pirateplatypus's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Drop Safe]

First off, please don't interpret the 0 as negative. I don't think unfinished games/demos/betas belong in the portal. It'd be better to upload it to your dumping grounds and post a link on the bbs asking for feedback.

The third level freezes up when the ball gets in the white tiles on the left. It still lets me show/hide the profiler. But nothing else works.

All in all, I think the 'remove blocks to get item to goal' genre has been nearly done to death. I'd suggest adding some kind of mechanic that makes your game a little more original. Maybe you have to time removing the blocks so the ball doesn't get hit by lasers.

I think it would look better if the ball rolled rather than gliding.

You have quite a memory leak going on. The FPS has stayed at an average of 60 +/- 1.5. Though the memory started at ~18MB. It has gone up to ~72MB. The garbage collection does get called occasionally, but the amount of memory used after GC rises each time.

I think you should include a mute button.

Depending on what you do with the game, I think the potential to be a fun game is there. When you want feedback on the next version I'd highly recommend uploading it to http://www.newgrounds.com/dump and then post in the Flash forum asking for feedback.

Hassan213 responds:

Thanks a bunch! Will do!

[Transmorpher 2]

I loved the first Transmorpher. I'm thrilled that it did well enough for you to be able to make a sequel. But, I feel like this one came up a bit short.

In 1, it was great that you could use the num-pad to morph. The lack of the num pad for morphing cripples the controls of the game for me.

The level design kind of feels like it's lacking in the cleverness/puzzle area. Part of what made the first one so fantastic is that it required some thought to beat. This one just feels like you're going through the motions.

I noticed that after about three levels, I stopped caring about the slime 'coins' and stars. There really wasn't any incentive to pick them up.

All in all, I think it's still a really cool game with a neat mechanic.

FlashRushGames responds:

We will make "Transmorpher 2 puzzle mode" more similar to "Transmorpher 1", with levels on one screen and many puzzles, soon.

[Fractured]

This is a very interesting game. I think you pulled it off well and you should be proud of it.

There were two things that kept me from continuing on with the game after a few levels. The pace feels quite slow. I didn't dig using the arrow keys to move around. I'd much prefer to be able to assign my own keys. WASD would have been acceptable as well.

GroZZleR responds:

Somehow I broke WASD between versions. It's all fixed now. Sorry about that.

[Varakia: Legends and War]

This is really lacking polish. If you put some more effort into polishing this game up, it could be really good.

As for the white screen at the beginning, make a pre-loader. If you don't have a pre-loader many people will assume that your game is broken and move on.

I think you'd benefit from revising the text to be more concise. It seems like you're hit with a wall of text as soon as you start. It would also benefit from some revision. There seem to be some unruly run-on sentences.

I think the 'standard' font sticks out like a sore thumb. Given that some of the text is styled using a Old-English type look, the standard text should either be the same font or something compatible.

The world map is incredibly grainy.

When you're in battle, it's nearly impossible to tell if you can send a new unit or not. I realize the icon fades a bit and fades into full opacity when it's ready, but it's very hard to see. I think you should look at other games in the same genre, they all use some form of progress bar on the unit to show you that it's still cooling down and how long 'til you can send a new one.

Gheata responds:

Keep pressed 1 and the first unit will send if possible. Also, thanks for the review. I am making the updates now.

[Maze Of Traps]

I like it, but it feels very unpolished. I think this game could be very good with a little more work.

I think you should have checkpoints in the levels. After dying a few times I just didn't care enough to replay the level again.

I really wish you could move with WASD. I don't care for moving with the arrow keys.

I think you should relook at some of your graphics. For instance, on the first full level, the traps that shoot out of the wall blend in with the wall so much that at first I thought they were just poorly drawn bricks. I imagine it'd be impossible for someone with a red colour-blindness to even see it since it's so close colourwise to the walls.

I also think you should try to trim the file size. For what this is I think that 14mb is overkill.

AlessandroLeMura responds:

wow, thanks a lot man

[Pixapocalypse InDev]

First off, my zero rating isn't necessarily about the quality. It's more that the portal should really only be finished playable games. In the future, you should upload your game to the dumping grounds and then ask people on the BBS for feedback.

I think this game has potential. I like the background, it looks pretty cool.

I like that you allow movement with WASD. Having to move with the arrow keys while aiming with the mouse would be terribly uncomfortable.

Things I think would benefit this game:

Collision detection so that running into enemies hurts you.

Polish the main menu screen. I noticed that you have to click directly on the letters of play. You should make it so that you can click in the empty space around the letters.

Radar would be awesome. I think as the game matures it will be a drag to have to hunt down enemies not having any clue where they are.

I have Flash's sound muted on my system; if this game has sound, please don't commit the cardinal sin of not including mute buttons.

It definitely needs some mechanic to send out more waves and/or end the level once you've killed all the enemies on the screen.

All in all I think this game could be really fun when it's finished. On the next version you should really consider just uploading it to your dumping grounds and then make a thread in the Flash forum asking for some feedback.

ddewerg responds:

Thanks for your in depth feedback, judging by what you say, you are really going to like what I have planned for the future!

[SkullFace]

This would have been a really enjoyable game if it weren't for the controls. If you'd either implemented WASD controls, or better, allow the player to choose their own controls, this would be a fantastic game.

Greg-Anims responds:

You can customize the controls on the options screen :)

[Happiness]

I don't see how this is uplifting. It's also not a fixed-shooter. I rated 0 because the game was not honestly represented.

Had it have had an honest description, I would have rated it a bit higher as it's alright for a paddle game.

Finnegan2100 responds:

The hell do I know what a fixed shooter is?? Maybe I'll go back to video game making college and take a course on game classification before posting my next one!

[Zompkins]

It's fun and seems to be well made. The only thing I'd change is to give the player a wee bit more info. I failed a few levels on the first try and wasn't quite sure why. I assume it's because I missed too many targets. Though it would have been nice to understand exactly how it's judged; like level is failed if you miss more than %10 of targets.

On another note, other comments mentioned lagging. Surprisingly, I didn't have that problem at all. My CPU (Core-2 2.8Ghz) and RAM (4GB DDR3) are both lower than the other user's and I'm running it on Linux (Flash on Linux has terrible performance).

All in all it's well done. I think it's a lot harder than it looks to pull off a simple game play mechanic.

n-created responds:

Thanks a lot. You're right I need to emphasise the rules. However I made them very simple: just don't miss any orange pumpkin :). Nice to hear that I'm not the only person who runs this game smoothly :F.

Suprisingly it took me about two months to create core mechanic of this game. I did my own blitting engine for Zompkins, as there weren't any satisfying me. It's a good and expansible bit of code, so you can look forward to play some sequels of this game. That's why community feedback is important for me.

[NoNoSparks: The Ark]

It has the same problem as your last game. The custom cursor moves too slowly for my liking. If you made an option to disable the custom cursor, so that I can move my mouse at the speed that I want it to move at, this would be a 4-5 easily.

BeardshakerGames responds:

Thanks for your feedback. You are right I will work on that. For a fast solution I'll put this option in the flash player's right click menu, ok?