Plasmarift's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[James]

I stopped playing before finishing the tutorial for a number of reasons.
- You force the player to wait through the intro and tutorial text. Players only have so much time available for playing games and being forced to wait through intros and tutorials to play a game is a waste of time (I understand that you put time into the intro, but if we wanted to want an animation, we could go to the movie tab on Newgrounds). Add a skip function for the intro and change the tutorial to where text appears, but doesn't stop the player from moving (you can decrease the size of the text box that pops up).
- From the small part I played, I noticed that the game relies on waiting for the screen to move for the player to see what is ahead of them; this is also a waste of time. Why not just make it so the screen moves with the player? This way, they can play the game at their own speed.
- The game tells you that your mission is to save your fellow fruits from their gummy bear forms, correct? Then why did you make it so that you need to keep some of them as gummy bears to progress? In the tutorial, you need to bounce off of one of them to reach a higher platform and if you save them, you're stuck. It seems counterintuitive.
- Upon seeing the square with the red X in the top right corner, I thought that was used to get rid of the tutorial text box. Little did I know it would exit me out of the game. I'd recommend adding a pause button with written options like "exit game" and "resume". I'd also recommend adding a mute button because some players like listening to other stuff besides the game audio.

I will say that I liked the different colored bullets mechanic and the premise seems promising. I am interested to see what you make next.

JonathanGV responds:

Thank you on the feedback! On our part, some of the many problems stated are a big “we thought it would be cool…” even if you feel like it is something dumb in the first place, we want to make an extended version of this game, but we want to get the things as right as we can. We changed some things and fixed what needed a fixing.
On the story standpoint you are right! Never thought of it and glad you pointed it out, in the extended version we will be adding much more elements, so you can be sure some things will be different, hopefully better.
You can check out how the game is after the update!
Here is what we changed:
- Changed the pacing of the screen scroll due to feedback on how it makes the gameplay slow.
- Stopped forcing the instructions and made them optional.
- Fixed the bullet spamming.
- Changed a bit up the controls, now for shooting: ZXCV and HJKL.

[Miriam's Mice]

What the game lacks in graphics and art, it attempts to make up for in challenging puzzles. The game certainly offers some interesting and difficult puzzles. However, I feel it is lacking some features (I also have a few things I want to say on it):
- When activated, there's no way to turn off the mouse guide without exiting the level.
- Dialogue plays every time you enter a level and there's no button to press to immediately skip it or shut it off (this gets especially annoying when you need to exit and re-enter to get rid of the mouse guide).
- There's no way to quick reset the level without exiting and re-entering.
- The whole setup with having to undo and redo to get rid of things that you place is tedious and annoying. For example, if you first thing you place turns out to be a bad move, you have to undo everything else just to get rid of it; why not just have it so you can pick up and move things that you place?
- Having something coming off of the mice to see their line of sight might be nice. Without it, the mouse guide seems incomplete (I'm not sure how this would look or if it would even workout, but it's a thought).
- I think some of the difficulty of the game comes from the fact that there is no pause or stop button on it. In Unstable Engineer, you could literally pause the game, allowing the player to evaluate the situation (not just undo the last move). In this case, placing something in the view of a mouse causes it to react immediately. It'd be cool to be able to place the item down and then look at things. Not allowing this seems to create an increase in difficulty that really isn't necessary. It's like not allowing a person to try putting two puzzle pieces together just to see if they fit.
- Some of the later levels and the achievements in them seem a tad extreme or impossible (I don't normally like using this term; I play a lot fo puzzle games so please allow me to explain). On the level "Give me strength" in the bedroom, there is a letter against a corner, two mice (a red fighter and red normal one), and 3 red cheeses and 3 lions. In order for a mouse to get out of a corner, it needs something to attract it out. However, all three cheeses are necessary to lead the normal mouse to its hole (it's in a narrow stretch with a lion at one end and the hole at the other). Unless there is a mechanic that I'm missing, it's impossible.
- Another example "Roll call", it takes place on an 8x8 grid; subtracting the mice, regular cheese, and pellet, that comes out to 57 blank spaces to place the provided cats and cheese. Beating this level is fairly easy, but getting the pellet is another story entirely. With four assets for four mice and a pellet, it requires the player to use some of the assets on multiple mice at once, but there is so much space and combinations to account for. Taking into account the order that the objects can be placed and the fact that most of them will need to be placed in view of the mice (each mouse can see 15 tiles) that comes out to at least 786,240 possible combinations (this is assuming that one mouse is sent into a hole with each asset placement). Keep in mind, this is showing all the possible placement combinations and does not reflect the number of ways the puzzle can be solved (many of the levels seem to have only one way) or the assets to each type of mouse, since some of the objects don't affect certain mice.

You've basically set up the game to make the application of trial and error tedious, as well as making some levels with so many obstacles, possible positions for assets, and a multitude of steps to make visualization aggravatingly difficult to say the least. This critique is only my opinion (I've completed 73 levels); it seems others enjoyed your game, but I find it lacking. I did want to compliment you on a few things, like having a mute option, the tie in with your previous game, and the medal system you implemented, where if the game didn't award you a medal you earned, you can refresh the page and it will award it to you. I look forward to your next creation!

If anyone needs help or wants to discuss solutions for levels in the game, visit this form: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1487916#bbspost27113294_post_text

WigDev responds:

Thanks for this detailed review, you make some interesting points!

I can understand the desire to just drag devices around, but the way that the puzzles work, if a mouse has reacted to an object then you shouldn't be allowed to move it somewhere else after (and you shouldn't be able to move a device that was there from the start), and having the rooms fill up with both movable and unmovable devices actually ended up being more confusing than it was worth. Undo/Redo seemed like the best solution that was consistent with the puzzle logic, but I'm sorry to hear you found it frustrating.

As for seemingly impossible later levels, I accept I've made them more challenging than you'd find in most puzzle games, especially the optional pellets and ace stars. This won't appeal to everyone. (When it comes to 'Give me Strength' specifically, the name of the room is a gentle clue for how to get the normal red mouse to an exit without using all the cheese.)

Thanks again (to you and everyone else) for your feedback, it's always a tricky balance trying to create puzzle games like this, but as long as some people have their brains enjoyably stretched - and nobody is driven to genuine insanity - then I can be happy with that.

[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!