Coop's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Newgrounds Portal Radio]

A good example of programming

This is a decent demonstration at what you've learned in programming school, so you've proven that you're capable of creating something that is largely already in use here. Not a criticism, per se, more of an observation.

A shame that the audio page doesn't function properly, as that would have iced the cake. Maybe you could do something like put the icon in a display case on part of the layout, just to give it that additional touch?

Simple, reasonably elegant and if it weren't for the fact that parts of it are not working at present, you may have gotten a higher rating from me.

[Review Request Club]

MCarsten responds:

Hi Coop, here it is replies to all your observations:

"This is a decent demonstration at what you've learned in programming school, so you've proven that you're capable of creating something that is largely already in use here. Not a criticism, per se, more of an observation."

I'm really glad you think this is a good programming example from what I learned, what I did is use stream functions to grab the Audio Portal songs as you can see. Thanks again.

"A shame that the audio page doesn't function properly, as that would have iced the cake. Maybe you could do something like put the icon in a display case on part of the layout, just to give it that additional touch?"

1. Yeah, about the audio portal and download buttons don't work issue, I really don't know why this is happening to the Newgrounders, everything works fine here and before upload it to the Flash Portal, I tested it upon Newgrounds Dump System which also worked. 2. Oh, about the icon display, I just thought this wasn't that necessary, plus, they would think I was copying Archawn or PoderOdunk's gadgets.

"Simple, reasonably elegant and if it weren't for the fact that parts of it are not working at present, you may have gotten a higher rating from me."

Thanks for think this is something good although some things don't work to you and I really can't know why.

Thanks for the really nice review!
See you around.

[Deathracers]

Not bad, but a few issues

As I said in the summary, this game is not bad - in fact, I'd go so far as to say that it is one of te better driving games to be found here, complete with the violence of weapons powerups and a rather futuristic looking setting, despite it looking a little post-apocalyptical.

The way that you had races run both ways, in order to encourage more combat was pretty good, though I would have preferred a better AI, in order to receive a little more of a challenge from these monstrosities that are running around the place after my blood.

The game mechanics do leave a lot to be desired, as sometimes, even with me driving relatively flawlessly, I can still find myself finishing 2nd or 3rd, while my lap count hasn't blipped and I'm sure that no-one passed me. There could be a slightly improved HUD, so that the driver can see how many laps have passed and how many the race consists of, as this does affect my tactics. Driving the wrong way around the track armed with a missile rack, in a last ditch effort to claim a place or two is a great tactic for the last lap, if you've got enough chances left.

As for the music, I really did need a mute button - "Coming to you live from Channel 1" gets really annoying after a few seasons of racing, so the option to change that for other tracks would be most appreciated.

[Review Request Club]

MakingFunGames responds:

Cheers Coop, glad you enjoyed the game.
You do realise it's supposed to look post apocalyptic, right?
A sequel is on the way, and we'll take your comments on board.

[Road of the Dead]

A good romp

As always with your games, I'm very impressed with the level of detail that has been put into it. You truly are a master creator of this sort of game and thoroughly deserving of the plaudits that you get for them.

I think that the way you've added simple designs to the upgrades, spent ages working on getting the details right like the splatter and even the blood on the windscreen, I don't have to play it long to fall in love with it.

One medal down, many more hours spent sitting in front of my laptop I feel, pursuing the goals. It sure is going to take a while as I don't really have the skill, but on a war of attrition basis, I might have a shot.

Perhaps have checkpoints, when you can actually come off the road and stop to try and grab yourself some additional supplies, such as armour plates, additional ammo and even more fuel. Do you dare to try and change the tyres on the car, as the authorities close in on you, as well as the much slower zombies?

This game has great potential, even in this finished form that we see before us. I think that it's awesome and clearly has the benefit of a lot of thinking gone into it. How long must it take to get everything in place for a piece like this? Mind you, when you've got such a great team to back you up in the art, music and voice stakes, you don't really need to worry about time, really.

I hope that this makes you and your collaborators money, as you all deserve to go pro with this sort of game development. You'd make some truly mesmerising games.

[Review Request Club]

[Rune Hunt]

Good, but a little laborious

While this game does have some very good points, it can get a little monotonous after a while, having to doge those creatures that hide in the shadows, which are afraid of light, but do burst forth if they can see a quick meal ahead just in the light.

I got through the first few pieces, but don't get me wrong, it's a very good game. If you wanted to improve it, I'd certainly suggest getting in on the medals programme, as you seem like one of these programmers that could benefit from more exposure that Medals would bring to this. Then you could expand and place it on so many more sites.

The plot was good, the music was decent, but please check the Audio Portal for more ambient tunes that you could use to good effect. I think that the occasional additional piece of dialogue should be thrown in and not made optional, otherwise people may miss it, when they come to these parts.

[Review Request Club]

[Reincarnation: TBOH]

A little simple

If I'm being totally honest with you, this offering to Luke seemed a little more simple than the usual that I have become accustomed to, which could waste a good 10-15 minutes in order to brute force my way through the puzzles. Perhaps there are other things to do in there, but until it passes judgement, I can only see the one medal, so I'll still give you a nice bunch of stars for this.

As usual though, great music, voices and animation, plus the game mechanics work seamlessly, in order to give everyone a good piece of wholesome family entertainment. Okay, this would be for slightly more mature families and clearly not for those in middle America, as works of Satan are not tolerated in any form.

I wonder how long you can keep this up, as plenty of souls should be heading to hell, so it would be nice to see a twisted businessman a la Monty Burns, for a change, as opposed to the standard trailer trash types that have graced this piece. Oh, the Paedo priest was fun, but it's the only real difference I've seen through the whole series.

[Review Request Club]

[Mousescape]

A good game.

While it can be a little tedious with the "find all of the greyed out pieces of this puzzle and put them in the right place, it's well set out. The problem that you have is that some of the pieces are far too well hidden and this game really does require a traditional mouse, as opposed to the touch-pad that I'm currently using.

I think that the game could be made more fun if you had to rotate the puzzle pieces, so that it's a little more difficult for the player to master, as opposed to clicking in the near vicinity of the area where the piece is supposed to go and seeing it click into place automatically.

It could use voices and perhaps a reason for doing all of this at the start - just something to get the kids interested in the game that they will waste a little time on.

[Review Request Club]

wildharmonystudio responds:

Hi Coop83, rotating the puzzle pieces is an interesting idea....I will keep it in mind for our nexts projects. thanks.

[I am the walrus!]

Too simple

I don't think this is going to win many awards for the best Beatles Tribue Animation any time soon, to be honest. You've animated the Walrus and not a fat lot else, to be honest. Great that you've added NG Medals to it, albeit zero pointers that are horrendously easy to get.

If you were going to have this as a game, with the Walrus crawling across the landscape, at least have the scenery move, as without it, the whole piece looks very lazy and the finish presented is appalling, frankly.

I'd have preferred to see more scenery along the way of the song, like the semolina and pilchards, perhaps even a part, where the Walrus climbs the Eiffel Tower. Sadly, it has fallen short.

[Review Request Club]

up-a-notch responds:

ok thank you

[JUMP IT!]

Basic

I think I only managed 57 out of boredom, to be honest. The state of the game doesn't change, with no additional difficulty in the form of overconfidence, so the skipping becomes faster. There were no lives, to enable you to get into the swing of things, before you actually fail and apparently the only differential thing is that I'm a baby for only getting to 57. I would assume by this that I can improve and get myself into some sort of boxer style athlete, because they love skipping.

Maybe that's what you need - someone that starts out as a weedy kid and bulks up depending on the numbers, so that you can see the progress as you skip, so to speak. It would make the interface less boring, as would a mute button, as the loop kind of gets annoying after a short while.

[Review Request Club]

up-a-notch responds:

100 = kid
0 = loser
1 = baby

[Meet the Universe]

Good information

I like the way that you've set out this piece, with the information presented in easy to digest manageable chunks, covering a few basic facts on each part.

With the way that the scales of these things are so massive, it might be beneficial to show some sort of scale to these diagrams, as the sub would be gargantuan, compared to a tiny Mercury or Pluto, while Earth is 200 times (I think) smaller then the mighty behemoth of Jupiter. I was disappointed not to hear about the big red spot.

Still, you've laid it out nicely and there is a nice spread for this whole topic, but I would certainly appreciate more information being on show, on demand here - try making the writing smaller and slightly easier to read, where we can show off what facts there are about the places, as opposed to having large type taxt filling up the screen.

[Review Request Club]

MCarsten responds:

THANKS! I am really glad you liked this universe presentation! Yeah, would be really interesting if you put compared mass or volume for each planet/system and such, I also liked the planet/system mass/volum information where I typed the km³ or m and such. Also, about the giant-hard text to read, I really apologize for the grammar mistakes and I took it from a book where I like to read and study about the universe, I tried to put as simple as possible.

Again, a giant thanks for you!
Respectfully,
SpyS.

[Scrabbled!]

Good start

I like the idea behind this, but it doesn't keep score or give additional tiles if you can't make a word and so forth. I always thought that the goal of scrabble was to spell words until you ran out of letters like a giant crossword.

It really fell off the rails for me when you clicked the random button and the letters that had gone down on the board scrambled as well. With that, you can't even see what you'd spelled before and it really is a more simple idea to head down to the local toy shop and purchase a copy of scrabble yourself.

Still, don't let that dishearten you, as there is a gap in the market for things like this and the development of a good scrabble game would work really well. Give us a scoring system and teach a CPU the rules, so that you can play against up to 3 more players, finally hopefully getting various difficulty settings for the CPU players.

On top of that, you could program the board (google images can help if you don't know what each square is worth) as you already have the values for Western Scrabble, since certain languages have different values, as various letters occur more prominently in certain languages (That might be getting a little advanced for now, since you're dealing with English, but English (UK) and English (US) can be very varied languages.)

[Review Request Club]

up-a-notch responds:

thanks for the review