Plasmarift's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[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.

[Alula Falling #5]

Man, that was a sad ending. Though I definitely like that this isn't another "Happily Ever After", it's more like a "Sadly Ever After", but that's just my opinion. I have some complaints with the game.
- I read the description and that you originally planned to have multiple endings. I wouldn't mind a single ending if you hadn't stated in the previous games that determining Alula's karma through kills would determine her fate. All the kills did was make the battles easier and didn't change Alula in any way. You didn't even change the text accordingly with whether or not you spared one of the unnamed characters (after beating them, Alula says "What a waste of a life" and "I'll avenge you").
- For the kill counter for Alula, it stopped at 9 and won't go up.
- Parts of the new set up on the battle screen are good: the intro where it shows you who you are facing was cool, but changing it so that the Star app was the default didn't seem like a good change.
Still, I really like the series. It was probably my favorite from all your other ones (with the interconnected storylines).

JackAstral responds:

Fixed those things up- thanks for pointing them out!

[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

[You are the cube]

I usually don't feel the need to comment as much as I used to, but seeing that the commenter below me does not understand how the game works, I feel it is my duty to point it out.

You are a cube that cubes moving until you hit something. That is how it is supposed to work and that's what adds the difficulty.

As for what I think of the game, I do like it and I won't fault it much for the simpleness of the graphics (especially since it is your first on here and it seems like you were trying to create a fun challenging game and not a visual masterpiece). It certainly is challenging, but I found some problems with it:
- It seems like the level design could have been done better. There are too many loopholes that you can take to get around challenges, especially early on. It's both good and bad because a lot of puzzle games will only give you one option, but I have the feeling that this wasn't what you had in mind.
- If you fall off a ledge without jumping, you can still jump while in the air. I don't if you intended for that to be the case.
- I don't know why, but playing the game forces my computer to work pretty hard, which doesn't seem to make sense. I've played tons of games with a lot more going on both in visuals and in action. What's going on in the game that's causing this?
- Although it is a minor detail, try to make things like counters and level select screens more diverse and not just with plain text: this creates a type of disconnect where it makes it seem like I'm interacting with an application when I should be immersed in the game (also, it just comes off as laziness to some people, no offense).

Still, I had fun playing it and that's good. I look forward to your next game.

ShadowScout responds:

Hi Plasmarift,

thank you for your Feedback.

This game is indeed the very first one I publish.

The double jump feature is an intended one and allows you to find different ways solving a level.

I tried to make it possible to solve each level, after the first five, over at least three paths and maybe got kind of lost in that idea, which lead to the apperently weird level design.

I will look further into the described performance issues and improve it more.

[Sacred Chikin]

The game has an interestingly, weird concept (I'm guessing the main character is a bone duck. It looked cool) and having different ways or spots to get each or most flowers was pretty cool, but my problem is with the health system. You say the game is hard, but that's because you make the player restart to level 1 when they die when you could just restart them at the level they were on. To me, it seems like a cheap way to add difficulty, as it doesn't make the game itself hard, it just makes you be more careful, but even that is not enough. It only takes four mistakes, which are very easy to make (one mistake if you fall off a cliff), to cause a complete restart. I was actual interested to see the ending, but I'm not going through it again because it's not worth it. Maybe add in a function where successfully completing a level will grant one heart if the player had damage or have health packs in the level (or just remove the reset system altogether). Also, having to cut off the chicken's head and draw the star for the third time in a row got annoying so I'd suggest a skip button after the first time you do it. I wish you luck in your next project!

Psyduckfreak responds:

thanks for the feed back. I also thought of making a skip button but the them was Ritual so i thought making it repetitive would fit that. If i re pick up this project ill add.

[Basket & Ball]

The game is both unique and very difficult at times, especially if you are trying to get all the stars (level 28 took me the longest time to get all the stars). The only thing I would suggest is for the free shooter levels (where you have to launch yourself to the basket) to make the period that the ball is in play longer (I consider the ball out of play when it gets that annoyed look on its face). It seems like this happens way too early, especially when there is still a chance for the ball to go in and when I still have an hour glass launch token thingy. Other than that, great job!

suntemple responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I might add a manual restart button to the shootouts and extend the waiting time.