Plasmarift's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Decimated]

The game is okay, but it has some flaws.
- after a game over, the game over screen comes up so fast that you can easily press the button that brings you back to the menu if your mouse happened to be in that spot shooting and when that happens, all your progress is lost and you have to start the game again.
- the cutscenes are unskippable, which becomes annoying after having to play the same level over and over when you fail. Please make them skippable because a number of people do not like to wait through story.
- There's not really much skill to the game. In the beginning (after the tutorial), it is just going forward, prompting the enemies to come after you, backing up, and shooting them and then repeating the process with the next group until you reach the end of the area. There's really no strategy or difficulty in that, especially since there is no way to avoid some enemy attacks, like the first big infected you encounter and the mercenaries, where it is near impossible to dodge their gunfire (and it doesn't help that your bullets disappear before hitting the enemy when you try to shoot them off screen, but I'm pretty sure that the mercenaries can shoot you when their off screen.

Still, I do like the graphics, sounds, and music you put into the game. Good luck with your future projects.

[A Chance to Escape]

The game would be pretty good if there wasn't a huge problem. For the moving lasers, even if you place a box over where you will hide your character to protect them from the laser, the laser can sometimes still pass through it (this happened whenever I lined up another box underneath it for the character to stand on in later levels. Also, it is extremely tough to line up your character under the protection of the box so that a sliver of the character isn't sticking out and gets hit by the laser. I'd highly suggest increasing the hitbox ratio of the laser on the boxes so that the laser is blocked for a little bit after it has already moved away from the box to account for this or to have bigger and smaller boxes in the level for better protection. Good luck in the contest.

rathetor responds:

Thanks for the feedback. Really appreciated when people are very specific about problems with the game. I'll mess around with the laser a bit more to see if I can fix this problem. At the time, it was just a small bug and nothing to worry about as I was trying to finish the game for the jam. Now that it is in the contest, I'll take extra time to polish it and make it better.

Thanks for playing.

[Decepticide]

I like the game though there are a few problems
- With the checkpoint system you just put in: if you make the elevator go up and jump off it, you can't get it to come back down. Even if you try to avoid this, your checkpoint system may set the character down one floor where the elevator will be on the floor above, forcing the player to restart the whole game. Whenever you put in an update like this, I'd suggest playing the game for an hour to make sure it works right.
- Although I don't think you can do much about it, my game freezes if I play the game for over 15 minutes so I have to keep refreshing the page to avoid this.
- For the code, do you only get one attempt before it won't allow you to do it again because when I first found the input code floor, I tried (without having seen the right code) and I couldn't input anything more)
- Some of the flowers you put right by some of the doors, forcing the player to either roll (usually into another enemy or seed pod plant or forced to stand on a yellow plant that hurts them) or take the hit and kill it, so either way, the player gets hit.

Good luck in the contest. I like having found a game that actually challenges me!

Joben7 responds:

I'm glad you like it! I'll try to answer your points as best I can.

-The checkpoints should be in a place were you always start at the top of an elevator if I placed them right, however jumping off while it goes up is a big flaw. The way it's set up it would be difficult to put in a switch on the bottom however I have an idea on how to stop people jumping out, I'll try and fix that.
-The freeze, I have no idea, hasn't happened to me yet so I have no idea on how to fix that, sorry!
-Yeah it's one attempt for the code, I need to think of a way to make it more obvious.
-Not all rooms but most with an enemy near the door are designed that if you move in just the right way you should be able to avoid getting hit. Some tips are that the seeds that chase you can't hurt you while you're rolling and the yellow bulb plants only release the poison gas if you shoot next to them.

Thanks for taking the time to review and I'll try and get on fixing some of the problems! :)

*Edit* I hopefully just fixed the elevator problem with the latest patch :)

[Hand Killer]

I'm getting a little tired of seeing "this game is a rip off" in the comments. People don't post this on platform games and tower defense games that have near the same premise and such as many others of their type, but when someone wants to make an extension to a unique game already in existence, people start screaming ripoff. I'd like to see more of these types of games so don't discourage it. Although I will say that saying that it is "inspired" by handless millionaire is a large understatement. You owe a lot more to the original author than that.

I like the idea and story behind the game and unlike handless millionaire, which I've played, the pattern sequence of the things guarding the money seems a lot more fair. Also, this seems more interesting to me. It is fun, but I have a few problems with it.

- If your mouse leaves the screen, which is very easy to do by accident since you place the money bag near the side of the screen, then it gets yanked across the screen to the left, where you will probably get your arm destroyed before you even know what happens. That's definitely not fair. Why not have it that the hand stays where it is when it leaves the screen?
- The lasers that come down from the ceiling during the game need an explanation. Is there any way to dodge them? I'm guessing that they are on a timer, indicating that you are taking too long to finish the level. In that case, why not just put a timer up on screen and when it runs out, the lasers come down.
- Why do you only let the players go to the upgrade screen once. I'd say you should set up two modes: an easy mode, where the player can go back to the store after each defeat and as long as they have enough money to buy another hand, they can continue, and a hard mode, where the player can only fail a certain number of times, maybe three times. By having this set up, you allow players to see more of your game, instead of just the first two or three levels.

Anyways, good luck with your next game.

Frozennnn responds:

Thanks nice ideas i will try to implement some. Good luck and thanks

[Playing With Letters]

Very good job. The story was excellent (I sometimes find stories in games to be generic since so many approaches have been done, but your reasoning behind why he does what he does was great), but the ending was kind of disappointing; it didn't take long to figure it out with the last clue because I was already suspecting something of the sort. A number of games have done it.

Still, you set the mood very well and the music was beautiful. The puzzles didn't seem too tough to me, but like it said in game, it varies from player to player. Great job on the game!

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Thanks you a lot, Plasmarift!
It makes me happy that you like the story, as that is half of the game. I too find that many stories in games can feel a bit generic at times, and I know I have always loved it when I find a game where that is not the case. I guess I really lived into the character for a while, while writing this :)

Hmm. I don't know if I should reveal this... But there is actually a secret ending that less than 1% of players will find. It is so far-fetched that I didn't want to make a secret medal for it. Tell you what, if you're interested, you could PM me, and I'll tell you how to get to it :D

I'm also relieved to hear that the music was good, as I made it myself.
As for the puzzles, I guess they're not that hard if you're good at these kinds of things. However, only about 50% of the players seem to get past the "nag a ram" level so far, at most.
I think I may have made the first real level a bit too difficult compared to the other ones XD

Thanks for playing!

[GRAND ADVENTURE!]

I had a lot of fun playing it and I really liked the story. My main complaint was that I had to start from the hanging tree guy whenever I wanted to get a new ending instead of maybe starting next to the final boss door. I did have a question.
- So are there only three actual endings in this game and the last spot is the true ending that didn't make it in?

I'm sorry that you had so much trouble making the game because of programmers dropping out. If you ever need any help, just let me know. I don't have a lot of programming experience, but I'll do what I can. I can also voice act and make pixel sprite animations.

Good luck with your next game. I think you'll win an award for this one.

Emptygoddess responds:

Super nice of you to say. I don't know if i even have the last actual code build of the game though. Which is frustrating. Makes it hard to even try to finish it off ever.

[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!