Fooliolo's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[They Came From Nam]

Execution could have been better

For a game jam game, it somehow still gives the feeling that this flash was mish-mashed together by some teenager with little thought or reasoning. It also didn't help that you put "Jesus" in the protagonist's name. (I'm agnostic btw)

But I sat on it and thought about it. While not the most original idea ever, you did what you could given your theme. Though one could easily argue you flip-flopped the paper airplanes with the burning giraffes. Overall, the style of the game, from the rock music (suggestably composed originally) to the red bandanna to the flaming giraffe to the utter insanity of blasting paper airplanes from Nam fit together quite nicely.

When the day was done with, I discovered the game designing around getting a high score was pretty good, with exception to the fact that you regenerate health. I think how to score really high is something for people to discover for themselves. But proof that I'm not just spitting shit is that I'm sitting at 97k points on the leaderboard, while simply completing the game nets you 50k. AM I HIGHSCHOOL COMPARED TO NAM YET!?!?

Things I can complain about: the black planes always follow the same path. You seriously couldn't randomize them like all the other planes? And for level 3, it completely sucks balls getting fed 7 red planes in a row and then have a dozen blue ones appear on the other side of the screen (one of two times that I died). And before I forget, the size of the shot needed to take out blue planes is much smaller than the size of the enemy would suggest.

As the score is quite low, this game is a good example of good design in some regions, but very poor appeal in others (or bad instructions). And while you didn't win the hearts of the masses, you have won the hearts of the more knowledgeable people interested beyond the "how fun is it" factor. On that end, your 3rd place in the Game Jam is certainly merited.

thinking-man responds:

Thanks for actually playing the game, and not dissmissing it because you can't find the mute button.

[The humans are dead]

Entertaining, but lacks balance

This could very well be a real board game complete with its own figurines, cards, and dice! I have thoroughly enjoyed about 60% of it, while the rest of it I can only moderately enjoy with some sense of "something is wrong here".

I shall play the part of a negative (but constructive) nancy here, as I find it easier to pick apart flaws and explain what's wrong than to describe in detail what you did right.

Game Mechanics====--------
--It should be explained that your home acts as a wall to the enemy and cannot be attacked for any reason. At the same time, it acts as an open space to you.
--It should also be explained that attacking a defending bot from behind is an automatic win.
--I'm not entirely sure if the neutrals come at set times, or if it's semi-random. In either case, when they do come, it should be noted that the number of them is equal to how many resources the dominant player has.
--Neutrals move between EVERY player's turns. That means in a two player game, they will have moved TWICE before you get your turn again.

Gameplay Aspects====--------
--Ultimate cheese tactic: pray to the RNG gods that you get to place your home first. If you do, put it at the edge closest to the enemy's field. Then pray to your other gods that the computer places his first resource within 5 moves of your home. If it does, just rush that resource, deactivate it, and win! Hell, even the computer knows to do this.
--The neutrals are very strong in the beginning, and thus it is usually not worth rushing resource activators and using them in hard mode. This encourages slow gameplay on your part, and with a little luck, the neutrals kill off your opponent and you win.
--Scibots are ridiculously overpowered compared to the other bots. Other than getting completely screwed by a super bad map layout, I have consistently won with the strategy of camping and grabbing as much evolution cards as possible. And it is no surprise given than they practically start with an evolution card and they get additional research points as a bonus, and evolution cards are twice as cheap. No other race gets a sale this good. Evolution cards can be hit or miss, sure, but overall the benefits they give not only set up the Scibots for success by around turn 4-8, but they give a resource activator. This really should not be allowed for the Scibots imo, as it can either serve as a backup in the event you're unlucky vs. neutral bots, or it lets you tap into a third resource. (but it is a nice thing for the other bots)
--Since neutral bots invariably spawn at the edges of the playing fields, it helps your defenses to make your choke point accessible from the back side of your field while making your home part of the wall on the front side. By doing this, you cause your enemies to fight each other. Hilarity ensues when everyone is trying to kill you in the 4 player mode.

Questionable Things and Bugs====--------
--You can apparently put a wall alongside a face of your home. Not only is it useless to do so, but you can completely ignore it.
--There was one instance where I had set up a choke point and had four bots defending it. For some reason, one of the bots didn't give a defense bonus to the one guarding the choke point, and there was no wall in the way either. I have only seen this once though =/
--It would be nice if we could see how many bots there are in a given tile, as the computer apparently keeps playing its turn even when you pause. It's an ugly surprise to win an attack, only to find that there are three more guys on the same spot.
--While you're controlling a robot, you cannot select another robot or your home that's in a direct line of its available movement. I have yet to find a convenient way to bypass this issue.
--Even though I had exhausted the evolution cards, I somehow still got a one on my scavenge roll.

With all that stuff said and out of the way, I do look forward to seeing what other things you can make. Hopefully you'll give some thought to these suggestions and come up with something even better in the future!

[JetBus]

Fun game

WARNING!!!!!! CLICKING "GARAGE" FROM THE TITLE SCREEN DELETES YOUR SAVE FILE!!!!!!!

K now that's out of the way... The game was enjoyable overall. But what many of the other people have said before me, I find true.

--Kids die a lot. Fking hyper asshats.
--The 4 wheel drive vehicle that you get for completing hard mode is actually worse for getting the high score. It's just too bouncy.
--It takes a very long time to grind up enough money for the final upgrades.
--I like how the crooks have their own tells. And if you kill one, they get sent to hell! Good detail.
--Hard mode final levels are more about luck than actual skill. Don't get me wrong, there is some skill involved. But it doesn't help that the game spawns three crooks in a row, or that everyone likes to go through the top door. As if you could guess that every time.
--I think it's pretty silly that you can completely ignore everything in a level in easy and normal mode, and still pass it. Maybe additional incentives to actually do your job are needed for normal mode?

RBandana responds:

Fixed the game save bug. Thanks a lot for your feedback, we don't want to change the game at this time because it has gone viral but we will take it into consideration for v2.

[DJManiax]

Well executed!

The whole game delivers! You can assume you've done everything right, except for the following:

--I tried this game first on my crappy laptop. When I got to the song Seven Circles, all the keys wouldn't register for the rapid-fire spam during the red background sequence, and I was forced to fail in all attempts. I later tried it on a powerful desktop, and I was able to pass it with little issues. I realize this is largely an issue with the user, but it's something I have to vent frustration at nonetheless.

--"Monotune - Survivor" invisible segment with bombs is just a jackass thing (overstatement). The music wasn't easily followed, unlike "Respect", and it was pretty easy to get murdered horribly without rote memorization.

--Notes at the very end of a segment are a little harder to hit. If the time line passes the end of the segment, you cannot hit the notes at all, whereas normally you'd get at least a perfect. I'm very sure this is not related to Flash sometimes farting and ignoring all input for a moment, as it has happened consistently in "Cirno's Perfect Math Class".

--Improper note placements here and there. By that, I mean a note that comes after the current one registers first if you hit a key, and most likely results in a miss, and a double miss if you don't react fast because the note you intended to hit doesn't get hit at all. These can't be too hard to spot if you've played the game a lot. But one that especially peeves me is the doodoo in the slow segment in "Video Out E", where a circle note is hiding two bar notes.

--Never ever do something like Dash Hopes 3. I can tolerate songs less than "excellent", and I don't mind bad singing much, but this garbage POS isn't even enjoyable. Don't you dare try it! Ever!

--I never tried mouse mode or much of anything less than crazy difficulty =( This has no impact on my grading, as the limits of the game are reached in crazy difficulty anyways.

TaroNuke responds:

don't you get it yet?
dash hopes is a joke
stop playing it

[Narcolyxii]

Awful

The reasons why you're getting any rating from me is because you put some effort into this game, it has some nice effects story-wise, and it's actually decently better than what quite a few people submit to Newgrounds.

But I'll ask you this: was your mind even into making this game? As so many people have said before, it's full of glitches and bugs, it reeks of unpolished packaging, and there are a dozen logical faults. Hell, you even went so far as to make a rough save game feature, only to kick the guy in the nuts if he fails the "wake up" segment, because it autosaves after every termination of the defense wave, success or failure. Or lack of, choose your pick. And you said to a user named BluGil that you couldn't be arsed to complete your own game in a single sitting (an hour). That doesn't raise red flags to you? Now I can understand time constraints, but at the very least, I get the feeling that you didn't exactly have passion in making the game itself.

I don't have enough space in this review to nitpick all of the garbage in this game, so instead, I'll refer you to the pits of review score hell. Just click on "### reviews", sort by rating, and click on the very last page. Most of the reviews marked "helpful" hit your problems in the face.

In addition, since I didn't immediately find these issues addressed, here are some things I didn't like about this game, and will actually say in this review:

--Quickest way to win the game is to shoot the static rectangle in wave 1, then fail the wave. Play the wave again. Repeat 9x more times. OR if you don't have the spacebar mashing sk1llz, do this after you get the Strong Will upgrade.

--On my quest to get medals, I apparently got the "Lazy" medal after purchasing the Stasis Generator, which needs to be RMA'd anyways. I don't believe it's supposed to work automatically, or it probably takes an infeasibly long time to load and fire. What's even scarier is that it was the last gun I bought, so who knows where else you screwed this up.

--You offered players who win the game the chance to play the beta version of Narcolyxii II. I was so scared of what I saw in this game (not because of the story itself, mind you), I didn't even want to try it. Then it disappeared after I reloaded the flash game via browser refresh. No immediate opportunity to finish the game and unlock the "offer" yet again, unless you beat the game the "cheater" way.

--Use the WASD keys during the wave aftermath scenes to see the guy float. Or use the arrow keys to see the guy sleep walk or something ... er, float-walk? I dunno... but he disappears whenever you go left, regardless of which set of keys you use.

You know what, actually I'm kinda curious to see how badly you screwed up the second game too. But this review isn't for that. The gist of it is that you need to be deadly efficient at stopping unintended glitches from happening, learn better person-friendly designs, and make sure you get some beta testing done. I'm sure the game could have came out 50% better if you polished it up.

[Lucky Tower]

Humorous!

I liked the concept of the game as a mix of luck and repeatedly seeing our guy die in various executions! Some of them were not so great, but there were a fair share of them that also made a good impression ("I'm too handsome to die!"), even though the joke may be old to a seasoned internet-goer.

Now for the criticism, which mostly involve fluidity of the game experience and glitches. You can thank your secret medals for this mud digging.

--Pressing down ANYWHERE in the final rooms causes you to teleport. You also can't kill yourself for some reason, but I'm guessing that's intended design.
--Pressing down while he's talking causes his mouth to stop flapping.
--On a similar note, if you're teetering at the edge of a pit and the guy is looking down, he will look like he's talking for only a split second, even when he is saying stuff like "Death to you!"
--Suiciding during a room entry cutscene (such as dropping from the first floor) acts as a scene canceler. Normally I'd call this an easter egg, but I would appreciate this being an actual feature when I want to see the three endings.
--If you send the old man down door 3, and you go into a different door, then go to door 3, his corpse is there, but then the shopkeep fails to get his goods in order.
--I haven't quite reproduced this yet, but if you drop the weight on the floor and go into a door at the same time, the weight disappears. Legitimate use of the K button ensues!
--Is the demon immune to swinging ceiling axes? Man he's totally unphased! I wish the sexy guy could go through that room and be totally unphased! Or decapitated.
--If you go into the tavern, talk to the barkeep, walk back out, then talk to him again, then walk back out, then talk to him again... wait, he must have amnesia. Oh, and yes you can cutscene-skip this by using K, lol.
--You can press K during the scene where you drop onto the sewer log.
--It is possible to dodge the rat in the sewer, but you still get a gameover screen.

It's all minor really. Oh wait a minute, here's the big one: the ability to double-back seems to be inconsistent. While it's appropriate to lose the ability to go through doors for deaths like Cerberus, it's not appropriate for deaths like the barrel roll.

Overall, the game is quite polished! Hopefully you can come up with more interesting concepts like this one.

PS: "Ooolala!" is the name of one of the secret medals, and it involves the secret method of viewing our sexy man naked. You must WANT IT BADLY to make it happen!

[Reincarnation: AHE]

That one medal...

Really now? The one medal people are wondering about, and it shows up when I click play? That is evil...

(and yes I understand why)

Anyways, my biggest complaint is that the protagonist would keep yelling "I'm not ready to do that yet" whenever I would click the bucket. My next complaint is that after you put the man to sleep, the protagonist would say "OMG someone's moving inside the house!" which either he's got really good eyesight for the roach, or... you know. Last thing is that he's a bit too smiley. I liked his face better in the other games of the series.

Other than that, it's quite standard for a Reincarnation game, and it was a nice experience.

[Sticky Blocks]

Challenging, and frustrating!

I've played through it all, and it starts requiring brain power after level 15. Then something around level 30, a single mistake costs you the entire level. Even though its supposed to be a puzzle game, I feel that completion also really tests perseverance as well, so be warned! The bonus levels and secret levels are more for entertainment after going through the trouble of getting the stars for level 40+.

I liked that you mostly stuck to the basic mechanics of the game without going wild on extra elements. No body likes having to deal with 20+ elements in puzzlers like these.

Graphics were a bit too simplistic. It's like someone went into Paint and drew a bunch of squares. Music was also a pretty bad choice. Kinda morbid and depressing.

I felt that after a while, the pace of the movement was just too slow. Maybe you could add an option to adjust the speed, since sometimes I don't feel like waiting forever for my block to move somewhere.

Occasionally the blocks didn't move in sync, leading to some interesting unintended consequences. For example, I was leading a column of blocks that were two blocks wide, and I run over a single spot that eats one of the blocks. With exception to the block that was adjacent to me, all the rest of them stopped being stuck to me.

Overall, the game was pretty solid, and it definitely offers challenges for those that are looking for it. The concept was good. The aesthetics could use serious improvement.

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Secret Medal levels: 27, B7
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amaupin responds:

Congrats on finishing the game! And I think you're the first person to get both secret medals.

I've never seen that bug you mentioned about a 2 column group becoming unstuck after just one is removed. I do know that when you become stuck to really large groups of blocks (as in Bonus 7) while on the go they don't immediately move in sync with your block until you stop, but I've never seen them get unstuck.

As for the graphics, I wanted to make a game that didn't use any images - just low level calls to bitmapData.fillRect(). Of course later I added the title logo, etc., but that was the original intention. I don't think they look too bad for an abstract puzzler, but I guess I am biased.

Thanks for your review!

[Madness: Premeditation]

Concept could have been executed better

The first and last boss fight were kinda awkward in that you didn't really know what kind of pattern to expect, making it like a "play once or twice and expect to die" kind of deal.

Maybe I was blind, but you could probably allow the player to edit the movement path after it was finished, just in case you realized you did something stupid. (and I'm not talking about during the movement phase where a reset button actually exists)

Use a grenade, it will never come back, even if you reset the scene. I do believe this is a glitch. If it matters, I tried fragging the dance floor with the only grenade I bought.

BoMToons responds:

I'll look into the grenade glitch, thanks.

[Give Up, Robot]

It's one of THOSE games!

I suppose you people had the idea of really testing will power when you made normal mode go from easy to incredibly hard. Bonus points for whoever plays it with drugs.

That aside, the graphics were an interesting concept. I liked how moving blocks changed colors so that they blended quite nicely when they fell into some kind of pit or melded with a wall. But I didn't like that when you were grappling, your robot kept on jittering like crazy, even if he's just hanging there. And speaking of the grappling hook, I felt that the left/right controls were overly sensitive if you're swinging from neutral position. It has cost me a lot of deaths in the later levels, especially Hard 7. In spite of all the colorful graphics and stuff, my crappy computer managed to maintain smooth frame rate. Good work on the efficiency of computer resources.

Beat normal mode's 50 levels in just under half an hour with ~160 deaths. 2/6 rank.

Beat hard mode's 11 levels in just under an hour (!) with ~330 deaths. 1/6 rank. And if you don't believe me, level 10 is an easter egg level that depicts a penis, and has the difficulty of normal level 2.