pirateplatypus's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Niubi Birthday Bash Demo]

As SpaceDazee said, it could really use some polish and some added value for people that are looking to commission a version of this.

I think this is a really cool concept. It could turn out to be a great way for a dev to make some extra cash.

I think the sprite of the player is entirely too big for the stage. It makes it too hard to effectively dodge the fireballs.

I also think instead of the giffy face, you should just draw their face. It would take more time on your part, but I think the result would look much better.

[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!

[Learn Actionscript 3 2012]

First off, thanks for creating this. Anyone who's willing to dedicate their free time to teaching others is cool in my book. I think it's a lot harder to teach something than it is to learn it. Below are my general thoughts on this tutorial. I want to stress that I may be wrong on some things, and some things are purely my opinion.

On the trace section, it's my personal opinion that every time someone codes on the timeline, rather than in a class, God smites a kitten. Though I can understand that it's much easier for a quick example of the trace function to use the timeline rather than a class.

In the variables section, not all variable types have to be classified. 'int' and 'uint' come to mind as two that don't need it.

In math, I would consider adding something about the modulo.

On Movieclips, it looks like you may have forgotten the semi-colon on the scale example. I understand that they aren't required in AS, but I prefer to use them because it makes the code more readable.

On functions, you don't specify the return value of the funtion or the privateness/publicness. I guess it's not required. I personally prefer to write my functions like public function myFunction():void {. Again, I guess it's not required. I just prefer it that way because it makes it much easier to read.

On keyboard, It looks like you use flash.ui.Keyboard. I'd suggest possibly explaining imports somewhere in your tutorial.

On mouse movement, it looks like the clicked function got cut off so that it doesn't show 'gotoy = mouseY;'. There are ways to make the circle move to the mouse position without getting to the correct x position before it's gotten to the correct y, or vice-versa. But that'd be out of the scope of the tutorial. I'd personally replace the if statements with else if's or better, a switch statement. But that'd also require adding another section for case statements.

On the wandering movieclip, I can't really read the text due to it's small size. Maybe you could bump up the size of the text and lay it out in two columns.

On game examples, I'd put a note that it opens a link in a new window. I'm a bit surprised that your site is a flash portal. I'd personally rather see a portfolio of your work, or at least a way to filter the list of games.

On video tutorials, I'd put a note that it opens in a new window. I'd also put your tutorials in a playlist and have the link go to that playlist. That way people can quickly and easily see all the tutorials at once.

All in all, I think given the constraints you mentioned, like one frame per topic, you did a great job. I think this, while not a definitive source of info, will certaintly wet some peoples' appetite for learning AS3. I'd like to see the code be a little bit more OOP. Either way, it's still cool as hell that you spent your free time teaching others.

[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.

[Zuper Green]

The graphics are cool. I like the general idea of the game play.

I just couldn't get into it due to the controls. If you could re-assign them, or if you could use something like move: w,a,s,d; jump: j; run: k; I probably would have really enjoyed this game.

[Ereban Dawn]

This game has boat loads of potential and would have been an easy 5 if not for a few problems.

I really liked the graphics. You did a fantastic job of pulling off a minimalistic approach. I liked that you included a full screen option; more people should do that. The music/sound was great and did a good job of setting the mood.

I appreciate that you make wasd controls an option, but they didn't work.

I think this game would benefit greatly from a little more polish in its design. These are the changes I'd personally make:

The 'Start' and 'About' buttons on the main menu seem to stand out like a sore thumb using a plain font. I'd use the same font you used for the title.

You should explain what your goal is and that the ghouls kill you. I didn't realise that until they killed me the first time.

I also think a map would really improve the game play. I found myself wandering helplessly with two lamps left.

When you die, it's a real drag to have to start from square one. After the second time I died I didn't care enough to try again.

I think some tweaking of the paths you follow is needed. Too many times I was being chased by a ghoul and was stuck battling what felt like pixel-perfect jumps. It really detracted from being immersed in the game.

Overall this game has a lot of potential, with some minor fixes it'd be a great game.

[Family Barn]

After clicking "Try it now" I get a white screen that doesn't go away.

On another note, I get the impression you have to log in to use this game. No offense is intended, but I don't trust you with either my Facebook login or my email address. If you want to make people log in, it should be integrated with NG so that you can use your NG account.

[Sun Hop]

This is absolutely brilliant. The only thing I'd change is I'd add navigation to the main menu and select level.

[Captain Fugly 2]

I think the level design is quite a bit off. I'm all for a challenge but these levels seem to be a bit over the top.

The real problem I've got is that the camera is not smooth. It's jittery whenever the camera moves.