Plasmarift's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[NEON Platform 3D]

The concept is interesting, but the movement is way too slippery, making it extremely difficult to stay on a small platform after landing on it (even then, it's just frustrating trying not wiggle all over the place). The game is also very sluggish, which adds to the frustration. Lastly, there seems to be a delay with the jump feature (it takes a half a second for the character to jump after pressing the button) and I sometimes don't jump as high as compared to other times. Is this because of the speed the stickman has to be running? This should probably be explained.

Still, the game is interesting and I 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.

[The Night Henry Allen Died]

The game is alright, but there are some problems:
- the painting option does not work. Whenever I select it when speaking to someone, it will only bring up their picture and the menu will remain (pressing the s button again will let me choose another option)
- Add a button that will let you leave a conversation instantly instead of having to scroll down through a long list of stuff to do so.
- Why not have two columns of things to ask? It would be easier for the player to quickly select one of the options (and to see more of them without scrolling). Maybe enabling the mouse so that a player can select the option by mouse if they would like would also be good.
- Perhaps make it so if you press up while on the top option, you go to the direct bottom of the list. This may help the player save time.

Other than the tedious thing with the list selecting, the game was okay. I wish the options would change after having found out new information (like when Henry's sister tells you the truth about what happened to Barbacus, the dialogue for everyone else doesn't change when you talk to them about his death). Other things:
- Where did Henry hang himself? There are no other rooms in the house? Where are all these people sleeping?
- Why doesn't another dialogue option come up when you realize that the water next to Dana's bed is drugged?

[Left&Right]

The game is pretty unique and creative, but the problem is that I was able to get enough money on my first try to unlock all of the stuff in the game, which was kind of a bummer for me. I would have liked it to be harder, to have more stuff to unlock, or to have more difficult metals to get. Another thing is you might want to add a skip button to the score conversion into money screen. I felt like I had to wait there for two minutes for it to total up. Other than that, I really did like this game, as it continually kept you on your toes, had nice music, and the mini-game was really tough for me. Good job!

[Sacred Chikin]

The game has an interestingly, weird concept (I'm guessing the main character is a bone duck. It looked cool) and having different ways or spots to get each or most flowers was pretty cool, but my problem is with the health system. You say the game is hard, but that's because you make the player restart to level 1 when they die when you could just restart them at the level they were on. To me, it seems like a cheap way to add difficulty, as it doesn't make the game itself hard, it just makes you be more careful, but even that is not enough. It only takes four mistakes, which are very easy to make (one mistake if you fall off a cliff), to cause a complete restart. I was actual interested to see the ending, but I'm not going through it again because it's not worth it. Maybe add in a function where successfully completing a level will grant one heart if the player had damage or have health packs in the level (or just remove the reset system altogether). Also, having to cut off the chicken's head and draw the star for the third time in a row got annoying so I'd suggest a skip button after the first time you do it. I wish you luck in your next project!

Psyduckfreak responds:

thanks for the feed back. I also thought of making a skip button but the them was Ritual so i thought making it repetitive would fit that. If i re pick up this project ill add.

[Pixel Doom: The Crystal Climb]

This game is entertaining. I like the movement and cute main character sprite, but there are some problems with the game.
- Whenever I try to play the game again, the character was already holding the torch and I couldn't move the character. It was only after I refreshed the page that the problem went away.
- there seem to be collectable put into the game that are impossible to reach.
- why not invert the walking and jumping animation with the sprite holding the torch (whenever he is moving left) so that whenever the player moves left, the torch will be in front of them?
- the game really doesn't offer much of a challenge.

my suggestions:
- I'd suggest adding some timed events, where the player has to outrun something
- have the player use the environment in order to defeat enemies, such as having a charging enemy and a spiked wall.
- have an actual weapon to act with that isn't a torch. Maybe like a boomerang or a whip or have multiple ones and have a button to switch between them
- have alternate endings, such as one that will come up if you collect enough gems or all of them.
- have secret areas

These are just a few ideas. Good luck with your next project!

[Welcome to Winkletown]

The game is an interesting detective game, but it has some flaws:
- I've found characters who have matched the descriptions perfectly and yet they are found not guilty. One in particular was a suspect:
-- they were buff
-- had a tubular head
-- were starting to feel old
-- didn't ask for anything in return
The only one that was hard for me to pin down was the "starting to feel old". At what point in the aging process of Winkles do they start to feel old? It's different for humans and everyone has there own interpretation of whether someone or something should be describe as old. The guy was 61. When I compared it with the ones that were in their 70's and 80's, and the only attribute he had was the generosity, I figure it would have to be him. I would gladly check out the other suspects, but you penalize the player for that.
- The level difficulty bounces up and down. Sometimes you'll provide eye witness testimony that has nothing, but physical characteristics and when you get up into the upper levels, there are a lot of the same people with the same appearances and since the attributes won't help, you still have to waste AP in order to get the clothing hints, but, in one example for me, it wasn't enough because I was left with two potential suspects that had the same hat which was the most likely to be right (and the age problem I mentioned above comes into play because one was slightly older than the other) so I had to waste another three AP to get the exact clothing hints.
- Going off of the above comment about unfair difficulty, it takes just one choice that turns out to be wrong to undo all of your hard work up to that point, which is really upsetting.
- You've said that you are going to make a strategy guide. I think you should have included it in the game when it was released because there are way too many things that can be taken more than one way, like "they like to eat" could have been taken to mean they have the food attribute, but it actually means that they are fat. Things to have included in this guide would be the different definitions for each age, such as what age range "is appropriate for settling down or having a family", "not old, but not young", "too tired", "looks back on his long life", and other stuff like that. The ambiguity in this comments leaves to much to guessing.
- I would suggest putting in an option at the end of the game over where in the window where the guilty person is that it say what the guy's attributes were and maybe even re-list what the eye-witnesses said, as this would help people learn how the game was them to interpret information.

Still, I enjoyed playing it. Good luck on your next game.

[Space Llama]

Since the game is getting a pretty backlash from reviewers, I wanted to say something. Although the game can be improved on many fronts already listed, I like how powerful you allowed the player to upgrade the llama. I collected so many upgrades that not only did my number of lives go off the screen, but so did my rainbow meter and my attack was so strong that I defeated the final boss with one blow (the objective saying :you need to defeat the boss" was still up on the screen when the "mission complete" came up). It made me feel so powerful yet you still had to be careful as you could never get to a point where enemies couldn't harm you. Also, although it seemed annoying at the time that you couldn't pick up upgrades when you were injured or if the shield was up, in retrospect, it was pretty smart, because if you wanted to improve, you needed to find a way to defeat and circumvent what was in front of you and it kept the games from becoming too easy.