TharosTheDragon's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Santa Delivers An Anvil]

Treasure Hunt review!

### Aesthetics: 5 / 10

The pixel art is kind of cute I guess. I'm not sure why Santa has two sleighs and no reindeer. It's too bad the birds blend in with the coins so well.

### Originality: 2 / 10

The only new thing I see here is the idea of Santa delivering an anvil. This actually has a lot in common with my games Strange Thoughts and Dropping Loads, the latter of which was for a game jam where our team's objective was to use "lighten" as a core mechanic. Your game would've served that goal as well.

### Challenge: 8 / 10

It's certainly difficult and increases difficulty well over time, but the skill and strategy involved are pretty basic.

### Fun factor: 5 / 10

It requires a lot of button mashing, which could be improved by allowing us to press multiple different keys so we could alternate. It's also very slow at the beginning so it takes a long time to get up to speed every time we die. Maybe require fewer coins to advance for the earlier gifts.

### Content: 3 / 10

Just one type of enemy, one type of coin, etc.

### Total: 23 / 50

(The Treasure Hunt review score is different from the standard Newgrounds review score because it uses different criteria.)

BroquiGames responds:

Wtf is happening?

[Deep Deep Deep Nightmare (Game Jam)]

Treasure Hunt review!

### Aesthetics: 9 / 10

Great animations and effects all around.

### Originality: 1 / 10

Pretty basic arena shooter with clear Binding of Isaac inspiration.

### Challenge: 8 / 10

When I was practicing my dodging, I noticed what might be a bug where you dodge into a group of enemies and then they deal more than one damage to you. On my first genuine attempt at the game I was able to beat it on my first try without any need to dodge, but I did only have one heart left so it was a close call.

### Fun factor: 7 / 10

Pretty fun running around shooting stuff as usual.

### Content: 6 / 10

Short but sweet.

### Total: 31 / 50

(The Treasure Hunt review score is different from the standard Newgrounds review score because it uses different criteria.)

[Stick Figure Battle Simulator]

Treasure Hunt review!

### Aesthetics: 3 / 10

The visuals aren't particularly interesting but they work well enough for this kind of thing.

### Originality: 9 / 10

It's a great idea for a simulation sandbox, and we don't see a lot of this kind of thing.

### Challenge: 3 / 10

It's a little unfair to judge this as a game since it's not a game and I don't know what to do with this category. I'll say it works well enough without a challenge because it's not supposed to have one.

### Fun factor: 4 / 10

I guess it's fun enough to manipulate the world and make the people fight.

### Content: 3 / 10

There are a handful of things to do in this project, though it's a shame the controls aren't included in the interface and they're not discoverable.

### Total: 22 / 50

(The Treasure Hunt review score is different from the standard Newgrounds review score because it uses different criteria.)

[a play in the woods ~proof of concept]

Treasure Hunt review!

### Aesthetics: 6 / 10

Nice work on the 3D graphics, though they do look sort of unrefined and amateurish.

### Originality: 2 / 10

Kind of an ordinary walking simulator with nothing new to offer. Not sure what concept this is supposed to prove.

### Challenge: 2 / 10

There's not much challenge when it comes to following your compass, and I only got the bad ending first because I wanted to see what would happen if I didn't run.

### Fun factor: 5 / 10

I got a kick out of seeing a 3D game here, and it does run pretty smoothly even if there's not much to do. I wasn't happy that I had to redo everything to get the second ending. It should really restart you at the point where you start running.

### Content: 4 / 10

Two endings on a small island with a few locations. The flashlight and compass work well.

### Total: 19 / 50

(The Treasure Hunt review score is different from the standard Newgrounds review score because it uses different criteria.)

[1-BIT HALLOWEEN]

Treasure Hunt review!

### Aesthetics: 9 / 10

So crisp, clean, and professional looking.

### Originality: 1 / 10

I've definitely seen stories like this before.

### Challenge: 3 / 10

I do have to admit there's more challenge than one would expect from a visual novel. The challenge comes from finding all the endings of course. When I was only missing endings 4 and 5, I was able to figure out that the endings must be between the point where you talk to the mom after talking to the son (because that's where you get ending 3) and the point where you read the letters (because that's where you get ending 6). I then strategized that it would be best to pick a point in the middle to try next rather than a point right after ending 3 or right before ending 6, so I left the house after talking to the demon mom and got ending 5, which let me deduce that I could get ending 4 by leaving the house before that point but still after ending 3.

### Fun factor: 3 / 10

It's not terribly fun to read through the dialogue, and while the interface lets you proceed through the dialogue smoothly it still needs a way to skip ahead faster or do some kind of chapter select so you can get all the endings more easily. Still, the retro RPG engine you've created feels great to play with. I like moving diagonally to get ahead of the mom when she's leading me into the dining room.

### Content: 7 / 10

Short game, but lots of endings. Since I have no audio category I'll mention here that I love the title song, which I remember from 2-bit Adventure. The sound effects like the knocking and door opening and closing were also done really well. And it's great that you've included both English and Portuguese, though there's a bug where if you select Portuguese once the menu will still be in Portuguese even after you pick English later.

### Total: 23 / 50

(The Treasure Hunt review score is different from the standard Newgrounds review score because it uses different criteria.)

[RGB Square]

Treasure Hunt review!

### Aesthetics: 4 / 10

It's got a cool vibe but unfortunately the gameplay doesn't allow for a lot of art.

### Originality: 9 / 10

Very cool gimmick, using the three color channels to affect gameplay in a lot of ways. It's a little reminiscent of GemCraft.

### Challenge: 7 / 10

It's really hard and frantic but feels too random to really utilize a lot of skill.

### Fun factor: 4 / 10

It's fun to experiment but I mostly find myself locked into just a few color abilities.

### Content: 4 / 10

A very surprisingly high amount of color abilities, but there's not enough else in the game to justify trying them all.

### Total: 28 / 50

(The Treasure Hunt review score is different from the standard Newgrounds review score because it uses different criteria.)

[Super Fruit Fall]

Treasure Hunt review!

### Aesthetics: 5 / 10

The graphics are a bit bland and uninteresting.

### Originality: 1 / 10

Fruit catching games are nothing new.

### Challenge: 7 / 10

I'm sure marathon mode could last forever fairly easily but it's designed as a sort of easy mode. In both blitz mode and classic mode it's easy to avoid getting rotten fruit in the basket, but in classic mode there's a significant challenge when it comes to beating the clock, and that challenge increases appropriately as the levels go by.

### Fun factor: 4 / 10

It's just bouncing fruit around.

### Content: 5 / 10

It's cool that you've included three game modes and a variety of fruit.

### Total: 22 / 50

(The Treasure Hunt review score is different from the standard Newgrounds review score because it uses different criteria.)

[Wheel Propaganda]

Treasure Hunt review!

### Aesthetics: 8 / 10

Pretty nice GB look.

### Originality: 2 / 10

Just a silly little platformer.

### Challenge: 4 / 10

When the boss told me not to touch it, it took me a while to figure out that I was indeed supposed to jump on it. I learned all about its movement patterns and I didn't even need to. Also I was challenged to figure out your birthday by trial and error.

### Fun factor: 6 / 10

You told me to ignore this game and I'm glad I didn't, though the idea is more fun than the actual gameplay.

### Content: 6 / 10

Multiple rooms and collectibles and secrets. Not bad considering that it was made in 4 days.

### Total: 26 / 50

(The Treasure Hunt review score is different from the standard Newgrounds review score because it uses different criteria.)

[Familiars.io]

Treasure Hunt review!

### Aesthetics: 7 / 10

You did a good job with the old-school look, but it feels a bit empty.

### Originality: 4 / 10

It's a Pokemon clone. The tiny MMO aspect seems like a cool idea but there weren't any other players when I played.

### Challenge: 5 / 10

There are plenty of hard battles and it takes some navigation skill to find everything, but this suffers from the usual JRPG problem of battles just presenting the illusion of strategy. Victory is based on your level rather than your skill, and leveling just takes time.

### Fun factor: 5 / 10

The clunky interface makes everything feel like work. You provided a lot of alternative keys for opening the menu but no keys for going straight to specific items in the menu. And to look at the map I need to navigate to it as an item inside my inventory every single time. And I need to drop off each individual monster at the resort while making sure to close the menu and open it again between each one because I need to move to a different spot. It's nice to explore the world, but I wish the environment was more interactive.

### Content: 10 / 10

An impressive amount of monsters with many types and moves, and the world is big by browser game standards even if it is compact by MMO standards.

### Total: 31 / 50

(The Treasure Hunt review score is different from the standard Newgrounds review score because it uses different criteria.)