Plasmarift's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Epic Gang]

I'm actually very upset right now because I spent over three hours playing the game, saved multiple times, and then closed the window to come back to it later only to find out it didn't save. I even started a new game to see if the save feature worked at all and saved at the first save point and when I loaded the game again, it still didn't save. I don't know why this is. Perhaps look into it? I'm using Google Chrome as a browser.

As for the game, it is good. The gameplay is engaging, the items you can collect encourages exploration, and the fairy that heals you is a nice upgrade for the player, but there are some problems.
- As others have pointed out, the English is bad. Next time, just ask someone to look over it for you. I'd gladly do so.
- You can still use the flasks even if you are at full health and have no ailments. I think you should disable it and have the game make a sound to alert the player that using it would be useless (I accidentally pressed the wrong button and used up a number of my flasks when I was at full health).
- Although you offer the option to change the controls, why not have multiple options for the controls? (have the default set up and have the keys z x c s be another option for controls). Also, even when you change the controls, you still need to use the default controls when interacting with puzzles and the pause menu. Why is that? Also, why can;t the player change the controls in the pause menu during the game?
- a map would be very appreciated because it is very easy to get lost or to forgot where something is (I had remember coming across a lock that needed the key of sorrow so I decided to go looking for it when I found the key and it took a long time to find it). Plus, it gets very tiring backtracking through monsters while your aimlessly trying to find something you already passed. Maybe have a map where it contains markers that show that a locked door and chest are in that area. You could also have it where an area isn't revealed on the map until a player moves through it.
- The enemy designs are good, but some of the enemies back away when you try to approach them to attack, which is very irritating (especially since the enemies can float off of the platforms out of reach) because it forces the player to bait the enemies more in land so they can attack).
- You don't offer any explanation of the what the ailments do to the player, like curse and inhibition. You might think its apparent, but having a clear explanation would also be nice, especially for the inhibition one (maybe an area in the menu?). an explanation for how exactly the fairy works would have been nice as well.
- often times, you leave little to no room for the player to fight. In a number of instances, this can be interesting and perhaps even fun and challenging, but when you corner a player in a room with a large number of enemies, this goes from fun to just annoying. You really need to strike a balance with this.
- Why is it that the environment does not affect the monsters at all? Why not have explosion hurt them when they can hurt the player?
- The second boss (the fire guys), this one seems a little unfair. You leave the player very little time to strike at the boss since they constantly try to pounce on you (since they rarely due so in sync with one another, trying to attack during this time will usually result in the player's death). I chose the berserker option at the beginning and basically focused a lot of power into attack, yet I still struggled to take them down because my attacks took away very little health. I'd suggest having it so detonating a bunch of bombs near them will hurt them. Otherwise, I don't know how to go about doing the battle.

Still, I want to say I enjoyed the game, but the fact that it didn't save really hurt me and I don't know if I want to go through the game again.

DarkenSoft responds:

We are sorry about that.
But it's strange because It works to us, you can try to update your browser or cancel the cookie.

It's our first attempt to create a game and we made a lot of mistakes.
Thank you for the feedback.

[Kill! Kill! Street Level]

People seriously need to read. If instructions aren't in the game then you check the description (though I will admit that you need to be very direct with the rules, such as stating "Your goal is to kill all stickmen without anyone witnessing the murders. Click on objects to move and activate them.") Still, the game works and this isn't the first game to do something like this, such as the ClickDeath series so I don't understand why people are confused.

I think you did a good job on this and I hope you make more, though I have a few suggestions.
- Right off the back, you have a timed event where within the first 10 seconds, the game will end if you don't kill the guy on the roof. By this point, players are still trying to figure out what they can click on so having this right at the beginning is frustrating. Maybe have a timed event like this activate right after the first time a player clicks on something or add a pause button where all action freezes and the player can't activate things (though still have it so their mouse will change whenever they move over something clickable so they can learn what to click on).
- There's a bug. If you click on the car to make it fall over while the guy isn't underneath it and then you click on the skateboard, the guy will grab it and then point at the car as if someone was killed and you lose. Is that intentional?
- This isn't necessarily bad, but I was able to press the tab button to find all the clickable places. It helped me figure out how to beat the game.

I look forward to your next game. Good luck!

ssjbryando responds:

Very late response. But very good points, thanks!

[Oh! I'm Getting Taller!]

The game is very good. I really like the art style, the music is fitting and exploring the game is fun (although it gets a little annoying when you need to back track because you didn't know the route you were taking was going to lead to the end). Still, this can't always be helped.

I have a question though: I confront the ghosts yet when I return to talk to the girl, she just asks me the same question, as if the event never happened. Was I supposed to let the ghosts get me or is this a bug?

elfgamesworks responds:

Is not a bug, it's a lack of dialogues. You did well passing the ghosts, is just her that don't gives you feedback. How mean! ;D
Thank you for your feedback, this will be fixed in the future updates. ^ ^

[Shadow Arts]

I really like the mechanic of the game, but I think I ran into some glitches.
- After I beat the second boss and the battle ended, the screen went black. When I reloaded the game and tried to start the story up again, it just took me to the level with no Talia or characters and I had no control over anything except for the menu options. I even tried to go to the campfire through the options and the screen came up black again. This happened twice: once on Newgrounds and a second time on Y8.
- Unless you press something, you will continue to run right after the battle. Is this intentional?
- I tried clicking on the Survival button, but it doesn't work.
- Talia repeats herself in the second level right before the boss with the hammer (she says something about the camp. This line came up earlier on in the level.

There are also other problems that I noticed:
- There is no way for me to reset my save game except for emptying my cookies.
- You offer no way to customize the controls and I really feel like it is necessary for this game or the controls just need to be rearranged because the set up is extremely awkward (how is a player suppose to reach the arrow keys easily during battle if they have to keep their fingers around the IOP keys.
- There is no explanation behind what the upgrades do at the campfire (Does it increase the damage, decrease the consumption on the abilities, or something else?)
- During the second boss battle with the hammer, when I use the shield, it only defends against one hit from the hammer. Is this suppose to happen?

Still, I really like the game and would really like to continue playing it, but can you please address these problems. I look forward to your next game.

jujaswe responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I'm in the middle of fixing the aforementioned glitches/bugs.

[You Are Slime!]

The game definitely has an interesting concept and could be something really great, but it has problems and is lacking in some things:
- The enemies sometimes get stuck on corners, forcing the player to go back if they are blocking a path, which puts them in danger because when how close you need to get and when the enemies get out from the corner are not set in stone so a player could potentially lose because of this.
- Why not also allow the arrow keys and/or the aswd keys for controls?
- You have a lot of cool items scattered around the dungeon yet you don't let the player interact with any of it. You could have the slime hide inside an empty chest, whether to hide from an enemy or to have the enemy open it and attack the enemy. It would also be cool if you could sneak up on enemies and attack them or to give the enemies different weapons and powers, like giving one a bow and arrow and another a giant axe.
- I don't know if this is a good thing or not, but there is a lot of back tracking because you need to lead enemies away from a hall you need to go down. It really does make the player feel weak and helpless (which could be a good thing. Games can and often times should make you feel things. You could even say it puts the player in character for this game). Also, this backtracking (by itself) would get old if you ever extended this into more levels.
- For whether or not there should be a restricted view, I think it works well for this game, but I wouldn't know if full view would be better unless I played the game with it. However, full view would eliminate the element of surprise for the enemy and the maze like feel of the game.

Overall, it's a good game. I just feel like it could be so much more. I look forward to your next game.

megakruts responds:

Thank you for such a big review! It makes me think about a lot of things! )

[Lost Ethereal]

I like the game and I like that you don't shove a story down the player's throat (you can subtle pick up on what the story might be). I also like the art style and the puzzles. This could definitely be extended into a bigger game, but some things are needed and need to be fixed:
SPOILERS
- There is a glitch in your game. After beating it once and replaying it (without refreshing), once you reach the part where you need to shine light on the black creatures, shining light on one will cause the creature they're on to turn into a person and you get an item (as should happen), but it also leaves the last two black creatures floating in the area (you can still kill them, but there's no point to since you already have the item).
- Also, in the place where you put the 9 blue things, after placing the first one, the snake thing turns into a person and you get an item. If you try to place a second one, the game will freeze.
- The fact that you limit the player's movement to a specific path is kind of boring and annoying (there are a lot of things in sight that can't be reached, like the graves at the beginning). Allow the player the freedom to roam and perhaps add some interactions, like add a button that will allow the player to examine objects. It will make things more interesting.
- Also, I think the game would be better if you added a few enemies to liven it up. As much as I like the art style, moving through areas that you can't interact with and that don't have anything to offer will get boring quick.

Still, a very cool game. Good job in the contest and I look forward to your next game release.

thelucre responds:

Thanks for pointing out those bugs. I've fixed them in the latest upload. After all the feedback we are definitely going to pursue a larger game with deeper interactions.

[Achillia: The Game]

Since a lot of the reviews pointed out the good in the game, I'm going to point out the problems I had.
- I don't think I can get the super combo to work. The closest thing I have come to find that could be considered a super combo would be when I attempt it: I strike once, fly up into the air, spin attacking and then come back down with a downward strike, which deals 12 damage. As good as that is, it's not enough. I still can't get gold on the level it teaches it to you so I must not be doing it right. You could have include a vision showing what it looks like or a tutorial manual that you can access at the menu to show you step by step how to do it.
- After level 10 (or even earlier), some of the bigger enemies stop getting knocked back by your attacks so you have to stop attacking and dodge (since you didn't put in any way to defend against attacks), but this is sometimes impossible because you place the player in such a small environment that it is often times impossible to dodge (you don't even allow the player to move backwards to areas they've been to in the level if there are no monsters left there).
- I don't think it was a good idea to set up an award system based on how fast you beat a level. There are some variables in this game that are outside of the player's control that can prevent them from getting the gold. For example, going back to the whole "enemies stop getting knocked back", they can just walk away from you while you're in the middle of a combo so you waste time moving toward them again and hitting them. Also, I've gone into levels where the number of enemies will vary, which again adds to the changing degree of difficulty. Basically, you are rewarding players for luck and skill in the later levels rather than pure talent. Right now, I'm about half way through the game at the last volcano level and I can't advance. If I am unable to get the awards on the levels I'm on now, what chance do I have in future levels? Had you added real upgrades that could be earned or bought then I would have the chance to progress. Instead (if a person is not as skilled as necessary to advance) they need to grind on older levels just to get potions to use in the upper levels, which they will use up, either by beating or failing the level, forcing them to go back and replay older levels to get more. At least when you're grinding for experience, you get to keep it.
- I don't see how the move set is supposed to help me at all. Most of them take down just about the same amount of health as a normal combo and they offer nothing else in return except for some of the attacks allowing you to hit flying enemies. You don't give a move to hit enemies on all sides, to hit enemies while you're dodging, to hit from a distance (you can't move even while doing one of these moves without canceling it). What's even worse is that the screw attack could get you out of a rough situation if you are surrounded or cornered except that you include so many enemies in the level, such as the boss volcano level (plus the lava geysers) that you can't get away from all of them and even worse, right after performing it, there's a brief moment where you can't move. (Going back to the boss volcano level, it is super overcrowded to the point that it starts causing lag. As it stands now, the best move that I can do is the basic combo and another strange one I stumbled across, but if I have any chance at succeeding, I need to attack, dodge, move forward, attack, and repeat over and over again until all enemies are dead.

You may think I hate this game, but that's far from true. I want to like this game. I like the art, the music, the mysterious story, and the main character. I just think it could have been executed better.

GuzuLigo responds:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! There is a lot to talk about there.
I don't really know how to make you a fair answer, so I made you a Video:
https://vimeo.com/165795198

Hope it helps you find the right tricks to enjoy the game better! Also, I guess you'll see why I ended up making game gets more difficult quickly. I actually tried to make next stages less difficult, but more challenging to get 3 stars, so you might not stuck at any... except for final boss. But I hope you'll like it!

[Cathode Raybits 2]

I like the game, but can you please give the player the option to disable the dash ability? I keep accidentally activating it and it kills me more often than the enemies do (Besides, what purpose does it serve? It doesn't make you go that much faster anyways and takes away control from you until after it deactivates)

Other than that, the game presents a difficulty that is seldom tried nowadays, which is good. The game nearly always offers you the ability to avoid damage if you're smart about your movements (it especially gives you these options as you acquire more weapons). Very good job on giving nearly all the enemies their own movement patterns and designs (it keeps the game from getting old).

And I'm old enough to recognize the style (hopefully others will be too) and I've so fat found no glitches. I'd gladly play through the whole game, but to get so far and then have the dash ability jet you into a pit, it just feels like I'm being cheated in that regard, even though no one else seems to have that problem.

Anyways, great game!

SinclairStrange responds:

I'll look into that, I could possibly disable that or map it too another key so that doesn't happen :) I'll prolly do that in a patch update :)

I'm glad other than that you enjoyed thee game! :D