Plasmarift's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Third Exit Chapter 1]

I enjoyed playing the game. The story draws you in like a funnel and I like the art though I wish the cutscenes would move faster or could be skipped (this includes the times when sound effects are playing, like a ringing phone. Cutting it short may not be a bad idea).

Also, some of the puzzles are kind of abstract, like the tutorial puzzle. Was there any hint that you needed to take the first number of the first number, the second of the second...? Without putting a hint there, it's like dumping a pile of numbers on the floor and asking the player to figure out what the answer is.

I do look forward to the next chapter. Good luck.

ZeroDigitZ responds:

Thanks for the review. The skip function will be available in the full version. I will reevaluate the tutorial puzzle because it was poorly executed.

[Fragile]

I think I understand what the message is. The three sibling eggs are there to send the player the false message that if they fall too far, they're egg will break and they will die, making them believe they are fragile. You can make it through almost the entire game in the egg form until you get to the final hole. If you try to jump across it in the egg form, you won't make it and you will fall, breaking the egg open and revealing that you wouldn't have died and if you had done this earlier, you could have made it across the gap.

There's a few problem with this premise if this is what you intended. The egg siblings don't "die" soon enough. They stop at the edge, giving the player time to screw around and fall, revealing that they wouldn't die. Also, even after they die, the lessen doesn't really have time to sink in. Plus, you don't tell player that if they fall off of platform without jumping, they can air jump (without knowing this, it would be impossible to get through the entire game up to the hole as an egg). Plus, you can fall down the hole and air jump at the last second, keeping the egg from breaking.

Also, you don't tell people the controls, which leaves them with a lot of questions:
- What are the boxes for in game? Can they be interacted with?
- Was there a way to get over the hole while in egg form (was there a control that would allow it)?
Without giving the player the controls, you don't give them clear limitations that would make the reality of "dying" a real thing.

Aside from this, I did enjoy the game and played it multiple times. The art style was cool though an ending scene for falling into the hole would have been nice. I wish you luck in your future of game design and look forward to more games from you.

[Energy Scraps]

I found a few problems with the game.
- An explanation on what some of the upgrades do would be helpful, such as what is "distans", "time to waste energy", and "energy damage"? Players are left to guess what these do and the upgrade system doesn't allow me to find out for myself quickly.
- I didn't discover until after three game overs that you lose health when you are outside the ship with no energy. You should probably point this out to the player. Also, I don't think it is such a good idea for the player's only currency to be protection against automated damage.
- An alert whenever the player is attacked would be helpful since the health indicator is so small and easily missed that you can lose a chunk of your life before realizing someone's shooting at you. However, don't just make it a audio alert, make it a visual one as well because some people might be playing with the sound off.
- The fact that you lose energy while holding it with time is not just annoying, it ruins the experience. Not only does it make it difficult to get the first few upgrades, you have to keep in mind what the player wants to do during the game. If the player wants to explore, they can't do that without going back to the ship and spending their energy or risk losing what they have. If an enemy attacks the player when they just got a little energy, they can fight it off, but not without losing energy. The upgrade which slows the process of losing energy is okay, but there are many other variables that contribute to energy loss such as movement speed (if it takes you longer to get back to the ship, you'll be losing more), bullet damage (the longer it takes you to take down the enemy, the more you lose). Lastly, this is especially annoying when you don't include a pause button in the game to stop the player from losing energy. The only place they don't lose stuff is at the ship on the upgrade screen; meaning if they want to stop and relax or they get a phone call, they need to go back to the ship to avoid losing progress or to avoid getting killed by enemies.
- I can understand having to lock the screen to play the game, but the game unlocks the mouse every time I go to the upgrade screen and I have to re-lock it in place afterwards. This is annoying.
- The process just moves too slowly with having to focus efforts on upgrading maintaining energy, then jumping and speed (to get to more energy and maintain what you have) and then to attack to deal with enemies. I'd like to cut out the first part.
- Having a sound effect when you hit an enemy would be satisfying to the player so perhaps think of adding one.
- Having more sound effects in general would also lend themselves to the game.

Overall though I like your game and the idea behind it. I really want to the explore it further, but the drawbacks are what keeps me from doing so. As far as I can tell, there are no bugs or glitches, the graphics are good, and you actually have more than one enemy design (you'd be surprised how many game creator just throw one enemy type into a game). I really hope you'll consider my suggestions. Good luck in your future in game design!

[Pixel Ice]

I enjoyed the game, but I only got up to level 27 because the ice cube got stuck on one of the wooden ramps. This has happened several times in past levels, but in the others ones, I managed to beat the levels by jumping after getting stuck. However, I can't jump to get around this without getting killed.
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/116f2b17ed56062082c82c5b2358e407

I've found other problems and concerns:
- I've tried going back to the menu and loading the game, but it doesn't fix the problem always. For example, when I started level 27 again, I got stuck on a different board and the death animation went from an explosion of icy squares to just a single small square floating until the ice cube came back.
- It seems like you throw the player into the levels without giving them much of a chance to react. I would've suggested making the levels wider, just enough to give a little "runway" for the player before they get the level. It wouldn't even have to be that long. Half an inch perhaps?
- On level 20, the cube hit the soda cup and didn't explode. It just stayed there. I tried it again later and it didn't happen again.

I do like the cuteness of the game as well as the challenge. I look forward to your next project. Good luck!

AlamyrJunior responds:

Thank you very much for your feedback, Plasmarift!
That's my first game so I have a lot to learn yet!

I'll correct these bugs as soon as possible( I'm already correcting the places where the ice is getting stucked), I agree with you that is needed more time to the player react, I'm thinking about make the ice cube stop for a half sec (or less) in the beggining of the levels, so the player can see what's going on...

I'm already thinking about the next projects but I want to launch this one on mobile, refine the game and correct the bugs before start the next game.
Thank you again! =]

[Slimy]

There are some big problems with your game.
- I am unable to make the jump across the gap, even when using the shooting ability as a small boost. There needs to be a double jump feature or include the ability to jump off of enemy's heads.
- I found an invisible wall on the left that I could jump over and, by falling down, I could get onto a closed off section of platform with a big heart. Depending on if I killed the enemy at the beginning, it will continuously spawn blue squares, one after another (the next one only appears when the one the heart spawns is killed) that can't hurt me.
- It is never explained what the blue light things that you get from killing enemies do.
- After dying/restarting enough times, the first blue enemy will stop coming after you. It will start coming after you if you get injured by it though.
- If you activate your shield and keep it on as you fall to your death, it will remain on when you spawn until you press the shield button again, which corrects this problem.
- The "Author Comments" section where you included a few of the controls doesn't say to use the arrow keys, doesn't tell you what the plot of the game is, doesn't tell you what the plot of the game is, what the goal of the player is, and, although it is clear from the loading screen, doesn't tell you what you used to make this game.
- In the place where the heart is, I found if I jump while up against a wall, unpredictable things happen, such as being launched in the opposite direction at various velocities and heights (much like the mechanic of wall jumping) or moving up the wall, as if I was walking up it. It was fun to play around with though I don't think you intended this to happen, correct?

I give you 2.5 stars because the shooting and shield mechanics do work and it looks like it could have been a fun game based on the small section I played that worked. I do wish you luck in your future in game design and I hope you'll make some changes to this game to allow for it to be beaten.

Wombart responds:

Wow, first thanks to you for taking the time to write this reviews, i think you know how those reviews can help developers

i haven't mentioned it but this project was for a game jam

- You are supposed to jump over the yellow block (wich make you bounce)
- Yeah i didn't take the time to check all the invisible wall
- the blue light things are points (absolutely useless)
- The place with the heart is the cemetery for the enemies (you are not supposed to go there lol)
- I knew for the shield bug that stand activate but after trying an hour to fixed it, i stopped trying
- i didn't thinked about the controls that allow you to move (so obvious to me)

Anyway thanks a lot for the review.

[Escape3]

I like the art for the game, the clay animations, and the premise, but I'm finding problems with the gameplay:
- The game requires that you split up into three separate characters and, at times, jump on another one to move both of them at the same time (you can only switch between characters by touching them, making this necessary when you come to an area where all three must reach the same location). However, the jumping is unpredictable when two of them are stacked up together. Sometimes when you jump with two stacked, the top part will jump without the bottom or it will try to jump and only vibrate in place and sometimes it works fine. The only time it doesn't work at all is when I use the spacebar. Am I missing a mechanic? Why can't the combined character jump?
- It's often times difficult to recombine them. I've stacked them on top of each other many times with nothing happening. And then, other times, it works. I even rearranged them so they were in the right order to recombine and it still doesn't work.
- I also ran into a problem with the character glitching through platforms, causing them to either fall to their deaths or get separated from the others and make it impossible to get all three together again.
- When pressing the R button to restart, it won't restart. I even went to the pause screen and pressed it and all it does is make the screen shake a little.
- Whenever a character dies, the screen goes to black. It doesn't restart.
- Going back to the main menu in game takes me back to the logo with the white background, but it won't progress any farther, forcing me to refresh the page.
- I ran into a problem where they are all touching each other and none of them will move. Observe:
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/593fa68e975c593d1dfa6fff77cea78d
I was able to replicate it with even worse results; this time, they're not all touching.
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/e07e1f990dedbba4efa674e7c763e814
- Why does the spacebar work as a jump and an action button? In a game where jumping is the primary method of solving puzzles, it would be a good idea to have those two separated so that players aren't jumping when they simply want to use an ability or activate something.
- Why don't their powers stay with them when they recombine? The only way to lower one of the platforms is for the middle section to step into the water and get heavier. However, once the platform goes down, there's no way for him to come back up while he's heavy and the others can't follow since you can only switch between them by touching. I even tried to keep the other two character on the platform, but the middle section would just jump on top of the others.
- It's too easy to get permanently separated from one of the characters, making the rest of the game impossible.

I'm not sure why I seem to be the only person experiencing these problems. I'm using a Mac, but I tried this game on both Google Chrome and Safari. In any case, here is my advice for the game:
- Make it so you can switch between characters by pressing a button, like 1, 2, and 3.
- Make it so the combine sequence activate easily or perhaps only activates when all of them are touching and a button on the keyboard is pressed.
- Make activation button and jump button two separate things.
- Make it so you can jump in the big.

I'd really like to see more of the game, but I can't progress any farther because of the problems I mentioned. I still wish you luck in your creative endeavors.

[Feed Me and Get Out]

The game is interesting, but it has problems/bugs:
- As the person below me points out, you can get stuck in the pits on one of the randomly generated levels. Even if this is intentional, your bullets can fall down there, depriving you of ammunition. You also don't have a button to restart the level or game so the game needs to be refreshed when a person falls down there.
- The first time I bought a fish, I had around 70 coins. After I bought the first, I had negative 20 coins. What's with that? Also, when my character died, the number of fish skeletons went from 3 to 2 in the king cat's room.
- The debris and enemy remains get annoying because they get in the way of shooting the enemies. If this is to make the game more difficult, it's cheap difficulty if you can even call it that as the player has no way of controlling or manipulating the trash, especially when an enemy is among it. I believe you can make it so the bullets phase through the trash.
- The game relies heavily on replaying the same locations and fighting the same enemy over and over again. It would have been a good idea to either make the game end early or make more randomly generated levels and/or enemies. I know this was for a jam so I know you couldn't add a whole lot, but it's important to make do with what you can.
- For the controls, why would you have f and e for controls? They aren't next to each other on the keyboard. Perhaps there are keyboard set ups that have the f next to the e, but why not have multiple keys to controls the same function to cover these different keyboard setups. z and x would have been a good alternate choice.

I like the graphics and the idea behind the game is interesting. I wish you luck in your game design future.