TharosTheDragon's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Josh Tam Mysteries G2 : E]

Oh wow, I am amazed that I was able to beat this without the walkthrough. It is extremely difficult, but beatable as I have found. It reminds me of Morningstar, which also involves decoding an ancient language. I had to use a walkthrough on Morningstar, but then I wished I had tried harder. So I was determined to figure this one out on my own.

I don't know why those specific items go on those specific slabs, but a sensible player will try placing the items on the slabs and then look around to see if anything has changed. The bottom of the cliff is an obvious place to look since it's a dead end. I realized there must be three items so I was able to figure out what the third item was because I had already found the other two in corresponding places. Once you figure out each slab is supposed to have a different item, you can find the right combination in a maximum of three tries. So RadCarrot is wrong because if you made the slab lower when you put the grass on it then the puzzle would be too easy. There are only three items so it becomes a simple matter of trying each of them and then if one of them instantly locks the slab into place you'd know too quickly, and by the third slab you'd only have one item left.

Then in the cave, there's only one place where you can do anything at first so naturally the player should use trial and error to find the right combination. Once he's tried all 8 of them and had nothing happen, he should then go through them all again but check the rest of the cave while each combination is in place. The door is an obvious place to check, although most players might assume that the door wouldn't open until all three other sections of the cave have been solved somehow. Also, once they get through the door they might assume that those other two places were just clues that were meant to help solve the door puzzle which they just solved by trial and error, so they may be reluctant to go back into the main room later. Luckily, I had a hunch the main room wasn't finished.

The next room in the cave was the part of the game that tempted me most to use the walkthrough. I could see there were 256 possible combinations for the red button and the blue button, which made me very reluctant to use trial and error this time. Thus I agonized over how to interpret the bizarre clues on the walls. Ten circles? But there are only two rows of eight transforming stones for a total of eight stones. I eventually realized that all ten circles must apply to only one row of four, since there are two sets of ten circles after all. It was pretty clear that the pattern on the left wall applied to the left row of stones and the pattern on the right applied to the row of stones on the right. The weird kanji-like symbols didn't make any sense to me so I thought it best to focus on the chains of circles. Why ten? And why were they linked together with either one line or four? Finally I realized that each wall had exactly three four-line links, which divided the circles into four groups. Those groups must correspond to the stones because there are four of each, I reasoned. And so the shapes of the stones must correspond to the numbers one through four. The only question that remained was which end of the circle chain was the left end and which end was the right end. Since there were only two choices for each chain, I was at a point where I could just use trial and error to figure out the rest.

After seeing nothing happen, it was a simple matter of remembering the red and blue lights in the other room and noticing that the two buttons next to the stones are red and blue as well. So I returned to look at the lights, retrieved the colored stones and proceeded to try using them everywhere.

Tricky game indeed.

josh-tamugaia responds:

Wow! A lengthy review! You really deserve a pat on the back for playing through without referring to the walkthrough and also using the cave wall patterns to help decode the stones.

In the first game (G1), the puzzles were easy and the main theme was to give players a horror atmosphere thus I received some complains saying the game was too easy. So in this game (G2), I decided to make a harder puzzle. I never realized that it was gonna become very hard to the point that those people who said "too easy" gave up on this one or complained that there were not enough clues. But I believe I left enough clues so that players can still solve the puzzle without help from the walkthrough, and you succeeded!

Thanks a lot for spending time playing and reviewing the game, and most of all, thank you for proving that the game is solvable even though hard!

[Qoosh]

I broke your game. I placed a blue block on the exit and a spiked block on top of that. I then traded places with the blue block so that I beat the level and died at the same time. It sent me back to the checkpoint where I was frozen, having to quit to the menu. When I chose to continue, I had to start the level over.

AethosGames responds:

Nice

[Fractured]

For those of you who are having difficulty with one of the bonus levels, it may help you to know that you can initiate a jump in midair.

GroZZleR responds:

That's not strictly necessary (you can walk right up to the very edge) but it definitely helps with that one level where you bump your head because of the platform above you. Thanks for sharing the tip.

[Fall Down X]

Should start slower and then speed up. If you fall on one side of the screen and the next hole is on the other side you don't have time to get to it.

Also, there should be high scores. Use the Newgrounds high score API or Mochi high scores or something.

uglyslug responds:

it does speed up, but i'll adjust it. thanks for the feedback!

[Clash of the Worlds]

Sorry killertitan135, this is not from the same makers as Kingdom Rush. That was by Ironhide Studios. Don't jump to conclusions.

Though at first I thought it was another Kingdom Rush clone because many design aspects bear a strong similarity to Kingdom Rush including the title screen, map screen, victory screen, and level layouts. As it turns out, this isn't even Tower Defense but rather an interesting take on lane-based strategy games which I think originated with Krin's Tainted Kingdom, the sequel to which I'm still waiting for.

This game can be very easy if you buy the right upgrades and very difficult if you buy the wrong ones. I first bought the cavalry and that turned out to be a mistake because it's the most expensive unit in the game and practically useless. I was thinking I could rush the lanes and get my unit through before enemies show up, but they show up too quickly so it doesn't work. So basically the cavalry is only useful for getting reinforcements to the front lines quickly, which is seldom needed if at all. Upgrading old units is better than buying new ones because then you get more powerful units for the same cheap price. But even better are the spells. Having spells regenerate while you fight is like having an extra source of income, and you can kill powerful units with them early on so you can gain the upper hand money-wise right away.

Starting with level 9 the space bar stopped working to switch lanes. Maybe you forgot to program in the order that the lines cycle through. Also, the last few levels all had the same enemies. Maybe put in a big boss enemy for the last level.

Looks like the lane change buttons can be blocked by units. Should make sure buttons are always on the top layer. Or at least set mouseEnabled and mouseChildren to false for every layer above the units. And it looks like there's some difficulty picking up coins as well. Maybe instead of using a ROLL_OVER event you should just check each coin to see if it's close to the mouse and then have the coins drift towards the mouse and get picked up. That way you could pick up coins that are behind other layers. Also, there should be a magnet upgrade to attract more coins from further away.

Wedi responds:

Thanks for your review.
Good idea about checking each coin to see if it's close to the mouse, instead of using ROLL_OVER event! (...shame I didnt think about it earlier xD)

[Evolvo]

Good game, but the medals aren't working for me and it doesn't save my progress.

poxpower responds:

Hmm that is weird. They worked fine up to now..

[Maximum Frustration 2]

Yay, I got 11th place in the all time high scores! 162 deaths.

It's not just a try'n'die platformer. There is some genuine thinking outside the box going on. Sometimes it looks like you've pursued every available option and then you have to figure out what you're missing.

Zapxo responds:

Congratulations in your 11th place.

[Hood Episode 4]

There's a glitch where the fade out transition restarts if you click the button again. So you can click an arrow or a person or the final line of dialogue over and over and it'll just keep fading and fading. I presume it's in your other games as well if you just reuse the same code.

I'm stuck at the sword garden. I have the wood and the locket. Have tried every item on everything including each other and people. Then I tried random click throughs of every room with every item. No dice. And yes, I've tried scanning the junk in every room to see if the hand changes. Haven't found anything. What room should I look in? What am I looking for? A musket ball? Those things are tiny.

For those stuck on the first puzzle, it's easier than you think. The path on the right literally tells you exactly what to do. For each horizontal line, put gaps where the path on the right would pass through them.

Hyptosis responds:

Maybe you need to make the musket ball? The locket is the only really hidden item in the game. Use the wood you find in the first room.

[JUR 2 Episode 2]

Why does nobody seem to understand what a puzzle platformer is? If this is a puzzle platformer, name a platformer that's not.

3kliksphilip responds:

I assumed that since this game consisted of short, challenging levels which had multiple paths through them, and that its focus was on the shortest time possible, that it had more strategy than most. What would you call it?

[Tiny Evolution Adventure]

Ever seen a spider eat a lizard?

AdventureIslands responds:

Nope, but what if that spider was damn huge?