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.

[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

[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.

[Spot the Dot 2]

Simple and fun!

I like the concept and expressed focus of this simple game.

It's also a good thing there's no online highscore list because there's one method of cheating that's guaranteed to go past 50 and cause the dots to become invisible. Not that I tried it, that would defeat the purpose of the game =P

RockLou responds:

Being rainman?

[Megaman X RPG: Chapter 1]

Superior quality!

Okay... the closet ghost didn't really make much sense, including how you get the Odd Key. But then again I suppose the same goes with all the other loot you take out of that place. That particular battle reminded me of Final Fantasy; one skill/strategy will save the day! And the rest of you people saying it's fking hard, it's not fking hard >_> I beat it on my first try at lvl 16.

Anyways, on to the actual review xD

The introductory stuff is fairly well done except for the fact that everyone starts out with a lot of stuff and you don't know wtf the numbers and stuff are doing. And this is especially unhelpful if you decided to shut down the UHF beacon without getting a tutorial, since Dynamo is no longer a jog in the park; he's become an actual challenge. Challenges are a no-no if you aren't told what's going on in a battle. Then after the cut scene, I wandered through the base, get acquainted with the whole RPG system, and then I'm told that's the end of chapter 1?

I have no idea if the incredibly short main storyline is due to hammering out the game engine or if it's due to the file size, but I was incredibly disheartened that the game was composed of 70% optional material that had little to no enrichment to the game's environment (which I know little of, since I don't play MMX). I would suggest having a fair amount of content available the next time around so this game, which is full of pretentiousness, won't be thrown away within a few hours.

But speaking of optional content, I like how exploration rewards the player with all sorts of things, including regaining Axl at the very least, to the "Intentional Failure" achievement, to gaining potentially powerful skills from the 22 possible battle chips. Hmm, where to start...

Stealing: this is a bit of complicated business. Eventually though, you'll come across stuff that sells for an absurd amount, especially Gizmondos, which sell for 6333 each. I can understand riches coming from bosses (items worth 6333), but from common enemies? I bought out all the high tech stuff from the armory and even went into a 2 hour session finding out all the possible battlechips and abilities. In short, while stealing should have its own unique rewards, it shouldn't lead to bank-breaking money making.

Battlechips: the sxp flows a bit too slowly for my liking, especially when there's a lot of useful skills out there. By the time I beat "??? A", I've accumulated less than 2000 sxp. I have no idea how long you plan on carrying this game, but it's going to take forever to cover a third of all the abilities. Since it's possible to use a save file and up to 500 sxp to find out all of the abilities, I think you should forget making the skills a mystery and just tell us what they do before we stupidly invest in a skill. Oh, and for all you synthesizers out there, the max chips you'll need to get any chip is 3 =P

Achievements: some of them are redundant, such as the "Dy-no-might!" and "Into the Frying Pan..." ones. They're both essentially the same milestone.

Training courses: It would be nice to be able to fight Dynamo again, and maybe you should make it random encounters instead of having a set number of encounters. Oh, and the Swordsman should not have Melee and/or Buster resists, since in addition to the status debuffs, the new player would most likely be ill-equipped to handle him.

Other things of mentioning:
--Controls sometimes become unresponsive. It's not the "moonwalk" thing though.
--Sometimes when a character gets stunned, he cannot be cured of it, no matter how many mobility repair kits you throw at him.
--Armory sometimes thinks I'm wearing items I do not have, such as "A Brown Coat."
--They're =/= their. Fix those o.O
--Guy outside the command center thingy traps you in an endless chat cycle most of the time. Really annoying.
--What's the "Eyepod" for? It never shows up in my inventory too.
--Gear and battlechips get "lost" on Zero due to the training data copy thingy.

Overall, a very nice game ChamberACR, I hope to see more in the future =)

ChamberACR responds:

Thank you for the feedback. I'll try and correct most of these oversights before the next installment.

One thing, though, which I have to comment about. The Achivements "Dynomight" and "Into the Frying Pan" are different for one reason: beating Dynamo is optional. You can lose that fight. If you win, then yay - achievement. If you lose, then no biggie. The story continues (with a slight twist).

But again, thank you for the feedback. I'll fix these hopefully before the next installment.

[Jasmine & Jacks Adventure]

Great!

I liked how you could play through the game again and again to get different stories for w/e happens to the girl and the dog in the park. Amusing xD

I did not like how the border obstructed the pictures, so sometimes when I think I've spotted a difference, it really wasn't. A good example of this is the wide right pupil of the girl when the frisbee hits the bee hive.

Also, something I noticed in this game that wasn't exhibited in the last game (although it's possible it was in the last game as well) was that sometimes there was more than 5 differences. In one picture, I've found 7! The difference counter went down to -2, and I milked 10 extra points. I have no idea if this was intentional or not, but it certainly doesn't make sense to have -2 differences in the very least.

Keep up the good work.

DifferenceGames responds:

Hey Fooliolo,

Thanks for another good review! There are 8 (or even 10) difference shown on most scenes. However, you shouldn't be able to get -2... was the game stuck? Or did you just quickly click on everything before the scenes advanced?

I'm starting to come around on the border graphics. There was actually a bit of debate about them (I liked it) and what you see now is actually considerably toned down from an earlier border. Maybe we will do an update to place the image on top.

[DifferenceGames - Dreams]

Wonderful experience!

This is unlike many of the Spot The Difference games!

I liked how you had the choice of clicking on one screen or the other, and you'll get results based on which screen you clicked. For example, if there was a mole on the left screen but not on the right screen, and you clicked the mole on the left screen, it will disappear. Clicking on the spot where the mole should be on the right screen, and the mole will appear. Pretty cool. It also means that you won't have some marker there saying "difference found" or whatever; it's just one difference less to find, and that's all it is.

I also liked how you incorporated the music and made the pictures into one story of sorts. Better marks for the game.

The hints function is rather unique, although I think it kicks in rather early. Maybe add a scroll timer in the options? I get the feelings of a "teehee" moment for some reason whenever you get those subtle "what was that" changes in the images. All in all, the hints in this game are way better than having some circle telling you where to find a difference, as it acts as a sort of radar/Geiger counter telling you how close you are to finding the difference, and it's also not obstructing the picture.

My chief complaint was that it's a bit easy. This isn't entirely bad though. You have the right idea in making the differences rather objective instead of subjective ("oh, that patch of black is suppose to be blacker"), and I applaud you for making this decision.

I'm definitely going to remember this game, and not just for the artistry too!

DifferenceGames responds:

Hey Fooliolo, Thanks for the wonderful review! This is one of my favorite parts after working on a game so long to read something like this. ;) Thanks for the nice smile this evening!

I love how you noticed the mechanics on the how it matters what side you click. We have some interesting things planned with that in future releases.

The difficulty you mentioned is interesting. I've done several versions of the game but generally we have found that its better to be a little to easy (and keep things flowing) then making it to hard. If you check DifferenceGames.com you can play some harder games. [and they will make their way to NG in the future]

There are actually 6 or 7 differences shown on each scene but you don't have to find them all to advance. Note, if you play the game again you will find that most of the differences have changed. Its really interesting if you are competing for the high score where you get a big bonus based on your speed. You would have to play the game many many times to know where all the potential differences are.

Thanks again for the taking the time to leave us such detailed feedback.

Best wishes!
Adam

[Hedgehog Launch]

Something of an arcade game, almost.

This is a game that has a deceptive advertising feat on it, but in reality its got quite a bit of depth to it! Most of the graphics were beautiful overall, and the touch with the Videotron screen was also nice. A few suggestions though is that if you moused over a possible buying option, you'll be able to see what else you can afford assuming you bought the option you moused over, since most of the upgrades you can purchase have a somewhat random value to them, as opposed to say $10k or even $550. Also another complaint is that if you manage to get the hedgehog to stay sideways compared to its direction, the stretch you get at high speeds doesn't really match its direction. This stuff is mostly minor though.

About the mechanics of the game, it seems that in order to beat the game as fast as possible, you'll want to earn as much cash as possible. Here's where it gets interesting in that the base cash you earn in the level is pretty much based on luck and little skill/upgrades, the multiplier factors are based mostly on upgrades and little skill (the platforms). I like that touch for a game like this, since it blends in rewards for wise decisions while it's also casual and somewhat forgiving (or cruel) for the less intense players.

Comments and suggestions about the upgrades and features:
--Generally with all of the upgrades I find that it's stupid, imo, that you have to buy all-or-nothing per level, and not the difference between upgrades. It doesn't matter really what lvl band you have. But I suppose decisions due to this element adds luck and randomness to the game.
--The band and the launch platform go very well together, but alone they're actually pretty crappy. Actually I feel that the band gives you less benefit compared the platform when you compare the costs. I also thought that a higher platform sorta neglects to mention that you can stretch the band farther, but that's something you'll realize as you play the game. Stretching diagonally instead of straight down gives you more air (not higher) so you can collect more money. Btw, lvl 10 band and platform = autowin. Yay!
--The thrusters are interesting, but there's a lot of flaws with this. Fuel efficiency is only good for stalling for a higher time multiplier, and it really doesn't help you much in the air unless you've got other upgrades, namely the E-Rocket and the Parachute. Thruster power I find is pretty beneficial, but one thruster should hold the majority of the power while the other thruster should be significantly weaker, but not too weak, or your main thruster will really overpower the other one. Having equal power thrusters I find is a big mistake, as chances are a good score doesn't involve you trying to remain in place, and if you're going off in a direction, it should be consistent since it's a waste to go off left on one launch, then go off right for another launch. And really high stats in thrusters is just really absurd, as the controls become twitch and you lose precision, and there really isn't any reasonable way to make good use of fuel efficiency at such a high level unless you intend to drag out the timer while scraping along the ground. Granted if you're lucky you'll hit a few coins or a platform, but you really shouldn't rely on this, as it's not a good use of your money.
--The E-Rocket imo is one of the best upgrades you can get. It's a free 550-600 ft. per use (goal is 4500 ft.), and it really returns the money you invest pretty much guaranteed. It's also useful in so many other ways, such as if you want to reach a platform of some sort or get a hoard of coins as well as delay the timer. High multipliers all around!
--The Parachute is only great if you have thruster upgrades. Not worthwhile in that respect. However it's great for delaying for time multipliers if you use it that way. And it goes away if you hit a platform, which makes sense.
--Radar = not worth it. Too expensive. It's still mostly luck to find the good platforms. Also, regarding platforms close to the ground, on the radar they are below you?

jmtb02 responds:

Wow, awesome review. Thanks!

-j