Step's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[:The Dot Game:]

Yep, covered in glitches :P

It's definitely great for your first game, I believe this is one of the best first games I've seen :). I'm just happy it's not a maze game using the mouse or a dress-up game :P.

Animation was quite smooth, although at times I went through platforms and started falling down when I wasn't supposed to. Still, not too bad animaton, with a good game engine as Coop83 said. Graphics weren't too good, TBH. Platforms were just black blotches and occasionally black squares, the dot seemed to change in every level except towards the end where it remained the same, which was wierd, and there was no background; instead a bland white screen. Try something gradient for a background, or maybe try drawing a space background or something. Just please take away that awful white. :\

The concept, obviously, isn't that original. A platform game played with oversized dot. Also, as Kirbyfemur said quite clearly, there were loads of bugs. For example, sometimes, when you fell down, you kept falling down forever, and this would result in having to restart the game. Also, at level 10, right under the platform where the portal was, there was a little passage which you could enter, and if you jumped, you'd be teleported up to the top of the platform. Oh, and at level 15, the music decided to stop. D: I would mention more glitches, but it seems like Kirbyfemur covered the majority of them :P.

The gameplay was alright; a little awkward because of the glitches, but still OK I didn't like how the game's levels progressed, though. Level 1 was harder than 2, the one with the broken spikes (I think it's level 7), although it made me lol, was practically one of the easiest. Some levels were creative, but there was nothing which was new to platform games like these. Oh, and I liked that you had the preloader letting you move the dot around while you wait, but I didn't need to wait for that long so it wasn't such a useful feature :P.

The game overall is quite short and easy. You could either do longer levels, or increase the amount of levels to something extraordinary like 100, leaving the gamer to think 'Man, when will this ever finish??'. Also, maybe you could add bonus levels, like ones with a timer, ones where you have to find all of the pickups, etc. Also, the menu button was a little wierd, since I thought it was a platform, I jumped on it, and fell to my death :P. I'd rather you put it up to the top left corner, and made it so that it moved with the camera. This would help a lot in longer levels (if you add any). Either that, or you add a pause screen.

Also, regarding the end, where you said 'Try to finish the game always bouncing'. This gave me an idea. Maybe when you win the first 15 levels, there's another game mode where you have to do it always bouncing, and it automatically bounces your dot up and down for you, then another one when you win the bouncing mode where you have to finish the game with the left and right keys inverted, and another with a timer afterwards, where you have to win the whole game in like 2 minutes or something, and then another game mode with all of those other modes combined or something. It'd really make the game longer, if you're not aiming for increasing the amount of levels.

Not much to say about the audio. it had a good song (which disappeared at level 15 as I said before D:) and I liked that you had a victory theme at the end. What you could do is add a different song for every game mode (if you add any), since the size of the file is quite small, and I don't think it would do any harm to add some more songs. Also, the preloader 'minigame' does need an excuse to be played more while the game is loading :P...

It's an OK game, and really great for your first. Work on those glitches, the graphics and the game itself: maybe giving it some game modes and stuff. Still, not a bad job overall, keep on going at this rate and I'm sure you'll become a great flash animator. Sorry for the awfully long review... D:
6/10
3/5

-Review Request Club-

Reached the character limit, in case you want to know :P.

Joshsouza responds:

Thanks for the review! Although I can't do all of those game modes to add in and 100 levels would take A LOT of time. I AM still a beginner. I only said to finish the game alwaysbouncing because I thought it would be a little bit more challenging and that I couldn't make the game mode. Thanks for the review again it is the best on I have recieved so far. :D

[DinoStomper]

Not that good...

A good concept for a game, although I got bored playing it too quickly.

Firstly, the graphics, although quite well drawn, were too bland since they had no colour. I liked the backgound, although some clouds would help a little. Still, adding colour would not only make the background along with the game in general look beter, but it could also make the game easier, by being able to colour-code the different neanderthals to know what bonuses you could get and which are your enemies/allies. The animation wasn't that bad, although a liittle slow in some parts.

The concept is good, since the fact that the dinosaur grows and shrinks according to who you stomp is pretty original. I just didn't like that you had cavemen 'helping' you, since they got in the way quite a bit, so you could either remove them or make them useful :P.

Gameplay was quite frustrating, since it's very hard to stomp someone on the ground when they keep passing from between your legs. A simple solution to this problem is by making a button (for example, the Shift button) which makes the dino stomp on the ground, destroying any caveman around your feet, and maybe a powerup which makes you be able to emit a powerful ground wave when you stomp which disintegrates any nearby enemies.

As for powerups themselves, it's nice to have some in this game, but all I noticed was one which made you slower (maybe it's because I only played 4 games XD), so you should add some more, and as mentioned above, by making them colour coded, they could be easier to spot.

The fact that you have a high-scores system is awesome, and put your score up quite a bit, but also I think you should add a menu that appears before the game starts giving the choices like: 'Start', 'How To Play', 'High-scores', 'Options', 'Powerup List', etc. since having the how-to-play next to the preloader was a bit unexpected, and I noticed it after like 2 games, and having a menu will make things look neater and give you an excuse to make some options like SFX and Music controls. By the way, you may want to add 'Enter/Space to Pause' to the controls ;).

The audio was great and fit perfectly with the game, but got annoying after a bit since I think it was just a small loop. I think you should do a selection of small loops or some really long loop so that it won't get boring. Some more sound effects like the dino's foot hitting the floor or something would be cool too.

It's not that amazing, and I've seen better games, but I expected this to be some stupid game where you just stomp neanderthals, and when I saw the high-scores list, powerups and lives, I realised I was wrong. Not a bad job overall.
6/10
3/5

-Review Request Club-

chesster415 responds:

Cool, thanks for the review. I thought this WAS just some stupid game where you stomp neanderthals. Nobody seems too happy with either the gameplay or the lack of color. But the concept seems pretty well liked. I could probably do better with this if I added more options, and maybe a level system, or something.

[Star Trails 3]

Quite fun :D

Definitely quite a fun game, but put a little more work in it and it'd be perfect.

The graphics were obviously not amazing, but was nice nonetheless. I liked how the stars left their trail (hence the name 'Star Trails' XP) when you caught them to mix you up, and it looked nicely drawn. Oh, and as Haggard said, the text in the menu was a little awkward to read, especially the 'Instructions' text. The animation was fine, without lagging and smooth, so nothing to complain about in the animation.

Ahh, here's where I have a lot to talk about... As for the concept, it's a good concept, that I haven't seen many times before. An in-game tutorial would do wonders over here, though, since the instructions are quite long and tedious when considering how small this game is. Also, I think the transition from colour to colour should've been a little faster, since I still got confused which colour to take, or maybe you can make the transition a sudden change, but maybe give some sort of warning next to the 'Get: ' showing that it's about to change, like a small 2 second timer or something.

I really liked the fact that there were three modes, but instead of that, maybe you could add some sort of options menu where you can choose whether to have a timer, whether the stars leave their trails, and maybe some new additions like whether you change colour or not, or a choice for the star speed and star amount to be present on screen. Speaking of options, the options menu you had here was nicely done, with an above-average amount of audio options. I've never seen a Pan option before, but seriously though, who would need a Pan option anyway? Lol still, it was cool anyway.

I liked Darklight's idea of adding bonuses and powerups, like immunity and stuff, and maybe some powerup that lasts for like 10 seconds where your star starts flashing different colours really quickly meaning you can take whatever colour star you want. As for the gameplay itself, a little easy, so you could add that variety of options I mentioned with a star amount and speed to make it harder.

The audio you used here was decent, even for a default song, although you could've been clearer when saying you have to keep the bar blank and press load music right after if you want to hear it. It seemed like a cool idea to have the feature of adding music from your computer/internet, but when I tried it out, it didn't work. I gave the full path in my computer, including the mp3 name at the end of it, but it just came up with Load Failed, and when I tried to use music from the Audio Portal, it didn't say anything but still didn't load any music. I don't know if it's something I'm doing wrongly or not, but if it isn't, that feature is worth fixing since it's really cool.

All in all, it's a fun little game you got here, but a few more variety regarding gameplay options and the gameplay itself along with some tweaking on the audio option would definitely make this game a lot better. I still enjoyed it quite a bit, so keep up the good work :D. Oh, and sorry for the terribly long review. D:
8/10
4/5

-Review Request Club-

chesster415 responds:

That's okay long reviews take a while to read but they help too. I might take a minute to load songs of the internet because they have to download. It could be a security setting restricting file access, you could probably load music from your computer if you were running the swf locally. I think I fixed the problem with loading from the internet. I upload the new version. I'm finally on a computer where I can listen to the audio, and I was getting the same problem. I like the idea of an options panel, The highscore boards are independent for the different gameplay modes so if I were to add an options panel I'd need to either add some kind of handicapping system or make a lot more scoreboards. Powerups really are a good idea, I'm thinking about ways I might implement them.

[Pizza City]

Very fun!

Not such an original idea, but made really well, and one of the best I've seen on NG.

The graphics over here are great for pixel art, and were very well done. There were just some things that needed more detail, for example, the grass which is just a big rectangle of just one shade of green. You should use a bright and slightly darker shade of green to make it look more like grass and less like a green rectangle. The animation wasn't perfect, but not bad for pixels.

The concept wasn't massively original, but still, one of the better pizza games out there. I liked that there were different things other than just delivering pizzas like the mini-quests, cop chase, buying new cars, killing mimes, clowns and robbers, and the totally random things like animals ordering pizzas and Santa popping out of the trash yelling 'Merry Xmas!'. I think there should be more landmarks, like, as S313 suggested, a place where to paint your car, and maybe more shops with better cars, shops selling items like the nitro, and maybe upgrades to your current car like more storage for the pizzas, more handling, etc, along with buying new cars. Still, the city's really big as well, so it's always fun exploring and killing pedestrians.

The music was perfect with this game, and outstandingly varied. My only complaint here is that the sound effects need to be varied a little more, like maybe the tires screeching when you break or when you do a sharp turn, pedestrians yelling when you run over them and the police siren when the chase starts.

Well, it's one of the best of its kind with very few and tiny problems. Fix those and you have a perfect game. Keep it up ^^.
9/10
5/5

-Review Request Club-

[Kingdoms]

Quite fun!

This is the first flash game of this type on Newgrounds, and it's not half bad!

The graphics of some things in the game were awesome, like the artwork of the sword at the menu, the units, etc, were very well done, but the main background and the simple hexagons need working on. Instead of a simple background you have, you should do a background of a battlefield, or something that relates to battle anyway. As for the texture of the hexagons, you should make the user choose an icon, and a land that is conquered turns into that icon.

As for the animation, there was little of it. As the other reviewers said, some battle animation would do wonders. Some walking animation when a unit moves from one land to another and animation of a building being built could be good too.

The concept isn't amazingly original, but I haven't seen any games like this on Newgrounds. The gameplay is OK, but it was hard to grasp the feel of the game, and I ended up with my castles turning into my enemies' castle, my units all destroyed and me not knowing what to do next. You should provide a more helpful tutorial that you can click on in the menu, where it shows you how to play step by step, instead of giving you boxes of instructions and expecting you to click something. On the bright side, there was more variety of buildings and units than I expected, so good job over there.

The audio is perfect for the game, and the sound effects were fantastic. Nothing wrong over here :D.

Overall, a good game, with a few problems here and there. Keep it up.
8/10
4/5

-Review Request Club-

[Scriball]

Best game EVER!

Amazing game. I didn't want to stop playing it.

I liked the animation in this game, everything went smoothly and properly. My only complaint is the graphics (more backgrounds, cooler backgrounds, etc.).

The concept is extremely original. I don't know how you could ever invent such an amazing and original idea. The levels progressed very, very well, were varied differenly, cleverly made, and a nice challenge in all. I managed to beat all the levels and was mad enough to win with all three balls, plus finished the extra levels in 6 minutes :D. I liked the boss stage too; it was the right difficulty, and fun at the same time.

The audio's great. The song fit perfectly with this game, and the sound effects (even though there weren't many) were cool. My only problem here is I wish there were more songs, like maybe a music selection, a dfferent song for every ball, a song for the extra levels or a song for the boss battle.

The high scores and level editor gave a nice touch to the game, plus the fact that you could play user levels as well was cool too. Great job on those.

Overall, one of my favourite games. Very original, fun, and well made. Amazing job! I wish there were medals XD.
Also, to TheBigPanda, the ball only goes through the line from under. Don't you know how to read?
10/10
5/5
Fav'd

-Review Request Club-

[Clock maze game 09]

Nothing special

I've seen loads of better maze games, and this seems like a work of 20 minutes.

The graphics obviously were ugly. Just a few lines and some text, but that's usually what an average maze game is anyway. You could make it a little neater and more attractive, though. I've never used or seen Flash being used before, but I'm sure theres some sort of line and curve maker which you could use to make it a little neater. A better background would help too, and a custom cursor would increase your score more.

As for the gameplay, I wasn't impressed. It was a very short maze game where you can cheat easily (right-click cheat, left-click and hold cheat, etc.) and the levels were easy. This uses too many things that are related to right-clicking and pressing 'Forward' and too little things that have to do with the maze itself. Only the second level posed as a (very small) challenge.

There needs to be a song here too. I guess if you don't know how to add music to your flash you can look up how on a tutorial. Also, as Fro said, you could at least add a little theme that plays when you've lost and another when you've won.

In all, a very simple, short, quiet -.- and easy maze game, which definitely needs more work to it. Sorry for the harsh review, but I don't really enjoy maze games...
4/10
2/5

-Review Request Club-

Elder responds:

Ok, thanks for the feedback.

[Toss the Turtle]

Lol XD

Definitely one of the best games of this type that I've played. I love it! (The turtle sure doesn't, though XD)

The animation in this game in fantastic, and the graphics are amazing. I like the different looks the turtle does when he hits the ground, and absolutely *WORSHIP* the artwork you did on that nuclear explosion. You could've varied the looks he did when he hit the ground a little more though :).

The sound effects are perfect for the game, and the music feels right at home in this game. I liked the sound when the banana punches you, I lol'd :D.

The gameplay and variety in this game impressed me a lot. There are loads of upgrades, and although they feel a little too expensive and hard to buy, they are very well drawn, and there were loads to choose from.

One slight problem though - when you shoot the turtle, it goes vertically upwards much too high, and when I bought the best things in the shop, I found myself over 200 screen ups (as TheLemonBomb put it :P) pressing and holding the W and A button, waiting for ages for my turtle to fall back down, bounce back up and wait for ages again. It got tiring and quite boring.

To conclude, one of the best games I've seen on NG, and perfect in almost every way. I've nothing else to say, apart from this:
"WHEN'S THE SEQUEL COMING OUT?!" =P
Lol, great job! :)
10/10
5/5
Fav'd

-Review Request Club-

[manga dress up (boy)]

Hmm...

Pretty simple for a dressup game. Like in a lot of your other submissions, this needs more variety.

The artwork was nothing too special, as Fro said. The hair needed more texture, the nose was too big, the beard was too big and needed texture too, and in all, it was pretty simple. Some animation would be cool in this.

The layout was a little bothersome. The head wasn't in the exact middle, the buttons 'reset' and 'back' were in the way, and there's limited space. I'd suggest making the head a little bigger, and putting it in the middle, and placing the buttons somewhere at the top and making them smaller (or making them icons, and the words come up under your mouse when you hover your mouse on them).

Then, you could add these small arrows at the side, top and bottom with 'Hair', 'Nose', 'Eyes', 'Accessories', 'Beards', etc, written next to each one, which, when you click on them, a wall of the requested items move in from the side, top, or bottom, you can drag the item you want, and when you click on the arrow again, it disappears back where it came from, leaving the arrow only so you can click it again. It'll give you more space to put more variety, make it more organized, and not make the game all cramped. Plus, if you don't put an item somewhere on the person's head, it disappears onto the wall of items you got it from.

A choice of music would be cool as well. The one right now is fine, but some more variety would be great and boost your score up for sure.

Well... I've seen better dress up games... Work on the variety of it a little more to make it better.
4/10
2/5

-Review Request Club

piggy123 responds:

ok thanks

[Ask A Clock v.2]

Variety...

I got bored of this pretty quickly. It's just typing in some question and the clock answers randomly...

The artwork wasn't too special. The clock looked strange, the box didn't go in line with the word 'GO' and the background would be more original if you made it yourself. Also, the text at the top was a little hard to read, although it's pretty cool that it could tell you your name, anyway...

The idea isn't bad, but there should be more variety for the answers. If you're not planning to make it a proper chat bot (that'd take ages :P), then vary your answers a lot more, and make it answer properly for some simple words (like if you say 'hello', it says 'hello', if you say 'bye', it says 'bye', if you say 'hey, look there!', it says 'I can't. I'm just a drawing.', etc.).

The fact that there wasn't really any sound in it bugged me a little. Some music would help take away the repetitiveness of the game.

Overall, not such a bad idea, and you have the concept of it, but a neater layout, more variety and some sound would definitely help.
6/10
3/5

-Review Request Club-

piggy123 responds:

ok thanks i will have it ready for next clock day!