Plasmarift's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Banish]

The game seems extremely interesting, but there are a few problems
- The fire button does not work for me. I don't know if it's because I'm playing this on a macbook or because I'm using Safari as my browser.
- I somehow managed to glitch their the wall by flying into it, right after a tutorial screen came up (the wall was the first one you find after crossing the hole where it explains how to fly. I flew into the wall near the top).
- The strange sphere near the beginning isn't explained.
- the drones that I created disappeared after a minute. Why is that? If there is a time limit on how long the drones can be active, then that should probably be stated, as well as when and why the drones would disappear. If it helps, there were people near by that they were following, but they weren't shooting.
- Why is scrap the same symbol as the tutorial instruction that you can move your mouse across? This might confuse some players.
- your option for changing the control isn't working. I'd suggest a more direct menu like text boxes (also, when you click on a function in the control menu, a window pops up, but the letters from the instructions bleed through it).
- do the new weapons unlock themselves as you kill people or is there some other trick to it?
- the holograph option doesn't work when you are being shot at. You might want to specify this.

I wish I could give you a better score, but the shooting problem is a big deal since killing is a major part of advance in this game. Still, the graphic are pretty cool and the concept is interesting as well. I really do want to play this, but the problems need to be addressed. I look forward to your next project. Good luck.

Unkn0wnOrigin responds:

Wow! Thanks for the detailed response! Appreciate it. I'll look into these issues today.
About the two things you pointed out, you'll understand the strange sphere at the end, and weapons unlock themselves once you recover a certain percent of your memory.

[Vesna]

Someone else already pointed out a lot of the problems that I experience in my first playthrough, but I've got some things to address that have to do with the changes:
- After beating the game and pressing the play button again, it took me back to the last check point. What should I do if I want to play the game from the beginning? You should probably put in a popup box that asks "Would you take to continue your previous game?"
- Following up from the last one, after pressing the play button and making my way to the boss, I found its inner legs and fangs were gone; they had shifted over to the right side of the boss area). After I died and came back, they were back to normal.
- Is there supposed to be a wall on the far right side? I managed to scale the right leg and make it there to be greeted by an invisible wall. Though a bigger problem is that it is possible to scale the far left leg and leave the boss battle without any way of getting back in to fight other than killing yourself to reset the stage.
- the boss is very underwhelming now that you've reduced the poison spray's spread and reach (though I will say that the spread was definitely way too much before. Making it a little bigger would make for more of a challenge to dodge, just not as large as you originally had it). The beast only has two attacks going for it anyway, the other being to stomp on the player. I'd suggest adding one or two secondary attacks, like icicles growing on and falling from its limbs, or ice spikes coming out of the ground.
- You've taken a lot of spikes off the walls, which I feel wasn't necessary. One of the walls was pretty tough, but not impossible to climb.

The main problem overall is that more is needed than fixes to what is currently there. I can't see anyway to make the boss decently challenging without making it unfair or impossible. There is little to no strategy needed in battling it, no "waiting for the right moment", no build up or changes in combat, and the most difficult part of it was standing on the beast since like the guy two comments below me pointed out about the edge clipping. I wish I could put it in words better.

Still, from your description, it sounds like you are going to do more with this and I really hope so. Do you need support for its development. Putting a link in the game could get you that. I really would like to see this expanded as there were parts that I liked, it just needs more added to it, more functions both in enemy combat and acrobatics. I wish you luck on your future gaming projects.

Sephern responds:

Thanks for your reply! We're not currently looking for donations. We are, however, looking for jobs. Our artist and I are currently talking about continuing or maybe going in a different direction with this game. We had complications due to miscommunication in our original project, and this version is slightly fixed up. If we have time to release our initial idea, I'd be a little more open to putting in a donate button, but as of right now we don't feel okay with asking for money when it's possible that we might not revisit the project. Your comment definitely makes me want to continue it, though. Thank you for the support!

[Cucco Chase]

The game is okay, but there are some problems.
- Trying to beat the game without a scratch is near impossible because some of the wood spawns near the edge of the screen, where a chicken can easily just charge out and hit you.
- you need to disable the right click option because you can just click and press play or forward to beat a level (how do you think I got the Chuck Norris medal? Still, the chickens start running at you so fast, you only have a second or so to click before taking damage.)
- on the bonus levels, whenever I am hit, I sometimes am unable to move, which leads to me taking more damage. (this might be a result of the chickens actually pushing Link around or something, but it makes staying alive during the bonus very tough once you get caught).
- Having a high score on this game isn't really fair as much of it is based on luck, examples being how close wood appears to you, how close the chickens move to the you in the second part, and to a lesser extent, the rise and fall of chicken appearances that may block your way to a fence post or near impossible to dodge in bonus levels. It only takes one of these variables to keep someone who did just as well as someone else from getting the high score they deserve, but this isn't a very competitive game and none of the medals are based on score (thank you for that) so it is not that important.
- the white text boxes aren't really an appealing part of the game, but I can't think of a better design. It just feels like with a few changes in some places, it'd look more like a game instead of a Powerpoint on menu screens.
- There is some bad text placement, like the yellow text overtop of the fence is hard to read. This is especially the case at the end of the where the "secret" is revealed; it's overtop of a chicken and I couldn't read it though I later found out what it was.

For the good qualities of the game, it definitely provides a challenge in the later levels just to beat it (sometimes in a frustrating way) and the game is a novel idea as the cuckoos have been a pretty big running gag in Zelda parodies for a while. I haven't found any glitches, which is great. I was sad the game was so short. It would've been cool if there was a level where you had to throw the cuckoos had one another to knock them out or use them to fly across gaps to get wood.

Still, this game is good and I hope you'll make more of them in the future. I think you'll get a few fans following you after they play this game.

TheCez responds:

Yes, beating the game without a scratch is nearly impossible, which is why I made the medal worth so much. And I had no idea about the right-click thing! I need to fix that definitely. And, yes, the not moving around for a bit when your hit is part of the difficulty. And yeah, the whole high score was a last minute thing I added by request from Giulliano, which is why I didn't make any medals for that. I honestly just care about the survival records hahaha. I see your points about the text boxes and text placements!
Thank you so much for all of your advice and opinions! I will take them all into considerations, and I'm glad you took the time for all this!

[Sheen's Drug Trip]

The game is pretty good though the joke is a little outdated (had you released this a year or two ago, it may have really hit home with people, especially considering I think Charlie Sheen is doing "okay" now). The graphics weren't extremely good, but I wouldn't expect that from a game using actual people's heads because trying to draw stuff to smoothly blend in with the actual people heads would be very difficult, even for advanced artist. I really like the gameplay and although I did expect to find glitches in the game, I found none so very good job on this. I enjoyed the game and enjoyed the medals though I'd seriously consider putting in a restart button. I look forward to your full game.

TharosTheDragon responds:

Yeah, we actually did release it on sheengame.com but then let the url expire I guess. We actually won't be releasing a full game but I'll consider your restart button suggestion. I figured people could just refresh if they want all the medals.

Update: I added restart buttons at the end. And thanks for the review, btw. I pride myself in making bug-free games (Ame Fury doesn't count).

[Monsters Time (Zombie) 3]

The spawn rate is way too high in this game, to where in a matter of seconds, the game begins to slow down to a snail's pace (usually I don't cast too much judgment on game creators, but how was this not apparent before uploading it?). The graphics are subpar and it is very easy to phase through certain walls for some reason, and the shotgun animation for the shot does not always work. Also, I've tried to shoot a zombie directly in front of me a few times and missed (also, if there are zombies behind another zombie, shooting usually takes out the ones in the back first for some reason. The game needs a lot of work, but I appreciate the medals (but the Newbie medal is not working).

dridiyassine responds:

Don't forget the normal zombie his health is 3 , and the big one his health is 5 and the bigest one his health is 15 :) Newbie medal is bugged in the script , im trying to fix it

[Piggies Rescue]

Technically the game works, but if you are a player trying for the medals, this game is way too difficult, as having the pig walk around when you are trying to aim makes for directing their trajectory to a specific path near impossible. Even the arrows aren't a big help as the pigs are moving so fast in the arrows wiggle around like worms (even if you saw the correct path line up, you'd need to be pretty quick to react).

Also, the arrow keys to move the map around probably would have been a better choice as it would allow you to launch pigs while moving the screen, allowing the player to keep up with them.

Still, the graphic are good and so is the concept (it just has some problems).

[B-Lock]

This game is definitely pretty challenging and seems to control well. I did find some problems/things missing from the game.
- if you press space a bunch of times to restart after you have died, a white screen with text will pop up with like an error message (something about Hero). you can x out of it, but things in the level will be messed up (saws will have multiplied on the specific path they take, the time lags, etc.)
- a quick restart feature would be nice.
- The fact it takes a good 3 to 5 seconds for it to go to the game over screen is annoying
- Having the character just disappears after dying is kind of cheap in a way. It takes away from the realness of the game (probably not the best way to phrase it, but it just doesn't look good in my opinion.

curtisscifres responds:

We will look into these things. We expect to update the game in a day or two to fix anything. Thanks.

[Goapow]

Definitely interesting. Here are my suggestions:
- add an option to change the controls. The current set up does not work very well for all keyboard.
- Change "Options" to "Controls".
- other attacks like maybe a stomp attack to stun your opponent would be good.
- trying adding player vs. computer system for those who don't have someone to play with
- the ending with the winning goat looks really disturbing.

Still, I like the graphic although the title screen and level select graphics can be improved. Keep working on it and great job so far.

[Coming Out Simulator]

A great game indeed. Many interactive stories only have set paths where if you happened to take a "wrong turn" and get back on a path, it wouldn't change anything, but all the choices brought together created a different experience, a different story even though the setting and beginning didn't change. It also demonstrates a big difficulty that comes along with liking someone of the same gender. For some reason, I thought a lot of people had moved passed that kind of negativity against same sex relations (apparently, I was wrong).

As for comments on the gameplay aspects, I love the color choices, especially the grey, as it helped paint the mood of the situation that was to come and added an eerie feeling as things started to become more tense (if the player chose that route). The only things I didn't like was the option that were just "what, whaaaaaaat, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat". It seems like any other varied options, even if they were more intense words, would have been better and also, the text popping up speed was great for nearly all of the game, but if I ever replayed it, I wouldn't want the speed of the text slowing me down when I know what it says already.

Great game. Perhaps I'll find it hanging up in a museum one day. (By the way, you were right about the procrastinating part. How did you know?!)

[Monsters Time (Zombies) 2]

I'm sorry to say, but you have a lot of work to do if you want this game to be well-received by people. Here are the problems I found:
- the game begins to lag horribly after a few minutes. I don't know if that is due to the mass amount of zombies you decided to let spawn, but whatever's causing it, fix it or it is not going to set well with players.
- You only allow one set of bullet on the screen, so trying to rapid fire just removes the most recent bullet you fired before it hits a zombie (though it is easy to take advantage of this by charging forward and having a floating bullet stay in front of you, killing all the zombies.
- You made the zombies all enter from two different places (the medium zombies from the bottom left and the smaller and bigger zombies from the bottom right). There's no challenge in this since I could just run to one side, killing as many as the lagging game would allow and run back over to another side. A game is suppose to be fun and/or challenge and repetition with no challenge very seldom ever equals fun. What's worse, you made a lot of them spawn on top of one another, all charging toward you in a straight line. They were literally lining up to be shot.
- You included no instructions and no explanation as to what the items, like the syringe, water, and shotgun did. (if they were just there until you could code in some function then mention that).
- The artwork is not very good, to the point where I'm not always sure what I was looking at. I could tell the enemies were zombies and I was on a street, but the things that kept me from going off the screen to the left and right, I don't know.
- What I really do not understand is how a lot of this doesn't strike you as stuff you should change before uploading this. You didn't experience any lag when trying to kill 1000 zombies? You didn't find this game lacking challenge?

The main two points that were good was the fact that you got rid of the random spawning function (it wouldn't be so bad if you could make it so that zombies do not spawn right next to you or on top of you) and all your medals work this time (your last demo, the last medal did not work).

I don't know how young you are, but if you're younger than 12 or so then I'm sorry I'm coming off so brash and I definitely don't want to discourage you from continuing to make games. Here's some advice; when you're making a game, if you think that it is good, then it's not good enough. Artists and creators are often blind to the truth of their own work, due to their attachment to the creation. If the game seems to be beyond what you expected you would ever be able to do in your life, then it is at least okay.