deadvelvet's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[TINY BUD ADVENTURES]

This game has a good presentation. There is a decent level of polish and simplicity off the bat which is automatically engaging for the player.

The mechanics are slightly off putting. There is a very small window for the player to jump over obstacles. They are immediately greeted with a notification, and paused screen telling them to press "A" to continue.
For a game where dying is going to be an integral part of it, pressing "A" becomes a chore after a while. I constantly dreaded dying for that unnecessary screen. Tiny Bud should automatically wind back up at the start of the level when he dies so players are encouraged to increase their skill.
This feature has single handedly increased the chance that players will be more likely to leave the game when they die, as the control is taken out of their hands and they are given the opportunity to contemplate whether it's worth continuing. If this screen popped up when you ran out of lives, and took you to the beginning of that stage, this would be more understandable.

For a game that is solely focused on the keyboard, it is annoying that the menu screen suddenly needs to have mouse movement. It becomes a chore to get focused on one controller system, and have to move your mouse again to select your stage. Everything should be done with the keyboard, unless there is an integral feature that will require the player's hand to be on the mouse during all stages of gameplay.

The music is quite nice, and it doesn't feel overwhelming. For something simple, this complements the game. Good work.

Overall this is a good little time killer with nice simplicity but is ultimately overshadowed by its poor implementation of a difficulty spike that fails to keep the player motivated to continue.

PRGAMES responds:

Hi

Thanks for your review

* i will try and make controls a lot more comfortable
* Game is just a 24 Level platformer divided in 6 parts
and hence being a small game have made it a bit difficult with player having to be a bit precise at jumps
(i think maybe a better refined controls shud do the job)

* will have an improved version shortly

Thanks

[ARES]

I feel that this game tries to achieve a certain kind of simplicity that is overshadowed by the unfortunate amount of energy that is required to persevere past the first level.

I have not played a game similar to this before. You get a point on the house for not using a pre defined context.

Your setting contradicts the style you're going for. Is this the apocalypse of the doom bullets or a simple game trying to challenge player's reflexes? The description conflicts with the setting.
The music sounds like it belongs inside of a strong and thick boss battle within a very difficult and climatic point of the game, not in a simple flash game like this.

The gameplay is unrewarding, as different as it is. Each time feels like the last with nothing to set each experience apart or teach the player how to approach the situation better the next time.

Using two keys is also extremely tedious and perhaps the option to use a mouse would have been preferable. I understand the challenge is timing the interpolation of each apoasis from the action point so I don't believe it deserves to have a rating detracted from that.

It's a nice little concept, but you have, in my opinion, mixed up a lot of your priorities when deciding what the purpose of this game is.

Perhaps with a little more polish, and a quick trip to the drawing board to decide what /is/ fun about this game, what can be improved and what needs to change in order to provide a consistent experience; the end product may be something entirely more fascinating and engaging.

Who knows, but ARES in its current state seems to be confused, and it is reflected on the player's perspective.

SittGames responds:

Thank you so much for the in depth response!

This is actually my first ever game and this is exactly the sort of review I was hoping for. I definitely see your point on the music not fitting with the tone of the gameplay. This is something that I'm most definitely going to be polishing up, and thanks to your feedback I can work on it a lot more to make a much more polished game.

[Shadow Wolf Combat]

Unique approach to the graphics. It would have been a very interesting code behind the constant angle that the ship has towards what is seemingly a black hole.

The game has nine stages, all of which introduce new things which add a sense of progression combined with the funds you receive from destroying enemy ships which can then be used to purchase upgrades.

There is a well thought design behind this approach, and perhaps with a bit of a more compelling back story and assets could draw people in with something as simple as a flash game.

There are some inconsistencies between art assets, and the overtly humorous approach, while fitting; does feel a bit senseless at times, such as in the shop for your ship.

I was pleased to have a sense of challenge against my skill and I look forward to seeing what you can produce next.

Splyth responds:

thank you for your kind words. Yeah looking over those descriptions they needed
some rework. I wrote them at 2am and to be honest I forgot to change them to something
less dumb.

[Bola Bolha]

I did not like this game, personally. I was not able to progress past the first level.

Something very annoying is the intro. There is no way to skip it. In order to allow more user accessibility the player should be able to skip through each frame when re-entering the game.

The controls are very clunky and unresponsive. It is a chore just to move Bola Bolha around the screen.

The enemies are impossible to kill as there are far too many at the start, with absolutely no way to retaliate. Pressing the CTRL button to fire does not fire immediately, there is a very unnecessary delay and only seems to fire when it feels like it.

The last problem is that the control layout is very unconventional. The CTRL button right next to the arrow keys to shoot is extremely awkward and severely limits the player in their ability to play, and your ability to expand upon controls in the future.

If these things were fixed I may have been able to progress further in order to see what the game holds for me.

imperiarte responds:

Keep the Ctrl button pressed to improve the shot