squidly's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Quarantine]

An interesting little game. Well written and suspenseful. I can't really say too much, personally, as it's not a finished game. I do wish there was more in the way of meaningful interactivity and the minigame could use more of Flixel's effects to really give it some punch.

GabeMalk responds:

Thank you for the feedback!
Yeah, the minigame is quite unfinished, there's a lot to add. Hope you'll come back to play and review the full release once it's done!

[Heartship]

I think this game has some good ideas and is overall fun. What bothers me is just how uneven the difficulty level is between maps with a generator and maps without one, and I think it's mostly due to an unrealized idea - that the walking half should be the focus of enemies. I feel like in most cases he is, with the skulls and lasers targeting him, however, bats don't. So you have a case where the bats just beeline right for the guy with the gun who's hard to maneuver while also trying to get him on the generator, once the invincible bats are in the switch's area, it's hard to take it down. Additionally, I feel this game could've used more in the way of color contrast. It's a bit hard to see the snakes specifically as they're so dark against a dark background and move very fast with a short profile. Having them assume the more classic "snail crawl" position of video game snakes and be a brighter green would've done a lot for that.

Overall, creative idea and mostly good execution. Would've loved to see more of a use of Flixel's FX tools of course but not bad at all. Well done!

HealliesGames responds:

Yes, the idea was to make the walking part the target of the enemies. The only enemy that follows the guy with the gun is the bat, because I feared if the distance between the two sides was too far, it wouldn't have been possible to reach it with bullets.
However with two targets, it becomes even more difficult to manage enemies.
And considering that a part can walk, it is possible to get closer.

Thank you for making me think about this and for the feedback, squidly.

[SweetCrush]

I'm really not fond of jumpscares so I sorta only went for the ending that I was 99% confident wouldn't end with one. I can pretty easily guess what happens in the other endings. Still, creepy and unsettling and I dig it.

I think the fact that you made such a complete little experience with both a main game and a minigame plus multiple endings in one month is really impressive. The aesthetic is great and the writing is well done, obviously it leans into Doki Doki a lot but the use of a sort of App setting is smart and I really do like it quite a bit.

[The Fancy Pants Adventures: World 4 part 1]

Gonna have to update your profile again

[Porklike]

Genuine creativity in its purest form. I am in love with everything in this game from the excellent use of limits to condensing the roguelike down to its barest bits.

Also, your manual is cute and a really nice little touch.

[Merry Christmas Tom Fulp]

Now why would you do that? MeanMuffin.

[Labyrneath]

Extremely fun level design, really, you have a knack for that.

Now, I'm gonna give you some solid advice you might wanna take to heart - sometimes certain aesthetics in writing don't pan out. In this case, the writing on the wall just feel forced. And this is coming from someone who writes stuff like this all the time, but you need to make sure the context works. In this case it just felt off. It felt more like "generic indie emotional writing" that actually took away from the atmosphere more than anything else.

An immediate fix would be, imo, to make it more of a character monologue between levels. Really build into it. Forget the whole "there were people here, ominous sentient ancient words that change whenever I'm around" schtick and give the character an actual voice before the end of the game. That way, you actually got a build up into the end.

If you DO want to build a lore for what happened at this temple, put some murals on the wall or something. If you want a fantastic example of temple world building, I'd hit up the La Mulana series. But honestly? This game doesn't actually *need* that. Just keep it personal, give that build up, and you've got a something.

Otherwise, lemme just say, I really did have a lot of fun with this game. It wasn't particularly hard, some bits were a bit frustrating mostly because of the spike hitbox on top felt a little wonky and the character felt too slidey, but otherwise this is really solid, really good, stuff. I encourage you to keep at this.

[A Hat on Time]

Pretty fun tribute but it's held back by some very wonky collision detection, the hitboxes aren't "square" like the image is, being about 2 - 5 pixels less, and it leads to a lot of falling off the edge. If this is an engine problem, I recommend giving a few frames jump forgiveness Donkey Kong style and you got yourself a real winner.

[It's Just TIC TAC TOE]

Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

[August 25th 2017]

Wow.