Murudai's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Dimension Diver]

Meh

It's an alright game, but then you compare it to another similarly structured platformer, like say the original Super Mario Bros.

SMB has more powerups, more variety, more enemies, much tighter controls and is just better in every way (except graphics). And it's over 25 years old!

The graphics are nice, but in terms of gameplay everything has been done before and better.

[The Squirrel Game]

Resoundingly Average

Average graphics, average gameplay, average music.

It's by no measure a bad game, (average != bad), but compared to the tight gameplay, visual delights and features offered by similar games like Canabalt, Robot Unicorn Attack and Epic Coaster, this doesn't stand out.

[Die Hipster]

Duh

Good controls are too mainstream for this game!

Takes a bit of practice but now I'm a Die Hipster pro. I love this game, and it's a shame it won't be as successful as it deserves thanks to some gamers who couldn't jump the first box (because they suck at games) and rated it down.

[Butcherbugs]

Great job

For all you reviewers who like multi-unit shooters like this, check out Shoot 1UP on XBLIG. It's a great game released a while ago with very similar gameplay to this game.

What I really like about this game is the control over formations and how that integrates into gameplay. However, I have one gripe. The system where as you change formation it pauses to show you info about it... that's unnecessary because you can already see what the formation is like when you do it! And since this is a twitchy shooter, having that pause is teeth-grindingly annoying when I want to quickly switch around to take something behind me or on the sides. The little icon can still pop up showing formation information, just maybe off to the side instead so as to not obscure view of the formation and let the formation itself come up instantly on your units.

Fix that one flow breaking 'pause' and the game mechanics will be perfect.

Glaiel-Gamer responds:

the pause is necessary for the mouse wheel control so you can select which formation you want, trust me when it was instant it was a lot worse as ladybugs would spread out when you were cycling through the formations and hit stuff without you wanting it.

[Aliens Kidnapped Betty]

Moar bonus levels

Played through to the end, and those 3 bonus levels are MUCH better than the rest of the game. You should of taken those 3 bonus levels and expanded the mechanics in those into the entire game.

[Line Runner 2]

Average

Solipskier was not particularly original, but it showed us how this kind of game can be done right. Stretch things out, give heaps of warning for obstacles and let the game flow better.

I played the original Line Runner a long time ago, and it was great, but you've made practically no improvements to the gameplay since then, where as better games have come and improved on the concept. Disappointing.

[Holiday Sim]

Fun

I started playing the game, went right to the ingame arcade and started playing games there.

Says something about me doesn't it :/

[Unfinished Shadow Game]

Regarding shadows

The shadows in this game are 'Dynamic 2D soft shadows'. Here is a link to a good tutorial that will explain how to do it: http://www.gamedev.net/reference/arti cles/article2032.asp note that that tutorial deals only with concepts and not examples, and thus is only for more advanced developers.

[Meeblings]

Good

There is a lot of games coming out lately that are using Box2D physics, but nothing else. They just use the physics that took so many people so long to perfect, just slap on some crappy graphics and try to pass it off as an original game, then reap all the profits. I'm against it, you use physics engines to add the finishing touch to a good idea, not making the physics themselves the entire gameplay, which is very cheap since you didn't even do the physics.

This isn't one of those games.

Great, original idea. Lots of fun, and you use the physics engine how it should be used. To polish off an original idea, well done.

[Super Stacker]

Huh

Oh look, another Box2D physics stacking game. I wonder what started this craze?

Anyway, with this game it would be nice if the line of shapes ready to come actually showed the sizes. It's easier to see the sizes than it is to look at the numbers and try to think of how that correlates into the game stage.

Also, I found that each puzzle really only had 1 solution. So there is really only 1 way you can drop the shapes. So you really need to run through the level once to see what shapes there are so you can figure out what tower we're meant to build. And then it's on to actually building the tower.

Now, that's a serious design flaw. You shouldn't have to run through and lose a level just to see how to build the tower that wins the level. You can either broaden it so there are more solutions to a puzzle, or show every piece you're going to get so you know how to design the tower.

But anyway, you base your entire game on someone elses physics engine. Any old hack could do it, so it doesn't impress me all that much.