TharosTheDragon's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Udom Nebdon]

My first few plays, I didn't realize I could use the mirror. After closing the eye that's hard to get to and discovering that it didn't open the door, I thought I was gonna have to quit having done all that work for nothing. But I finally discovered that there was another eye.

People are giving you a lot of grief about the controls, but I think you did the best you could. Allowing both WASD and arrow keys makes it better than a lot of games right off the bat. Maybe one of the options (e.g. WASD) could work like the tank controls and other could be fixed directions.

The camera angles change at the right times to give you plenty of warning about what's around you. The enemy AI has some good pathfinding. It's clear that you went through a lot of effort to make this as good and convenient as possible. I got a bit of a Diablo vibe with the dark temple and everything.

The most legitimate complaint is the speed, though. You should definitely move faster. You say this is a very short game, but the character speed pads the length a great deal.

I look forward to more of your work.

[Void Vikings]

Very nice game. Wouldn't be surprised if this wins game of the month.

I think the text is too small sometimes, especially in the ship upgrade menu. Also, you have RMB functionality but the right click context menu still shows up.

uglybeardgames responds:

While playing hit ENTER to go fullscreen to work around the right click context menu. It also gives a much better experience ;)

Edit: Newgrounds has wonderfully fixed the RMB issue so the context menu shouldn't show up anymore.

[Conflict Resolution]

So I clicked to place a foundation and it wouldn't let me place it anywhere, regardless of whether or not it said "can't build here." Then when I died I was still dragging the foundation around even in the game over screen. At least I could press escape to be able to click buttons again.

[Earth Force Defenders]

Agreed that this needs hotkeys. Also an option to select all hangars at once. With 5 hangars, right now you need to click 10 times to move all your units.

It got annoying when my fighters just circle around an enemy without being able to attack it. I know the AI is probably super complicated already, but I'm sure there would be a way to fix that. A fighter should know if it needs to fly away from an enemy a little bit in order to circle back and attack it.

Also, too much grinding for money is needed. Games requiring grinding is bad game design.

And it's unclear how much money you make and why. Do you only get money from kills? Do you not get any bonus for beating the level? Do stars give you money?

Two-Thumbs responds:

Hey Tharos, the option to select all hangars is planned to be added in a future update. The circling around enemies usually happens way less in the levels where you have more hangars, though we are still trying to come to some sort of solution.

The bit about grinding is very different for each player. Some players (myself included) can beat the game without ever having to grind, some die a few times, others more. Balancing in games like these is very tricky and took many many hours to finish. We are happy with how it turned out and we don't think we will change it. Games are easy enough as it is nowadays. The ships you destroy show a number, that number is the amount of money you will get, you also get a bit of a bonus for completing the levels. I hope this clarifies some stuff for you. Thanks for playing and your feedback, we really appreciate it :)

[Phase Shift]

Nice game. And thinks for being generous with those 1-ups. I look forward to more from you.

[Doomsday]

Should advance dialogue with any key instead of just V. Also, you need to be able to skip the scrolling. And pressing V a lot to get the dialogue to go as fast as possible often results in glitches. There will be empty dialogue boxes and menus. And sometimes it's really difficult to change your selection in a menu.

faroreforelorn responds:

I knew about most of these glitches, but unfortunately I couldn't figure them out before the deadline. But, I have no idea why I didn't think of switching the advance dialogue button to something other than V. D'oh! Thanks for the feedback :)

[Princess Protector]

Just annoyingly difficult. Nobody likes escort missions to begin with. But the princess needs to be way too close to you to follow you. I managed to make it to the boss but I have to give up now. It's hard even to tell if you're dealing him damage. And when I manage to lay a hit on him, I've always taken multiple hits just to do that. I'd have to grind way too much for max health upgrades and games shouldn't make you grind.

Good potential, but a lot of poor design. Too many jumps are way too exact if you want to avoid damage. some of those walls with spikes on top are like piranha plants that never go back in the pipe.

Also, there was a fatal glitch in the outdoor room with two buttons, the one that leads into the final castle. The middle button just glitches you out and kills you, and then you have to go way back to your last save point.

xcmn responds:

Thanks for the feedback! Very much appreciated.

--A lot of the annoyance could be mitigated had I implemented auto-save on every screen, as Tom suggested. But I couldn't get that to work.

--Thanks for catching that glitch, TharosTheDragon!

--Nice job getting to the boss! You're right. It's less than obvious when you hit him. He plays a noise and tints green, but I should have made him flash white and a play a louder noise.

To kill him, you must only attack when he stand on the left or right side of the screen. Jump over the third fireball and tag him. It takes 9 hits! After 5 hits he becomes stronger so watch it!

It bothers me that he can only be safely attacked in 1 out of 3 of his patterns. But this was my first boss design, ever. I think it's good enough. You just have to watch his patterns and only attack him when he's on the ground.

Thanks again for the feedback! It really helps to hear this stuff.

[Sketcher]

It freezes when you beat a level or try to view scores, probably because it's trying to connect to something that's been removed.

[Eye-Ball Shaun: Re-Envisioned]

Were you inspired by Oddworld at all? It kind of feels like a mix between Oddworld and Meatboy.

Fiercetempest92 responds:

Both Oddworld and Meatboy were major inspirations for this game in both design and gameplay.

[Ice cream from space]

Way too much tedious block pushing. It wouldn't be so bad if you could push blocks at the same speed you move.

In the final dungeon, I literally had to leave the room and come back after each dropped wall, because blocks became inaccessible. Gameplay this frustratingly tedious is just poor design.

Also, why can't I go back and get all the hearts after the ending?

Miroko responds:

You can pass the last dungeon without getting stuck you just need to think on the spot.
You can push blocks faster with the rolling ability.
As for the hearts that's why there is a medal for collecting all hearts. It would've been too easy your way.
Thank you for playing.