Fro's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Keep it Kool!]

Pretty good guys!

~ Animation/Graphics ~

I like the 8-Bit style. I have to say that even though most of the animation was very simple, most of it was also done very well. The characters were designed well and you had a very nice arrangement and variety. The artists definitely get an A for their work. :)

~ Story/Content ~

I liked the purpose of the game and how it was eventually going to get to the point where there was no way you were going to keep playing. The programmer did a great job at balancing the game and making it manageable, but still challenging at the same time.

The only bad thing (And maybe I missed it, so I didn't take off for that at all) was I didn't understand how the upgrades worked. Could you please respond to my review telling me how they worked so I can come back and play it again? If you actually didn't include it, I do encourage it.

~ Audio ~

The music and sound effects were great. I wouldn't mind seeing some voices here and there, but if your guy was just the sound guy then that's very understandable if there weren't any voices in the submission.

~ Overall ~

You did a great job with the time limit that you had. If you were to have more time I would love to see a level system incorporated. The only downfall was the lack of explanation with the upgrades though. Like I said, I could have very well missed that.

ArChEr-11 responds:

There are instructions, but they are not amazing. Thanks for the review.

[Avoidance 4: Classic]

Died at 5687.

I hope there weren't any more enemies after the heat seeking blues that follow you around the screen. If there were then I'm not giving this a complete and honest review, but if there wasn't then great I witnessed all the game had to throw at me.

~ Animation/Graphics ~

Great art for an avoid game. I love the traditional old style that you had here. The colors went great together and everything seemed to be filled with effort. Great job to Izzy-A on the art.

~ Story/Content ~

I see that this was part of a bigger game, but damn, at 7.9 MB I don't see how you're going to fit it into another submission. So yeah, because this is a mini game I won't go into the long details that I usually do with the whole, "You should add upgrades, levels, and a store system" like I always seem to do to your games. :P

I loved how you had different enemies appear after a certain amount of time or score. The random point things that appeared were great. Perhaps you could implement some that doubled your points for like 10 seconds so the counter goes up fast.

One thing that I do suggest is having the enemies that appeared randomly within the map actually have to start outside. I think the purple and above could show up randomly and I suppose in theory one could appear right on top of you and you would die instantly. (not including the ones that had a shield like surrounding and then would appear a few seconds later, those were a great concept)

Oh, I noticed that people don't read author comments. Put instructions in your game if you want to make everyone happy. They ALMOST NEVER read the instructions that I put in the author comments and no matter if the submission needed them or not, such how this one didn't need instructions, people will be dumb about it.

~ Audio ~

I loved the first song, but it got repetitive quickly. (Good thing for the OBVIOUS music selection down at the bottom which I noticed right away in the menu) The second song just didn't go well in my opinion and perhaps that'll save you some room if you took it out. :P (then you'll have people complain about not having enough songs) The third song was the best choice and I listened to that one the most while playing this.

~ Overall ~

I liked the old style. If you have trouble fitting this in a bigger game I suggest cutting a little bit of the songs down to save room and to make sure they are MP3 files, which I assume they are if they are from the audio portal.

If you still can't and you want to submit something 20 MB and down then talk to me about it and I can sponsor/submit it for you as I have that upload limit. If you rather submit it yourself then just talk to Tom about it and if the quality is good enough then he'll change your limit for you. :)

~ Review Request Club ~

TheSongSalad responds:

Thanks for the great review as always Fro, I really appreciate it. The 7.9 megs is a lot for a mini-game, but we felt three songs was a good number, and we could afford to expand the size a bit with this submission. Thanks for the suggestions, and we'll talk to you for sure if we end up going over 10 megs with the main game. Thanks for the excellent review as always man.

[Metal slug: final SC]

This turned out much better than mine.

I did a practice run with Metal Slug sprites to see how the programming would be and I have to say that I think yours turned out better than mine, but it would still need a lot before I would consider it a good dress up/scene creator.

~ Animation/Graphics ~

It looks like if you made these yourself that you didn't really do a good fps as the animation ran very quickly on the sprites. That being said, I know how easy it is to find Metal Slug sprites already animated for you on the internet and if you used these then they obviously didn't agree with your fps either. I suggest playing around with that so the animation slows down just a bit.

Other than that you had a really good set up. The stage could have been a little bit bigger, but it wasn't too small by any means. (Still suggest making it a little bigger) It was nice to see the Metal Slug logo in the beginning and the interactive button on the menu was a nice touch. :P

~ Story/Content ~

Ha, it's not really possible to give a story to a dress up/scene creator game so that won't be the focus of this section of my review. The generic Metal Slug dress up. It seems to be what everyone creates when making a game like this. I've done it and I have friends that have done it. Metal Slug is just a good place to start I guess.

I suggest having a bigger flash stage all together so you can fit each character and then have their duplicate facing the other direction. This way people don't have to put the character always facing the one way. On top of that it would be great to duplicate all of the characters so they could be used multiple times if at all possible.

Another cool thing to do with these is to add moving backgrounds. Especially if you have Metal Slug sprites because they always have that truck and helicopter that you can choose from. If you have one of the backgrounds with a road or sky tween from one side to another and then put into a movie clip so it loops then it makes for a great animated background. Something to think about if you ever revisit these again. :)

~ Audio ~

The audio came on too strong on the introduction. I much rather it fade in on the first time through so it wasn't so sudden. On the menu section the song looped really badly. It was hard on the errors. :P I suggest finding a slightly longer song to use or a song that loops much better than the one you had.

On top of that the song that you used during the game got kind of repetitive after awhile. I suggest making something like a music select or a music menu where the viewer can choose what song they want while creating their scenes.

~ Overall ~

These are great to practice with and easy to make. (I know I do them sometimes) There just isn't much for the viewer or player to do. It gets boring quite fast and there's just little content at all. I feel to make these successful you have to really make them big by adding tons of games, songs, characters, and backgrounds.

Score is based off of a god honest truth of how it could be better, but trust me what you had was pretty good. I just know that you can make it better and that there was a lot of room to make it better. Keep on working and I'll get to your other submissions as the days go by. :)

~ Review Request Club ~

EventHorizon responds:

wow, this is a really well done and helpful review
I must admit that some sprites that were more complicated to do the animation I've already taken on the Internet, but most I did and if you look carefully also noted that some errors of movement, the speed of the sprite I adapted all to "23FPS".
You're absolutely right about why backgrounds had to be bigger, maybe I too thought the sprites because I made too many, I wanted it all-style metal slug so I chose the original music of game and even if the repetition of the first non-music this worked I did not care.
in short, as you said that flash was for practice so I did not care that everything is perfect, what I created was enough for me because I'm working on larger projects.
I love your reviews because they are really detailed and helpful, thanks for your advice.
==excuse my english==
:D

[Bounce the Coffin Dodgers]

Hm, simple, yet not bad at all.

~ Animation/Graphics ~

The animation was great and the graphics were very good for a game like this. I have no complaints about your art work or anything like that. I do think there are some places for improvement though.

I would like to see a little more going on in the background. Instead of stationary clouds you could have the clouds animated and moving in a continuing loop. The sun could be waving back and forth like it was on fire, and there could be animals or other things going on in the background. Not only would this make the game look better, but it would also make it kind of funny. Like everything is going on just fine except for the fire in the front. Maybe instead of animals you could have people standing there taking pictures of the the whole scene and news vehicles.

I do think that only having three different characters would make it boring after awhile. Personally I only got through the first two because I actually found the game to be kind of difficult. Even if you didn't want to add different characters then you could change the dress of the characters around so they aren't all the same.

Like I said, these things will really add to the submission, but the animation and graphics that you have are really good. :)

~ Story/Content ~

I thought the game was hard, but it really wasn't about the game. It was more about how laggy my computer is. That's why I won't take away any points for the gameplay. On top of that my computer has this glitch where it clicks off the game sometimes, which therefor makes it impossible for me to move in the game. It would be nice to have some sort of pausing system set up where the game would pause if the mouse accidentally clicked off of the screen.

I was brainstorming some ways to change this from a simple game into a great game that people will remember. Hopefully you will take some of these ideas into consideration for future games that you create. :)

If you add Levels then you open up an entirely new direction for this game. For example, you can implement a money system where you would generate money depending on how many people you saved. Instead of having lives you could go with the direction of having a goal for each level, which would tie in with the money system really well.

So yeah, with the money you could have a store in between levels. They could by upgrades like bigger net, strength (moves the people higher and further so you have to hit them less times), and some kind of interest upgrade or system where they could get 10 percent more gold of their total at the end of each level or something along those lines.

I think another thing that makes games better is to add a story behind it. Instead of just this place randomly being on fire perhaps you could add a background story to it some way. For example you could have some kids playing with matches and they set it on fire, etc... I'm sure there is something that you could come up with that would be pretty funny and would really add to the overall effect of the game. :)

~ Audio ~

The audio was pretty good all around. You had nice sound effects and the background music was good. I think that something that you could have done is make a couple more sound effects for the old people. Perhaps just some random generic old people moans and mumbles could have added more humor to this game. :) I'll do things like this in the future if you ever need a voice of some sort for a game.

~ Overall ~

The graphics and animation that you had were great, but there was room to add more. There could be some sort of story and a cool store system behind this game if you wanted to make it a little more complex. There could be a couple more sound effects as well.

It's a nice simple game as it is though. Keep up the good work.

~ Review Request Club ~

SantoNinoDeCebu responds:

Hey thanks a lot for the in depth review!

Ye now that you mention it the background does look a little stale! I did struggle tweaking the difficulty of the game, seems I'm not there yet though! The difficulty ramps up a bit too much I think after the skinny guy pops up. The 3rd guy appears around score 70+. I'll have to tweak the difficulty of me games properly next time :p

In terms of the story and complexity I was really just going for something short and presentable, fun to play for a few minutes so I just kept it as straightforward and simple as possible, but for me next creation I'll definitely look at adding a lot more depth to it!

Cheers, J.

[Enigmata: Genu's Revenge]

My 1,000 Flash Review :)

I just got to 999 flash reviews and I couldn't find any flashes that would be worth a review so I decided to come back to a submission that I've wasted many hours on so far and it's only been submitted recently. So I hope that you feel honored that you are getting my 1,000th flash review. ;)

I really didn't enjoy the first game for some reason, but I think it's because I didn't get it. This one I gave a chance though and I really found out that I loved the game! I will have to go back and play the first one again once I finish this one up. Hopefully it's fun just like this one is. Perhaps I shouldn't give up on things so easily. :P

~ Animation/Graphics ~

The animation and graphics are far superior than your average game on newgrounds. The animation is smooth and the drawings look like someone took a lot of time on them.

There are very few errors or glitches in this game. I think that the only one that I can think of are sometimes these random blue energy lines get stuck on the screen and don't go away. I know they aren't part of the background just the way they interact with everything else in the game.

~ Story/Concept ~

I really love all the options that you have in this game. I love the way that you have the slow powerful ship, the fast speedy ship, and the middle ranged ship that's kind of good at both.

The upgrades and side missions are awesome as well. There is just so much to do with this game and it takes so long to play it should be a console game. I would really spend a lot of time playing this if it was, but hey I don't have to worry about it since I already play it for at least an hour each day.

I usually wait to review submissions after I have beaten them, but I feel like that is still going to be a long time from now and I feel that I have a good feel for the game so here I am reviewing it now. I love the idea of having achievements both in the game and on newgrounds. Games with in game achievements are really fun to me and this isn't any different. :)

I'm really trying to save up for the infinite missile upgrade. I have a question about that though and I guess I'm just hoping that you actually read all of my review when I ask, "Does the infinite missile upgrade count nukes as a missile?" If so then I'm going to be moving along in this game much easier. If not then the last couple of missiles look like they are going to work perfectly fine as well.

I don't see how I'm suppose to get the orb things in the nekkon attack (I don't know if I spelled that right, but oh well) in the harder difficulties. I find that I can only get them in the easier section. Is there some sort of tip that you can give for this because I'm really stuck and the extra money would be nice so I wouldn't just have to keep replaying the same levels over and over until I have enough for the upgrade that I'm looking for.

~ Audio ~

The music that you used in this game are really good fits. I love the sound effects as well. I think that the use of voices in the future could be quite beneficial though and could add to the submission. That's just a suggestion though and isn't really necessary. Hell, if you ever think about voices though hook me up and I'll be happy to do them. If you don't like my voices I know several people who can do it as well!

~ Overall ~

I could really go on and on about how good this game was, but I really don't have the time or the character space to do so. :P The animation is very crisp and clean, the drawings look like someone put a lot of effort into them, the story is very good and I'm really interested in seeing how it all plays out, and the audio is good as well. Remember if you ever need some voices to hook me up and I'll help you out, but in a submission like this they really wouldn't be necessary.

Hm, if you just happen to skim over my review make sure to check the part where I asked about the nukes counting as missiles for the infinite missile upgrade.

~ Fro: My 1,000th Flash Review ~

Kidgamez responds:

Hey thanks for the detailed review, just to answer your question, yes, the nukes count as missiles with the infinite missile upgrade.

[Drug the mouse]

~ Review Request Club ~

~ Animation/Graphics ~

I really didn't like the way the things looked in this submission and it was one of it's downfalls in my opinion. Just everything was drawn very purely and I didn't like the way the mouse simply slid across the screen instead of running or moving in a different manner.

The way he moved was kind of bad too. He doesn't slide like how you think he's going to and he's kind of slow. It seems more about luck than it is about skill.

~ Story/Content ~

I like the idea, but it was a bit confusing. I think it had a lot to do with your broken English though because I didn't understand the gameplay at first. I thought making him explode was a bad thing, but I realized you wanted to make him explode. The game is confusing because naturally people want to get the hearts because they think of that as a good thing, but once I got use to it I found that it was quite challenging. I don't know how you got that high score, but I was even close.

Maybe add some upgrades that drop down from the screen like things that speed your mouse up, ones that make him bigger, ones that make him slower, etc...

~ Audio ~

The music was pretty good. I think randomly it could have a couple of mouse squeaks here and there. All in all though I think you picked a really good song for this game.

~ Overall ~

The graphics weren't very good, the game play was odd, but challenging, and the audio was very fitting, but could use a little more. Time to go cheat and see if I can beat your score. :P

~ Review Request Club ~

MonoFlauta responds:

"Just everything was drawn very purely and I didn't like the way the mouse simply slid across the screen instead of running or moving in a different manner."
Yeah me to... i cant say you why is so awfull because i didnt draw them :P
"The way he moved was kind of bad too. He doesn't slide like how you think he's going to and he's kind of slow. It seems more about luck than it is about skill."
Haha maybe you are not good enough lol :P just joking
"I like the idea, but it was a bit confusing. I think it had a lot to do with your broken English though because I didn't understand the gameplay at first."
I am proud of didnt written it :P lol
"The game is confusing because naturally people want to get the hearts because they think of that as a good thing, but once I got use to it I found that it was quite challenging."
Haha thats the funny part, eat all the things that kills you and dont eat things that make you feel better :P
"I don't know how you got that high score, but I was even close."
I played it all the night with the guy that is second :p
"Maybe add some upgrades that drop down from the screen like things that speed your mouse up, ones that make him bigger, ones that make him slower, etc... "
Lol nice i idea... i didnt think about that :P
"The music was pretty good. I think randomly it could have a couple of mouse squeaks here and there. All in all though I think you picked a really good song for this game."
Great, i didnt made, i didnt pick it too :p but i add it to the .swf lol
"The graphics weren't very good, the game play was odd, but challenging, and the audio was very fitting, but could use a little more. Time to go cheat and see if I can beat your score. :P"
Great... needs some improve but is nice anyway :P and addictive you have to say lol

Thanks for reviewing :P

[Hoshinofuru]

~ Review Request Club ~

~ Animation/Graphics ~

The graphics weren't the best and I see that you have improved them for the next one that you showed me a sneak peek of. They look much better on that one. On this one though they aren't too good.

There wasn't a lot of animation and perhaps there could be a little bit more? All of the characters have different attacks so they should all look a bit different from each other instead of using the same thing.

~ Story/Content ~

The game idea is great and the programming is really good. I think that 1-20 is a bad idea for the next level. Instead it should go up by 5's. For example Noob, 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, etc... This would make the game a lot more balanced and then at the very last one if you wanted to skip ahead and make it by 20 then it would be a fun challenge.

You level up at a good speed for the game to be enjoyable. Not too slow and not too fast. The characters were pretty good in variety as well. THIS WOULD MAKE IT REALLY FUN. Instead of changing your characters give us different options to evolve into just like in pokemon, but we get to choose. Show us the different strengths and weaknesses so we can make up our mind. (I guess that's kind of like digimon right?)

Here comes the load of bad things though. The Change screen is very confusing. I leveled my character up to level 10 when I ran into a new enemy and I accidentally changed my high level guy for him... It needs to be more clear and it could even say something like, "Are you sure you want to get rid of (insert name and level of the monster here)?"

I never got to see how any of the items in the store worked because I never made enough money and I never got to see what was in the other rooms. Are they there for a reason?

I gave up on the game when I switched out my high level character, but before that I was having a lot of fun.

~ Audio ~

The sound in the beginning (thunder and lighting, menu, and character select screen) weren't very good. They sounded like they had a very low quality to them. The sounds that you had in the new adventure screen and then for the rest of the game sounded good though.

One more thing about the audio as well. When you went into the store the song continued. This was good. When you left the store the song started all over again and this made it choppy. The song should loop the same no matter what you do in the buildings.

~ Overall ~

A few faults really brought the rating down in my review, but with a few improvements this could very well be my favorite game on newgrounds and even medal worthy in my opinion. Keep working and I can't wait to see the sequel to this. :)

~ Review Request Club ~

MonoFlauta responds:

Thanks a lot :P you actually can see the strenght of each osanai :P. Emmm yeah good idea that one of "Are you sure you want to get rid..." Beucause it will be very usefull :p
Yeah the graphics in this one are horrible :p but the AS i think is very well made and for the part 2 will be better in graphics and AS :P
The problem of the levels where true they where very difficult but once you get to lvl 20 with a mid osanai you where avaible to training easy...
I though the audio was perfect :P dont know why you say no XD please explain it to me later :p
The problem of the village with the store i didnt see it before :p thanks for telling me this... i will make it better in hoshinofuru 2 :p
Glad that you like it this game and thanks for the reviews :p

[Save your life]

A little too hard for me.

~ Animation/Graphics ~

All of the pictures worked great and the animation that you did have was pretty good. The only problem that I had was that you need to program it so people can't cheat. For example I could right click and skip an answer if I wanted to and you don't want people to cheat so you should fix that. :P

~ Story/Content ~

I personally found it to be too hard, but it might have also been because you don't speak great English and your hints really weren't that helpful. The tasks were difficult like they should be and I thought it was a rather fun game. Perhaps a little bit easier next time though.

~ Audio ~

I loved the music and sound effects that you used. They really added a lot to the submission.

~ Overall ~

The game was a little too hard, but it was a pretty good game. Difficulty should be up like this, but perhaps back off just a little bit so I can finish it honestly. :P

EventHorizon responds:

Really thanks for your advice and your honesty!!!, I hope the next game I'll be even more stunning and made even better.
Thank you for your comment!!!

[Kees' Adventure 2]

Story fits perfect now!

~ Animation/Graphics ~

Something that I noticed in this one that I hadn't noticed before is that when you walk into a room that has change (you've already picked up an item or a person has moved) it shows that item or the person there for a split second and then removes them suddenly. The graphics were basically like before so there really wasn't much to comment on about them.

~ Story/Content ~

I like how the story has came together now. It's actually a bit interesting. I also like how there is humor here and there throughout the submission. I'm still going to say it is still too easy and you could even put all three of them together into one. The mini-game was fun and it's something you should implement in the future. That or at least some more puzzles like it.

~ Audio ~

The audio was good, but like mentioned in my other reviews some sound effects would be good.

~ Overall ~

A pretty good series so far. I'm interested in seeing where number 4 takes us. I hope you will request it in the RRC when it comes out.

~ Review Request Club ~

kcnh responds:

Thanks again for your review, and I will be sure to keep you updated once the next game is released!