Plasmarift's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Behold the Egg]

Unfortunately, I think the game falls flat in many respects.
- The character you are controlling is supposed to be doing some kind of security guard job (I guess) yet the only instruction we receive is to make the temperature cooler if the egg starts hatching. There's no indication on what else we should be doing or if we are supposed to just wait until the shift is over (there's no indication that time is even passing; a clock would've really been helpful). The only other things I can interact with is the computer, which has me updating strange things that don't seem to have anything to do with the egg and show no indication when they need to be pressed or if they're even important (once I recall the cleaning robots, I shouldn't have to do it again).
- Unless I'm missing something, the game is just lowering the temperature gauge on the egg incubator when it decides to change (I know you said when responding to someone else that the egg is changing the temperature, but for all the player knows, it's just malfunctioning and it really doesn't matter if that's the only thing the egg can do). After more than 10 minutes of having a war of attrition with the temperature gauge changing itself and pressing the buttons on the computer to make sure everything is updated, I just don't want to play it anymore. Nothing is changing.
- I've done two playthroughs so far. On the first one, I let the egg hatch and the only thing that happened was *spoilers ahead* a giant eye appeared on the posters and a bunch of little eyes were in the now open egg. Nothing else happened: no jumpscare, no "you lose" screen. The only other notable thing that happened was that the "air grievances" button disappeared, but that didn't happen in my second playthrough. I don't know if these are glitches or if I'm just not understanding what's going on.

The concept is good, but it's lacking in a lot of areas. There's no sound or music to really put the player on edge except for the egg cracking sound. It's not stressful or challenging; it's just tedious. It'd be interesting to actual have to do a guard job (reporting incidents, checking on different monitors, etc.) while also keeping an eye on the egg.

I wish you luck in your future projects.

Edit: Most of the stuff I pointed out wasn't a lack of content; it was a lack of direction, instruction, and criticisms of what is there (I only threw in the suggestion at the end as a thought). I'd suggest not giving back-handed statements in your replies, especially to those who are providing you with feedback.

snakaye-online responds:

i appreciate your criticisms in this, i agree that the direction is not very clear. i've tried to make it clear from the subtitle, this is a "night shift game," taking a lot of inspiration from FNaF. in the wake of the Pizzeria Simulator, there were a lot of design choices taken into account from said material. you do not wait for a timer to finish the night. you have to complete all of the tasks, which involves waiting while the loading screen on your computer finishes to win. clicking off makes the timer for the task reset.

the jumpscare does not work very well. this is a problem that is out of my control; the Unity documentation for the video player has a lot of unmentioned bugs that I only discovered after playtesting builds on the website. these are, for the most part, out of my control. i've done my part, but if your web player doesn't support it for some reason, it's between WebGL and Unity at that point.

the "eggs" that appear on the poster and egg are not "eggs", they are eyes. maybe it was not clear.

most of your criticisms regard a lack of content, and i would like to remind you that this was made in six days on very little sleep. most of the extra content and fixes you are suggesting are unachievable currently due to the nature of the game jam, and i can only update it once the judging is over. i'm sure if you wanted, you could make a better version of the game yourself!

[Gray Death]

I definitely like the game. The title screen is very cool. The retro pixel artwork looks cool and even with the retro look, it still manages to be a little scary, but it has some major flaws:
- Some of the levels require extremely precise jumping (often times in quick succession) to the point where I've ended up restarting the same levels multiple times not because of enemy deaths (well, sometimes they'd get me), but due to falling into a pit because I didn't reach the platform or rope I was trying to get to. A game can have precise jumping and be well designed and fun, but I don't think your game is designed for preciseness. I've fallen off ledges when I know I pressed the jump button before falling, I've gotten stuck on a ladder (on the edge of some platforms bordering the ladders while trying to go down one) while trying to go down to avoid a fire ball or zombie. I don't know exactly how you would go about fixing this except for maybe slightly extending the hit boxes of either Gray or the platforms so he doesn't fall prematurely.
- In the later levels, having to wait for the earthquakes to subside becomes extremely annoying, especially when you have to replay them multiple times in a row due to the issue I mentioned before. Trying to go out from under cover during an earthquake is risky since the falling boulders are randomized and the player has a limited range of sight; you could end up jumping into a falling boulder or a boulder can simply fall on you before you have time to react.
- During the worm boss battle, I had multiple instances where I jumped to another rope, pressed the up button when I got in close, and the character didn't grab onto the rope.
- Due to the limited sight of the character in the game, there are times where you require the player to take a leap of faith, which can easily lead to them falling in a pit or landing on an enemy.
- Why are you forcing full screen mode on the player? Yes, you can exit out of full screen mode, but I think the game put you right back into it if you beat a level. Also, if you aren't in fullscreen mode, you can't use the up or down arrow keys without also moving the screen up or down; perhaps fix it so that, when the game has been clicked into, the arrow keys won't do this.
- I ended the game with at least 10 clips in my inventory. I was kind of hoping they'd be used for something.
Some suggestions:
- In the next part, maybe have some more complex enemies like humans. Maybe you have to sneak up on them to take them out to prevent them from shooting you.
- It seems like you made platforming the main mechanic of the game so I think it's really important to get the kinks worked out of the platforming.

I wish you luck in your future projects.

saltandpixel responds:

Hey thank you.. Many months later. This feedback is really good.

[Caliber]

It's pretty cool. It's challenging enough to where it is very easy to die if you aren't careful. The art is good and the music/sound effects are fitting. While there are limitations like no jumping or melee attack, it's still fun (I've played other such games with a similar setup that just weren't fun to play so this isn't something that can be easily pulled off). Though I came across some problems/feedback:
- On the level before the final boss, the bazooka and assault rifle switch places in the keyboard setup (the assault rifle was assigned to 3 and the bazooka to 4 on all the other levels that came before it, but on this level, they are reversed). Also, on this level, the bazooka ammo is set back to 0 (is this intentional since you don't want the player to go into the final boss with enough bazooka to take it out fast?). Lastly, there is bazooka ammo in this level on lava that you can't reach.
- I'd recommend adding a skip function at the beginning of the game. The prologue isn't very long, but after playing through the beginning three times, you just want to get past it to the action.
- A pause, mute, and restart function would also be good.

It's been pointed out that there isn't regen health, but I don't see this as a problem; just a difference. The game requires you to basically "get good" and learn from your past mistakes. I beat the game once by the skin of my teeth, but then beat it again, finishing with a lot more health. Also, thank you for letting the health go over 100%; that's awesome!

You did very well on the design of the game and I look forward to seeing more stuff from you!

GreenLarry responds:

Thanks for such great feedback man.

I set a strict deadline on when I had to finish and publish the game so I missed the bugs you mentioned, if I have time this weekend I might go back and fix them and add in some extra polish like a pause button like you mentioned.

Its making my day that someone actually enjoyed my game enough to play through it more then once, thanks for the kind words!

[Castle Crashing the Beard HD]

The graphics are classical arcade and done well, the music is good, and the gameplay is good as well. I have some feedback on the game:
- I'm using a keyboard and there is no way to get off of the credits screen (I've pressed all the buttons).
- The hitboxes might need to be adjusted. Some fireballs that look like they should go over your head actually hit you instead (it doesn't happen too often though).
- While it's certainly not a deal breaker, the fact that it defaults to fullscreen upon clicking the screen is annoying. I get that you want people to see the graphics, but forcing it on the player is something else entirely.
- The skeletons' spear attack is extremely annoying. The only way I found to "mostly" avoid getting hit is to jump behind them and then attack.
- The main criticism I had was with the invulnerability frames for Tom. You can basically keep hitting Tom until the game decides "okay, that's enough. Time to move onto the next part" and it makes him temporarily invincible. You can't hit Tom while he's attacking and summoning bugs and skeletons. I'm having trouble putting it into words, but these kinds of things really take me out of the fight. It seems like instead of making the Tom head a more formable boss, it's like you just gave him invincibility frames at different sections of the game to give the illusion of difficulty. I replayed the original, which I enjoyed very much, and it was difficult in that you couldn't mess around due to the low amount of life you had and you couldn't stay in one spot for too long.
- This updated version offers a lot the previous didn't like 2 Player gameplay and little powerups to choose from once you unlock them (and with this, A LOT of replay value). I have to say I still prefer the original, but this is basically an entirely new game so it'd be like comparing apples and oranges. Great job on the game!

BoMToons responds:

I think your criticisms are valid, esp. the bit about Tom "deciding" to be invulnerable sometimes. I think, if I were to do it again, I'd maybe have him start smoking and turning red when that's happening, or pull into the background more so it's more apparent when you can and can't land your hits (maybe some kind of "ghost" mode or armor or something...). It was tough to balance the fun of being able to stun lock with combos (ie: combos feeling super powerful) and not ruining the fun of the boss phases progressing. Not sure I solved it as well as it could be (as you pointed out).

- Skeletons are tough, and yeah, the intention was to force you to sneak up on them from behind. We wanted some new mechanic for those "special" enemies since they're near the end of the game and difficulty should ramp up a bit.

- I'm looking into the credits screen keyboard skip issue

Thanks for your thorough feedback!

[Binary Quest]

There are some problems with the game:
- If you interact with the daughter while holding the cake, you will always give it to her whether or not you say yes or no.
- When you have the cake and you talk to the sword guy and he asks "are you going to save the princess?" and you answer yes, he says to take the sword, but he doesn't actually give it to you.
- Why are you give the sword by the sword guy if you say yes to "I can't believe I met No-e the hero" (note: you only get the sword this way when you aren't holding the cake)
- Can you make it so you can skip passed the ending story text by pressing spacebar to get back to the game? There's a lot of trial and error sometimes and you can end up seeing the same ending multiple times.

It's a pretty good game overall except for the problems I listed. The music is also very nice and fitting. I look forward to your next project.

being-brin responds:

thanks! I'll try to squash these bugs over the weekend :)

[Arm Of Revenge Trial]

- You make the player wait for the bad guys to stand up again so you can hit them. Why not just make it so the player can hit them when they are on the ground. This get more annoying when you introduce the super large enemies that take a lot of damage to kill. The old version of the game had this problem as well.
- Going off of the whole "can't hit enemies when they are down", even if I am punching over them as they get up, they still have time to hit me as soon as they get up while I somehow wasn't able to hit them. That doesn't seem fair. Plus, as soon as the player gets up from the ground, the enemies can stand over them and hit them as soon as they get up, leaving no time to retaliate.
- Something just seems off with the combat in general. I'm getting hit by enemies in front of me while I'm attacking them (I think they walk up while I'm attacking someone else and they aren't getting hit). It seems like you can't hit multiple enemies at once. You also can't interrupt enemies' attacks, but they can interrupt the player's?
- The fighting in general just seems repetitive and boring.
- You should work on the grammar in the game.
I do like the artwork and the combat system seems more complex compared to the original with new equipment and skills. I do wish you luck in your future of game design.

MagicWing responds:

thaks for your feedback

[Consume_Evil]

Big glitch I found:
- I only unlocked three areas and can't progress any further. I ate the dude who was on the couch just before going on the second mission. I don't think that was supposed to happen until after I beat all the levels in that area.

Aside from the glitch, I was enjoying the game. There is dialogue that you can miss by not interacting with things in between missions. The missions are short and sweet. It feels as though this is a continuation of this universes' story; was there a game before this one dealing with the same universe? I would've liked to explore more of the game, but I'd understand if nothing could be done about it since this is an older project.

Fred-Bird responds:

UPDATE: Apparently I had changed my mind about the "romance" conditions for Philon halfway through and forgot the adjust accordingly :V
It fixed now.
Im glad you enjoyed the world! This game goes before heavenly escape, and there will be more that go both before this and after h-e. But it'll take a while haha

[Heavenly escape: REDUX]

The game is pretty good. I like that you make talking to characters optional instead of required. While a backstory for all the characters and such isn't provided (like why the main character was in prison, why does he not burn when using the sword, etc), conversations reveals pieces of the story, which is cool. Parts of the game were fairly challenging though I found some flaws with the game:
- There's a glitch with the prisoner kin (shadowy guy). After killing him, you can continue to strike the area where he was to get more angel wings. Although the game will only display three pairs, I believe I had 8 wings (some of the attacks during the boss didn't hurt me in the beginning).
- The game doesn't alert you or hint at the fact that you can "teleport" after getting one angel wing. While the instructions do say to use "Arrows/wasd/d-pad only", I pressed all the buttons at the beginning and when the back button did nothing, I figured it wasn't going to do anything.
- The hitboxes for the boss' attacks is confusing. Sometimes they'll hit me even though I swing at them. Yes, the player's health goes down whenever they are hit, but the player can't be focused on the health bar to see which one hit them. You do include an animation after an attack is successfully hit, but I only see this working for top and bottom attacks (also, they're pretty subtle so it's hard to tell).
- I wish the beginning cutscene could be skipped. It isn't too long, but regardless, it lesses the replay value when your forced to sit through cutscenes you've already seen.
- (this one is a personal preference) While backtracking in games is not necessarily a bad thing, it is when the player doesn't have any control over the pace of the game. To get two of the angel wings, you are required to backtrack. It gets old going through the same battles you just went through.

The art is cool, I like the haircut of the main protagonist, and I enjoyed playing the game.

Fred-Bird responds:

Thank you for the feedback!
I added a skip button and fixed the exploit - I really thought I had that one sealed up!
I also adjusted the effect when destroying Azrael's attacks so it's a bit more visible.
Cheers!

[Jewel of the Stars]

For your first game, this is very good. You have backgrounds, sound effects, sprite animations for the protagonist, enemies, and the environment, and a pretty solid design altogether. I haven't found any glitches. However, it is far from perfect. Here are some suggestions:
- Be sure to list all the controls in the description. Also, you didn't show the spacebar or enter key in the initial startup of the game as a possible control. Some dialogue came up and I didn't know how to get rid of it and ended up getting hit by the first monster because the dialogue box was blocking my view.
- Like the others have said, change the Ctrl and Alt keys; those who play on apple products will have trouble with this key assignment due to the Ctrl key shifting the screen as well as other problems. You could change them to the z and x key for example. You can also add the ASDW keys as alternate movement keys and assign the k and l button.
- The game lacks music. You can find plenty of songs in the Audio portal (search adventure music or something) or you can use stuff from Kevin MacLeod (royalty free music. Just be sure to give him credit).
- For advancing dialogue, make it so the spacebar or enter key, when pressed, will show all the dialogue it was going to scroll out and the next press will dismiss it and start the next string of dialogue. It gets annoying having to wait for dialogue. Also, make the font size bigger; it's hard to read.
- Include what program you used to make your game in the description. This will give the people who created the program some publicity and answer the player's question (believe me, others will want to know).
- What is the protagonist's sprite doing? It looks like he keeps opening and closing his mouth. Also, when the protagonist is falling, you can add in an animation of his cape waving as he falls.
- Now for the important part. The game doesn't offer a lot of challenge. You could literally go through the entire game without killing any of the monsters. Plus you don't offer an incentive to kill them such as the monsters dropping gold or killing them makes you stronger, etc. The most difficult part of the game was the platforming and that's only because a few levels have a bottomless pit so a single mess up will result in a restart (mind you, this isn't a complaint about the bottomless pit). However, I'm sure the difficulty will ramp up later in the game.

This is a great start for it being your first game and I can't stress that enough. I've seen people put out some pretty horrible first games. I enjoyed the fire power and I look forward to the continuation of your game or whatever project you chose to work on next. Also, if you need a voice actor for one of your games, let me know. Good luck!

KAY-s-JAY responds:

Hello, thanks for playing my game and also thank you for the feedback, it really helps a lot, you pointed out lots of errors, ill try my best to fix them all and i'll definitely let you know if I want a voice actor

[Help Yourself]

I've played games similar to this one such as "Kill Me" and "The Company of Myself". I do like the game, but it has a serious flaw; there is A LOT of waiting. There are many reasons for this: the enemies in the game move way too slow, you don't give the player an option to kill their character, meaning they have to wait for the enemies to kill them, and the biggest one of all is that in order to progress through parts of the game, you usually have to wait for your previous deaths to play out.

For example, on level 10, it takes the enemy about 30 seconds to get across the entire level. Several times in this level, you have to stand and wait for the enemy to kill you. Because you'll often need to wait for the previous death to play out before you move on to some parts of the level, you force the player to wait longer and longer each time. Also, keep in mind that if you mess up and kill the enemy or get stuck in one of the yellow force fields (this has happened to me), you'll need to restart the entire level.

Some other things to note:
- There's a glitch in the game. If you enter level 10, leave it, and then go back into it again, all yellow force field platforms will be visible, but they won't all be solid.
- Sometimes when I fall off the screen in the game, it won't restart until press the directional keys, as if the character wasn't dead yet. This happened a few times in level 8.
- Speaking of level 8, on the first yellow energy platform (the one that appears when you jump on the squares with the red dots), if you jump back to it from the second higher energy platform, you fall through it.
- When it comes to jumping on the "dead" blue blobs that represent the character you control, it doesn't always work for me. I can have a lot of them stacked over the same area and still somehow fall through them when trying to jump on them.
- While I'll admit, I was a bit confused at around level 3 since the mechanics hadn't really been explained, it was interesting figuring them out. You could always design the beginning levels to where it will reveal the mechanics naturally, such as jumping down a small hole with spikes at the button and the button to open an door just below the door so that the player will jump down once, die, and the second time land on the previous one, demonstrating that mechanic.
- I'd advise adding a mute and pause button.
- Do the coins in the levels do anything? Do they unlock anything?

I know this is a lot of criticism, but I did enjoy the game. The artwork and music are good and the puzzles, despite the wait time, are creative. I have suggestions for some things you can implement in the game.
- Perhaps offer a way to speed up the time in the level to cut down on wait time.
- You could also add acceleration to the enemies' movement algorithm. That way if you are waiting in one spot for a long time, they will increase more and more in speed to cut down on wait time.

I wish you luck in the jam and in your future of game design!

NoodleSushi responds:

Thank you for your constructive review! I know the game is not perfect since it took like a week to finish, especially implementing the level editor and system and all. I'm thinking of improving it, but right now I'll just chill for a bit since took a lot of effort for a week to me. I'd like to respond to the bugs or issues, like in a 'fun fact' or 'did you know that...?' -ish kind of fashion in case you were curious why they happen.

-The force field staying visible and hollow was an object initialization issue. I programmed each object to animate once its voltage changes, but for some reason that sometimes didn't happen and doesn't change the animation according to the voltage, during initialization that is.
-The character does not die off-screen unless you move because below the screen, it is standing on top of its solid counter-part.
-I'm gonna have to do advanced collision detection or something else for this. The player falls through the platform since his falling speed was too fast for the sensor to detect, my bad.
-I might have to test it a bit more, it might be because of its collision shape being a circle, not sure.
-Yep you're not alone on this, some (or more) people had some difficulty figuring out level 3 and giving up, I myself have thought of this as well. This is something my level designer could improve on.
-I agree
-Not really, coins are just collectibles for fun, like a challenge to collect all of them. But yeah it does not have any other purpose aside from just collecting them.

Thank you for your suggestions and bug reports, this is the very first in-depth constructive review I have for this game, and congrats for being the first! I appreciate you taking the time to play my game, giving me feedback and suggestions, it really helps. I'll take note of them if I ever come back improving the game.

*EDIT*
Also I didn't know there are other games similar to mine, aside from Braid or Chronotron. I'll check them out, thanks for sharing!