TharosTheDragon's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Medusa - Wrath of the queen]

It shouldn't be so easy to skip the tutorial animation.

It is beyond annoying for the game to pause everything just to warn you that you're almost out of time.

Also, what's the point of lives if you keep all your points when you run out of lives and use a continue?

Kamizoto responds:

Thank you for your comment.
I will think about you observations (they make sense) and see if I can improve that.

The game was made for a jam with 'Coin Op' as theme.
So I tried to give the coin-op feeling with the "continue" scene. (you have only 1 continue in this game)
And in an arcade machine, when you use a continue, you keep your score. That's all. :)

[Samurai Run 2]

I've had to restart the level too many times. Why does it tell you how many coins you got if you can't spend them and they just reset? Those rolling rocks are too hard to jump over.

adytt responds:

Once you collect 100 coins you get a new life.

[Tim_]

Giving up isn't actually forever. You just lose your progress. I thought it was gonna be like You Only Live Once by Raitendo.

KilianoLopes responds:

xD yeah! I know this game, i realy like "you only live once" its realy funny. :P
Sorry for that. I wrote" forever" for teatch the player "dude its not like a respawn, its game over ok?". Something like that.

Do u Get it?

[Nichi Nichi]

Why are you not crediting the obvious Sushi Cat inspiration?

jupitron responds:

I wasnt inspired in that game in particular, didnt know that existed BUT i was inspired on a recent game that was published here that i cant recall the name, ill look out for it, if i find it of course ill write some words. Thanks for reminding me this.

[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.

[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!

[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.