TharosTheDragon's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[JemKat]

What's the goal? Is there a way to lose? What's with the snakes? What's with the ships that fly at each other and explode? Why would I want to upgrade the ships?

MakeGamesHappen responds:

Goal: Just to gain points.
Lose: Nope. The snakes can steal your gems, but that is it.
Snakes: They steal your points if they touch the sparkles. Think maybe I should
have made them go directly after them.

Ships:
You get points for the ships you destroy. So upgrading how fast they spawn upgrades how quickly you can make money.

Hopefully that answers it all. Though by me having to answer these questions tells me the game design is severely lacking. Which I take full responsibility for.

-John Mark

[Playing With Letters]

N. U. D. E? Nude? I spelled nude?

B. O. Y. Nude boy? Really?

Nude boy, hi? Well this is weird.

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Hahha, noooo XD Don't spell out spoilers with such big letters :p
But don't worry about it.
Weird it what I'm here for, baby ;)

Thanks for fanning up!!

[Medusa - Wrath of the queen]

It shouldn't be so easy to skip the tutorial animation.

It is beyond annoying for the game to pause everything just to warn you that you're almost out of time.

Also, what's the point of lives if you keep all your points when you run out of lives and use a continue?

Kamizoto responds:

Thank you for your comment.
I will think about you observations (they make sense) and see if I can improve that.

The game was made for a jam with 'Coin Op' as theme.
So I tried to give the coin-op feeling with the "continue" scene. (you have only 1 continue in this game)
And in an arcade machine, when you use a continue, you keep your score. That's all. :)

[Samurai Run 2]

I've had to restart the level too many times. Why does it tell you how many coins you got if you can't spend them and they just reset? Those rolling rocks are too hard to jump over.

adytt responds:

Once you collect 100 coins you get a new life.

[Tim_]

Giving up isn't actually forever. You just lose your progress. I thought it was gonna be like You Only Live Once by Raitendo.

KilianoLopes responds:

xD yeah! I know this game, i realy like "you only live once" its realy funny. :P
Sorry for that. I wrote" forever" for teatch the player "dude its not like a respawn, its game over ok?". Something like that.

Do u Get it?

[Nichi Nichi]

Why are you not crediting the obvious Sushi Cat inspiration?

jupitron responds:

I wasnt inspired in that game in particular, didnt know that existed BUT i was inspired on a recent game that was published here that i cant recall the name, ill look out for it, if i find it of course ill write some words. Thanks for reminding me this.

[Sideomorph]

Pretty glitchy. The restart button wouldn't work on the first tutorial level.

The game assumes you know a lot of stuff that you don't. No tutorial explained the mechanic where you can fall through the floor if you jump through the ceiling first, so I felt kind of cheated when I had to use the walkthrough and it showed me an ability I didn't know I had.

Also, the first boss. The game freezes you when the boss shows up and then doesn't tell you that you can move again. So I sort of figured it was just a death cinematic and that I wasn't supposed to get close to the amulet fragment. And once you figure out that you're supposed to start running, you have no idea that you're supposed to jump on the worm's back. When I got to the first alcove, I pushed it sideways and then hid in it while the worm passed upwards. I was now stuck of course. But as the worm looped around, I found that I could hitch a ride on him by sort of glitching into him. I stood on his tail segment as he carried me up to the top of the screen, but I couldn't get further than that.

Games that use the mouse like this should have one-handed keyboard controls.

But what really kills this game is the lack of an undo option. You get stuck way too often when you're close to beating a level. You should be able to restore back to where you were when you entered a side of the cube, or undo the last rotation.

I love the idea and I love the puzzles. But this could've been executed better.

Wackiedk responds:

Hey, thanks for your feedback - you got some pretty good observations that definitely could improve the game. I also like the idea of an undo button, but I never got around to make that - instead I tried to make the levels more forgiving so you wouldn't be stuck that often.

[Cactus Chyps]

Finally got used to all the controls and managed to beat the first level. Then I wandered into the "delete save" portal, not knowing what it would do.

Mouse controls kill this game. I think you've got a pretty good start, though, and I do love 3D physics (even in Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts). The trick I used on that first level was to start the blueprint off at my destination using the scrolling, and then build towards myself. Obviously it's good that your green block cursor is always connected to the existing blueprint, but how come it can go diagonally from the blueprint when you can't place blocks there? And the game only responds to shift and ctrl on the left side of the keyboard.

You should be able to move the green cursor block with the keyboard. 6 keys for six directions.

I found myself wishing there was some way to return to the hub from within a level.

I think it's worth continuing, but definitely make sure you add sound!

Jamesgudge responds:

Hey! Thanks for the response :) I've had a few realizations about the controls since uploading, and I'm painfully aware that the controls are complicated, that said, thanks for taking the time to play and enjoy it!

[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.

[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 :)