Adept-Omega's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Demon Runner]

Counterintuitive controls; Good artwork

I can see from some of the other comments on this submission that the controls were confusing for many of the players. The big problem is that it's not explained at any point that the different types of block you need to jump over require you to press different directions. I believe many players are assuming (and I was as well), that up would be 'jump', down would be 'duck', and left right would be slow down / speed up, duck left / duck right, etc. Because all of the obstacles look like objects to be jumped over, this leads to players being unable to clear stage one. It doesn't help that the flashing arrow shows the button you /have/ pressed, rather than the one you /need to/.

Even factoring that in, the hit detection and jumping's a bit sloppy. The character seems more to jump into the house-shaped blocks than over them. When you understand how the controls work, the fatigue system's pretty forgiving, but it would probably be better to have a cleaner control / timing system with a slightly less forgiving fatigue system.

As others have pointed out, though, the animation's solid. The cutscenes, characters, and backgrounds look great. If this were an animation, I'd have scored it significantly higher.

I see that this submission was made for the Game Jam, and it's hard to expect perfection from a 72 hour project. The number one improvement I would suggest would simply be a clearer explanation of the controls, in particular becuase the player is asked to do counterintuitive things such as pressing down to jump over an obstacle without a prompt; it would change the game from confusing to playable for a lot of the viewers.

[Jade Wolf 2]

Good level design, but stiff controls

First things first, let me just say that I enjoyed this game a great deal, and have played it through to one hundred percent completion. This is a fundamentally good game that just has a few key issues; the game's world (from the overworld to the levels themselves) is rich and rewards exploration. The author did a good job managing the difficulty of hidden secrets, and I felt like I was actually exploring and making discoveries. Kudos to you on the world design, author, because it did its job well.

I feel that the primary weakness of this game is controls. Control of the wolf character is a little stiff - particularly in midair, though the wolf seems to have some hesitation changing direction on the ground as well. Interacting with enemies was awkward, primarily because of the stiff jumping controls making it hard to land on enemies, and sometimes it feels like normal running speed (excluding exiting a slope) should be just a hair faster.

Speaking of play control, there were a few things that were not particularly intuitive, and not explicitly stated (to the extent of my memory) in the game - in particular, midair rolling, which turns out to be quite important. I discovered the ability to break cracked surfaces completely by accident about halfway through the game, and it took me forever to figure out how the black wolf's wall-jumping works - I didn't expect to have to keep holding up while going back and forth. Speaking of which, I only discovered the black wolf training area long after I had earned the black wolf. If a similar area exists in the next game, I'd recommend making it easier to find. :)

Other reviewers have mentioned the character's animations looking a bit off, and I suppose I'd agree. It's not a breaking point for me, but it is a bit obvious that the wolf's legs are tweened in the run animation. Something like this will obviously be dependent on your animation experience, so I'm not gonna be too hard there.

Honestly, I enjoyed the game quite a bit. This is a game, I feel, whose strengths aren't as apparent as its weaknesses at first glance. I'd recommend any prospective players give it a little longer than the play controls might suggest - once you've figured out how to handle jumping and rolling, the game's levels offer a pretty decent game experience.

I'm looking forward to the next Jade Wolf. Keep up the good work. :)

SeditionGames responds:

Thanks. I'll work on the controls for the sequel

[Santa Crusader]

Not too bad

This was a pretty entertaining game, and I enjoyed it. The animations are cute, the gameplay is decent, and it's got some challenge without being arbitrarily unfair.

I should probably mention that there's a problem with the level code's display after you beat a stage, though; it seems for any stage after the first one you beat, the level code gets 'replaced' with the first one you're given; IE: If you beat levels one and two, you'll still see two's code when you should be seeing level three's.

All-in-all a good game, though.

[Feudalism]

Good idea, needs some retooling

A very good idea, but the challenge seemed to disappear in the last half of the game. Also, the lack of a congratulatory screen or even some kind of acknowledgment upon world domination was a bit of a let down. If the role of diplomacy in the game were expanded, perhaps it might have more intrigue (that is to say, currently, states are either owned by you, neutral towards you, or attack you on sight. The first two are only distinguishable from one another by the ability to buy troops). There are a few minor glitches; one is able to click any of the public facilities in hostile territory instead of engaging in combat, which seems to be unintentional. A light scattering of typos through the game ('pionts' should be 'points') seem to detract from it a bit.

Still, I gave it an 8/10. Something like this must have taken a good deal of effort to program; I tried my hand at flash programming, and it's certainly not an easy thing. Hence, I tip my hat to you, designer. In fact, there are a number of features I like about this game; the fact that you can begin as any of eight separate characters, in four different nations, the fact that your character's visual equipment actually changes when you wear something different, and the presence of enchanted items to spice up equipment selection are all very beneficial to the game. Keep up the good work, eh? :)

[Wade PLZ Ban!]

Better than the first!

I can definitely notice the improvements between PLZ ban 1 and PLZ ban 2. A much, much, much nicer game than the first. There are some ways you can improve it, if you would be interested in making future shooters...

Things improved from Wade PLZ ban 1 that I liked:
- Enemy variety
- More weapons
- A boss
- Faster gameplay
- Background details (IE: Meteors)
- Screen Size
- Music is a thousand times better.

The concept is good. Perhaps for the best effects, I would suggest...

~ using GIFs with transparency, or taking JPEGs and using trace bitmap, followed by removing the black borders. This way, black 'squares' won't surround everything, and as a result, many of the weapon shots will look better.

~ Enemies can fly all the way to the bottom of the screen, but you can't. This can be aggrivating for some gamers.

~ Maybe you should be able to shoot the windows projectiles Bill Gates shoots out before they hit you? They're a tad aggrivating.

Other than that, however, great game. Fun, novel, great stuff.

Goatchrist responds:

Hell! You get an award for helpfulness :)

Thank you a lot for this help. I will sure use your help for the next thing I'M going to make.

THANK YOU

[Beta game]

Alright, found a bug...

If you hold down "Space" you can glide in the air. Hope that helps. ^_^

[Arnold Schwarzenegger SB]

Yessss!

Not only is this the first soundboard I have seen that has gotten a spot amongst the daily features, this is the first one I've seen that deserves it. WOW! This actually has... application! Just thinking about what I could do with this makes me laugh. I love it! I simply love it. ^_^

This has a large inventory of voice clips to choose from, conveniently organized and well-clipped. That must have taken some time -- I applaud you for that.

This is great. Bravo. Excellent, excellent job.

*Note to other users: click the words "Total Recall Election Soundboard" to unlock two more quotes. ^_^*

[**Crackman -The Game-**]

I liked it

Hee hee... okay, this was pretty clever. The clip in the beginning was priceless, of course, but aside from that, pacman has always been a fun game, whether it's re-themed or original. Sure, you got the code from an open-source project, but that's what those are for to begin with, right? I think it was neat, anyway -- good job. I like your stuff. ^_^

TheShrike responds:

Thanks a lot, man. You're pretty good with flash, too. Even though I didn't like your movie, I liked your website. Thanks for the review.

[Push the button]

You really surprised me.

I didn't except anything about not pressing a button to be so well done. Obviously, there's more to it than just avoiding pressing a button -- lots of funny dialog and happenings. This is a very, very original flash... I've never seen anything quite like it. Being able to go back to the choices after you've passed them is very useful. I like this. Good job, hope to see more stuff from you!

Krakatoa responds:

Thanks a lot for being supportive! I'm going to begin work on a new project pretty soon.