Fooliolo's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Days Of Blood]

To me, it felt like you were going for an experience where you could slaughter dudes by the dozen with a badass knight. It was good for a little while... until after you kill 50 dudes. Then it just got repetitive. Really, really repetitive. I was hoping maybe there was a boss acolyte somewhere. Nope, just the same thing, 666 guys over.

If you try to replay the game after beating it, it just gives you the "to be continued" message and you can't play again without refreshing the page.

Anyways, this type of game definitely has a lot of fine-tuning and balance involved to retain the difficulty, while not making it impossible or frustrating. In the original release, many things felt great, and there was a purpose to all possible attack styles. The animations were smooth, the attacks flowed well. Turning was a little bit frustrating, but I found my own way to mitigate that problem. What really pissed me off was the seemingly random nature of the sword swinging attack. Why would the guy swing once with one push of 'a', and swing + stab with one push of 'a'? This is more detrimental than anything, and even the ability to turn between the swing and the stab didn't prove to be very useful.

With the gameplay fix on the 19th, you didn't really fix the inconsistent attacks issue, and I didn't really notice the normalization. And the attack range increase made the game pretty easy, as you could almost constantly mash the 'a' key and kill everything, whereas before if you mis-timed or got unlucky with that #@$% swing + stab gimick, you died. Personally, if I were to design this game, I would remove the swing + stab, and maybe go back to the original attack range.

It's a simple, yet repetitive game overall. First impressions were good, but the rest of it felt lackluster.

bnpla responds:

roger that, thanks for the bug, and yeah, i think that now it's too easy, but a lot of people still find this game hard idk the reason... when i was developing this game, i could easily beat the game all the time...

anyway... hey, all the attaks takes 9 frames in executing, the slash, stab and shield bash, so there's no "slow attack" actually.

[Madness: Project Nexus (Classic)]

Make no mistake, this is an incredible game in its own right, and it definitely trumps the first Madness game that was meant to model the combat. First impressions were great, as things flowed smoothly and it didn't rely on luck a whole lot, to ease players into the game. Aside from a few hitches, things were quite smooth and natural from start to finish.

However, I don't think this is a submission that's quite ready for big retail. I'm excusing the lack of content (of which there's plenty for a flash game), as I understand it's simply an issue of time. Rather, as a Genocider, I find there's a couple mechanical details that I really didn't like at all.

First and foremost, one of the things that I enjoyed about the Madness Combat series was the blood splattering everywhere. It's a minor feature, but it doesn't quite feel the same without it, especially in the more creative ways of killing guys. You have the costumes, you have bodies that can be mutilated in 12+ different ways (disregarding simple pencil-sized bullet wounds), you have bullet holes in walls, hell, you even have bloody chunks flying off of them when things get gory. But no blood splatter that leaves permanent stains? This just isn't right.

As a side note, there's also various enemy reactions when they're dead, but some of them are just outright middle fingers in your face. I'm talking about the human wall. Guy stands there obviously going to die, but he just staggers back and forth for about 4 seconds until he finally falls, M-249 blazing or not. I really, REALLY don't appreciate having to deal with such assholes. It was cool the first time. But if I want to just get on with my business, let me eject a couple rounds into his scalp or foot to flip him over like I can clearly do with certain other people. And let me be able to do this consistently.

Secondly, your tutorial kinda sucks. I haven't played it in a while so it might have been updated. But you didn't explain how to pick up the AR that you obtain from the locker when you see it the first time. What if we want to pick up the AR? Do we just mash all the buttons until we find out, or do we trust Mr. Tutorial to tell us later, possibly way after the event of relevance? Space to crouch behind obstacles? Sure sounds handy, if only there were more than one obstacle in the entire story mode. Not to mention the arena has two of them, but the tutorial doesn't exist there, so that's too bad if you're jumping into the game by starting arena mode. And when I think of bullet time, I think of time slowing down so you can react faster. It didn't occur to me that you actually get stronger in other ways too when you use bullet time.

Third, the aiming and "dimensions" of the game don't quite exactly match up. I realize this is a difficult issue, as I've thought about it myself quite a bit. However, as a result of the current system, it's difficult to hit someone directly above/below you, and attempting to attack someone by throwing stuff at them is unreliable. I would miss G03LMs 90% of the time when I try to chuck things at them from a close distance after whacking off their helmets. Then there are the egregious walls. I've talked about the standing corpses already, but the other one is the obstacles in the arena mode. I'm blazing my guns left and right, but then suddenly a guy takes cover behind and obstacle and saves all his mates behind him from eating lead. Wtf? Why can I shoot guys behind the barrel just fine when no one is actually taking cover? In short, all of this doesn't feel good and needs to be reworked.

Fourth, dumb teammates. Fuck. I don't mind that Hank gets shot in the cranium by the MAG agent when he was actually aiming for me. Because he's so ineffective. By no means am I suggesting to make the game easy-mode, but this is a gross injustice.

And then there's the fact that somehow every time when you update the game, something in the save file breaks. Getting guns I didn't own was cool, but it was also annoying.

Geez I need more review space. GL HF. Stuff.

[A Simple Snake Game]

True to your comments, this is a simple version of the classic Snake game. And it is a good place to start. At the very least, the graphics are clean, notably the snake segments. I like that, as opposed to a solid block of one color xD

Probably my biggest complaint is that the controls aren't super responsive. They work great under regular circumstances, but if I want to make a bunch of tight twists and turns with precision (or die), it kinda fails about 15% of the time. This is most likely something that will take a lot of fiddling on your part, and I wouldn't blame you given the amount of effort given into this project.

Even if it is your first attempt at making a game, I do think you can spice it up a little bit with some sound. As for music, I don't think it is necessary, but it's very easy to go wrong with the choices if you opt to include music, unless you give this game a huge overhaul complete with additional levels and content. That's just been my experience.

I hope you give my suggestions some consideration. Good luck in your future endeavors!

[Curious Clarissa]

This game is fairly solid. However, there are serious issues that seemed more like "screw you" than it is fun.

The most glaring screwup is the fact that there are two "Draughts" in the last scene; a red draught, and an orange draught. If you're not playing easy mode, there's no way to tell which one you're supposed to click on. The next screwup is the fact that you also have a clickable object, "A Couple of Draughts". You could have mistaken that for a single draught. This isn't exclusive to the last scene either. I tried clicking on a couple blocks before I found "A Block" (I had to chuckle on that one, cause it literally had an 'A' on it). And then there item descriptions and a dozen similar objects to match (exaggeration). For example, when I first played the game, I was playing on normal mode, and kept on clicking on what I thought would be "A ball with a blue stripe". Sure, you could say I didn't read carefully, but then I had to choose between a ball that may possibly have a dark blue stripe, and a ball that may possibly have a cyan stripe. Eh?

There was another game I played a while back (I can't find it atm) that did exactly what you did, except different scenes and different objects. There was no confusion as to what objects I was looking for, even if they were sometimes hard to find. They were varied and unique, and there was no lame "yellow/blue/wine red/dark blue ball", just a "Ball", and there would only be one. I enjoyed that game much more than I enjoyed this one.

That's my two cents.

[PewDiePie Adventures]

I've never heard of PewDiePie until I saw this game. Gotta say he's an entertaining guy xD Overall, I think this game does pay a nice tribute to his Amnesia plays.

Now for the ugly part: criticism. I saw nekoheehee's review, and I pretty much agree with him on needing to playtest the shyt out of this game and polishing it up. While the game is functional, there's so many small minor details that annoyed me, it added up to one big mess. Actually there are a couple of big ones in there too.

In no particular order:
-- No instructions were given on what keys were needed to play the game. Yes, you explain what shyt does, but other than "'D' to swap characters at save stations", you don't even mention that 'S' is for specials, and 'A' is for attack.
-- Why can Stephano get hurt if people touch his sword?
-- Getting shoved through walls, whether because of bros, or because I touched them. That's stupid.
-- I actually got stuck at the end of the second area with Piggeh. The game kept spawning me at the right side of the save station, but I would keep falling down to the area below with the barrels. And since I've never touched the save station, I couldn't regen the special bar, which meant I couldn't progress, and thus I was stuck in limbo and forced to reload the game.
-- Sometimes when I'm trying to climb up "stairs", I just kinda fly up them instead of actually jumping up them. It has to do with landing on platforms at a moment where I'm a few pixels below them, and being able to land on them while still going upwards.
-- Those damn barrels! They're extra punishing in this game, because touching them knocks you back too much. It's kinda a lose-lose situation when you get touched by them, because if you're trying to go forward, you won't clear the barrels, and if you're trying to go backwards, the worst that happens is you end up going back a room and getting hit by more barrels. Barrels. Blah blah blah don't touch them, I get it. But seriously, this shouldn't be happening.
-- If you're going to link people to youtube videos, it's a nice courtesy to mute the game >_>
-- Enemies don't die "permanently" as advertised in the help screen. Simply leave the room, return, and it is back.
-- Jennifer hurts like hell. I'd rather activate chair mode rather than take a hit to the face. Also, it doesn't really make much sense why the falling attack hurts me in chair mode, but the side attacks don't.
-- Oh, and sometimes when you start a fight against Jennifer for the first time, you could get cheesed repeatedly. You spawn at the top left of the room, but there's also a chance that Jennifer attacks from that direction. I died? Whajusthappen.
-- Sometimes when you're trying to kill bros with Stephano, you'd get hit, and your attack gets canceled.

I don't mind playing difficult games (of which I'd say this one is above average). However, there is a difference between "difficult" and "frustrating without any fun value". This game falls into the latter category to a moderate degree.

Kwing responds:

- - Wow, I thought I specified that the A and S keys were used to play... I shall definitely look into adding more specific advice. Perhaps the sentences talking about the letter controls were accidentally deleted when I was editing it, but that is a serious problem.
- - Stephano's attacks were never really important in-game, so I never bothered fine-tuning his attack animation. I suppose more attack-oriented players would appreciate that, though, so I'll look into it. But enemies buffed by statues have strict hitTests on purpose, and that part shall remain.
- - I might have made certain walls a little thinner than I should have, I can fix that.
- - Yeah, I've had that bug with Piggeh before as well. I wasn't quite sure what to do about it, since the level design for that particular area was very tight and didn't leave a whole lot of room. I suppose I could have put the station itself higher up.
- - Yeah, I know the stairs thing can be a little weird. Personally I liked it because it saved time, but I can see how someone might be bothered by it. Although if you're going for Heart of Iron I suggest you take full advantage of it.
- - Barrels are pretty damned evil in this game, I'll give you that. Personally I thought that it was only fair, since getting hit by a real-life barrel that big would probably fuck you up pretty bad, but I can look into making the hitTest more lenient, the barrels smaller, or the knockback less severe.
- - That's an excellent idea. I definitely should have added a mute feature for links.
- - Ah, the enemy death thing was written rather poorly. Stronger monsters are knocked back by Stephano's sword but not damaged, whereas they disappear from the screen completely when killed... Though they DO respawn if the room is revisited.
- - Jennifer's attacks are supposed to hit you when she's falling because it adds more variety! Just activating chair mode repeatedly would be boring as hell, so I figured running and using chair mode would add variety. Since most attacks are easy to avoid, I wanted to add a stronger penalty for being hit by her, but I can tinker with that as well. As for her spawning right in your face, I will tend to this problem as well.
- - Since bros can be avoided pretty easily, I always ran past them, but there should be a way to make combat a little more friendly toward users.

I get that this game has some of the quirks of older platformers, and I've tried to iron most of them out, but if this bothers you, you really must not have played much Castlevania as a kid. Now THOSE are some games with unfair knockback problems!

Thanks for the extra-long review, though. I appreciate it a lot!

[Anaksha Mini Adventures 2]

I started this game thinking "ooh an adventure game!" Now that I've finished it, I hate it.

The first sign that told me that this game is going to have awful things in it was the magnet item. Other than the "there's nothing of interest at this time" sort of message, there's absolutely no clue that it would be there. None at all. Having already searched places for the needle, I figured there wasn't a reason to backtrack for an item that wasn't there in the first place, let alone one that was going to be as random as this one was.

It slowly gets worse. The realism of this game just degraded further and further as I progressed. No, I'm not talking about Lady Medusa. I'm talking about the random questing (which I assume is part of the dynamic events) where you have to talk to everyone to find some item that you need to progress. The nonsense of going into the men's bathroom for no apparent reason other than "there was nothing else to do" from a gamer's perspective. Needing plastic tweezers to grab cat hair out of a sink, only to use a napkin to stuff it into your inventory. Really? Why not just use the napkin in the first place?

The game is incredibly recycled and it got boring a third of the way through as I walked back and forth everywhere (so much walking) trying to find that one thing to progress. The whole game takes place on one street block for crying out loud. Even the Virgo symbols were something of a chore, as you had to check every interactable floor or wall or something to get told "You can't use that item!". Okay, I get it, there's no symbol there, fk!

Don't get me wrong, I like that you had to think about some of the puzzles, such as the screw puzzle and brute-forcing the code to the premium lounge (6 tries max). I enjoyed the segments where one thing actually led to another, where it didn't devolve into searching every tile for the next thing for the 3rd time (first time is okay).

There's also some minor issues with the controls, such as refusing to turn and moonwalking. It would also be nice if there was a reminder on what you're supposed to do (I might have missed it).

For what it is worth, this game is pretty solid. It's unfortunate that you had to half-ass some of the progression. I'd suggest expanding the environment and have less recycling, so you're not just running back and forth hundreds of times.

PS: Medals not sending had no impact on this review; I know what the issue is and it's not in my control, nor is it your fault.

ArifRocks responds:

Thanks for the feedback. You've highlighted some interesting points which I totally agree with. I'll take these issues into account the next time I use this engine to create an adventure game. Again, I appreciate the constructive feedback. :)

[Outpost:Haven]

Superb environment, so-so gameplay

Not enough space to fit all the shyt I want to say, so you're getting mostly criticism instead. Ahaha! I understand that this is a fairly new game on newgrounds, and that it may go through revisions and improvements later, but I'm making my review now.

Difficulty-wise, your main danger in the first couple levels is running out of ammo for the assault rifle. I kinda wish I was prompted about how to swap weapons earlier (I may have missed it), so I don't waste ammo on the small fry.

Radar sucks. It takes too long for each ping to happen to make it actually useful in the residence floor (the only place where I seriously considered using the radar), where it would have really made an appreciable effect. Nope, turns out the time I used to stare at it ended up with me dying to lots of large aliens while hacking a door. I have not made that mistake since, due to its utter uselessness. Oh, and it doesn't detect the surprise-buttsex black aliens that like to hide in the shadows, but I have to applaud you on that instead.

The first time the small aliens busted out from grates, the grate itself was being pushed by the aliens, which in turn shielded the aliens from my gunfire, which in turn led to me dying from the combination of alien love and sentry fire. Fun. Geez, if you wanted to give them shields, make something more believable. Or, you know, make it so that they can't use grates as shields.

Speaking of grates, the regular holes you see aliens crawling out of somehow act like walls when you're trying to get somewhere. This is pretty irksome, especially in the final fight against Strix, because you can't exactly see those dumb holes so well, and you take a projectile in the face. Either that, or the protagonist has an extreme phobia of getting his ankle busted, but I refuse to believe that when death has even worse side effects.

The sentry guns have some aiming issues. I've noticed that during certain times, they point slightly to the left or right of you. Further playing around with them revealed that I could stand right in front of some of them and they wouldn't be able to shoot me because of faulty logic or something. I dunno.

There's only four types of regular alien baddies in this game? That makes swarm mode insanely boring to grind when you're going for the challenges. And the amount of grinding it looks like one has to do to complete all the swarm challenges is akin to nonstop monster slaughtering 24/7 in some generic grinder MMO (classic MapleStory pre Big Bang if you know what I mean). This is not fun; this is unpaid work. Sure we're not obligated to do it, but the point is this is stupid.

Also, because there's so many mobs in the later waves of swarm mode, the free supplies you get from time to time hardly cover your needs, so the best tactic may sometimes be camping next to the shop and buying whatever you need. Okay, fine. What's not fine is taking 3 seconds (5+ during lag) of staring at "welcome to HAVEN Supply Network" every single time I want to refill my ammo. Compound this problem with the fact that your ammo capacity is pretty low, and it's even more "hai gaiz welcome back to the HAVEN Supply Network!!" First time using the shop, I was like "ooh pretty" and it was cool and interesting. 30th time is more like "HAVEN SUPPLY NETWORK OMGZ!!!!p0rn!!!" Forget owl men, the Haven network has its own subliminal messages agenda.

I hope I'm being blind or something, but no options? Sure there's the right-click menu during the pre-loader, but I don't think that actually has any effect once you get to the menu screen. Like, what if I don't want the game to lag horribly after painting the floor black with green blood during swarm mode?

Why the insanely high negative numbers after you complete all the levels of a particular challenge? The programmer side of me knows what it means, but the gamer side of me says it's somewhat nonsensical. I mean, -2500% after you finish killing X amount of monsters with the pistol?

Good job on the gfx. Chalkboard screeches from alien aggro in swarm mode.

[Flash Shadowgate]

Cool game, fiendishly hard

I'm sad to say that I'm either not in the know, or some of the choices you make to succeed aren't intuitive =(

The puzzle elements of this game remind me a lot of La Mulana: take notes, observe things (without dying), and make educated guesses. While this game is nowhere near as big or time-consuming, you won't be able to get second glances at crucial hints, such as the book that gives you the spell "Motari riseth" or the prophecy the wizard spits at you. It's not a bad thing exactly, but it's also super tedious and not a whole lot better than trying everything exhaustively.

But after you figure out how to play the game and do all the right things, it's actually rather enjoyable going back through the game and screwing off. Use the poker on yourself? Suicide isn't going to help you on your quest! Use fountain water on self? You scoop it up with your hands and drink it, and scream a nonexistent scream because your throat has been melted away. lolwut. Pay the troll gold coins? Nah, he'll just kill you anyways. Trolololo

Anyways I'm getting carried away here. While looking up the combination for the lever puzzle, I noticed that there's a great amount of variation between your remake and the other versions of Shadowgate. Far be it from me to scold you (especially since I've never played the original), but I can't help noticing I'm not given options to do things that otherwise seem like they would be normal. For example, if I want to jump off a cliff, I should be able to do that. And yet there are a couple things that I can do that probably shouldn't have happened. Example: bypassing the cyclops by just clicking the move square in the map.

Original emulation or not though, what's up with the "leave" command? It's utterly useless and it seems to do exactly what "use" does. There's also various other minor details that didn't seem to be consistent how the game works or is otherwise in spirit of the original.

Overall, I enjoyed all the depth and the lulz to be had in this game. I'd say it's worth the time after you're done slogging through the puzzles for the first time. Or just looking up how to do them.

larrymcduck responds:

The same this the wizard says is in SCROLL 1 you can find it in the room with the EPOR sign. As for some other clues, yes, you only have one chance. I wanted to keep pretty much everything exactly how it was in the original.

I appreciate all the feedback. I found the LEAVE command useless as well, but since it was in the original, I kept it anyway. I've tried leaving items in certain areas in the NES ROM and (maybe I was doing it wrong) but failed with every attempt. Luckily, in Shadowgate 2 which my brother and I are working on, there will be no LEAVE command.

[Madness Ambulation]

Obnoxiously hard game >:(

This is definitely one of the harder games out there. I respect your talents as a flash artist and producer, but I can't help but feel that this time your work is incomplete. This causes your game to be much harder than it probably should, unless your intent was to weed out all but the very best players in the world by the time you get to the Impossible Zone.

Oh by the way the Impossible Zone is broken and does not work. All I'm getting is the results for wave 10 instead, and it stays there after the "Wave ?!!" thing.

The amount of detail put into the game's 2.5D look is pretty good, and I have little complaints about the environment itself (the yellow line isn't the true center). However, I find it really weird how depth perception screws with how fast paratroopers, zombies, powerups, agents, and road obstacles approach you. To put this into perspective, I see a slew of barricades down the road, and I see a health pack in front of the second one. I try to make for the health pickup, but for some reason the barricade actually zooms right past the health pickup and smacks me in the face. The hell...? It also does not make sense how you see zombies zooming away from you at 50 mph when your car gets wrecked.

In terms of the gameplay, I suppose if you had perfect reactions and everything, the game is fine. Except for three things.

The first is that the double AR ATP Agents from the trucks has caused me great headaches. I've tried and tried, but I just can't seem to get past that attack without sustaining damage. It seems to be more of an issue of hit area rather than me not being able to snipe down the baddies. Or alternatively, you could make it so that the attack doesn't last so long or make it so the truck doesn't inevitably hug you in the face so soon.

The second is the randomness of ATP Agents attacking you. It could be .5 seconds after they spawn that they decide to turn around and spray you, or they could just kite you for a while and attack. The problems get even worse when you're swimming in a sea of vehicle parts and bodies, since collisions and whatnot cause you to slow down, and you have no chance of gaining speed when you're dealing with 10+ ATP Agents and countless regular agents.

Third is that I could swear there's a safe spot at the far left end just in front of your travel zone, in that you just can't shoot them without a shotgun. Very annoying.

Other minor complaints:
-- You can't see paratroopers beyond the trucks very well.
-- Do the road obstacles deal damage to your car while you're being shown the wave results? If so, that's just a dick move, because you can't exactly see them.
-- Sometimes an ATP Agent can get stuck "inside" your car, causing you to move 42 mph at all times.
-- If you're moving violently, you can sometimes end up going through an agent. It's pretty comedic when you see agents apparently leap over your car, but it's also annoying when you're trying to prevent them from doing that in the first place by ramming into them.
-- It's just a hard mode grind after wave 6 or so. Waves 7-9 are annoyingly long, and sometimes you're just doing the "is it over yet?" routine.
-- Agents can go through road obstacles like they're not even there. I'm pretty sure they aren't circus clowns or acrobats either.
-- Shoving agents with your car results in serious grinding noises. Why jebus why!
-- Nevermind the speed issue, how can that car go 400+ miles without needing to refuel? I is jelly.

I don't think this game needs to go back to the drawing board, but you'll want to do some serious overhauling to make it more fun at the very least, if not easier. As pretty and workable as the game stands currently, it's still quite rough around the edges, and the difficulty is pretty unforgiving. However, practice makes perfect: even though my first run through I got pwned by Jesus, I got to the point where I could maintain solid green health by wave 7.

As a Madness tribute, this game is pretty solid. I await your future works.