squidly's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Drop Cannon]

It's honestly so frickin' refreshing to see a proper Newgrounds Game comin in with style. The art and music and just the sheer amount of people working on this game like some really big collab really sells it. This is what NG is all about and I'm here for it.

Didn't NG used to have a save loading API? Tried loading this on Mobile and was sad to see my save data didn't carry over.

Thanks for realizing Mike's worst nightmare - more Flash games as a result of Ruffle existing.

Can't wait for Drop Cannon 2!

TomFulp responds:

Oh man... I probably could get save files working via the API for registered users... I might take a stab at that.

I'm actually hoping to stick Drop Cannon in the arcade in Nightmare Cops at some point, so people could play it on console! Will need to update the shooting for analog sticks.

[Tankmas ADVENTure 2020]

How'd you even make this online Geo you absolute madman. I'm so impressed with how much everyone involved with this project went so all out!

BrandyBuizel responds:

Magic, heroku, and tips from Austin East

[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*

[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.

[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.

[Mayor Outbreak]

I like how this game has a lot of unique assets and it looks great! There's a lot of fun ideas and I can imagine quite a bit of programming as well.

What I don't like as much is that I feel this game is a bit overloaded. It's hard to quite get what's going on as there's just too many variables. For such an arcadey game, a great simplification of the mechanics would've went a long way.

Fat-Leech responds:

Thanks a lot for the compliments and for playing!
Unfortunately many players seem to have had your same experience regarding the mechanics, for my next submissions I'll be sure to either keep it simple or present ideas slowly to the player, maybe through a tutorial stage.

[Creep Away]

As someone who really hates programming UI, I really like that you went all out programming UI. Overall aesthetics and thought behind this game are really nice, the units are fun though I wish more levels let you use different ones rather than just Normie for most of them.

I think this game could've used a sharper focus in terms of round length. If it was 3 rounds max and had more tighter puzzles it'd go pretty far. A good example of this sort of Advance Wars like puzzling is Wargroove which has some excellent 1 turn puzzles worth looking into. Really I like what this game is, and if it was more focused it'd be absolute gold. This is definitely one of those "I think you should continue to develop this" sort of games, because it has a lot of potential, especially on something like mobile (which HaxeFlixel easily ports to!)

drewby-games responds:

Hey, Thanks a lot for your thoughts! I'd love to have tight puzzles like Into The Breach or Wargroove. That's defs a goal for future improvements/changes to level/unit/terrain design :)

I plan to keep working on it! cheers!

[Past Persistence]

I really like the concept of this game but I feel like the night resetting every time you die wasn't a solid move. The reason being is that as you die the ghosts become so comically overpowered that by the time I had a level 6 ghost my game winning run was just standing around for 2 minutes as nothing even came close to reaching me (my strategy was to just fight in the same area so when I die the ghosts all clump.) This game could've used something where, for example, dying sets you back in the night but the final challenge is to just get the best time and/or least amount of ghosts.

For the record, I dig the use of FlxBar in all the UI elements, looked very clean! Could've used some indicators of where the skeletons are on the HUD like a Smash Bros style arrow, since my ghosts were just sniping things off screen before I even got a chance to see them. Also an occasional skeleton variant, even if just a recolor, could go places. Maybe a skeleton that's resistent to ghost bullets or one that's resistent to real bullets? Could be interesting, and really just a recolor + proper class extension.

SuraimuStudios responds:

Thanks! I really like those ideas! Now that I don't have a deadline anymore I will take my time to study flixel more in depth, polish this version and then go all out to make a sequel.

[Drones]

First off, best use of FlxParticle I've seen this jam period. Nerdy thing to say but man that water splash is spicy. I'd only suggest you add a bit more punch to when a drone dies, it feels good with the laser but with the gun it just feels weak and not impactful, and overall may be a bit confusing when a drone actually is dead (especially if they collide with eachother.)

This game is impressive but it lacks an ultimate goal. Achievements or a score counter or something would go a long way to making this game really mesh. Additionally, I can't help but feel there's gonna be tons of people who are gonna give this one a bad score just because they didn't know about the laser. Why is that not the default weapon, really? It's so very satisfying, I'd honeslty consider dropping the gun from the game entirely because the laser is really just that fun to play with.

Honestly, I think you should keep working on this. It has a lot of potential for a full release. Give it some unlockable skins, get some collaborators on a small retro OST, you really could go all the way with something like this.

filipp8 responds:

Thank you, really appreciate.
Actually, laser was the first and only weapon I had in mind, but I then came up with a machinegun to shoot enemies during laser cooldown. It was easier to shoot with the gun and I found myself switching easily from one to the other when needed. So I chose the easiest weapon to be the default one.
I totally agree with the rest of the criticisms. It is more of a concept than a real game and I plan to update it to a stronger and more defined state.