sqykly's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Starstuff 2D | v0.1.2a]

It's a cool concept, but it takes so much guesswork and time (3x is way too little) to get anything at all to happen. I'm afraid I'll have to abandon it, though if you continue to work at it, then PM me amd maybe I'll play it again.

Druidtton responds:

But it goes up to x100 speed! D:

Try the tutorial.
Anyway, the 2D version of the game is no longer under development, so there wont be any changes or fixes to this version of the game, but like I said in the description, we're working on a 3D version of the game with many more features.

This is basically what it looks like right now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxKTfmGISLI

Thanks for the feedback either way!

[Tek Tactical]

I am afraid I have to coin a phrase to adequately describe what this game is: ridiculously high meta-game to game ratio. I imagine that the game was designed incrementally, with next to no deadlines; work naturally expands to fill available time, and feature creep snowballed into what I just played. Developer's enthusiasm for his/her work leads him/her to believe that players will also be interested in having every numeric parameter exposed or even spewed upon the monitor at nearly all times.

It sounds like I'm saying that's a bad thing, but I'm not - it's great to be enthusiastic about your game. There's just something about this that is extreme and bizarre and disproportionate, and it's far more remarkable in that respect than what I would otherwise write about in a review. It's like the content and gameplay are having some sort of lilliputian hallucination, and really can't tell how much depth they can swallow. Ridiculously high meta-game to game ratio.

That still seems a little abstract, so I'll try to spell it out. The basic activity of playing your game - the part where you can hypothetically win or lose regardless of any other preparatory steps - is the part where you run around and shoot people and pick stuff up. This part is pretty well done, though I found it a little difficult to predict or understand what defensive strategies would be effective when there is precious little cover and bullets travel at infinite speed. Normally, this sort of game is made interesting for more than a minute or two by providing additional content. Customization and character enhancements - even normal ones - don't ever carry a game alone for me once I run it out of content. There's just nothing you can do - no number of mathematical tweaks you can allow, no secondary mechanics that can enhance my efficiency at the primary game and/or other layers of meta-game - that will make the activity of shooting the same 3 guys (I am being generous with 3) in the same room interesting for a significant period of time. Rather than add rooms or other things to shoot or logical scenarios or something unpredictable or a plot or characters, you've instead offered me a million and one ways to walk back into that same room and shoot those same guys better. Adding layers to defer my character enhancements for a bigger payoff at a later time doesn't make it interesting to play unless I am really interesting in shooting those 3 guys in that room again. Sadly, I am not.

In summary:
+1 slick animations, overall good-enough-graphics
-0.5 tiny icons in the shop
+3 massive customization
-1 no corresponding content or gameplay depth to motivate use of customization
-0.5 too many numbers, not enough math to make sense of them (not that most people like math more than numbers)

Final score is 2 stars.

tedgaming responds:

You made a lot of valid points, but you also blended facts and opinion into one concoction. It's unfortunate to hear that you do not enjoy this genre of meta-gaming, but many people do and you can't just take that away just because you personally don't like it. It would be the equivalent of you walking into purse store and complaining that it's bs that they only sell purses.

[Astral Alliance]

This is a pretty good game; I'm actually really surprised that it hasn't gotten more attention. It's complex, but pretty elegantly designed. Graphics are good and it runs smoothly on my system. It's rare to see such a fleshed-out, polished RTS implemented in Flash, so I hope this gets the recognition it deserves.

That said, you lose points for two things. One is that, despite how much work goes into just the RTS basics (a lot, I know) this doesn't add a lot to the genre. You've got economy buildings and factory buildings, you've got towers, you've got ships, bigger ships, and ships that are bigger than that; that's a solid foundation. I've seen a lot less polished games either borrow concepts from other genres (e.g. control of a unit so that it's like a shooter, level up so it's like an RPG, etc. etc.) or come up with cool new stuff of their own, but I feel like I've seen everything in this game before. The other point is that you can't save your game without registering elsewhere. That strikes me as obnoxious. We have the technology to do a local save, so provide that option for the single player campaign. I guess the game was short, but I still didn't want to go through it in one sitting, so I'll probably never get past the level with the colony.

Anyway, tl;dr - good game, add local saves, keep engine, add more variety of units or upgrade paths or something, add more levels. Solid 3.5.

drfrankius responds:

Thanks for your review.. all fair points. Based on feedback from people the game has now been modified to save games locally as well as to your account. I originally thought that it would be confusing to do so.. but since most users seem to be opposed to registering its probably the better option.

[Tower Defence War]

Solid engine, bland design

The engine is solid, in that I didn't see any bugs, and everything was smooth.

However, you need to put a lot more time into this game. The enemies are all about the same (at least make them LOOK different!). The towers are about the same six towers we've been putting along the sides of roads since the first TD game was made. They all look about the same as one another. Most people will play and love an unoriginal game if it has great art, but there's nothing awe-inspiring about circles and recolors.

This is basically Another Tower Defense Game. Either add some jaw dropping bells and whistles or an original twist or feature.

Also, make it more difficult. I won on my first try with a $12000 surplus and a whole block of level 5 towers that had never fired a shot.

iovo responds:

Now we have final releace. Please recommend my game for a collectionection.

Thanks!

[Mecharon]

An excellent... plagiarism?

First of all, let me say that the game was very well done. The enemies were mostly original and had a good variety, and there were weapons that were new & different. There was plenty of polish, and I could tell that a lot of time had been put into the implementation. For those points, you get one star.

However, the game borrows *EXTENSIVELY* from CrimsonLand by 10Tons Entertainment in its design. I make the comparison a lot with other top down Smash TV style shooters, but a few new weapons and enemies are the only things that keep this from being a straight up port of CrimsonLand to Flash. The format (kill things in a featureless open playing field while collecting pickups and experience to gain a perk at each level) is identical. Most of the perks gained at level up are identical, many in name: Bonus Magnet, Unstoppable, Dodge = Dodger/Ninja, [X Weapon Type] Master, Bonus Warden = Bonus Economist, Cunning Reloader = Angry Reloader, Scientist = Bloody Mess, Instant Repair = Bandage, Radioactive bullets = Poison bullets, Boost Attack Speed = Fastshot, Repair droid = Regeneration (just to name a few). The only pickup that isn't in Crimsonland is the quad damage upgrade.

The bonuses ARE very common in games, but some aren't, and the fact that Crimsonland perks are Mecharon perks, Crimsonland pickups are Mecharon pickups, and in the context of the identical flow of gameplay, this is clearly plagiarism. I wouldn't believe you if you said that you had never played (and loved) Crimsonland, that the design similarities were coincidence.

episodeent responds:

I like Crimsonland and I wanted to make Flash Crimsonland. It was very very hard because flash gives much much LESS performance.
There are a lot of thing that aren't present in Crimsonland: Black hole, Bonus Rocket launcher (2 weapons at the same time), bosses, units which fight by your side etc.

[The Rise of a KING]

An improvement on the original; pretty good

I have no complaints about this game, except that it would be nice to be able to save right before the final boss. The art and sound are as good as they need to be. The only reason it loses points is that there's nothing revolutionary or spectacular about it. For its niche, it's very good.

SeethingSwarm responds:

Okay, cool.