sharpnova's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Bleek]

satisfying/fun but i don't like how enemies can spawn right on top of you.

FodderLabs responds:

Thanks for playing the game!

Oh, was it the Sorcerer or the Demon Mask that was spawning on top of you? Or both?

I'll take a look into the code and see if I can tweak it slightly.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Sofia the Witch Curse of the Monster Moon - Demo]

was there a LD themed "bad controls" or something? every game on the front page has terrible awkward annoying controls right now.

this game has an aesthetic that tells me i should love it. and then 'z' and 'x' are never what you think they are in terms of interacting with the game. it's ALWAYS a matter of hitting one of them. regretting it (maybe having to sit through a bunch of dialog yet again with some npc i've already talked to) and then trying the other key.

once i got used to that and the annoying 's' to switch modes which up until then had confused the hell out of me because i thought i had an offensive spell, not just a bubble generator, then i was able to enjoy the game.

do not make the jump button also the button to get spammed with annoying dialog.

jakemacher responds:

I apologize for the keyboard controls. They are the built in settings for the game engine I'm using. It really is designed to be used on actual hardware, that's why there are only 2 buttons to work with. I can look at maybe adding a skip dialog option.

There are 2 spells that you acquire in the first level. Hitting down instantly swaps between the 2, with the main character changing colour as well to give you a nice visual of what spell is active.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Fall from Space]

why would enter satisfy "press start" but not selecting a menu option?

JoelJGames responds:

That's a good point! I think it's mainly due to the game engine I've built this in, the menu is made with dialogue boxes and dialogue boxes have set controls, one of the A/B buttons to cancel, one to progress to the next dialogue options. So I'm not sure if/how I can change that, I'll have a look into it though and see if there's a way

[Ruby & Rusty Save the Crows]

this makes ori and the will of the wisps look like back door metroid 5

maxoakland responds:

I don't know what that means

[Rewound]

music not working. level 10 impossible. tried several approaches and have extremely high platforming skill. there is no method that works.

HelperWesley responds:

We never added any music to the levels, it's just sound effects and the musical jingle at the end of each level.

The trick to lvl 10 is to try and stay to the right as you fall and place the checkpoint as close to the stairs as possible, then to start jumping as soon as you spawn at the checkpoint. If you fall down to the bottom floor you can't get out of it.

Hope that helps beat it. 👍

[Quantron's Game]

i hit the key to control the ai partner and it just made an exclamation mark come out of my head and i wasn't able to use the player 2 controls, despite the author description claiming that's how it worked.

what a huge oversight. practically half of the game doesn't work and you released this game?

ImmanentDeath responds:

I just want to clarify for anyone else who might be confused. In singleplayer, you don't control the other player character, Sleeper. They have an AI, so they'll act on their own.

When you press S, you're telling them to stop following you and stay put. As of v1.0.2, it's the reverse if you're dead and Sleeper isn't, and Sleeper will wait unless you tell them to move forward (I found it's easier that way, to communicate to them or to respawn yourself).

Sleeper won't always listen. And they're going to do something dumb quite a lot. I list that in the known bugs because there's some things I wish they wouldn't do. Sleeper is supposed to feel like another player who's bad at the game, and you're having to cooperate with them. They're my stand-in for a real player 2.

I hope I'm not coming off as pretentious, I'm just trying to explain my intentions with the game design.

[Rogueblast]

i don't really like how unclear it is what a new weapon does compared to your old. i picked up a ring and my mage went from being an unstoppable bullet hell murder machine to garbage.

all because i thought a ring would be an accessory or something and not just replace my weapon with trash.

thanks for ruining a fun empowering run.

ErikSwahn responds:

Ah sorry to hear. The ring is supposed to be a trinket though so perhaps you picked up the dagger which has poison damage, or perhaps two items were on top of each other which should not happen.

[Acro-bot]

Controls are genuinely bad. Mar what could otherwise (and would likely otherwise) be a great experience.

edit: updated my review to be less vitriolic

re: dev: I'm sorry, it's not my job to design your game. Others agree the controls are bad. They are objectively bad.

I?

P?

And btw, many of the tutorials lead to combinations that don't even work. It says forward + P is a dive and forward + space is a vault? Neither of those do anything.Space is just a regular jump.

I have to stop myself with this response because it's so infuriating that I'm about to get nasty with you again.

Just fix the controls.. and make it so the tutorial signs actually suggest button combinations that do what they say. (or do anything at all)

Sikowny responds:

There are only 3 buttons to press aside from moving and jumping. Is it really that hard? DM me and suggest what the "real" controls should be.

Edit: About the tutorials. The ones you describe clearly show a hint at what state the player should be in to execute the move. Ex) Dive requires you to be airborne. Which the graphic intends to describe. Vault requires you to be sliding after a dive, which is also displayed by the tutorial. Part of the design philosophy was "less reading, more showing" wherever possible. To see where I got the idea for the Dive and the Vault, look to Super Mario 64.

About the buttons -- people like WASD for movement. If those are the movement keys, what would you suggest the action keys to be? Whats the fix you're looking for? DM me about it. Consensus on the controls ranges from bad to good. I hope you play again when the update to customize the controls comes out. Controller support will also be added.

[Super Gravoor]

panning back to the starting point just to reload the entire level anyway is really annoying.

re dev: thanks that improved it a lot!

Chris responds:

Completely fair point. Thats a hang over from an earlier version of the game where the levels were connected and it had a bit more of an open world design. I should go back and take that panning back out. Thanks for the feedback.

Edit: I've taken out the panning and reduced the time it would have taken for the panning to start. Hopefully that should speed things up a bit.

[Blast Magus]

i just don't get how you go from a masterpiece like everloom... to this.

re: how? it was fantastic. beautiful pixel art, good animation/atmosphere/music and didn't overstay its welcome.

Kajenx responds:

Lol, a lot of people hated The Everloom. XD