Plasmarift's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Alula Falling #5]

Man, that was a sad ending. Though I definitely like that this isn't another "Happily Ever After", it's more like a "Sadly Ever After", but that's just my opinion. I have some complaints with the game.
- I read the description and that you originally planned to have multiple endings. I wouldn't mind a single ending if you hadn't stated in the previous games that determining Alula's karma through kills would determine her fate. All the kills did was make the battles easier and didn't change Alula in any way. You didn't even change the text accordingly with whether or not you spared one of the unnamed characters (after beating them, Alula says "What a waste of a life" and "I'll avenge you").
- For the kill counter for Alula, it stopped at 9 and won't go up.
- Parts of the new set up on the battle screen are good: the intro where it shows you who you are facing was cool, but changing it so that the Star app was the default didn't seem like a good change.
Still, I really like the series. It was probably my favorite from all your other ones (with the interconnected storylines).

JackAstral responds:

Fixed those things up- thanks for pointing them out!

[Achillia: The Game]

Since a lot of the reviews pointed out the good in the game, I'm going to point out the problems I had.
- I don't think I can get the super combo to work. The closest thing I have come to find that could be considered a super combo would be when I attempt it: I strike once, fly up into the air, spin attacking and then come back down with a downward strike, which deals 12 damage. As good as that is, it's not enough. I still can't get gold on the level it teaches it to you so I must not be doing it right. You could have include a vision showing what it looks like or a tutorial manual that you can access at the menu to show you step by step how to do it.
- After level 10 (or even earlier), some of the bigger enemies stop getting knocked back by your attacks so you have to stop attacking and dodge (since you didn't put in any way to defend against attacks), but this is sometimes impossible because you place the player in such a small environment that it is often times impossible to dodge (you don't even allow the player to move backwards to areas they've been to in the level if there are no monsters left there).
- I don't think it was a good idea to set up an award system based on how fast you beat a level. There are some variables in this game that are outside of the player's control that can prevent them from getting the gold. For example, going back to the whole "enemies stop getting knocked back", they can just walk away from you while you're in the middle of a combo so you waste time moving toward them again and hitting them. Also, I've gone into levels where the number of enemies will vary, which again adds to the changing degree of difficulty. Basically, you are rewarding players for luck and skill in the later levels rather than pure talent. Right now, I'm about half way through the game at the last volcano level and I can't advance. If I am unable to get the awards on the levels I'm on now, what chance do I have in future levels? Had you added real upgrades that could be earned or bought then I would have the chance to progress. Instead (if a person is not as skilled as necessary to advance) they need to grind on older levels just to get potions to use in the upper levels, which they will use up, either by beating or failing the level, forcing them to go back and replay older levels to get more. At least when you're grinding for experience, you get to keep it.
- I don't see how the move set is supposed to help me at all. Most of them take down just about the same amount of health as a normal combo and they offer nothing else in return except for some of the attacks allowing you to hit flying enemies. You don't give a move to hit enemies on all sides, to hit enemies while you're dodging, to hit from a distance (you can't move even while doing one of these moves without canceling it). What's even worse is that the screw attack could get you out of a rough situation if you are surrounded or cornered except that you include so many enemies in the level, such as the boss volcano level (plus the lava geysers) that you can't get away from all of them and even worse, right after performing it, there's a brief moment where you can't move. (Going back to the boss volcano level, it is super overcrowded to the point that it starts causing lag. As it stands now, the best move that I can do is the basic combo and another strange one I stumbled across, but if I have any chance at succeeding, I need to attack, dodge, move forward, attack, and repeat over and over again until all enemies are dead.

You may think I hate this game, but that's far from true. I want to like this game. I like the art, the music, the mysterious story, and the main character. I just think it could have been executed better.

GuzuLigo responds:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! There is a lot to talk about there.
I don't really know how to make you a fair answer, so I made you a Video:
https://vimeo.com/165795198

Hope it helps you find the right tricks to enjoy the game better! Also, I guess you'll see why I ended up making game gets more difficult quickly. I actually tried to make next stages less difficult, but more challenging to get 3 stars, so you might not stuck at any... except for final boss. But I hope you'll like it!

[Cathode Raybits 2]

I like the game, but can you please give the player the option to disable the dash ability? I keep accidentally activating it and it kills me more often than the enemies do (Besides, what purpose does it serve? It doesn't make you go that much faster anyways and takes away control from you until after it deactivates)

Other than that, the game presents a difficulty that is seldom tried nowadays, which is good. The game nearly always offers you the ability to avoid damage if you're smart about your movements (it especially gives you these options as you acquire more weapons). Very good job on giving nearly all the enemies their own movement patterns and designs (it keeps the game from getting old).

And I'm old enough to recognize the style (hopefully others will be too) and I've so fat found no glitches. I'd gladly play through the whole game, but to get so far and then have the dash ability jet you into a pit, it just feels like I'm being cheated in that regard, even though no one else seems to have that problem.

Anyways, great game!

SinclairStrange responds:

I'll look into that, I could possibly disable that or map it too another key so that doesn't happen :) I'll prolly do that in a patch update :)

I'm glad other than that you enjoyed thee game! :D

[Final Commando]

You would've gotten a better score if there weren't bad glitches
- I defeat the final boss twice and both times, I got a lot of coins from the boss, the grey platforms stopped showing up, and I ended up continuously running along the black and yellow striped platform forever (I ended killing myself by falling through a gap that I found in the platforms). If I'm doing something wrong, please let me know.
- The game sometimes freezes when I kill an enemy and whenever my character dies.

Another note, have a button (or put an option in the pause menu) that sends you straight back to the upgrade page. What's the point of alerting someone that they can upgrade if they can't do anything about it?

Other than these things, I did enjoy the game; the sounds for the game were good, the hidden artifacts were a good touch, the speed up function was a smart inclusion as it gave the player some level of control, and the graphic were pretty good, but please fix the problems. Thanks.

[Look at your Feet]

I'd like to give a better score because I think the game is pretty cool, but it has some problems.
- Sometimes when I click on a specific layer (and I am dragging it across the screen), it doesn't appear in front of all of the layers, forcing me to click it again to fix this. When you get pretty far in the game, this can potentially cost you a finger.
- Sometimes I'll assemble a shoe perfectly (the fly tells me so) and yet the timer will still count down to zero if there is extra time (I don't know if you put that in on purpose to make people second guess themselves, but it was a little annoying).
- Often times, all the layers are so close to the shoe that it's difficult to know if you are aligning them correctly. Usually the top of the shoe is not covered so you can use this as a reference, but it's a lot tougher than using the heel of the shoe (which is what I do) so I'm kind of torn on this one.
- One time, on the third shoe, the conveyer belt didn't even stop (or it barely stopped) and the fly told me I did it wrong. I didn't even touch the shoe and a time limit was not given and I got one of my fingers cut off. I'm guessing I was given a time limit of zero to work on the shoe (this glitch came about from me waiting a long time to finish the first two shoes, to see if it would give me more time in the next one).
- I definitely see from the increasing difficulty that you are trying to demonstrate the stress of the situation, but trying to line up the pixel on a shoe when you have five seconds is insane. Is there a way to avoid getting down to five seconds (maybe by taking longer during the beginning, the amount of time given will go down slower because the managers figure you need more time to complete the job).

Still, I like the game and hope to see more from you in the future.

[Dweebus & the Great Destiny]

I'd give you a higher score if there was a save function, also, after agreeing to take over the company and getting that ending, I tried again (with the expectation that if I turned down the offer that I would get another ending. I didn't. So I thought that I should go down to the first floor to leave and nothing happened. Now I'm back at level one, having played through the entire game again with nothing to show for it. Is this a bug? Where does the brother come into the picture? Why is Dweebus' father blaming him for using the pineapples as weapons when you had to use them to get through the game?

Honestly, the game play is good, but if there isn't a save function then I would highly suggest that after beating the game once, you put in an elevator (or pay like 40 gems to go straight to the top floor) so that the player can more easily experience another ending, if another one exists. (and if the other ending is achieved by not having enough gems for coffee, then you have to put in some kind of reset button on that because I have 78 gems now and it would take me about 10 trips to the top floor to use them up)

As for bugs, when I started the game again, the Dweebus pointer on the chart was still at the top and when I started ascending to the next floor, it went up and up until it was off screen.

[Crab's Farm]

I got 50 boats, yet I didn't get the metal. It isn't worth it. The last medal is far too high, maybe even for the game to handle because I have Nan in front of the accumulating money amount.

[You are the cube]

I usually don't feel the need to comment as much as I used to, but seeing that the commenter below me does not understand how the game works, I feel it is my duty to point it out.

You are a cube that cubes moving until you hit something. That is how it is supposed to work and that's what adds the difficulty.

As for what I think of the game, I do like it and I won't fault it much for the simpleness of the graphics (especially since it is your first on here and it seems like you were trying to create a fun challenging game and not a visual masterpiece). It certainly is challenging, but I found some problems with it:
- It seems like the level design could have been done better. There are too many loopholes that you can take to get around challenges, especially early on. It's both good and bad because a lot of puzzle games will only give you one option, but I have the feeling that this wasn't what you had in mind.
- If you fall off a ledge without jumping, you can still jump while in the air. I don't if you intended for that to be the case.
- I don't know why, but playing the game forces my computer to work pretty hard, which doesn't seem to make sense. I've played tons of games with a lot more going on both in visuals and in action. What's going on in the game that's causing this?
- Although it is a minor detail, try to make things like counters and level select screens more diverse and not just with plain text: this creates a type of disconnect where it makes it seem like I'm interacting with an application when I should be immersed in the game (also, it just comes off as laziness to some people, no offense).

Still, I had fun playing it and that's good. I look forward to your next game.

ShadowScout responds:

Hi Plasmarift,

thank you for your Feedback.

This game is indeed the very first one I publish.

The double jump feature is an intended one and allows you to find different ways solving a level.

I tried to make it possible to solve each level, after the first five, over at least three paths and maybe got kind of lost in that idea, which lead to the apperently weird level design.

I will look further into the described performance issues and improve it more.