Renegade-Hamster's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Muu: Just Another Day]

Issues with difficulty/graphics, but a good effort

The music is lovely, but there's issues with the difficulty and the graphics.

If you're going to do silhouette graphics, you've got to make it really interesting to look at. Give us more shapes of things to enjoy while we're looking at the game. Otherwise it gets pretty bland, and when you're playing a game like this where you'll be replaying parts over and over until you get it right, there should at least be some really yummy graphics to look at. Examples of where this is done right in your game is with the grass on the cliffs, and the spikey enemies. Those are some interesting shapes!
I'd also suggest something other than white on black. It looks nice for a while, but it hurts the eyes.

Admittedly, I didn't try easy mode, so the following is all based on my experience playing the default mode. This was frustratingly hard in several places, and the problem always had to do with judging how to jump on and off inclined platforms.
The worst was one part after the spaceship crash area, where you had to jump across 3 or 4 flat platforms, land on a platform with a sharp incline downwards then gradual incline downwords, somehow propel yourself with enough momentum to the next flat platform, then back up and jump up to the next area where the checkpoint was. This was ridiculously hard. I tried this over and over, dying at least 50 times before I finally did it. I don't know how I didn't give up and just ragequit.
To keep the difficulty at a level where it's both fun and challenging, I'd suggest easier jumps but less checkpoints. Right now you've got lots of checkpoints to compensate for the impossible jumps, but these combine to create a really repetitive playing experience.

Having said all this, please take this as constructive criticism! I'm not just some jerk who likes badmouthing people's hard work while hiding behind the anonymity of the internet. I'm a jerk who wants to be helpful.

This is a great effort, especially for a first game by someone not familiar at all with programming. Once again, top notch music choices.

Miktar responds:

Thank you for the review! I agree that the buggy physics can be a pain, my inexperience with Stencyl really didn't help. I know where the problem is (Muu sometimes 'bounces' down a hard slope, so it doesn't detect the jump if you're currently mid-bounce since you're technically not on the ground), but I'd disagree with the 'easier jumps less checkpoints' thing. Easier jumps are in Easy Mode, and make the 8 minute game take 3 minutes to finish. Since I knew I wasn't going to make anything of any significant length, I opted for smaller 'critical' sections, like the 'you didn't eat your wheaties' jumps right after finding Heart and his crashed ship.

On average I do 20 deaths, my best was 8 so far, so even though the slopes can be tricky, you can actually master them to a satisfying degree.

For my next game though, I'm going to avoid slopes entirely until I get much better at Stencyl.

The fact that you made it through, without ragequitting, I think is a very positive review. ^..^

[Little Noah Saves The Wor]

Hmm, the book's better

I was hoping for the game to be more Noahish. When I think Noah, I think huge friggin' flood, huge friggin' ark, and a lot of friggin' animals. This had a man kicking sheep, which is great, but it's not Noah.

But whatever. I like a good simple game where you get to commit violence against innocent animals, and have a great booming voice egg you on.

zeropolaritybear responds:

You know, we wanted to make a game very Noahish but we was running out of time (was made for a 48 hours competition) so we thought "well, we have a noah sprite and a sheep sprite, let's make something different!".
Thank you for the review :)

[The Ninja Game]

Nice fun little game that's all about level design

Simple controls, and interesting levels. I look forward to coming back and finishing this baby off.

Don't mind the whining little babies who say a game is "impossible" when it gets hard. This is great fun.

VicBiss responds:

Respect <3

[FISHBANE]

Hello, my name is DAVID

Really nice game. The scary places level was the most annoying level of all time. Absolutely no forgiveness. One pixel wrong, and DEAD. But it's beaten, SO THERE! I am never doing that level again.

But I did like this game. I think you should make it so the game saves checkpoints for later, and not just save at the beginning of the level. It's quite infuriating having to finish the longer levels completely in one sitting.

By the way, I got everything. Do I win a prize? 'Cause I really want a prize for all the time and effort I poured into this crazy game.

Droqen responds:

A level is more than the sum of its parts!
My congratulations go out to you, as well.

---> I can access Fishbane's save file from other flash files ;D so just you wait...

[TD: Demenius' Darkness.]

Some problems

You've designed it so that you go back to the beginning of the level if you touch a bad guy. It makes for some really annoying gameplay.

The jumping is a little slow, and it doesn't correspond to how long you hold down the jump key. e.g. just tapping it and holding it have the same effect: a really big slow jump.

I understand if you need to study programming a bit more, so please don't take my criticism as an insult. I'm just telling you what needs to be improved.

TheCriminalDuder responds:

I know... This game was made also as a practice for programming.

[Slug Smash!]

Fun at first, but gets frustrating

Nice game, but you must give us more than one life. All it does is frustrate the player, and nobody finds this "challenging". If you gave us a save point at the end of a level, or gave us three lives for the entire game, or even a sheild item or something, it would be much more fun.

As it is, it's fun until you get hit once. Then you have to start all over again.

Greg-Anims responds:

yeah youre right. Mistake on my part in terms of game design. but hey..im still learning!

[Swept to the End]

Good, but needs work on the gameplay

Great graphics, style, and animation.

The gameplay was fun, but you've got to tweak the controls to make this less annoying.

The back attack is S and the up attack is A. This is confusing, and since this is an action game, we shouldn't have to be constantly figuring out the controls. It should be natural and easy to remember. D= forward attack, S= up attack, A= back attack. That's what it should be.

Another thing that was annoying was how you could get stuck on a bad guy, and keep getting hurt without being able to do anything about it. I suggest giving the player a small time of invincibility after he gets hit, so this doesn't happen.

SecretSecretary responds:

Great suggestions that I will agree on and will all take with me to the future! Thanks.

[Super Chick Sisters]

At first, I thought this was a joke

Since Pamela Anderson was the one breaking the news about KFC's mistreatment of chickens, I thought it would turn out that the big news is that KFC kills the chickens for us to eat, and that she just found this out. You know, a bit of a joke on Pam's ignorance, especially since she didn't even know uggboots (aka sheepskin boots) were made out of sheepskin, and was horrified when she found out.

But as I kept playing I noticed these little protesters spewing old urban myths about KFC as if it was fact. What deceitful propaganda. No, they do not "de-beak" the birds. No, they do not scald the chickens alive. It seems people are willing to believe any rumours they hear about large multi-national corporations, because they already believe them to be evil.

Another thing I noticed is that the KFC flag changes to a PeTA flag when you end the level. PeTA is not the friendly animal loving organisation they claim to be. They don't believe that humans should have any control over animals AT ALL. They don't want people keeping animals in zoos, (even in breeding programs) and not even as pets. Infact, per year, they euthanise more animals than they save.

The gameplay itself is a good standard platformer, but the propaganda left a bad taste in my mouth.

P.S. Please do not think my disagreement with your views is because I eat at KFC. I don't. Also please do not think I am so naive as to believe that KFC is a completely righteous, upstanding organisation. Perhaps they do mistreat their birds, but it's not in the way you describe.

FunkWaxPuppie responds:

Thanks for your comments. I do WISH these were urban myths -- and I would love to be proven wrong on this -- but undercover investigations in numerous award winning KFC's 'supplier of the year' establishments, whistleblowers who used to work in KFC supplier companies, and former members of KFC's own animal welfare board tell another story... :( Aparently these practices are accepted and somewhat routine, but KFC refuses to implement even the most basic welfare improvements.

I actually used to eat and enjoy KFC, but after hearing about this god awful stuff, there's no way I will go near the place any more...

[Billy Blue Fish]

Nice game!

It's a fun, trippy shooter. The backgrounds were great, too.

But I think I got a bug when I played it. On the third level, after the bonus, I wasn't able to open those food balls by shooting them anymore, and the elephant boss also wouldn't get hurt when I shot him.

If this is a bug, fix it. If not, any pointers?

4/5

Wiesi responds:

hmm i havent encountered those bugs yet..
you need to hit the elephant and the food balls alot times before they burst or die, but i think u already knew that.. anyway its a trippy game.. anything can happen, if the foodball doesnt want to burst i cant help it.. its the game you know? its weird.. i dont know..i am sorry..thank you for the really nice review and your thoughts!