Score: 8

""Massive"?"

submission: Detective Grimoire

date: July 6, 2007

Not exactly. I beat it in about an hour. :D

Anyway, this game just oozes quality. The dialog is clever (except for the overuse of the "why don't you have a hat" joke--that horse was sufficiently dead by the third iteration, I think), as are the little mini-game puzzles (like sifting through the trash or giving someone the eye to get the truth out of them.) The graphics are top-notch. And I LOVE the final sequence where you're piecing together all the elements of the whodunnit in rapid-fire fashion.

There are really only two problems with this game:
(1) it's really short, and
(2) it's really easy.

I feel bad saying that when you spent six months working on it, but it's true. As a reviewer below me pointed out, the fact that someone in the park has an alibi that sounds credible shouldn't automatically lead you to conclude that they're innocent.

The idea, I thought, was to see whose alibis check out and whose don't, but instead all we get is the "eye game". The eye game, which is rather easy in and of itself, does all the work for you in deciding who to believe and who not to. This takes all the fun (and challenge) out of piecing together the clues and weighing the different characters' credibility. This hurt your interactivity score.

Anyway, to sum up: you did a fabulous job, but there simply isn't enough here. Anyone can complete this game in an hour or two, and there's no replay value, since the person who did it is always the same.

One final quibble: there's a typo in Jerry's dialog. He says "refuge engineer," but I think you meant for him to say "refuse engineer."

Score: 8

"Nice!"

submission: 3D Rally Racing

date: July 2, 2007

Brilliant game--the engine, especially, is just fantastic. The controls are easy to pick up as well; I finished first in the desert course on my first try.

My one complaint so far: the snow course is poorly planned. I mean, some of those turns are just way too sharp. The computer seems to be able to take them without taking its foot off the gas, but I don't have that ability. You should probably reserve the more difficult courses for later--and if that's one of the easier courses, maybe it's better that I stop playing now. :)

Score: 5

"Good idea, but poor execution"

submission: Biff and Baff - Rolling

date: June 28, 2007

I like the cute characters and team-based gameplay. What I don't like, though, are that the levels are designed to be navigated painstakingly slowly. Your characters accelerate quickly, and it's very easy to accidentally fall. And yet, you only get a time bonus for completing levels at seemingly superhuman speeds. In my view, the gameplay would benefit a great deal from greater focus on puzzle-solving and less focus on not accidentally rolling off the edge of a platform (which is what occupied about 99% of my time while playing).

Score: 7

"Not bad!"

submission: Tomb Chess

date: June 22, 2007

This game is actually a whole heck of a lot closer to Stratego than it is to chess, but who am I to say anything? I really like the concept of this game, and to some extent, the execution as well (the music, in particular, is perfect). There's just one thing that bothers me. Well, two things, actually.

1) On a continuum of luck and skill, chess is a game of 100% skill. It's good to take a solid concept like that and throw in some luck, but I think you've thrown in far too much here. Think of luck in games as ketchup on a burger; it adds some flavor, but if you glob on too much, it just ruins the whole thing.

The fact that my King might appear on the second turn and the enemy might choose the square next to him and pull up a Ghost when there's nowhere for my King to run...well, that's really no fun. What's even worse is that if you lose your king and queen and your opponent still has his queen, you're completely screwed. There is no way to survive at that point. It might be a good idea to let ghosts take out the queen, just to keep things interesting in situations like that.

Other suggestions: you should consider leaving some spaces free of tombstones, setting in advance the number of units of each kind, and other things to make gameplay a little more predictable.

2) Every piece moves exactly one space. I'm sorry, but that's kind of dull. It turns every match into an elaborate game of rock paper scissors, essentially. Giving some pieces different types of movement would add another layer of tactics to things. To do this well, you might need to increase the size of the board. I'm sure you can figure it out.

Anyway, good work on the whole. I look forward to seeing if you can improve on this!

Score: 7

"A good base to build on"

submission: Artifission RPG chp0

date: June 21, 2007

I like what you've done here. Your choice of music is very good, for one thing. The menus look nice. Also, the engine (both battle and overhead movement) is very well-made. The graphics are well-lit/shaded, well-animated, and get the point across well. I like them, personally.

In other words, I think what you've got here is pretty good. But there are some things that could use improvement:
--No in-game menu? Really? I'd like to be able to save, heal myself outside of battle, and just generally keep tabs on my character. That's a pretty important feature for any RPG.
--Too many random battles. In particular, I don't like that I can be attacked while simply standing still. Since there's no menu, this means there's really no way to "pause" the game.
--I'm given no introduction to the compound I start out in. As the ambassador's bodyguard, there's really no reason for me to be wandering aimlessly around my own compound looking for the guy I supposedly spend all of my time protecting--except, of course, to make me fight a bunch of random battles.

Anyway, fix all of that stuff, and I think you'll be in very good shape for Chapter 1. ;)

Score: 10

"Fantastic!"

submission: Silent Film: Holes

date: June 20, 2007

This deserves my 5. Hilarious and clever.

Score: 8

"Not bad!"

submission: Overhead: Consistence

date: June 10, 2007

Well, if you're going to rip off the soundtrack from another game, I can hardly fault you for choosing No One Lives Forever 2--that game has a simply brilliant soundtrack. :) The other musical selections are nice as well (and some of them are so amusingly cornball that they contributed to your humor score as well). Also improving your humor score: the part of the Candy House that looked curiously like someone's intestines.

Some things that bugged me:
--the noise for when you touch an obstacle scares the living bejeezus out of me whenever it plays--it's really, really loud compared to the music. Just mentioning.
--no checkpoints in the middle of levels?
--the game doesn't seem to save my progress; I can't leave it and return to it later. Considering how long it takes to get through levels (and how slow and painstaking it is), this is a really bad thing to leave out.

Anyway, this is very well-made. There is a clear improvement here over the first game, graphically, gameplay-wise, and in other ways as well. I'll admit, this genre isn't quite my cup of tea, but I won't deduct points for that. This is probably the best flash game of its kind that I've seen.

Score: 5

"Eh, okay."

submission: Super Doggy

date: June 9, 2007

You're the guy that did Bomb It, aren't you? You're a talented game designer, though I don't think this particular offering is nearly as good.

Graphically, Super Doggy all right, though a little cartoony for my taste. I give this a 10 in sound, though, because the music is so good (though to be fair, it doesn't really loop properly, and it's a lot more serious than everything else in the game).

Where this game really falls short, in my opinion, is in the game mechanics.
--For one thing, Super Doggy (your character) moves REALLY slowly. Aside from the fact that this makes gameplay drag on too long, I don't see how you can walk that slowly and still be a super hero.
--As with other flash games I've played that attempt the "jump on enemies to kill them" approach, this game won't always register it properly if you jump onto an enemy from an angle. Several times, I'd jump onto an enemy and knock them off, but get hurt anyway.
--The super powers, which presumably are the things that are supposed to make this protagonist stand out, are kind of lame. I mean, in the original Mario game, you could spit bouncing fireballs out of your mouth. And it didn't take 20 fire flowers to do it, either--it just took one. And what's more, it lasted indefinitely (unless you got hit). So you can understand my skepticism at having to collect 20 power-ups for a short burst of...well, being able to do what you can do on most games on Newgrounds anyway, which is simply to punch people. Is this supposed to impress me?

I'm sure there are better powers later on, but the truth is, I just got too bored playing this. To compete with flash platformers like Fancy Pants Adventures and Flash Sonic, you're just going to have to brainstorm a better gameplay dynamic.

Score: 9

"Much better than I expected!"

submission: Mardek Rpg: Chapter 1

date: June 8, 2007

When I first started playing, I had some doubts about this game. It didn't seem to take itself seriously at all, there was only one enemy type, the music was so-so, and the dragon fight was taking forever. The more I played it, though, the more I really liked it. I won't give away plot spoilers or anything, but I like where things went right after the dragon battle. ;) Very cute. It explained the weird dialog at the beginning, at any rate.

Things I like about this game:
--the graphics during battles are fantastic! (I especially like the flying fish, for some reason.)
--the in-game menu, the multiple save slots--just the GUI in general is very well done.
--the "hit A to do extra / avoid damage" system, while not exactly new at this point, is still a nice plus that makes battles more engaging.
--the plot is pure, classic FFIV, with a little Phantasy Star thrown in for good measure. Much better than I was expecting!
--The sprites in the exploration portions of the game remind me a LOT of the older Final Fantasy games. While they didn't really mesh too well with the battle graphics, they do their job, and make me a little nostalgic. That's a good thing.

Things that need work:
--having to select things with the mouse in combat is a little annoying, particularly since you have to immediately use the keyboard afterwards to bonus on damage. It would be much better if you simply used the arrow and A keys to select everything.
--the dialog. Some of it is funny and clever, but townspeople make knowing asides just a little too often (e.g. "Don't let the bed bugs randomly battle you!") It's amusing, but at some point it just takes you out of the game.
--the music is a tad inconsistent in its quality. Some tracks (like the music for the grove when going to find the fallen star, and the battle music in that area) are actually really great. Some of the other tracks, though, aren't too catchy, or seem to meander a bit without purpose. They're not bad or anything, but the quality of everything else in the game surpasses them.

Anyway, over all, this is a really, really well-made and enjoyable game. You get my 5, and I look forward to seeing what you plan to do in subsequent chapters!

Score: 8

"Not bad"

submission: XENO TACTIC

date: June 7, 2007

I like it, but I've decided that Mission 4 is impossible. :P You should tone down the difficulty on that one a little, I think.