rearranged because the set up is extremely awkward (how is a player suppose to reach the arrow keys easily during battle if they have to keep their fingers around the IOP keys.
- There is no explanation behind what the upgrades do at the campfire (Does it increase the damage, decrease the consumption on the abilities, or something else?)
- During the second boss battle with the hammer, when I use the shield, it only defends against one hit from the hammer. Is this suppose to happen?

Still, I really like the game and would really like to continue playing it, but can you please address these problems. I look forward to your next game.

jujaswe responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I'm in the middle of fixing the aforementioned glitches/bugs.

[Space: An Planetary Opera]

The liked the game. It required you to be careful when approaching and attacking (and to upgrade yourself to make the game easier). I also like that the game instantly restarts when the player dies.

However, I experienced some problems and also would like to suggest some ideas for the game:
- Sometimes (later in the game) when I would come across a planet surrounded by bad guys, they wouldn't react to me; they'd just stay in one place and I could pick them off easily. This would also happen with guys that are just randomly out in space. I don't know what causes this to happen.
- Being able to upgrade the home planets and build an army is nice, but later in the game, when the levels get so expansive, your teammates don't travel very far, meaning you have to do most of the work (and by teammates, I mean the blue and yellow guy, as well as the other green guys that accompany you). It would be nice if they would venture out with me or if I can order them to go move to specific places.
- The game can be kind of underwhelming at times since I can just destroy the enemy planets and then take out the remaining ships. Perhaps increase the output of the planets to make the situations more dire.
- Later in the game in the giant levels, perhaps when there are about five enemies left, have an arrow that will guide the player to those ship because it can be pretty annoying to comb through the level to find the last guys.
- Perhaps make more artwork and objects that will help the player differentiate one part of the level from the other. Also, have the objects like the suns burn up enemies who get too close (basically have the environment be more interactive with the player. At least try it out and if it doesn't work, then you can just scrap the idea because I understand it could certainly complicate the mechanics of the game and could create an imbalance of some sort).
- This one isn't a big deal, but what about adding a mute button? Maybe a level select screen as well.

I enjoyed the game (though it placed a lot of stress on my computer with all the enemies) and hope to see more games from you in the future. Good luck!

[You Are Slime!]

The game definitely has an interesting concept and could be something really great, but it has problems and is lacking in some things:
- The enemies sometimes get stuck on corners, forcing the player to go back if they are blocking a path, which puts them in danger because when how close you need to get and when the enemies get out from the corner are not set in stone so a player could potentially lose because of this.
- Why not also allow the arrow keys and/or the aswd keys for controls?
- You have a lot of cool items scattered around the dungeon yet you don't let the player interact with any of it. You could have the slime hide inside an empty chest, whether to hide from an enemy or to have the enemy open it and attack the enemy. It would also be cool if you could sneak up on enemies and attack them or to give the enemies different weapons and powers, like giving one a bow and arrow and another a giant axe.
- I don't know if this is a good thing or not, but there is a lot of back tracking because you need to lead enemies away from a hall you need to go down. It really does make the player feel weak and helpless (which could be a good thing. Games can and often times should make you feel things. You could even say it puts the player in character for this game). Also, this backtracking (by itself) would get old if you ever extended this into more levels.
- For whether or not there should be a restricted view, I think it works well for this game, but I wouldn't know if full view would be better unless I played the game with it. However, full view would eliminate the element of surprise for the enemy and the maze like feel of the game.

Overall, it's a good game. I just feel like it could be so much more. I look forward to your next game.

megakruts responds:

Thank you for such a big review! It makes me think about a lot of things! )

[Lost Ethereal]

I like the game and I like that you don't shove a story down the player's throat (you can subtle pick up on what the story might be). I also like the art style and the puzzles. This could definitely be extended into a bigger game, but some things are needed and need to be fixed:
SPOILERS
- There is a glitch in your game. After beating it once and replaying it (without refreshing), once you reach the part where you need to shine light on the black creatures, shining light on one will cause the creature they're on to turn into a person and you get an item (as should happen), but it also leaves the last two black creatures floating in the area (you can still kill them, but there's no point to since you already have the item).
- Also, in the place where you put the 9 blue things, after placing the first one, the snake thing turns into a person and you get an item. If you try to place a second one, the game will freeze.
- The fact that you limit the player's movement to a specific path is kind of boring and annoying (there are a lot of things in sight that can't be reached, like the graves at the beginning). Allow the player the freedom to roam and perhaps add some interactions, like add a button that will allow the player to examine objects. It will make things more interesting.
- Also, I think the game would be better if you added a few enemies to liven it up. As much as I like the art style, moving through areas that you can't interact with and that don't have anything to offer will get boring quick.

Still, a very cool game. Good job in the contest and I look forward to your next game release.

thelucre responds:

Thanks for pointing out those bugs. I've fixed them in the latest upload. After all the feedback we are definitely going to pursue a larger game with deeper interactions.