TharosTheDragon's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Train Journey]

Hey good job on the game. I can see this winning best of the month even though I haven't tried the other nominees yet.

I did find some bugs, the most serious of which is the numbering of the diary pages. I'm guessing there was some problem where the page number increments and the pages remaining decrements more than they should, but the page numbers seemed to get too high and the pages remaining went pretty far into the negatives. Also, I wasn't able to proceed past the end of the sand cave even after I found the last diary page and the game acknowledged that I found all of them (even though the pages remaining never said exactly zero). I don't know if the page number bug prevented me from proceeding or if I just couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do. The other bugs I found were mostly just things going through walls.

Apart from bugs, I think the pacing could be improved a bit. I'd like to be able to move faster, destroy enemies and objects in fewer hits, have more checkpoints so death is less punishing, be able to pogo on my first jump, and be able to rocket on subsequent jumps without having to stop jumping first.

Since you seem pretty serious about fixing bugs, I think you'll be interested in checking out my full stream of the game here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1835123390

(Note that you should watch the stream soon because it will be auto-deleted in a week)

Meivuu responds:

Wow thank you for the review!! I'll definitely check out that stream video. Thanks for the bug reports, I'll try to sort that out. I seriously thought I fixed that bug before, but I guess it stuck around. The page number is actually what order the page goes in (since you can collect them out of order) but the pages remaining is definitely messed up. Thanks for playing!!

[Genokids DEMO]

Very impressive! I can't think of any other browser games with this level of 3D platforming and brawling.

The first problem I encountered was with the Ctrl key. Some of the Ctrl+ combos had weird effects in Chrome, and I even ended up accidentally closing the game a few times, so I ended up switching Ctrl with Shift. I was very happy to see that the game saved my progress though. Maybe consider tweaking the default controls a bit.

Also, why does the male character have to be such an abusive asshole? Maybe rewrite it a bit so he doesn't laugh at the female character for wanting to go on a ride and then call the name she came up with dumb.

NukefistStudio responds:

Ctrl-w is indeed "close tab". That's was an oopsy with the controls, they were intended for the Steam release and we didn't took into account that shortcut in the browser :(
The default controls have been changed, ctrl is now Caps lock.

Red isn't abusive. Blue and Red are friends, that's why they can banter. It's the first time we see their exchanges being interpreted that way, seeing them interact in the future will probably let you see that they were indeed bantering.

[Tidying Up]

Found some bugs. (I'll comment here instead of messaging Intrapath)

1. When I first opened the game, I went to the level editor and tried to change the music. I clicked the right arrow and the song title still said welcome, and then I clicked the left arrow and the song title said "UNDEFINED". I've been unable to reproduce this, so it may have something to do with changes in persistent state that now prevent the bug from occurring.
2. Any time you enter the level editor, the song title says welcome and then still says welcome after clicking the right arrow even though the music changes.
3. Clearing save data does not reset the unlocked songs so all songs remain unlocked.
4. When you start a level, it doesn't say which character is active until you press the switch button. It just says "ACTIVE: -"
5. In one of the levels the text box didn't even say "ACTIVE" at all and just remained completely blank for the whole level. Sorry, I don't know how to reproduce this.
6. The level title text changes the mouse cursor to a text input cursor. I suspect this is because the level title can be edited in the level editor.
7. The text input fields in the level editor can't have text selected with the mouse. You can select text with the shift and arrow keys, but the mouse can only be used to change the position of the text input cursor.
8. When you click on a tile type to change your active tile in the level editor, and then click on the main menu button and then click yes, that active tile remains visible over the main menu.
9. The music controls (play/pause and the left button) are clickable when they're invisible in the dialogue cutscenes.

It looks like you're using Flash and ActionScript. Several of these bugs have to do with layers and mouse events, so I can tell you a few ways you can approach fixing them. If you want to cover up your buttons with a huge rectangle to make them invisible, you have to make sure the rectangle is mouse-enabled so it can't be clicked through. If you want to make sure an object can't be clicked on by using the mouseEnabled property, remember that there's a mouseChildren property as well. But I think the best solution is to remove unfocused game screens from the stage entirely by using removeChild.

Apart from bugs, I do recommend including a level select screen that shows which levels have been one-hundred-percented for those players who want to get the medal :)

EDIT: Also there are typos in the dialogue. It says ect ect instead of etc., and some of Capy's lines have a space at the beginning.

Bleak-Creep responds:

I’m sure Intrapath will appreciate the thoroughness of this! Thanks for playing!

[CypherGrid]

While I do like this game, my feeling is that the game doesn't understand its own rules. There's inconsistency in that the puzzles where every clue is used are played pretty differently from the puzzles with decoy clues. I would say the puzzles with decoy clues are strangely harder than the puzzles without even though they come first. The decoys show up in the tutorial, then there are just a few decoys in the three-digit lock puzzle, and then by the time you get to the clock and the map there aren't any decoys at all. I think the issues people are having with priority are largely coming from the puzzles with decoy clues. It's weird to me that the game tries so hard to teach the player about priority when priority only makes a difference when there are decoys and so it doesn't matter after the tutorial.

Besides the main puzzle mechanics of the game, I have a few minor interface suggestions. It would be nice if there was a button to return to the menu in case you wanted to start over or something without refreshing. Also, in the map puzzle there's no need to make the player pick a letter and a number when they should only have to click once on the map itself.

Also I appreciate that the game let me play the ending segment first so I could try seeing if I could figure out the puzzle mechanics myself without the game even teaching me at all, and I did! I'm very proud of myself :P

EDIT: I want to add that I think it's very clever the way you made it so ambiguous who the protagonist is. Sometimes you're controlling Ucogi and sometimes you're controlling the guy but you don't always know which one until after you take an action.

Veinom responds:

Nice observation. The decoys are in the game's core mechanic. And indeed the map and the clock used to have decoys. But I listened to someone who hated them (because "picross doesn't have decoys") and when I "fixed" these later stages... I messed the game up in that regard. Thank you for the feedback, I will add more levels and decoys in the update!

I'm glad you played the game backwards and you still enjoyed it!

[You Will Fall]

I think the third time the game displayed the fake error message it actually did have an error and I had to restart because it was frozen :P

YaenGames responds:

Did you by any chance click on the "Give up" button? In that case... Well that closes the game :D

[Pixel Mania!]

It looks like you're not understanding some other people's complaints, so I'll try to explain. For a completionist who wants to experience everything this game has to offer, the game makes the player redo a lot of time-consuming stuff without any skipping or fast-forwarding functionality. Activating the drone involves a lot of waiting, so that shouldn't have to be repeated. If I die fighting the drone or during the code monster chase, I have to spend time:

1. Beating the same level again
2. Waiting around again to activate the drone again
3. Using the drone to destroy the floor again
4. Waiting for the dialog to scroll again
5. Going through the code monster chase again

None of this goes quickly. Once I'm past the code monster chase I do have a checkpoint in case I die in the proto world, but there are still ways to lose my progress. When I went down the pipe, it took me back to Pixel Mania which meant I had to do everything to get back to the proto world all over again. And when I bought the spaceship before I was done exploring the proto world, the game gave me no warning that touching the ship would start a sequence that I couldn't get back from since dying in the boss fight just restarts the boss fight. In most games, you walk in front of a spaceship and the game prompts you to press a specific key to enter the ship. So after the boss fight, I have to start the whole game over again if I want to find more stuff. Also, there's no level select for Pixel Mania so I have to redo all the levels I already played before I entered the proto world if I want to try all the Pixel Mania levels after that point.

I also want to mention that having space bar and enter as the only possible jump buttons is a bit of an issue. You may not be aware but most keyboards don't allow space bar to be held in addition to certain combinations of arrow keys, so the spaceship can't be controlled effectively unless I use WASD which is a bit more awkward. Consider allowing Z as an action button, which is common practice in browser games.

blit-blat responds:

Firstly, you don't need to wait for the drone to enter Proto-World, you can do this on your own by repeatedly jumping on the stone blocks, as described in the walkthough:

https://blit-blat.newgrounds.com/news/post/1334960

This speeds up the whole process immensely, and I believe addresses the bulk of your problems.

In terms of waiting for the dialog to scroll, I did intend for it to say different things on repeat attempts (as I have said in response to other reviews) but run out of time for Pixel Day (I'm not going to update it now, I'm busy with other projects, unfortunately). Perhaps after seeing it once I should have added a skip button, but again time was a major constraint during development. Oh well!

If you're playing to explore you can enter Proto-World from level 1-1, so you don't need to redo everything. If you're playing to get the A+ rating then yeah, expect some grind! It's meant to be a challenge!

That's an interesting point about entering the spaceship, though. To my mind it would be obvious that touching it would activate it, as that's in-keeping with the portal that brought you into Proto-World and the general basic interactions with NPC - they just "speak" when you get near them and their quests auto resolve by proximity too. Perhaps with additional play testing I might have done this slightly differently, certainly food for thought.

You don't need to press space whilst flying the spaceship, so I don't know why you think it can't be controlled effectively? The spaceship shoots automatically so all you need to do is move. So I'm not sure what your issue is here?

[Egg Time Rewind]

Is there a reason you start out in an egg? Is there any benefit to staying in the egg?

KilledByAPixel responds:

No, it is just for thematic purposes.

[Dark Sword]

Pretty glitchy but still good.

Examples:

I glitched into a wall by dashing into it. I thought I was stuck but eventually I managed to dash out of it. In any case, you should include a reset button.

Returning to the hub area before engaging a boss will play the sequence from the last time to entered the hub, which is usually a boss-kill sequence.

You shouldn't be able to fight bosses you've already defeated.

When the dragon gets fast, i get stuck inside him and I'm able to do extra damage. Maybe that's intentional.

NG medals didn't work for me.

MrDoth responds:

Thankss for you review!! I would love to know what glitches did you found

[Ophisk]

What does the name Ophisk mean?

(Interesting that I'm best of the month but not best of the week)

Fe26 responds:

That name comes from the word "Ophidia" which is the name of the group of reptiles that includes the modern snake. Although, when I was thinking about modifications of the word ophidia, a friend of mine proposed the final name "Ophisk".

[PUP]

It makes sense that you die if you lose the ball. The loyal dog can't return without the ball. The ball is the whole point!

ConnorGrail responds:

Let's be real if I was a dog and I lost my ball that would be the end