Luis's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Aliens Kidnapped Betty]

Not bad

Pretty nice little game, there was a few little gripes that could be easily addressed to make it a more enjoyable experience i think.

I think the main gripe was that the jump was too sticky, like some levels the percision level is highly dependent on sharp button presses. Whether its the keyboard or mouse button the jump lagged a bit to trigger. So I dont think its a performance issue, i think it just needs to be programmed tighter.

Artwise, it looks fine, but nothing really that memorable. The character, I feel you could have given a bit more personality to. Just looks kind of generic. Like even with the primitive graphics engine that Commander Keen had, you could still easily distinguish him as Commander Keen and not just a generic boy.

So yea that was my two gripes. I liked the simple concept and I agree that it would work well as a mobile port.

[Undead End Hardcore]

Promising

Top notch on the art, i particularly liked the little animations like the rain and papers flying about.
I think you could have complimented the mood with better sounds. Some of them got repetitive and some of them didnt feel like they fit the character. I know you were purposely going for low fi, but i dont think you would have lost anything from sprinkling in a few more effects.

Also wasnt a fan of the game over screen. The game is so beautiful and the gameover panel is just bleh.
I thought it had a good amount of challenge to it. I like the fact that once you die you can pick up from the scene you left off at. Makes you want to continue pressing on.
As far as the melee, i agree with most of the criticism. I think that also the melee weapons were more scarce as the game went on. I think for the whole remainder of the game I was down to just using the bat. Woulda wanted to mess with the other melee weapons more.
I also woulda wanted to see more boss fights. Maybe one more atleast. It felt kind of strange to battle that one guy on the raft and when the game ends its just a slew of regular zombies and not a grand finale of a boss.

Overall I enjoyed it, it really has the charm of the 90's

[Nephi's Adventure 2]

Pretty good play

I actually found the difficulty of the game pretty solid. Its always a challenge with these types of games to make the difficulty challenging enough to keep interest yet the puzzles not too obscure that they become frusterating. I kind of felt like it got to the frusterating point in the last Alice is Dead. In this particular game it felt comfortable. There were points where i felt stuck but i eventually figured out. Which was what you want from a game. Storyline was pretty good, the characters were fairly interesting and I did like the dreidel and mario bit.
One of the gripes I had was that the volume level of the spoken dialogue seem to fluctuate throughout. Didnt really affect the gameplay in any dramatic fashion but it kinda stuck out and was worth mentioning.
Also, i kinda wish i could skip through dialogue. Maybe being able to skip through it during the second time a conversation is launched? I felt kind of stuck at some points because the conversations were lengthy in some bits and i had already figured out what i wanted to do and just wanted to walk away or hurry the conversation and get to my tasks. I dunno maybe thats a personal thing. I also found that meter thing when you are doing away with that guy kind of laggy. Like it wasnt registering my click accurately so it felt unnecessarily hard to hit that sweet spot. Dunno if that was intentional.

ANYWAY it kept me busy for a good 20 mins so all in all good ol' graphic adventure

BoMToons responds:

Allowing skippable dialogue on the 2nd go-round is a good idea.

As for audio, since 1/2 the game was done 4 years ago, and then we returned to finish off the rest recently, the differences were kind of unavoidable, hopefully we can focus enough on future installments to record all the audio in the same timeframe :-P

THANKS for the review LUIS!

[AVOIDAL]

not bad

Pretty simple fun concept. I wish the game would pause when your pointer went off the screen. Some of the levels are intense and your pointer is going all over the place id go off the screen too often and would get gang rapped by the enemies i had on my tail.

HybridMind responds:

Thanks for the feedback. Let me repost something I shared with another player mentioning the screen edge problems:

"As far as screen edges issues go well there actually isn't a lot I can do. It is far to jarring to pause the game if the mouse hits the edge because it happens a lot and would lead to an equally frustrating experience for the player. Since this game is a mouse skills type game at heart avoiding the screen edges as well as the obstacles are all part of the challenge. Sorry I don't have a better solution. Flash games often have issues with game screen edges because the flash player doesn't allow us to lock the mouse. "

[Unstoppable Game]

Pretty good

Its a pretty interesting concept. I thought the > marking the exit was kind of confusing. Maybe it should just say exit or not look so much like a play button. I eventually figured it out, but from UI standpoint it could be executed more effectively i think. I also kinda wish the game screensize was bigger. I felt like i really wanted to play and make more elaborate / creative routes.
Art was cool as was the physics

ChrisKempt responds:

Hey Luis,

Thanks for the feedback, awsome stuff. You make a good point about the exit actually... we avoided text because of the whole multi-language thing but I guess we could have another look at the design and see if we can find a way to make it more obvious.

***Update*** We've changed the icon, do you think that's more intuitive now?

With regard to the screen size, as ever it's a toss-up between screen size/graphics and performance, in this case we wanted the explosions to be as spectacular as possible so we went smallish with it. I think it's all the better for it personally. The levels do get pretty challenging as you progress though there are 25 in all so it's worth chugging on!

Anyway, thanks for the very constructive feeback, I really appreciate it.

Cheers

C

[Tank Attack - Destruction]

nothing that memorable.

runs really choppy. at first i thought it was cause my tank sucked but when you have an air attack and tanks shooting it comes to a crawl.

Also the AI is like braindead. the enemy tanks would just track to my position and disregard any actual wall that might be in the way.

Graphics were ok

[LARRY: Doug-Out]

Beer is good but has some blemishes

i like beer so i was already likin where it was going, i think i agree with others feedback in that it woulda been nice to be able to stop pouring and the swings were too slow. I almost found it slower when he had a weapon than when he just punched him. It made me wish for an upgrade of a blowgun or slingshot or something so i wouldnt have to run back there.

Music was cool and so was the voiceovers and art, was just kinda clunky on the controls and the enemy too pesterly and out of balance with the defenses of the char. It also woulda been nice if you had some sort of visual queue or bonus for hitting it right on the spot. Its unsatisfying right now and feels too random for a beer to only render 10 dollars when its slightly off and yet another renders 40 dollars and it was much more off than the other.

[the Kill Kar II: Revenge]

Cool return of the series

I vaguely remember the first one, so i didnt really bother to compare them both. I think performance wise the game runs pretty well. Didnt really experience any major slowdown, but i didnt get to the late levels. Woulda been cool to have screams or panic from the pedestrians, it woulda made it more satisfying to kill them. I found the grunge font a bit hard to read for vital stuff like how much money you have and buttons. I think it looks cool for the logo and title slots but for UI its a bit difficult to use. Would have also been cool to make clickable things feel more clickable, i wasnt sure what to do initially after completing a level. It didnt seem obvious enough. Minor thing, but it would be cool to have a button to just go on to the next level. I actually enjoyed the levels more than the upgrading. Having to forcefully go through the garage was kinda annoying.

Nice work, its good to have a driving game to mess with.

Jazza responds:

thanks man. always a million things that could be improved but we're prett happy with it :D. although i do like the running away screaming idea. then again, i am sadistic.

[Gretel and Hansel]

Inspiring

Really great feel. I think the artwork really adds to the storytelling aspect of it and creates great mood. The controls take some getting used to and the little visual instructions were a nice touch.

Looking forward to more games with the hand quality touch to them. In a world where everyones trying to match Pixar it was nice to have something feel very handmade and traditional.

[Glass Fish Rhythm]

Promising

I liked the music aspect of it. I found the level 1 music to be a bit weak, the second level though was great and really played well with the mechanical aspect of the terrain. The controls are a bit clunky as others have mentioned. I didnt mind it TOO much as it provided a degree of adapting to them.

What i did mind is the bizarre occurrences that would sabotage you. Like the fish would out of nowhere start speeding up towards the right. He would stop when i noticed it, but it just made no sense that hed go kamikaze on his own. Seemed like he got fed up waiting for you to make your move and was on autopilot/suicide mode.

The egg thing was a pretty good concept. I think that making it so that you cant put an egg in blatantly dumb spots would help. As others mentioned, its hard to know when it might be useful to use the egg so it would be cool if the 'rest stops' were more apparent and comfortable. I did put an egg down in a spot that was suicidal once without knowing it. At which point i was pretty much doomed for the rest of the time.

The last level was kind of annoying also, the fact that making it to the boss and dying will ignore where you placed your egg. You just have to start over no matter what.

I hate that the jerk fish gets rewarded at the end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He was a dick. let him die!

Overall, good stuff, interesting concepts. I'd have built more levels on level 2. Thats when the game actually started to get interesting, with the squashers and eratic machinery.