TharosTheDragon's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Razor Wizard]

Major bug: if you play normal mode after cruel mode, normal mode has permadeath. I was really confused because I tried hard mode first, and I thought maybe you had your own definitions of words like "permadeath" and "respawn."

Other bugs: one time I was fighting the hero in normal mode and his health bar didn't appear. Also, it looks like the cruel heart doesn't count as picking up an item in terms of the description showing up and the ending screen showing how many items you got.

I'm curious to know the likelihood of the cruel heart appearing. Some runs I don't get it at all, but one time I saw it spawned by three bosses in a row.

It would be cool if keeping the flower until the end had some effect on the ending.

I can see that a lot of people are unhappy with the core mechanic, but real gamers like me aren't going to complain about a special challenge like this. As your author comment implies, the idea is to give you a potential reason to shoot less often. You have to decide how many blades you want on the screen at once, and that's a fine game idea. It would feel more fair if your enemies could also harm themselves, but I guess maybe the unfairness goes with the premise of playing as the villain. It's meant to reverse game tropes and expectations.

[Fossil Rumblers Time-Stop Over DEMO]

Are there any hotkeys? This seems pretty fast paced to have to use the mouse for everything.

Why do my trilobites sometimes start with 30 HP and sometimes with 35? Does it have to do with where I put them or is it random?

The dynamite seems pretty expensive for just a one-time explosion. And I was never able to save up enough money to buy the wrench so I don't even know what that does. I guess maybe it repairs the time machine.

This is a pretty atypical tower defense in the sense that your towers can only engage in melee combat where they can be killed, but they also stop enemies while doing it. They're a bit like the reinforcements in Kingdom Rush except that you have to pay for them.

I wish I could view stats for towers and enemies. I just have to assume that the more expensive towers are better, but I don't really know if it's just their HP or if they also have damage upgrades or even special abilities. It's hard to work out what my strategy should be, or if there even is strategy to this

VoiDdraig responds:

Thanks so much for the feed!

By the moments no hotkeys but they can be a must, the game is indeed frenetic and goes scaling so it's more than understandable (We are working on major updates, so some things are being polished and fixed to make it better, including now 7 levels instead of 4 and the boss and even speed up)

The unit stats are randomized but they got an HP standar depending on creature (30/35) (20/25) etc

about dynamite we still are making tests to see how it works on all levels, actually (they're not much useful on first stages so it may be unlocked later on update, same for repairing tool) but all these features are explained on the tutorial from level 1-1

the towers stats are shown actually, it's explained on the tutorial but click on them to see them, but for sure enemies should have visible stats (working on that part tho!)

About strategy, i let that part on players (improvisation) even when units got some traits as more hp, faster attack, less damage, etc, you can see their stats to understand it. But is simplier than it looks, for sample you can put units far from the entrance so each new one you put closer will be full HP and the other will remain alive as an extra secure or can be healed later, constant healing units when are just close to death so they fully recover, use strategic spots as the ranged units can be on safe zones, etc it always depend on how you want to go (but surely the higher price got better stats and skills on general but always can work as complement for another)

WE NEED TO PUT AN ADVISE ON LEVEL 3 BECAUSE YOU UNLOCK A RANGED UNIT THERE! (on level 1-3 you unlock anomalocaris, try it if u get chance (they really makes a difference there)

[Trash Force Demo]

When I buy an upgrade that supposedly has me start with 5 extra credits, I expect that to mean $5.00 but it seems like game means $0.05 or something

BluePinGames responds:

Definitely something we need to look into! Thanks

[Wanted!]

A good game for NG's 30th anniversary, even though it includes a lot of non-Newgrounds characters

[Zui's Witch Academy]

It seems the only things that gets saved are the difficulties you've unlocked and the fact that you've viewed the tutorial. I wish it saved your progress in a run because it takes about half an hour to get through all the bosses. Still 5 stars, though

When you're going down a hall and you hear the door close behind you and you go back to check on it, you can keep triggering the door slamming sound effect indefinitely. I assume that's a bug

[Fantastic Contraption]

Servers still seem to be working for me. http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=12703549

Sarah Northway does have a Newgrounds account but guess she only made it after Sparkworkz became inactive

[CA-6 EX (Picture Poker)]

I lost because I thought a straight would count.

I wish betting high amounts was easier. There should be an all-in button, and pressing a button that would make your bet higher than max should just clamp it to the max. Maybe the bet buttons could also increase their amounts as you rank up.

I see that you're monitoring the issue about the user session expiring. I certainly didn't leave the page for an hour, but I may have been playing for about an hour. I'd occasionally scroll down to read comments or check other tabs, but I was never gone for long. And yet Return On Investment, Constellated, and the secret medal all remain locked for me :(

Also there's a bug where Constellated keeps getting unlocked every hand. I don't know if it's related to the user session expiring or not.

EDIT: There is an option to fix the medal problem that you might not have considered, but you probably won't like it since you haven't implemented a save system yet. Some games will save their own redundant medal state so when the game is loaded up again it immediately retries unlocking all the medals that it knows should be unlocked for the user

GlitchyPSI responds:

About Straights: Yeah, the prize table is based on Luigi's Picture Poker, there being only 6 possible cards would make straights super easy to do so they're not in lol

About the buttons: Thanks for the feedback! I will see to add an all-in button since I did not initially add it because I ran out of space. I'd like to keep the bet buttons as they are though

About the session expiring... I've tried about everything I can without having to ask the user to re-login :( I can't even reliably check when a re-login is needed, it just doesn't tell me properly. I might just hardcode a timer so they log in with NG Passport again in the meantime this bug gets fixed...
EDIT: I'm probably gonna have to implement a save system just for this. I had not intended to have one at all, but this bug is going to make it a necessity :/

About achievements getting unlocked every hand: yeah, it's related to the session... it only shows the achievement if NG says that you got the medal, but if the session is expired it'll be like if NG said you didn't get it every time it tries.

Thanks for the feedback! If you have a screenshot of your stats to confirm ROI and others please PM me.

[Level 9 Access]

I killed the boss and died at the same time. The restart screen was active throughout the ending sequence, but it looks like the victory still counted

BlueEagle421 responds:

Thanks for letting me know. Will fix ;)

[Painter Blazer]

In the construction zone, I fell through the clouds and had no way to reset my character. I had to return to the hub, where I discovered that I lost all of my progress including the key to my house.

EDIT: Fixed. What's the deal with Blaster being a controllable player 2 in the sewer?

aapiarts responds:

Edit: this has been fixed now!

That has been reported multiple times now so I'll look in to it and fix it soon. Didn't come up when playtesting the game.

[RoboNips]

No pause?