Murudai's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Jelly Towers]

Hmmm

Another Box2D physics game? There are a lot of those coming out recently.

These games all have 1 fatal flaw, same as yours. The physics is too good. Sometimes, we don't want perfect physics, because it can make the game very hard and frustrating to play. Slightest little bump and the thing falls over. Picking up and dropping objects becomes too hard because the slightest little tip and the tower falls over.

Now this is what 'makes the challenge' but because of how Box2D does it, it can be far too sensitive and difficult for the game. I mean here, it's just another physics stacking game, I've seen heaps of them lately. But it's so sensitive and difficult to line up with the fact that the center or rotation is where you click, that it becomes nearly impossible not to tip the tower. At least in the other games it doesn't have that, so it's more about your building skills. In this game it's just about how well you can click the exact center and cross your fingers that the blocks angular momentum doesn't drop the whole thing.

And frankly, I'm getting bored with this latest 'tower building' game craze. It doesn't show competence as a game developer, since all the work is being done by Box2D, that someone else coded. And it isn't original. And most of the time, it isn't even fun.

This is more or less a rant against all these 'tower building' games, so don't take it too personally.

[Meteor Blast]

Alright

I won't repeat points that other people have said, there have been some really good reviews for this game.

Just like to add with the particle stuff. It looks cool, but you've overdone it. I have a decent computer, and hitting just two asteroids induces lag. Good, smooth gameplay is more important than getting a few extra particles. You could cut it down to 10% of how many you have at the moment and it will make little difference visually to the player.

Plus, you could make them more efficient. That's got to be, only about 100 particles before lag. That's not that good, I suggest you run through your code and try to make it as efficient as possible. Sometimes the difference between a good game and a great game is the ability to push the code to that extra level, and I'm not seeing that here.

ChromeShark responds:

Thanks for reviewing, there sure have been some amazing reviewers and I'm really grateful for all the suggestions people are giving. Regarding the lag, I didnt get any on my PC (it is quad core though :p) and as none of my beta testers mentioned it I didnt realize people would have problems, but I'll definitely improve upon it for the next one.

[Splitter]

Good implementation

lol, I think most people here will think you made this game yourself. But like you say in your credits, the physics engine is Box2D.

This is a really clever game and a really good implementation of a physics engine in Flash.

This was a really well designed game, but since you rely very heavily on a physics engine you did not code, I can't give a high score. 6/10.

isfland responds:

I've used not only box2d, but few other libraries: PureMVC and Tweener.
It's more fun to write game actually, than just another physics engine. And it's good for players to see good physics than ugly, glitchy buggy hand-made physics (there are a lot of games with such disadvantages). Box2d is great engine and it was created to help developers make games - why does it bad to use it?

[Dual Mouse: Eyecandy]

Interesting

Very fun and interesting game. A good twist on the piles and piles of 'mouse avoider' type games out there.

But like someone already pointed out, the hit testing is really bad. I had my cursors getting hit when I was very clearly not hitting anything. In a game like this, hittesting is the primary function, so you MUST spend more time getting it right.

[-Nion-]

Huh?

I was playing it, and I kept playing the same level over and over again. I'd play it, beat it, get Gold, then I'd just play it again? And I did that 20 times before I just got bored. Am I doing something wrong here?

And that lag at the end of the level. You would never get away with that doing Flash for a client. For the sake of learning and improving I suggest you find out what that was. That kind of lag looks like either a loop of some kind or it's trying to draw a ton of objects onto the stage at once. So look for something like that.

You can use code like:

lag = getTimer();
trace(getTimer()-lag);

And make sure you declare 'lag' as a class variable (main variable), not an instance variable (unless it is in the same block of code, so it wouldn't matter) and that'll tell you the lag in milliseconds between two areas of the code. Put it between two pieces of code, like this:

lag = getTimer();

for(var i:int=0;i<10000;i++){
var test:Object = new Object();
}

trace(getTimer()-lag);

And that will show you the lag required to make those 10,000 'Object' declarations. That code is in AS3 format, but it would be virtually the same for AS2, I'm sure you can figure it out.

Phendrana responds:

I thought it might have something to do with my clear function. When you beat a stage, it does a for loop to clear any remaining objects created during the stage. It still lagged when I commented it out, so now I'm stuck again. I'll keep your suggestion in mind and try that code out.

[Gem Swap II]

Bug

When I was playing the game I clicked the '?' help thing. When I clicked 'start' though the game started again but the help stuff was still there in the way. Might want to check that out.

Otherwise, nice clean make of an old, old classic :)

[Mastermind: World Conqueror]

Damn!

Played the whole thing through in one go.

Amazing game. Gameplay was amazing, graphics were amazing, storyline was amazing, everything was just done to a fantastic level!

Only bad thing is that there isn't much playability to do it again, since it won't be any different. But really, I haven't played this long on a Flash game for while now. Great job :D

[ZeleTetra]

Huh?

I opened it and sat there for while, but nothing happened. It went to the game screen but no shapes or anything came out, it didn't do anything.

You have to make sure your game is working before submitting it, this is a critical failure. 0/10.

[Karoshi:Suicide Salaryman]

Great!

Beat every level!

Some of them were very clever. I felt pretty stupid after I figured out that 'K' level, lol.

Unique twist on a classic platformer puzzle game and some very clever puzzles! Great game.

[I wish I were the Moon]

Fantastic

There are all too many platformers, shooters and arcade games out there, so I love seeing different games.

This is a very elegant and simple puzzle game. I certainly haven't seen anything like it before. I've had very complex and advanced games lose my attention much earlier than it took to play this game, so in that sense it succeeded in entertaining me for longer.

Which just shows the importance of clever design.

10/10. Obviously there are better games out there, but for what you intended to do (an experimental game) you succeeded.