TharosTheDragon's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Super Polytris]

Looks great. Very well designed and coded.

[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.

[Dr. Sweetvalley]

Nice attempt. But it needs a lot of things to make it playable.

First, and this is the easiest thing to fix, allow the player to get past the continue button with the keyboard instead of just the mouse. If you don't do this, the keyboard controls in the rest of the game are for nothing.

Second, you gotta make the isometry less ambiguous. Maybe have a color code so you can tell what height a block is at. And make everything transparent so blocks can't block other blocks.

On level 12, I glitched into a wall by going down through a portal when the exit portal was right on top of a wall. I could move out of the wall, but strangely enough I could move right back into it.

[Binary]

I pressed Z over the pause symbol and switched between the screen with the six X's a bunch of times until the game froze while I was outside standing over the pause symbol. I guess it's possible that the game lost keyboard focus and has nothing mouseEnabled for me to click on to get it back.

[Blobbeez]

The puzzle mode is actually pretty good.

[In Utero]

Original Creator should be Tom Fulp's parents.

[Fathom]

A lot of work was put into this, I can see. Probably wouldn't take much more to do it justice by expanding the level design a little.

I didn't really notice any change after getting the speed upgrade.

[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!