sharpnova's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Forward]

Very nice. I don't understand why it isn't rated higher.

I'm a much better judge of game quality than 99% of NG. (you can take that to the bank) And I say this is 3.5 to 4 stars.

Onefin responds:

This response has been removed by request of the reviewer.

[XCVB ++]

"This just in from r/iamverysmart."

How did you get that from what he said? He's right. It's a game where you move around in four directions and have to fight really bad controls.

[Mr.Timan]

Do you admit to this being heavily inspired by the time travel level in The Cave?

Vogd3 responds:

no no

[PxBeats]

The timing for when you need to hit the key relative to where the enemy is is unintuitive.

I destroy at rhythm games but this one just felt off so I didn't enjoy it.

banacola responds:

We fix this sync issue in Version 2.0. Please stay tuned, we will update it soon.

[Oh! I'm Getting Taller!]

I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behind your conscious design decision to have the player move their hand back and forth between the mouse ad keyboard.

I'm sure you considered WASD + mouse instead but felt that the back and forth thing was better. I'm just curious why.

elfgamesworks responds:

Mainly because mouse shouldn't be used. The keys are:
* Arrows: movement
* X: Talk/dialogues
* Z: Pick items

Mouse is an optional alternative of X button... probably I'll disable this in future releases, since it makes a lot of confusion >.<
Thank you for playing!

[Hold the Fort!]

After I beat the first level and it took me to the training screen, the interface was so completely unintuitive and unexplanatory that I was instantly turned off.

a7s1h1 responds:

Sorry for that. The game is definitely not the best example of casual time-killer

[Bromancing the Stone]

The RPG Maker titles are wearing extremely thin I'm afraid.

But a PewDiePie themed game.... I think many people who don't like him or think game streaming is pointless (why watch someone else play a game when you can play it yourself? This I will never understand but it makes me feel very pessimistic about gaming in the future and the intelligence of young people nowadays)

That will hurt the reception of this game a lot.

I'm sorry but I couldn't be more turned off by a game's theme than I was by this one.

Also I don't like dialog heavy games. I think dialog heaviness is a very very very weak crutch.

I don't mean to be rude I want to give you some potentially useful feedback here. Check this out:

In games, explicit story is kind of a lazy thing. The best games do it implicitly and convey narrative subtlely through the theme.

Theme > Story every time. Story is kind of for the Call of Duty/XBro type gamer imo. It's kind of a zombie thing having everything fed to you like that.

Anyway, good luck in your future game dev endeavors. This one just couldn't have picked a worse theme or engine.

[about-face]

I really liked this. Except for three somewhat serious gripes:

1. The window is WAY too small. I don't know why many developers don't understand this. Especially those targeting browsers. But we're not using 1024 x 768 anymore. I use a 1440p display which is the rational choice. The bulk of people who haven't figured that out yet are using 1080p. And at both of those resolutions this is unpleasant on the eyes. I zoom in to play. I should not have to.

2. Way too slippery. Does not allow for the tight handling that makes a great platformer shine.

3. I'm not sure why you felt the need to have gravity be so high. I'd definitely tweak that.

I liked the minimalist approach. The audio fit but there should have been a little more to the ambiance. Some subtle parallax or particle details. Jumping (color shifting) sound. Landing sound.

The art was good too. It made me nostalgic about the days of games like ZZT and MZX that utilized ASCII characters to surprisingly deep effect.

PeltastDesign responds:

Thanks for the detailed review!

1. In retrospect, it is too small. Since I don't want to use any smoothing/AA my options for re-sizing are limited. I'll be working on that!

2. I've increased traction so hopefully this isn't as much of an issue.

3. I got so used to the gravity during dev I didn't realize how high it was. Tweaking will happen.

[Bloodrun 2]

I really don't like having to run on top of people and hit a key. It just feels awkward and weak.

[Fruit Zombie Defense 3]

1. get thrown into game

2. get killed

3. try again

4. be amazed at how little damage you do

5. be totally unempowered by the game mechanics (opposite of good game design)

The bad news is that this was pretty terrible.

The good news is that this is a studio that doesn't care about feedback and will never ever read this review.

Btw the music was pretty boring and annoying. And the animation was almost nonexistent.