sharpnova's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Saloon]

randomizing the weapon on roll is stupid.

fun game though.

but i have to take off an additional star because you didn't put crimsonland as a tag. that was the obvious inspiration here and giving credit is important in creative fields.

edit: just revisiting this review to knock off another star for the asinine UI when you pick up a weapon. it makes no sense... what am i replacing? clearly not the weapons i currently hold because i replaced my knife and still drew a knife in the stupidly roll lottery. and there are like four boxes to select from for what to replace... huh? i only have two weapons... am i picking WHAT weapon to get? makes no sense. that was already determined and identified by the graphic of the item i stepped on. just very poorly done. -1.5 stars for that.

update: minus an additional star for devs doubling down and pretending crimsonland wasn't the inspiration for their game.

ConnorGrail responds:

Never heard of crimsonland, and the random weapon switching is kinda the whole point tho, sorry u dont like ;/

[GreenWood Defense]

Hmm.... I don't understand why you put in a horrible loading bar just to switch between level selection and upgrading.

That is very annoying.

re: dev

Nice that's much faster. Good improvement.

Wombart responds:

Thanks for the feedback.

I added this shortly before the publication date, so I haven't really tested my game after adding it.
Now that you mention it, I agree that it gets annoying after playing a few times.
I replaced it with a short black screen fade.

[My Father Sold My Soul for One Million Gold?!]

i got excited by short description and title, thinking this would be an actual simulation/management game.

was disappointed that it's just a visual novel which i do not like at all and do not regard as a game.

re dev: don't tell me how to live my life. i played enough to see that this was a waste of time. i don't owe you one second more.

Marckel responds:

Idk about you, but me and Reim didn't spend days playtesting and readjusting the game if we weren't making any management sim gameplay, as simple as it is.

Maybe actually try playing a game first before posting a non-helpful review?

[Realm Raiders: [DEMO] Ep. 1]

wow this felt very refined.

is there a steam page to wishlist or anything? otherwise i fear i'll never hear about this again.

Tyler responds:

Steam page is a good idea.

In the meantime, just follow me :)

[Nova: Cloudwalker's Tale]

great, beat it all. feel smart af

JCodina responds:

Thanks for playing! Congrats on your victory

[Slim Wall Reslimed]

it took multiple refreshes of the page before the game loaded up at all.

at which point i found it quite good so i added it to my list of preferred games, which whether you agree or not, is about the highest honor a game on NG can receive.

ShortCakeCafe responds:

im honored

[Seaside Fireflies]

initially 5 stars:

-1/3 star for down arrow scrolling the page down. this is an issue that can be solved.

-1/3 star for timer. i was enjoying myself and vibing and chilling and then suddenly a timer lets me know that the game is not about that at all

-1/3 star for the camera/graphics. i'm referring to having 2d sprites in a 3d world. i've never liked the feel of it. paper mario knows how to do it perfectly. but in this case it was just awkward af.

Bumped the rating up for the thoughtful and awesome developer response.

Piggybank12 responds:

Thanks for playing the game! Sorry to hear you didn't enjoy your time with it, though I appreciate your honesty. My answers aren't perfect, but I'll go through each point:

- I don't have thorough experience making browser games, but so far from my experience most browsers will lock the scroll wheel on the game if mouse input is detected on the game window (aka, you've clicked on the game). My other games usually do this by having a "Click to Start" button or having the player select options using the mouse, but time got away from me and no such thing was included. If the game sees an update in the future, this is something I can look into including, though ideally without needing to use the mouse.

- The game's concept originally did not include a timer and let you freely explore and collect all of the fireflies at your leisure, but the jam's sudden limitation of "everything dies in one hit" meant a clear interpretation of the limitation was required, else disqualification was a consequence. The timer was the inclusion of that limitation, crude and unforgiving as it may be. I feel some regret over the original friendly concept being lost as a result of this, though as most feedback for the game seemed to enjoy its presence, I think including it made for a more memorable choice in the end and turned the game into a bite-sized arcade-like experience. It's no silver bullet though, and it sucks to hear it had personally ruined your time with the game.

- This is a fair complaint as well haha, I personally went with this specific mix of 2D & 3D to help make it possible to achieve the three day deadline with my first crack at a 3D game. I only realized after completing the game how much of a presence this style has had recently, and if I had realized that earlier I may have thought twice about doing it. Making platforming with this style was a challenge as it features heavy use of collision and jumping that doesn't have much presence in the world, two things Paper Mario never had to contend with as it was very light with its platforming and put more focus on its RPG mechanics iirc.

[SpaceCraft]

I really like the concept. There are a few things that could use some improvement:

1. you should be disembarking from your ship when on a planet. would be way more immersive.

2. it's spelled oxygen

3. it took me quite awhile to figure out how to navigate and use the shop. i mean a long long time. it was completely nonobvious that you use the arrow keys to navigate it. i'm sure the majority of people who have rated this poorly had that issue and didn't bother mentioning it. that's kind of my guess but i'd say it's a pretty well educated guess.

4. the first planetoid you fly to has nothing on it... this isn't great design imo. put some stuff there.

that said, i really like the concept. please develop it more. and i'm giving you a 5 because the genre is right up my alley and i'd like to offset the 3 star rating which i believe is a little too low

AndrewHighfields responds:

First of all, thank you so much for such a detailed review!

1-That's something to think about, but I have many smaller things to resolve before doing such a complex task, I'll think about it after patch 1.05....
2-All I can do is accept that I've spelled it wrong, it will be fixed shortly
3-That's something I already thought about, but it's surely something to be fixed for the next patch! I'll be working on that
4-This algorithm generate random planets in random positions, in wich they have a chance to have minerals or bases, but adding a fixed "first planet" with minerals is definitely a great idea! I'll be adopting that for the next patch

[Return to Castle Penistein]

if ur going to not have a crosshair, the least you can do is have the enemies react visually when you shoot them. rofl.

also. having 'r' restart a level in an fps was pretty ridiculous. i get that some fps's magically don't require you to reload (doom/wolfenstein/etc.) but punishing a player for hitting r to reload by reloading the whole game? what..?

and why would you call credits 'options'?

SlickRamen responds:

game is unfinished!!!!! will be fixing a lot of this stuff soon when we have the time to work on it!!!!!!!!!!!!!