Fro's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lost Catacombs]

It's hard for me to review this...

It's kind of hard for me to review this in an unbiased manner because I simply hate puzzle like games. I really didn't get that far into because I kind of get bored easily with them, but by no means will I allow that influence my rating. It's something that I don't find fair. If someone doesn't like a certain game style they shouldn't be giving it a low score because the game is actually high quality. In normal situations I simply wouldn't review this flash, but since it was requested in the RRC I'm kind of pushed into it a little bit. :P

~ Animation/Graphics ~

Very nice clean cut graphics all around. They were very simple, but fit perfect in the game. I liked that you added a dying sequence instead of the bad guy just flashing and fading away. The only thing that I can recommend to improve in this area was to perhaps have different death sequences. For example, the spikes coming up could pierce through the body while the arrows could stick in the head while the character slowly tips over from the blow.

~ Story/Content ~

The story was simple as well. To someone who doesn't like it then I'm slightly bored, but to someone who enjoys puzzle games then I'm sure they start having fun only a couple of levels into it. I literally got to the point with the arrows and I told myself that if I died here I wouldn't continue playing. I got shot by an arrow (not in the knee) and did exactly that. Sadly I didn't get too far into the story to actually know the cool things that you implemented so I'm sorry about that.

The medals should add replay value for a lot of people. I probably won't come back and visit this again though because, while I do enjoy getting medals, I rather do it on a grinding experience gaining like game instead of something that makes me think to hard. Durp, I must be too dumb for puzzle games.

~ Audio ~

The music was a perfect fit for the submission and sounded good all around with nice quality. The only thing I can think of here is to add a voice actor! I think the game would have been slightly more entertaining if the people you talked to literally talked to you along with the text.

~ Overall ~

Boring for me, but actually a very high quality game that deserves more views and reviews than it has. Keep on working hard and keep on creating flash games. Good day sir.

~ Review Request Club ~

SantoNinoDeCebu responds:

Thanks dude,

Appreciate that you objectively looked at the game and can see its merits despite hating the genre:P
But at the same time you would be the kind of person I should be trying to egg on and entice, and warm up to the game, so it is good to know which aspects you find boring etc!

J

[~Strange Thoughts~]

I'll have to review this in a different way..

But not too different, but because of the fact that it was made for the game jam. (I competed in the first one so I know how you are very limited in your selection and everything)

~ Animation/Graphics ~

They were alright all in all. Nothing too amazing by any means. There was little to no variation in the animation other than the opening scene because after that it was some text and floating. So as for the animation I would like to have definitively seen more of it.

The artwork was much better, but it's still a style that isn't anything too amazing. I think that as you got higher you should have had a crazier background than what you had. You changed the color and everything, but I think it would have been better if it got wavy and dizzy.

~ Story/Content ~

The story was something that you had to follow so I can't really comment on that. (Even though I thought you had a very cool approach to the content! Good job on that part) What I didn't like is that the difficulty relied mainly on the fact that the controls were bad. I feel that makes for a bad game, not a difficult game.

A difficult game would have given me a dizzy background, screen that started throbbing back and forth, increased enemies, and some sort of goal. Not me not being able to move because the acceleration was way too low. On top of that you get hit before an enemy is even touching you. If that was fixed I would have survived much longer then I did.

The text made it funny, but I couldn't get too much further then the pizza overload because of what I mentioned above. :(

~ Audio ~

The songs and sounds that you did were great fits. I really think that a submission like this could have benefited from a voice actor though. There were four of you so I assume somebody could have done a fitting voice for this submission.

~ Overall ~

A good game for the time frame, but I really think the controls brought this game down a little bit. I could see this being a lot more fun if the difficulty came from the increase in enemies and speed rather than that.

~ Review Request Club ~

[El's Quest]

Ok, let's try this.

You probably don't know me, but I use to belong to the Review Request Club. Well I think I'm joining again. (We'll see it's not official yet) If I decide to you will be the first submission that I review as an official member. :P

~ Animation/Graphics ~

There's nothing like the old fashion gameboy style black and white. I actually really like it and think that it's fitting for the submission. The graphics were all simple, but good. I think there could have been some variety even though everything was black and white. For example, if there were a different variety of gems or enemies then this would have been better visually in my opinion. Other than that, nice and simple.

~ Story/Content ~

I'm a sucker for upgrades in a game so that's where I'm going to focus this part of my review on along with some other things. I wouldn't have mind seeing some sort of upgrade system. The gems for points were find and dandy, but why not have a laser upgrade that widens the shot of your laser or a shield upgrade that allows you to take damage from an enemy or obstacle once before it disappears? Or even an almighty rare gem that gives a tons of points?

Other than that I felt like the game was fun for about thirty seconds or so. It never really got harder and in fact, the only reason I died was because I took a second to make an icon for you. (You're welcome, the empty icon was very ugly so I added it in for you. Don't worry I didn't hack I'm actually an icon mod :P No worries here) Perhaps there was increasing difficulty and I just didn't get far enough, but if not please add this in!

~ Audio ~

Beep, boop, bop, beepity, boop boop! It started to give me a headache so I just turned it down a bit. It was actually very fitting and went well with the old school style of game play. I just warn people to please keep it turned down while playing so you don't hurt your ears!

~ Overall ~

A nice simple game, but I feel like it's a little too simple to really be enjoyed by the community. You are definitively on your way to being a good game maker though so keep up the good work!

~ One Last Tip ~

This is from one submitter to another. Put the instructions right in the flash because people really don't read the author comments that often. This will avoid people leaving ignorant reviews about not knowing how to play the game because they'll have no excuse on why they didn't read it.

~ Review Request Club ~

[Earn to Die]

An excellent game by all means!

~ Quick Comments ~

I'm giving you a perfect 10/10 because I played the game so many times and it was just as fun every single time that I played it. That being said, I'm going to list so many recommendations and factors that I think could improve the game that I may just run out of review space. I'd appreciate it if you would take the time to read them and to take them in consideration if you were ever to make another game like this in the future.

~ Animation/Graphics ~

I enjoyed everything here. The game never lagged for me where sometimes other games would have. The backgrounds were extremely nice and all of the animations were nicely done.

I could recommend that you do some of the following though. Even though I would hate if you figured in a damage factor the vehicle in terms of being able to continue driving, I feel that it would look much better if the vehicles appeared damaged as you ran into things. As you run into zombies it would be a nice feature to have the vehicle become blood soaked. The more you run down, the more blood should be sprayed over the car.

~ Story/Concept ~

I love the grinding in the game and the upgrades. There's a lot that could be done here to really improve the game.

1) I would have liked a better description of what the upgrades actually did. I know that it should be pretty self explanatory, but at first I wasn't quite sure if the engine made my vehicle stronger, faster, quicker, etc... I kind of figured that it either did a little of everything, but that the engine made the vehicle faster, the tires stronger, and the transmission allowed for quicker acceleration. Perhaps give the car a rating system and show how the rating system will change when selecting a new upgrade.

2) MORE UPGRADES! I personally feel that there is one obvious upgrade that should have been included. Some sort of shield should be added to the front of the car. It could be some sort of rigged metal (grocery carts, plow, etc...) so you can control your strength when going through boxes and zombies. Having an upgrade that could benefit you by not having to lose as much speed when running into things would have made the game a little better and probably make the vehicles look a lot cooler as well!

3) MORE VEHICLES! I would have loved if this game was even longer. I would personally make the destination even further away so you could have a ton more vehicles to upgrade through. You could have included vans, bulldozer, or even a bus. I could see this being a very long and enjoyable game by simply adding more diversity than the three vehicles that you had to offer us. If you ever make a sequel please add more.

4) Random

a) I feel there could be a better diversity in the zombies. There were only two different types.

b) It needs to be more clear why you get certain bonuses when hitting boxes or zombies. It seems that you get it for hitting targets in a certain fashion for the first time with each vehicle, but you can't really be 100 percent sure.

I liked the small comedy at the end. The entire game was serious in a way, but the ending really wasn't. Perhaps it would be better in my opinion if it was serious all the way through, but at the same time we added rockets to big rig and I'm mentioning that the game was serious? Lol, ok, perhaps not.

~ Audio ~

The music was very fitting and the sound effects were a perfect match to the game. There simply isn't anything that I can think about for improvement here. Maybe, just maybe, you could include some voices, but it isn't something that I find necessary.

~ Overall ~

A very fun game with good graphics and audio. I would love to see more added to this. The only thing keeping this from being an amazing game and a good game is very slim. If you ever make a sequel please take my opinions into thought when creating it.

I haven't reviewed something seriously in awhile because I haven't really seen the point in it. I guess you should be honored or something? Perhaps not. :P Have a good day, keep making good games, and keep on getting better!

[Kingdom in the Clouds]

Amazing

I wrote a review that took every character of the review space, but my computer died and I lost the whole thing. I'm not writing it again, but I'll some it up in a few words.

Art was amazing, well done, there was no lag on my computer. I have a computer over six years old and I experienced no lag whatsoever.

The gameplay was original and challenging. I only died twice and that was on the last level. I don't see where the curve is too hard because if you're a gamer there was a very easy curve, but still hard enough to be fun.

If people don't notice the change in the cloud attack I challenge them to beat the game with using it and then without using it. There's a difference so slight that you can't notice it, but when you don't have it the game is extremely difficult.

The voices were good, but the voice actor needs to get a slightly deeper voice. :P It was a little to feminine for my liking. (I really mean no offense when I saw that though)

Great game, loved it, and I'm not sure why people are giving it a low review, but nonetheless your best game yet.

MonoFlauta responds:

Ok, a lot of thanks reviewing! I loved the review and I am glad that someone noticed the hard work this game had!

Again thanks!

[The Abusive Review Quiz]

It's ok.

Hmmm... My first review in quite awhile. I just randomly watched this and noticed my name in it so I decided to leave a review.

You can't really have helpful and useless as an option in quizzes like this. Depending on different opinions they are going to be either or. For example, the review that said they should add more medals is a tweener. The author could very well find that as helpful, but at the same time another one could very well find it useless. Can you see where you made a big mistake there?

Now, of course, there were several obvious useless ones, but it's still too much opinion to put on a quiz. Most people find reviews that say, "This was awesome!!!" as useless, but when I receive a review like that on one of my flashes I love it. It's helpful to me because I know the person wouldn't want anything to change and this influences how I make flash in the future.

You made a mistake not showing what flash the review was for as well. A review of all code like the first one is fine and great for a flash that produces level codes for other users. If this was reviewed on a completely different flash that didn't have this then it would obviously be abusive for being spam like. The same with the one that starts with He's on crack. If this is for a game with a level code then it's fine, but if not then it's spam and abusive.

You make a really big mistake when you don't show the answers. Like I said, most would be wrong because you would be giving a specific answer when it really matters on the opinion like I mentioned before. At least show the ones that would be marked as abusive. You really defeat the entire purpose of this flash without showing which ones are abusive. I'm assuming the point was to teach or test some people's knowledge. If you got some answers wrong on a test you'd like to know which ones so you don't make the same mistakes in the future right?

There were a few good things though. Nice background and graphics even if they were generic. Same thing goes with the audio choice here. The reviews were good examples, but like I said before, without the title of the flashes and a description of the flash you've failed to get across the sure answer on whether some of the reviews are actually abusive or not.

All in all I guess I left a somewhat negative review, but I'm just trying to help. You made a lot of mistakes that really brought down the quality of this flash, but another hours worth of work on this could turn my 6 into a 9 or 10 fairly quickly. Keep on working and keep on creating things.

Hacsev responds:

I should probably change your username in the flash, I didn't know it had changed.

I decided to classify them as useless since it didn't gave any constructive criticism, and you my friend taught me that.

And addition like "This was awesome!!!" would have been great. I still have confusion with those, though. Because if they don't add anything other than that, I consider them as useless.

I didn't want to show the flashes were I got those since it would give you guys ideas, but I guess I should have explained why it wasn't abusive. Besides, most of the reviews were invented.

Yes, I basically wanted to test users knowledge. And again, I'm really sorry for not including the reasons. I had lots of problems with the actionscript codes.

Never the less, I really enjoyed reading your review and nice to see you giving me some feedback. Thanks for the review, Corky!

[Headbanging Hero]

It's great!

You had some great art, fun and challenging gameplay, and a great assortment of music from the audio portal. And to those who think they are cheating by holding down the arrow keys think again. You'll almost get no points because you get the majority of the points by hitting the arrows in the middle.

Keep up the good work and I hope you win. I think this is the best of for sure!

MonoFlauta responds:

Thanks a lot corky! we also hope to win :P hahaha

[Pyroscape 3]

5/5 and 10/10

OMG THE FIRE ZOMBIES ARE EVERYWHERE AND I DONT KNOW HOW TO GET PASS THEM DO I SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD OR SOMETHING WHY IS THIS GAME SO HARD I CANT GET BY THE OMG THEY BIT ME AHHHHH

Loved it. A good ending to the series. Or is it? Can't wait to be coauthored after the submitting process is over. On to some new games now why don't we? Muhahahahha.

Medals get!

MonoFlauta responds:

YAY!

[STS: The Game!]

Darn!

I can't get past those darn fire zombies. They get me every time!

[The Greatest Orb 3]

Perhaps a little too simple?

I think this one was a little too simple. I recommend adding a higher difficulty level in any future orb games, but other than that I really enjoyed the audio and the artwork. Coming up with the lvel names was extremely hard as well. :P

Congrats on the sponsor. This upcoming weekend we will finish the next Pyroscape since I'll start my break. Thanks for the patience, but we will finally get it finished!

Fro responds:

I can respond to my own reviews?