Darren's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pixel Sprint]

For fixing the difficulty, I'd recommend starting with a certain amount of power and having it decrease slowly over time, and quickly when you sprint. This forces the player to complete the level within a certain time frame and be even more careful with sprinting, rather than being able to drift around and gather as much power as they want.

There's also a big problem where if the purple enemies dash off screen you can't finish the level, so you have to start the whole game over. It happens more and more in later levels.

YZeeGames responds:

Thanks a lot for the feedback. What do you think of implementing screen-shake?

[Beestruction]

The gameplay mechanics aren't a bad start, but I found the movement being controlled by shooting to be annoying. I'd really recommend switching to WASD or arrow keys instead. I'd also say the water blast needs to be a little better to be worth using. Other than those, just tighten up what you already have, start off with a smaller level and then have the player advance to harder and harder levels and you've got yourself a pretty good game.

MBelka responds:

Hello, thank you for your comment! I did play around with WASD controls while testing the game, however it really messed with how each gun felt and made the experience feel more flat. But, with all these comments I feel like I should have found a middle ground of some sort with WASD. I will greatly consider what I can do to make controls more friendly in the future! Also thanks for the tip on making smaller levels for the easier modes, that didn't occur to me for some reason.

[Voltaic Triple-Gun (C3 Jam)]

Very cool concept and good execution, and I'd definitely recommend continuing this into a bigger game.
Fixes:
-Work on the collisions a little, because getting your corner stuck on a wall can be a little annoying.
-When you die, the bullets stay where they were when you died, which can be especially bad if you died in a really rough spot. Maybe respawn with any bullets you'd already collected (minus any you'd put in the holders).
-I think I broke the game a little while I was in the last level by getting killed by two of the green enemies at the same time. I respawned as two players.
-If you die while pulling a bullet toward you, it will continue going in that direction, which can make it end up in a far away dangerous corner.

ValettusGD responds:

Awesome, you found some issues that I hadn't noticed before. I was aware of the collision stuff, but hadn't thought much about your other points. Never ran into the two players bug before, lol. I'll certainly be tuning things if I continue on with this one. Thanks for the feedback!

[Invoker Begins]

I like the basic ideas and that you can combine the 3 different moves in various ways. Here are some recommendations:
-Ramp up the difficulty/number of enemies more slowly
-Have projectile based enemies spread their shots at least some of the time instead of always aiming directly at you (look at other bullet hell games)
-Consider moving with the arrow keys instead of mouse
-Potential penalty for letting enemies reach the bottom of the screen (although this could just be handled by having a score and not getting as many points for not killing them
-Non enemy obstacles to avoid
-Items to pick up (power refill, health refill, bomb, life, etc)

somia90 responds:

Thank you for your comment. It's really helpful.
Indeed, The game lacks many things, I just add random simple things since I don't have a clear scope at first (my bad). The goal was to understand for C3 works so I get lost in little details. I feel sorry to submit a game this bad, but since I did it, I thought i should submit it.

[Downhill Roller]

Not a bad start, but needs more visual polish and gameplay tweaking.
Recommendations:
-Since it's randomly generated, maybe work in some logic that starts off the hazards as easier, then makes them more difficult/dense as you go. Otherwise the difficulty can be pretty inconsistent.
-More control over the ball's left and right movement
-Any control over the ball speed. Obviously you shouldn't be able to make it go really slow just to get a really high score, but you could make the minimum speed go up as you get farther, and at least allow some minor braking to dodge.
-Some type of collectibles and positive things to hit besides ramps. Think Mario Kart.

Noreh responds:

1) Visuals are something I'm terrible at haha + constantly working on gameplay.
2) I noticed the difficulty is completely random based on the randomness of the tiles. I will try to make it more consistant but my coding knowledge isn't the best just yet xD.
3) Still trying to find the right balance for the left/right movement. Thanks for the feedback on this!
4) I like this idea, but I personally thought if it started slow it would get boring. But you make good points.
5) I was thinking floating rings in the air that boost your score up by (x) amount.

Overall great feedback and really useful! Thank you.

[Rex: Origins]

That last platforming section is brutal in a couple ways, but this is pretty good as a simple mechanic game jam game. I'd give it around a 3.5, but I kinda love the rap (and as an indie dev working solo on a flash game, I feel it) and that boosts it up to 4 stars for me.

Kwing responds:

Hey, thanks! I was running out of ideas toward the end of the game and I didn't want to just include the same mechanics over and over, so I settled for a couple gimmicky sections. Looking back I'm thinking I should have changed the rounded edges of the platforms at least a little.

Glad you liked the rap too.

[Multiman Quest]

It's not a bad starting mechanic for a game, but I think you should either make the arrow keys movement, or allow WASD and arrow keys to move (1 and 2 are so close to WASD, I find it cramped). You should also make some real art assets (if you can't draw, find some royalty free stuff, or go on the Newgrounds forums and find an artist). Consider having one key toggle between the two guys, rather than 1 and 2 selecting a specific guy. Other than that, I think the movement could still use some more polish, and it could use more mechanics/objects/etc.

JohLuh responds:

Ok man, thank you very much, i will try my best to fix the grafics. The controls are an easy fix. Thanks a lot :)

[Mate the Marksman]

The underlying mechanics aren't bad, but it'd really help if the movement system was faster to use. You should just be able to click once anywhere in the movement circle to pick where to go. Would be nice to be able to fight CPUs, but I get that it was a game jam.

Kwing responds:

Yeah, DYGACO had a clicking system. I used the sliders because I originally wanted to make this touchscreen friendly, and in that case it would be better to see where you're going without your finger being in the way.

[Mechanikal Reptile]

I'm not sure if this is a bug or intentional, but once you're on a ladder, you can only go in the direction you were going when you got on it. So if you start climbing up, you can't go down until you get off at the top and get back on. You should be able to go either way (and maybe add the ability to hit a button to drop off a ladder). I'd also recommend faster general movement, and much faster falling. You should also consider letting the player move while they fall. The art could also use an overhaul.

coconutloverrr responds:

That is not the bug, if you climb up you will need to climb to the end and if you climb down then you do the same too, the intention of the ladder is to help you to climb up or down, why would you want to go up again if you have already climbed down? And Yes the gravity issue will be solved in the next update, it indeeds is a little bit slow therefore the gravity force needs to be stronger

[Tower of Madness]

Generally speaking if you made a game in three days you should probably polish it up some more before posting it (seeing as you don't have a deadline for that). For starters, I'd recommend actual ladder climbing instead of jumping up them like platforms, and either not dying from one hit, or not going all the way back to the beginning after dying.

PT34 responds:

I changed the ladder climbing that now you can hold the jump button to climb. :)