Jolly's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Flappy Economics]

I think this should have been play tested a bit more before being submitted. The first problem I noticed is that if you click as soon as you start then you hit the top and immediately lose. Then I decided to go to the upgrade menu and I just put everything into flying strength to see what would happen... and now the game is unplayable. Which wouldn't be so bad if you could remove the points from flying strength after you've put them into it but, despite there being a minus button next to it, you can't. The only way to fix this is to close the game and click the "reset" button on the first page, which I think is quite poor design for various reasons. The first of which is I don't think you should have to close the game just to get there, everything should be accessible from any point. Why isn't there a main menu button? And the second reason is, that shouldn't be the only way to fix the game once you've broken it by putting too many points into jump strength.

If you fixed those problems then I think the game would be acceptable, but in it's current state I think it's unacceptable. The problems it has currently are fairly annoying problems that aren't at all difficult to solve. With those few things solved I'd probably bump the rating up to 3/5, but I'm giving it a 2/5 for its current state.

FreeEconHelp responds:

Thanks for the review, those do sound like annoying problems I missed while play testing. I will give it a look and see how I can fix them!

[BonBombs]

The same concept has been done loads and this didn't really add much to it. Other games in this genre are usually colorful and have multiple types of bombs. This is dull, dark, and only has one type of bomb. Adding colors would definitely improve it.

I don't like the choice of in-game music. It feels really unsuitable for this type of game. It's just a few drum loops thrown together. It's boring. I think trance music, or something similar, would be a lot more suitable for this type of game.

One thing I liked about this that I haven't seen in other game like this is the fast forward button. Nobody wants to wait to watch the bombs slowly drift towards the explosion region. It definitely helps make the game feel less repetitive.

I found one glitch. If you go into the high score menu once you leave the menu it will unmute the in-game music.

Seismoz responds:

Thanks for the Feedback.
(P.S.: no loops. i made the music myself ;_; )

[Wasted Youth, Part 1]

Review

Pros:
To be completely honest, I went into this game not expecting much. The title, or anything else about this game sounded appealing to me from the beginning. The only reason I began playing it is because the medals seemed like they wouldn't be too difficult to get.

I was wrong. This is probably one of the top flash games I've ever played, if not the best. Every single character had a really interesting backstory. One of the reasons this game took 18 months to create is probably because of all of the awesome bonus features added to it, such as the books, Student database, etc.

The additional outfits were great. Although, I ended up wearing the default school uniform throughout most of the game. I liked all of the outfits, but I think a few more casual outfits, such as the uniform and posh outfit, would be a nice addition to the game.

Every single room on this game is redesigned wonderfully. Most of them are barely used, except to hold a piggymon card or talk to a single character, yet they're designed equally as well as every other room on the game.

Cons:
This game doesn't have any cons big enough to make me not give it a 10. Every game has cons, and this one is no exception, even if all of the cons that it has are easy to ignore. (It's also a lot easier to point out cons than it is to point out pros)

There's no description of what the camera filters do. I assumed it added filters to the game to make it look differently, but none of them appeared to change anything at all. Is it broken, or am I missing something?

It'd be really nice if, instead of being forced to leave through the window you entered the school in at night, you could exit through any of the other doors. It was sort of annoying being forced to run to the opposite side of the building just to exit.

If you press the space key rapidly, it allows you to sit in a seat that's already occupied by a teacher/student.

This is the most minor complaint I have out of all, but it's somewhat annoying how the resume button is on the bottom of the pause menu rather than the top, which is how it typically would be in most games.

Several rooms lagged really badly. More specfically, the cafeteria/dining room. It seems like it wouldn't be too difficult to fix the lag in those rooms. Just remove the fans in them and make it so there's less students in those rooms.

The double speed option is a fantastic feature, but I think it should be enabled by default. The default speed seemed a bit too slow for the size of the map.

Additional Comments/questions:

I can't wait until Part 2 comes out. I hope it, like you said, only takes a month to be released. Will it have medals as well and will it be a long full game and not just a short sequal? Also, do you plan on creating more than just two parts?

Are there going to be completely new areas in part 2? Not just new rooms, but will there be a completely new part of the map?

GP-studios responds:

Lots of questions!?!?

1. I'll check the camera filters and check they are working.
2. After you break into the school and into the staff room, there is a key on the table which can then let you in and out of any door in the main school at night.
3. Chair bug is something we've not been able to fix yet.
4. We're working on the lag, but it is much better than it was.

5. Wasted Youth, Part 2 will be the final part of this story. The map will be the same, but but a couple new rooms will be available, and there will be a new area.
The game will be as long if not longer, because there will be much more extra stuff to do besides the main story missions.
It's possible we could revisit the game in the future if people really want us to, but we'll be moving on to Bunny Invasion 3 once Part 2 is done.

[Scary Maze 3.1 (Improved)]

Review.

Pros:
Not much to say here, unfortunately. I guess it would be a pro that it works.

Cons/Recommendations:
The first thing I noticed is a problem with the play button and where it's located. Unless you click in the center of it, you lose as soon as you start playing. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, because you would usually click in the center of the button, but I didn't. All you have to do to fix this problem is simply make the starting area a bit larger.

I won't count off for this, because almost every maze game has this problem, but if you right click you can easily get through the whole game with ease. There's ways to make it so when you right click you automatically lose, although I'm not sure how to do it, so don't ask me.

You can also do the same thing by holding the left click button and dragging it to the win zone. Again, there's ways to disable it, but I don't know how to do them.

The level design is terrible. I know I brought up the fact that you can cheat, but it's really not necessary as the levels are so easy you have no reason to cheat. Make it so there's really tight areas where you have to go in a nearly completely straight line to make it pass.

Another thing about the level design is there's a lot of pointless areas. On the second level, why would you ever want to go to the bottom area? It's completely pointless and it appears to just be there to take up space.

On the third level, there's a pointless loop. There's no reason at all for it to be, so why did you put it there? Don't put these pointless areas. Instead, take up room by making really hard obstacles that are hard to get by. Maybe you can even make moving obstacles or spikes or any sort of trap for that matter to make it more fun.

gabelossus responds:

I tried to fix it but it wouldn't work

[NG Portal Radio v2 01]

Review.

Pros:
Quite nice, if I do say so myself. The design is fairly well done. I really like how you can favorite the audio within the flash, instead of on your userpage. This makes it much easier to use and navigate your favorite music, although it doesn't seem to save the favorites.

I really like how you can select to download the song or go to the audio page. It's great that you don't have to go to the audio portal page just to download the track. It's not that major, but I like it.

Cons/Recommendations:
A lot of the buttons seem very out of place. For example the play, pause, and stop button. Although it's not that big of a deal, the edges aren't rounded like all the others are, so it looks very odd. When you click "Read This!", it has an NG styled button as the background, then one of the default buttons that comes with flash on top of it. Again, that looks quite odd.

The background also looks very out of place, in my opinion. I think it would have been a lot better if it had been one of the default tables, such as the one this review is in. I know it kind of is in one, but the background color isn't the same, and P-Bot looks odd sitting in the background like that. In my opinion it would have looked really cool if you had made styled this more on the NG style rather than throwing in your own style, but again, that's just my opinion.

This is more of a question than anything, but what's the point of the spinning block? It seems rather pointless, as if it was just a project of yours that you threw in for a little extra entertainment value. I kind of think you should remove it, because again it doesn't fit the NG style, but it doesn't really matter if it stays or if it goes, honestly.

If you really care about the spinning block being there, perhaps you could make it change into more colors rather than just blue. It quickly becomes pointless playing with it once you color every block of it blue. In fact, you could probably change it into a rubix cube of sorts.

Unless there's something wrong with my browser, your favorites don't save. In my opinion this is a pretty major thing. You could quickly favorite it on here before leaving to go somewhere, and expect to be able to easily listen to it when you get back, but you simply won't be able to do that due to this.

The favorites and history windows look terrible. They seem to be buttons within buttons. Why not make it into a table, then make it popup like it does on any OS? That would look so much better than what you have it as now.

I'm sure this is fairly obvious by now, but you really should recode this in AS3. AS2 seems to have so many limitations when it comes to creating a radio, it's best to not even do it. Of course I want count off for not doing so, but I think you should.

MCarsten responds:

Hey there Jolly, thanks for the nice review. Replying to you, yes, the lists don't save since I don't have time at all to update them, I already programmed to they save the history and favs. but just don't updated. The 3D cube was one of the most hard and cool things (at least on my opnion) that I already managed to create so I wanted to showcase it, I also managed to put on it more colors (just don't added here too). I am using AS3 now but I'll leave this one as this is by now. Thanks for the extra advices. Thanks again for the review!
See you around.

[Solo Pong]

Review.

Pros:
I'm sorry, but all I can really honestly say about this is that it works and that the graphics of the actual pong ball looks pretty good. I guess the, what appears to be flames that seem to be holding back the paddle looks pretty good.

Cons/Recommendations:
For the most part, pretty much every graphic on here is terrible. The paddle has pixels missing on the end and looks very very odd. The wood texture looks terrible and stretched out. The background is a boring brick background, it would have been better off being a green gradient honestly, as most pong tables are that. On the subject of graphics, the logo in the menu also looks terrible. Try using a simple pixelated looking white font instead. It would look so much better.

Why are the flames there? They seem to just be there to hold the paddle back, and because of this it makes the whole game look terrible. I'm sure there's some other way to make it so that the paddles cannot move forward or backwards, I recommend you ask in the Game Factory 2 forum, or on there official website. Removing these would make the game look a lot better.

The fact that you're just trying to keep the ball on screen is very boring. I mean, you control both paddles, it couldn't be that hard to make it so that the paddle tracks where the ball is moving. Again, I recommend you ask how to do this in either the Game Factory 2 forum, or on there Official Website.

If you added some upbeat music, it would make this game A LOT better. It's rather boring playing against yourself, and playing against yourself without music is much worse. I recommend you add some sort of techno music, as it seems very fitting for this sort of game.

The way the ball is launched off is pretty bad, in my opinion. It's way to fast and sometimes bounced up-and-down making it close to impossible to hit, at times. Sometimes it also launched straight pass one of the paddles before I even have time to react. I recommend making it so that you have to click launch first, then it starts off slow and slowly gets faster and faster.

[Review Request Club]

FireWOLF109 responds:

I wanted to try something new for pong by making it so that you are practicly going against yourself and by making the background bricks instead of a plain green one.

[Meteorite smash]

Review.

Pros:
I honestly don't have much to say here, unfortunately for you. The sound effects are for the most part pretty good, excluding one that I dislike, but I'll get to that in my cons. The space ship you play looks very well, I don't know if it's a sprite you found on the web or if it comes in GF2, but it looks good. The meteors and exploding effect looks good as well.

Cons/Recommendations:
I really don't like the sound of shooting. It sounds like somebodies knocking on a door or something, which is really far from what I imagine a space ship to sound like when it shoots. I recommend you make it sound more realistic, like a gun, or change everything, including what the shooting looks like, and make it into a zapping sound, which is what I'd imagine a space ship would shoot.

I really don't like how the background is a brick wall. That's very unrealistic as this is based in space, it should be a space background. If you'd like, you can PM me and I can link you to a tutorial on how to easily make a space background.

I didn't like the effect you got when the ship exploded. Sure it looks cool, but it always leaves behind some of the animation, the meteorites do the same thing, and it's silver, why doesn't it look like a normal explosion?

This is a very big con and makes the game very unfun. As mentioned in the review below, if you just go in the center and shoot, they Meteorite's never go anywhere. They never even come close to hitting you. That really takes the fun out of the game.

Another big thing is that the score seems to be messed up. It appears to just be quickly going from 0-100 and restarting. That's a major thing as I would think the main point of this game is to try to get high scores as there are no levels.

CAN-OF-SPAM responds:

Lol thats not the score. its the counter i used for spawning the asteroids, in the next 2 flashes i made i fixed majority of this crap. thanks for the review.

[astroid beta test]

Review.

Pros:
It's programmed well, for the most part at least, and it can be quite difficult. The more difficult the gets, the more fun it gets. It's not really a boring game, although it has things that it could defiantly improve upon.

Cons:
The space ship becomes nearly impossible to completely stop once you've moved even just a little. It's way too quiet and boring and everything is in what I believe is Spanish. The background doesn't move at all and it seems like it should, and it's very colorless.

It was really annoying that after you were hit by an asteroid you had to wait several seconds until you can fire once again. Due to the fact that after once you hit an arrow key you start sliding and it's really hard to come to a complete stop, a lot of the times when I could fire once again I was about to crash into an asteroid.

How too improve:
I recommend you translate everything into English as Newgrounds is an English website and you used English in the description, if you're going to make the game in another language other than English, why don't you use said language in the description? Although I won't count off for this, I personally recommend that you do it.

You should probably decrease the time it takes to be able to fire once again after hitting an asteroid, because as I mentioned before, a lot of the times when I recovered from this I was crashing into another asteroid and it was a very major annoyance.

I think it would look better if you made the asteroids solid instead of transparent as it's a bit unrealistic that you can see through them. You could add upbeat music and perhaps sound effects, because that would make it a lot less boring and quiet.

In my opinion, you should also make the background move. There's a tutorial here on Newgrounds that teaches you how to make a simple moving space background, you can PM if you want the link to it.

Score:
Graphics: -2
Sound: -3
Programming: +3
Fun: +2

dargonesti responds:

thanks for your review, i wasn't supposed to work on this game for 1-2 days since i'm late at school buut... ^^'...

anyway, i've already changed a lot of thigs to my game, even if it still need a lot of work before it'll really be a good game :S...
at least now it's less laggy&buggy :D

I'll repost after i've add the sound and some menu to it...
until then have a good time!

[The Bastard Game]

Enjoyable, and annoying.

Pros:
It's a fun and unique approach on the normal and overdone maze games. It doesn't look like it would be very challenging at first, in fact, it looked like the easiest maze game ever, but I was deceived. ;) My favourite part is the even more challenging cursorless option.

Cons:
It's a little lacking in the graphic department though, and it's quite bland and boring. It lacks any colours once so ever. I really didn't like how when you clicked, you lost all of your points. I understood the shakey cursor, losing all of your points when you right clicked, but that seems like a little much. I assume their is some reasoning behind it though, perhaps too make it even harder? Another thing is, although it may just be the fact that the cursor is suppose to deceive you, as mentioned in the description, it seems like my cursor jumped towards wall sometimes while playing.

Fun: +5
Uniqueness: +5
Graphics: -2
Annoyances: -2

Kwing responds:

Lol, I can explain the cons.

I made this game then realized there were no colors. Then, looking again, I realized making this game in color would ruin the art style I was going for. I could tweak the graphics, but I won't put color in it.

Next, there's a very easy cheat for maze games which involves clicking and dragging the cursor to the destination point. Right-clicking isn't the only way to cheat.

And whenever you run into a wall, the cursor resets back to the space where your cursor really is. This will make it look as if the cursor is ramming into a wall, when really the cursor is just going to the place where your cursor really is. Otherwise, the cursor would go off more and more until you simply had to refresh the page. The difficulty curve is meant to apply for each string of points, not each gaming session... So yeah.

I'm glad you liked the idea, though!