TharosTheDragon's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[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 :)

[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.

[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.

[Crossroads]

Text adventures need a better interface. Should recognize "ax" as well as "axe," for example. And there should be a lot more shortcuts, like "exa" in place of "examine." You should be able to type "n" instead of "go n."

kcnh responds:

Thanks for your review, the game indeed lacks a lot of flexibility in the commands!

[Max Fury [Death Racer]]

On level 12, I went backwards after one of the cliffs and then went off the map and fell forever. http://oi62.tinypic.com/4k6xzs.jpg

FlashRushGames responds:

Thanks!!!

[Ice Story ( 氷物語 )]

If there's no way to jump down through platforms, levels should be designed so that you never have to. On the very first level, once you're above the bottom layer, you can never go back to get the books. And the first time I played it glitched so that I started out on the top layer.

Obviously there are too many buttons, as people have been saying. This could actually be done with just directional keys and one other key.

What's the number next to your lives? It's always 0. If it's supposed to keep score or time, it doesn't work.

castpixel responds:

So. How would you do it with just one key? How would you dash? How would you throw? And how would you make sure that you can dash and throw while you're already carrying a dino? I'm really interested in your feedback!

Secondly: it's a puzzle platformer. The first level was intentionally there to show you that you have to be careful before you jump. You see it on bubble bobble all the time. It's punishing, but it's fair, nobody made you jump, there was no immediate danger.
The number next to your lives would have been score if I didn't have a 3-day limitation

[Word Play 2]

Oksy, run your puns by a native English speaker first because a lot of them don't make any sense.

Also, write code that can parse multiple versions of the correct answer. There's no excuse for being case-sensitive. An example of how you could check to see if the player has the right answer regardless of case would be
if (textField.text.toUpperCase() == "CEREAL KILLER")

And make sure you allow for different wording. There's no way to guess that the correct wording is "The eye of the hurricane." So you need to also accept it as correct if they leave out the "the" and just put "eye of the hurricane." And definitely allow for "eye of the storm" or "eye of the tornado."

Munguia responds:

Tell me dragon, which pun did you not understand? you think there´s no excuse for being case-sensitive? i don´t made the uppercase rules, Capitalization is part of Punctuation Rules ask your school teacher.