sharpnova's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Spell Guardian]

a. controls bad

b. why start us in a shop with stuff we can't afford and then never bring us back to it after we earn a bunch of currency?

IceDrumGames responds:

a. Seems like controls is the main problem.

b. need to play a little longer than the tutorial levels.

[Final Fharmacy - Arcade Demo]

You need to be able to have the recipe book open alongside the work area.

FutureCopLGF responds:

Fair point; I suppose it can be a bit frustrating to have to memorize the recipes at the start and it'd be nice to have the recipe stay on screen. I'll see what I can do because I don't necessarily want to make it too easy or crowded. Maybe I can have the last recipe you read stay on screen in a little bubble somewhere. Good food for thought!

[Smart Moves Alpha]

this would be a five if you didn't have to hit R to reset. how do you think people are playing? do you think they are sitting with both their hands on the home row like dutiful typing class students and moving their right hand to the arrow keys?

or do you think they have their right hand on the arrows while they lean into their desk to relax?

how could you not anticipate that this is the way most people would play?

so suddenly you have to activate your left hand rather than relax.

very stupid.

basic design philosophy: don't add keys to the arsenal unless required. guess what? could have reset level with "any key" or "up" for reset and "down" for checkpoint or something.

not hard to design properly.

grinrobot responds:

Thank you for your feedback!)) This is very important for us. You can try 66 levels of the full version of the game. New monsters, new adventures, a map and new smart moves are waiting for you! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1209520/Smart_Moves

[Killer Kim and the Blood Arena]

feels good and looks and sounds good.

i for the life of me can't understand why you didn't capture the mouse. do you understand what right mouse button does when clicked outside your applet?

heroyooky responds:

Thank you. I was so focused on other things I didn't even think about restricting the mouse, something to add in a future update.

[Bound Below]

the jump and attack keys are flipped from 99% of platformers

RainbowCemetery responds:

controls are remappable in options

[Forgotten Hill Disillusion: The Library]

how were we supposed to get 6543 for the drawer code?

FM-Studio responds:

Beware ** SPOILERS **
Hi there, that puzzle is actually quite easy: watch the drawer, there's a + on left and a - on the right. Simply count the polygons sides and arrange them accordingly ;)

[Arcandies]

honestly i wish it were longer.

i love that it didn't get too difficult.

i didn't love the controls. when you controlled with the mouse, the potions moved too sensitively and sometimes would over drag. quick fix with a restart? sure. but if the levels were longer, then that would be a serious issue. and using the keyboard wasn't great because you'd have to tab literally forever to get to the potion you wanted. # keys to select potions would probably have worked better. or just making it so when you dragged a potion to move it, it didn't commit to the movement until you released the mouse button. there are a lot of ways that could have been done better.

overall, still really fun and didn't overstay its welcome.

Diemorth responds:

Thanks for playing! I am trying to create longer games, in the future I want to bring some games with mechanics that allow more evolution. This will probably bring more gameplay without making the game absurdly difficult.
As the controls, I usually use the mouse, but I understand all your points, maybe for a better experience it would be interesting to use the mouse to select and the keys to move. I will definitely consider your suggestions for a possible future version!
Glad it was a positive experience, even with the inconvenient controls. Thank you for this feedback!

[Rum & Gun DEMO]

interesting and clearly a high effort, high quality project. but christ i hated the controls so much. and the mobility just felt... really bad.

Borington responds:

Hi! Could you iterate on that please? I tried to use a basic top-down shooter control setup. Was movement too slow? Did WASD or mouse aiming not work as intended?
Sorry for the inconvenience.

[ZS Dead Detective - Pumpkin Head]

way too dialog heavy. and i'm not a fan of the way you do loading screens.

i get needing to load things. i don't get punishing us by forcing us to click the screen at "loading complete" that kills the smoothness of transitions.

there's a lot to like here and the production value is high but unfortunately these two factors weighed heavily enough that i wasn't able to give it a very concerted effort.

Muja responds:

Hello there and thank you for your review! I'll answer to the two points you raised:
1) Unfortunately, yes, point and click games are very dialogue heavy; even more so when it's a mystery game in which you play as a detective, dialogue is essential and you need to read everything carefully in order to look for clues and make the correct deduction.
People who love this genre love to read lots of dialogues, too, but I understand it's not for everyone.
2) Html5 needs a user interaction to make the music play. It's silly, I know, but that's how it is. If I didn't make you click right after the loading, the scene would start without music and it would suddenly start as soon as you click somewhere... that would be just as bad in my opinion. But I agree I need to come up with something else, this is my first html5 game and I hope that with experience I'll be able to find a way to get around this problem.

Once again, thank you for your constructive review!