ChrisTuh's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Perfect Balance]

Hooked

Took me about 30 minutes or so to beat "Harmony", currently working on "Inferno", but I have a few comments so far.

1. I know that having ads is important for some "revenue" for a game, but mochi tends to interrupt my gameplay every 8 minutes or so with an advertisement. Granted, that isnt that frequently, and actually pauses the game, but I found it to be annoying after the fourth time or so that it happened.

2. I'm not sure if it's just me, but I can sort of "cheat" my way through some levels by forcing bricks to go in the places I want them to, such as under already existing bricks, or into the slots on the starting pad. Sometimes they even stick to the starting pad, such as in level 33, the long 4-block brick can be "forced" longways inbetween the two circle pads.

3. I like that it saves my progress as a cookie, but all of the levels for inferno are unlocked after I beat "Harmony". I would like to see all 40 of them unlocked as they are compleated, since they actually are kinda different than "Harmony" (more bricks, different time bonus countdown etc).

4. The graphics are pretty cool for "Harmony", but I'm not sure if I'm digging the worn-industrial look and the random background for "Inferno". Come to think of it, "Harmony" looks a bit like super-zoomed in cells, maybe some zen-looking background would have been more appropriate?

5. This is my own fault, since I tend to not read instructions, but I didn't realize until level 5 that you can rotate the blocks, but insted I used the directional pad... only to find out that the left key takes you to the previous trial, while the right key roates the brick. Perhaps disable that for retards such as myself (and I promise I'll be careful to read the directions from now on haha).

Overall though, very good game. I'll be completing "Inferno" (On level 8 so far) just for kicks. 5/5 for keeping me entertained.

ttursas responds:

1. Whoa, I always integrate the ads at the final stage of the project, and don't play that long to see how often the ads appear. Mochi's docs say there should be a delay of 15 minutes built in, but it seems I'll need to set up my own timer, 8 mins is too little...

2. That's a feature in the physics engine (Box2D). If I made it so that you could drop only shapes when they are not colliding with anything, that might make the game impossible... Needs tweaking for sure.

3. I thought the Inferno levels were so difficult that people might want to skip those they couldn't solve...

4. Yup, we tried Yoga background first, but couldn't come up with a good one... :P Graphics are always a small/big question mark for us, but fortunately we've now found a guy who wants to help us in that department. ;)

5. You are not the first one to say that... Yeah, better instructions. ;)

Thanks!!!

[Platformer game]

Needs some work

This game still needs quite a bit of work. Not bad for your first platform game (assuming it was the first one you've done), but it's not really finished material. The graphics are simple, effective, but overall boring. You might want to have a seperate splash screen to the opening of the game. You can just press "Done" to go to the next level without finishing the current level. There's no way to restart a level if you die somehow. If you're going to make a non-shooting platform game, atleast add some monsters to avoid, or something else other than jumping around.

Good intentions, a pretty decent start, but this really isnt a finished piece.

Chase1336 responds:

thanks for the very well needed advice on my first platform game

[Aquanum]

Not too bad--

--Sort of relaxing in the beginning. The actual game graphics were nice, and the gameplay was addicting enough to make me give it a second try.

Splash screen for the actual game could use a little work though, and the icon for the game is a little deceptive. Also, you should probably give the "how to play" a better tutorial on a clean page, rather than putting it in the extra space on the menu. If you lose lives off of the tail end, you should probably specify that in the "how to play" as well, since I wasn't aware of that until the game started to speed up and I tried to dodge and go around things, only to have my tail (which isn't glowing like the front end, I assumed it wasn't vulnerable) cut off. You can't get the points/lives all the way at the top of the screen though because of the "stat" bar.

Overall though its a decent game. I liked it.