MalTheDestroyer's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Bloons Tower Defense]

Cool!

This was fun, if not particularly difficult (I beat it with 33 lives and 898 gold to spare on my fourth try.)

Advice: Keep rows of tack turrets in tight spaces, and at least one or two at the very beginning to pop black and white bloons before they make it into the thick of your bomb/ice turrets. Also, keep upgraded monkeys spread throughout the level to pop strays.

On a final note, he doesn't lie: the super monkey is pretty damn useful. ;) Of course, I couldn't save up enough for him until something like level 47, but it was worth it when I did, especially after I upgraded him with epic range (that, in turn, took until I could afford it midway through the last level). :D

[Monster Basement]

Very good!

I enjoyed this quite a bit--much more, I must say, than either Trapped or Pursuit. The atmosphere helped a lot in that regard. I also feel like you've improved a lot in terms of making solutions to puzzles that make logical sense.

The only thing I can really say bad about this game is that (SPOILER) you have to find a key behind a corner of the Godlimations poster. I just assumed that it was an in-game ad that would take me to your website if I clicked it, like the Armor Games poster behind it. It felt like "cheating," somehow, that you'd make me click it to get somewhere in the game. (/SPOILER)

Anyway, that small quibble aside, you did an excellent job on this. I look forward to your next project!

[Terrascape]

Not bad, but could be much better

Overall plusses -- I like the variety of characters, and the idea of creating a platformer / fighting game hybrid.

Graphics -- this game is beautiful, graphically. Everything is well-drawn and animated, with some awesome backgrounds and cool attacks. No complaints here.

Gameplay -- things get a little iffy here. The controls feel extremely sluggish and imprecise, and it is REALLY easy to fall off ledges. This is not good for a platformer where you're making timed leaps to avoid dying on a regular basis. Also obnoxious: when two enemies are standing directly in front of me, my attacks will only hit one of them, allowing the other to simply punch me at his leisure. This, in turn, makes the sluggish controls feel ten times worse, since you can't simply punch and then dodge.

Music -- a lot of it is kind of bad, honestly. With the exception of the boss music, it sounds like a high school kid who has just figured out how to make chords on his Casio.

The bottom line: I can understand why you'd want to re-use the Newgrounds Rumble engine, but it just isn't getting the job done here the way it should. The sluggish, unresponsive controls hamper what is otherwise a solid, well-made game.

[Detective Grimoire]

"Massive"?

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."

[3D Rally Racing]

Nice!

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. :)

[Biff and Baff - Rolling]

Good idea, but poor execution

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).

[Tomb Chess]

Not bad!

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!

[Artifission RPG chp0]

A good base to build on

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. ;)

Fickludd responds:

Thanks for the review!

The things you mention will be included in chapter 1. How is your collab going? Hope to see that and Telepath out soon!

[Overhead: Consistence]

Not bad!

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.