squidly's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Gathererer!]

Boy there's a lot of ideas going on here. Overall like the presentation but it's rather hard to control. I don't really recommend dual control setups in a tag team game. I get there's some underlying game design reason for that, but... I just really don't recommend it. It's a bit hard to figure out your objective at that, and the game could use some music. I do like the art, though, and there's some very effective use of dual FlxCameras which I always appreciate c:

IXthe2nd responds:

Really, I had a lot more ideas implemented but cut them out because I was still learning about HaxeFlixel; thought each feature was really cool while going through the documentations. But I can really go overboard when I'm having fun making it. Later, figuring it to be better just to make it overall "simple". The Substates were a pain though. One sub was not laggy, but the other was. Overall, I'm glad no one found the real secr--. 'x'

*beep* Thanks for the feed back. *end beep*

[Threads]

This game has a lot of potential and actually has some quite nice execution with clean presentation, a good little camera that slowly pans back, and effective UI.

The only thing I'd say is that everything really ought to be faster. I mean, these are cars, a sports car, a cop car, an ambulance, a train, all of which have very generous speed limits, yet they're really crawling along.

I also couldn't quite finish the train bit. No matter what I did, pressing forward for 45 seconds (which is long in itself to do one thing) didn't result in enough speed to reach the destination. I spent 3 minutes just pressing right and got nothing out of it :\

[Get Kisses, Assimilate]

I love the character design in this game and the art. I think you needed a better way to deliver that text, though, as it's a bit hard to read, could've used some dark outlines or a dark background.

I do quite like the "going down the trail" effect, and honestly, I'm just overall impressed with the amount of unique assets this game has. However, as the game is just press forward and space, I can't really say much more than that. Overall cute little experience, albeit lacking in interactivity.

[SKIM THAT PROFILE!]

Genuinely a fun concept with a lot of charm. I'm a quick reader so I naturally skimmed and got punished hard for it. Honestly this is one of those "game jam ideas" that is just so simple but unique and I really do like every single little bit of it. Would be nice if you'd implemented highscore support using the NG API, though ;)

[No No Solo]

Kinda wish you'd finished this, it's a pretty decent game idea and I think it has potential.

fabtjar responds:

I may come back to it in the future!

[Plonk and Me]

I really like the concept of the game and the illustrations. The idea of space invaders meets the pet game genre is cool. I do think, though, that something about your variables is just off. When the second round happens there's no real practical way to get the plonk to something servicable - either you put it all on bullet speed or ship speed and there's no real way to get something at least decent in both, making it either impossible to avoid the shots or impossible to hit the aliens. Maybe if the plonk's stats carried over between failures that'd be nice, as if the alien was growing even after failing.

JinxSpell responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I tried to make the food/coconut animation give a clue as to which stat plonk needs more at each stage, but there's never a stage where you can only max just one! Plonk always needs both to be at maximum performance.

However, after reading your comment, as well as the ones below, I tweaked level 2 just now so that it's more forgiving vs forcing you to hit exact numbers.

[Get to Work!]

Interesting gameplay concept, not fond of the theme and the assets don't blend much at all. I didn't like the sword hitbox all that much either. Could've used a better control scheme and something that made you want to switch between the chars more often than just having each one be an upgrade over the last.

[Ghost House]

Could've used a bit better use of color in the pixel art as things are clashing quite hard. Overall simple but a very solid attempt for a jam game. There's a lot of moving parts to this one and it's great that you were able to put em' all together!

[A ♥ apart]

It's a bit hard to judge a local multiplayer game, not gonna lie. I think instead of doing seperate keyboard controls, it would've been nicer to find some sort of unified control scheme and make the hearts relative to eachother somehow, like for example, one key makes them closer/farther and one key makes them rotate, something like that. That way you could have a solid single player experience.

That being said, very solid presentation, really effective UI, and great use of filters. By far one of the most elegant games presented in terms of visuals.

[Party Land]

So first off let me say the animation and aesthetic here can go places. I do like the thought behind this game with the big lovable but really aggressive character.

What I would suggest, however, is to just really drop the platforming entirely. I think this is a big guy but here he's got a big floaty jump on small platforms, and though I never died in the platforming, I didn't like doing it either.

What I would've loved to see is something like you go up to the bear and it you can really start pounding on it, maybe give it a bit of a minigame, just big juicy punches, if you wanna go overboard finish it off with a throw or some other crazy thing. There's so much potential with these animations, it's just not realized by the mechanics of the gameplay.

catproX responds:

Thank you very much for the great feedback. I'll play around with moving away from a platformer and to more of a beat'em-up (like Double Dragon or Dad and Me). This could let me do more with over-the-top punch combos.