TharosTheDragon's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Seed (Roan Contreras)]

Super laggy and unresponsive, like most HTML5 games. Not gonna bother.

ToadieTechnika responds:

You should play this at Google Chrome.

[Where's My Water?]

There's a game for the iPhone called "Where's My Water?" where you're supposed to give an alligator a shower. Are you playing off that?

Cheesefork responds:

Yes - at first we wanted to name it "Aids for Africa" but then we realized it might be a little too much even for April fools.

[BitBoy - Greenfields]

Another disappointment from HTML5.

Why are people complimenting the game based on its failures? The lack of any kind of jump or fall mechanic isn't some inventive new idea. It's much easier to code this way. It misses the point of platformers completely and hardly deserves the title. It plays exactly like a top-down game, where you're constrained to these tiny little tunnels. In the original Legend of Zelda, there were sidescrolling segments where in a dungeon you'd go down these stairs and then you'd be in what appears to be an underground room viewed from the side. But it actually uses the same engine from the rest of the game. It looks like you're climbing down a ladder but really you're walking down a path, as far as the game is concerned. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Zelda doing this, but it doesn't make any sense to design a whole game around this and call it a platformer.

If this was really an inventive new idea and not just lazy coding then there'd be more interesting enemy AI than just back and forth.

ZeroTolerance64x responds:

While i was releasing the game i didn't really now i which genre i should categorize it.

The Programming was really easy there you are right it took me arround 2-3 hours to code it.

[Sandwich VS Bagel]

Why is the "perfect" medal worth 0 points?

rhys510 responds:

thats getting sorted out :)

[Howmonica]

Oh jeez, I thought level 30 was gonna be the last one. Then you introduce a new obstacle after that? I think I've had enough.

TheSpydog responds:

Well alright. If you stick with it, there are several easier levels to provide a rest from the beast that is Level 30. You're over halfway there, you might as well beat it! But in any case, thanks for playing that far! :)

[A Rabbit Fable]

Definitely needs a way to skip animation sequences.

antipirina responds:

Yes I admit some animations are too long. I'm planing for the next game to make an skip button or shorter animations. Thanks for reviewing.

[Riddle Transfer]

If you didn't wanna make any more games, why didn't you just end it with them escaping in the spaceship?

JonBro responds:

Because I didn't know I was going to cancel the series yet.

[Obduction XP]

Like Lockehorn, this is neither a platformer nor a puzzle game, but an arcade skill avoider game. I don't know why no one seems to know what a platformer is.

The main glitch is that when you beat a level with disappearing platforms the next level doesn't load and you're left with an unbeatable glitch level that you just have to kill yourself on. And when I finally beat hard mode, the medal didn't work.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/
19/obductionxp.jpg/

All the same, I think people are being too harsh with you. The game is beatable, and it isn't all that bad.

fliptico responds:

Thank, you are the first to specified the glitch. :)
Thanks for your comment I really appreciate it.

[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