sharpnova's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Outpost:Swarm]

a bit laggy. graphics are low resolution. and i didn't like how i couldn't set it to full screen again if i hit escape and ended full screen mode. if i could, there were no instructions or menus to show me how.

Squize responds:

Yep, you can only turn full screen back on via the title screen, as we figured players would either want full screen, or not, rather than change mid game ( I understand that real life gets in the way and you may need to swap between the two views when playing, but the whole full screen stuff wasn't in the original, and we could only devote a certain amount of time to this newgrounds exclusive ).
As to the graphics, they're not low resolution, Flash scales things up in full screen, the bigger your display the more it has to scale, there's no way around that really.

Thanks for taking the time to play it.

[Legend of Pandora]

-when creating a new game and not having ever played before, there's literally no reason for you to have the three save slots pop up and have us pick one. just unnecessary interface clutter.

-when having people enter their name and nothing else, you should have the focus be in the name entering box upon the loading of the page. doesn't make sense for us to have to click into it.

-when having the user enter their name, they should be able to hit enter to submit. you shouldn't force them to move their hand back and forth between the keyboard and mouse that many times. it gives a very unpolished first impression.

-i noticed at the very start that when swinging to the side, the graphic showed up as a pickaxe for part of the swing, despite the fact that i was wielding a sword.

-the default controls are possibly the worst you could have picked. people have to hold their arms at a very awkward angle. basically the left hand is ok but the right hand has to shift over far further to the left than is natural. this is typically the reason why flash games of this type use the arrow keys for movement and a/s or z/x for interaction/attacking. you could have kept the general flavor of your control scheme intact though by having movement be done with WASD and interaction be done with left/right or up/down or some combination of those. it would be odd but it would be far better than what you chose. i think a lot of time authors try to impose their notion of what the "right" controls should be based more on nostalgia for the old NES days than anything else. if you were objectively trying to create a fun gaming experience on the flash platform, you would have gone with a scheme like this: arrows for movement, 'a' for attack, and 's' for interaction. this is the scheme i quickly adopted, but i shouldn't have had to. you could have gone for something experimental but usable enough that people would give it a shot. instead you went with a brand of nostalgia-inspired elitism that simply annoyed me and i imagine, many other people.

-being unable to respec your skills and stats is reminiscent of outdated game mechanics. an age of game design where the player was given less flexibility and room for experimentation because the developer wasn't really thinking ahead.

-i liked the '1', '2', '3', etc. aspect of the interface. it was short and sweet for a flash game. but i didn't like that you couldn't interact with straight forward things (like the quest log) via your keyboard. i personally consider the whole "constantly shift your right hand between the keyboard the mouse simply because i'm under the impression as a game designer that you simply can't do without your right hand being used for both" to be one of the cardinal sins of flash game design. there's really no reason i shouldn't have been able to cycle through the quests with the arrow keys and select with the action key to read.

-similarly, forced mouse interaction for the inventory and items was cumbersome to the experience.

-lack of keyboard interaction for such simple things as saving and warping was also annoying to me.

i'm going to wrap this up for now. i think i've given you enough feedback to polish this thing to a shine. notice the rating i'm giving. i still think this is awesome. now i'm going to play it. if you need more feedback for the rest of the game past the first save point, you know where to reach me.

matakukos responds:

Thank you, your feedback is really valuable for me! I want to make this game perfect =)
Fell free to send me any feedbacks so I can improve the next part of this game.

[Madness Accelerated]

give me a break. this is really terrible.

FetusMilkshakes responds:

Thanks for the review, it clearly states why you dislike it and how we can fix it.

[The Most Wanted Bandito]

lol. wagon came up. i shot it 3 times real fast so it died. it dropped coins but i didn't get to pick them up cuz the wagon was dead so i'd beaten the level.

lol!

how did that stupid bug slip through? something that obvious? rofl!!!!!!

royalin responds:

IF you only knew how many bugs we encounter on each game, thanks for the heads up but why you scored it so low... :(

[The Drawing Grounds]

great implementation of the concept and great use of the api.

problem: why aren't games in which its your turn listed first? it's annoying having to traverse all the pages to see if you have anything pending. seems like an obvious design flaw.

Mattster responds:

This will be out in the next update! :)

[Escape from the VBP]

this could be so much better.

the limited ammo crap was annoying.. and poorly explained. yes you said "gun is useless without it" but that wasn't exactly clear. why not just call it ammo or "maximum ammo" or something? or better yet why not remove that stupidly annoying mechanic and replace it with a nice solid set of upgrades of the weapon instead.

also.. no indicator of how much health or ammo you have was quite a ridiculous oversight on your part.

why not more enemies? why not a real incentive to buy the weapons?

in short.. why not make a good game instead of a bad one that had the merest semblance of promise?

and having to click use on the weapon after you buy it... that would make more sense if the interface was cleaner.. instead of a mess where you have to click these icons to have a clue what they are.

all in all... i was going to give this 3 stars but writing this review made me realize it was more like a 1.5.

if you wish to respond to my feedback, message me privately. i can't reply to your response here.

meinlogin responds:

There are ammo and health indicators at the bottom of the screen, I will make some different instructions to better explain this. In short, I wanted to make this game more like avoider, and not like shooter, so that's why there is limited ammo. Anyway, thanks for the fair opinion!

[Evolving Threat]

what a terribly idiotic game.

first 10 levels i took no damage because i don't suck at games. and you give health packs almost every level there.

next 10 i start taking damage and you offer no health packs

wow. smart progression.

so smart it earned you half a star. you should join mensa or something.

JokerDenFromMR responds:

Your review looks like excuses of loser but I don't give a fuck.

[Vermillion]

i got to the end of the first map.. i think? i hit s.. it took me back to the map so i selected the same level (because it was the only selectable one) and it wanted me to play it over.. so naturally i stopped playing.

also having a quality control where you aren't told what you are setting the quality too is absurd. i want it on the highest quality because that results in the most enjoyable overall experience. but i need to cycle through them a million times to figure out which is which? one of the cardinal sins in flash gaming imo.

also it was mindless gaming at its worst.

rhys510 responds:

0_0 waw .... you make no sence, sorry XD

[I'd Change/World for You]

so you intentionally crippled the NG version of your game to force people to your website?

why the hell would banner ads cause your game to lag this bad?

Zanzlanz responds:

Of course not, and I'm not sure but people with ad-block seem to run it better on NG.

[Deponia]

can't believe no one has mentioned the main gamebreaking bug

on the bottom floor of toni's house, there is no door to exit.

you simply can't progress that far into the game.

Daedalic responds:

The door at the bottom isn't needed for completing the demo.