Coop's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[ChatTard]

For people with no friends

It's not the best of programs that I've ever seen of this nature - it doesn't store the chat log and it takes quite a while for a response to generate. Sure, I got a medal and 5 points by playing it, but is that really necessary?

It seems that the program is just designed to give a random response to each and every statement or question, so it isn't a very good script in that respect. You could at least tailor it to how it would respond to questions, statements and aggressive remarks, differentiating them with the location of all caps words, exclamation marks, question marks, spam text and the like.

The layout was a little primitive, as opposed to looking sophisticated, like most chat protocols these days - aesthetics make up a large part of whether or not people stay around.

[Review Request Club]

Rawnern responds:

I know the design is pretty bad, but I'll change it in the near future.

[The Floorsland 2]

Needs a few things

I'll just give you a quick list of what this game could do with below and hopefully you can work on these points, to make the game more engrossing:

1) Sound - get some sound effects via Google and perhaps a backing track from the Audio Portal. This would make a much better sounding piece and start to compliment the other areas.

2) An animation tune up - particularly when it comes to the lever, you might wish to look at where the animation pivots - don't forget, when the lever leaves the shot, it doesn't end. Attaching it to one area and cutting that part of the animation off screen might help you.

3) Better looking characters would help, as would voices for these characters. See also numbers 1 and 4 for this area.

4) A plot - Yes, you collected a giant crystal at the end, but we never find out why. Giving the player some sort of reason to get this going would really help and allow the piece to step forward, since the players want to play it and you'll be excited to get the next part released.

5) A little work on the drawing side of things never hurt and don't be afraid to take more time. Don't rush these things, just don't sit there doing nothing over them. Work on them and they will all come together for you.

[Review Request Club]

telinc1 responds:

Thank you!

[Best NG Review Tutorial]

Huge throbbing member!

Now that I've got your attention, lets get down to business. A great little piece, full of malice and humour, especially the punchline. I won't spoil it, the people need to click through and listen to it read by Speakonia (or is it Microsoft Sam?) themselves.

The concept is very basic and could use being coloured up a little. Some images illustrating reviews of this calibre would help in the pages referring to each part of the review themselves. You're clearly very learned on internet culture, so it stands to reason that you've seen these, so why not share them? The grey background needs some work, as it reminds me too much of a Conservative Party Conference. If you're after voice acting for this piece, shoot me a PM, or have a look at the Voice Acting thread, as the users in there might be able to inject another level of impetus into the piece. Not that you've done a poor job here, I might hasten to add!

It was good music that you chose for the piece and if I did anything different, I might suggest that you go and make a slight change to the controls, with mouse activated buttons, as it keeps the interactivity under one roof - it's not a game, after all.

[Review Request Club]

thinking-man responds:

Thanks! I might make an updated version later. (It's sam from Speakonia btw.)

[Richochet 2]

Controls failed

Igt looks nice and I'm sure it's a good game, but after the first contact with the paddle, the game freezes - you can't move the paddle from then and I just die. Playing through a few more times, I notice that you drive off the left hand side of the board and get stuck.

Defining the walls of the play area more fully would help here, so that you stay away from getting trapped in this "garage" area, so work on that and I'm sure that it's a great little game. Sadly, this flaw for me proved fatal. Hell, at least it's not choco break :P

[Review Request Club]

[Droid Grids Beta 0.19.1]

Not too bad, but still has issues

This isn't a bad game, but there are still issues with the piece itself - I think that while the mechanics are improved and the game seems to flow better, it still lacks a basic tutorial and perhaps even a plot-based explanation of why you're fighting. Is it training, fighting off some sort of rebellion or revolution or something similar? With a plot in place, you might get a situation that people to gain an affinity for our main character, so that they try to keep him alive.

The graphics need some work on making it look less "chunky" and block-like. Robots these days don't have all that much in the way of square and cubic parts, where the aesthetics are more favoured.

I think that you've got a good setup for the game and it is developing, though I would urge you not to keep deleting the games as you release a new one - it just looks like a resubmission, as the changes are largely minor. Sure, when you come to the alpha phase, you might want to bin the old projects, but why not have a large showcase of where you've come from?

[Review Request Club]

glider521al responds:

Hey Coop, thanks once again for posting an awesome review.

TUTORIAL/PLOT:
Yeah I agree that in game text messages are no substitute for an actual interactive tutorial.
The tutorial will come later once, once I've added in some more gameplay features and polished the graphics. For now I'll be trying to make the gameplay as intuitive, challenging and fun as possible.

I've been thinking of adding a campaign mode to explain the story of why you're fighting, but this will probably happen towards the
end of the development cycle.

SPRITING: In a few updates time I hope to enlist the help of a 3D modeller/Isometric artist, to help me make appropriate images for the robots.

DEVELOPMENT: Don't worry, I've learnt my lesson, I won't be binning my old submissions from this point on (especially as newgrounds have the same default page for manually deleted submissions as blammed submissions).
I particularly like the idea of showing people the development cycle.

A reviewer, posted to my profile to suggest I make a new submission for every significant set of updates.
Also, this way I can quickly get feedback of what new features people liked/hated, and adjust the game accordingly. I've taken his advice.
Next major update (aside from the minor changes to this submission), will have a focus on adding in an armoury and later 2 other enemy types...

[Falsely Imprisoned!]

Not all that impressive

The preloader took an age to load and that left us with a white screen for such a long time. That puts gamers off, so I'd suggest that you simplify that, so that it loads quicker. This will improve everything about it.

When it comes to the gameplay, you haven't really put that much of a learning curve in there for the newbie gamer. It's straight into the action and the guards are so unforgiving. Granted, they would be more difficult in real life, as usually one bullet would stop you dead, but that's the beauty of poetic licence. I'd certainly say that you need to get yourself things in there like health powerups. Back to the poetic licence with them being present in the vent system, but you've got unguarded blades spinning around there, so why not?

The animation and the drawing is great. I love the fluid movements of the characters and the only thing that could be improved here is the addition of voices for the characters. It's all working out nicely, so just a few more tweaks here and there will make this game a very good one, that people play, talk about and beg for medals on.

[Review Request Club]

Skeik responds:

You're right about the HP and the guards. A lot of it is misdirected (Why bother having health when you get shot if getting noticed at all is instant death?). The source file just became hard to work with. The decompiler broke a lot of things, made the preloader load secondary to the game and made it extremely difficult to edit past levels and mechanics.

[Puzzling War]

Not bad, but certain limitations

I think that keeping the game map so small, you did lose out on the chance to make the game much more complex. After all, we're dealing with sprites here, which look so much better as you make them smaller. Why not have later levels with up to a 10x10 grid, instead of the 6x6, as that gives the players so many more options.

With the powerups, perhaps you could buy upgrades that improve them and on the bigger grid games, you stand more likelihood of being able to do all of the powered abilities. The four powerups that you have are great and well planned, but when the opponent gets the ability to nuke your troops, it can make the levels very hard to play, especially if they get the jump on you and your first few seconds are spent looking furiously for the first few matches to get the ball rolling.

Quite addictive and well designed, but still with room for more, I'm impressed, but I would like to see more things added to this game. A plot to keep the more-than-casual gamer occupied would also be a very nice thing. Perhaps some sort of script? Finally, I'd suggest something that allows you to turn the music off, as when you've played 20+ levels of this game, that does get very repetitive.

[Review Request Club]

[Pixel Escape]

Interesting, but hugely limited

Well, the graphics are incredibly basic for this game and the concept is so shortly thought through that it's no wonder you can churn these things out at such a rate. I'd like to see a little more effort in the piece, with a little more variation than a 1 in 2 probability that you'll get it right.

Why not incorporate it with typing more than just pressing one of the arrow keys? Left or right is child's play, you said so yourself. I mean, I just managed to get second on the high score table and the only way I can see that you got it so hight is by hacking the high scores, which is lame. Still, if any of you kids out there want to overhaul me, just put one finger on left, one finger on right and press both at the same time, whenever you reach a junction, thus the boat will steer itself, sending you the right way.

Basing your graphics off Atari is no reason not to take pride in your work - they gave us Worms in its purest form and that's a very good reason to be proud of Atari. I was playing on an Atari before you were born and I treasure those games I played as a kid. More variation is required, such as giving more of a level basis than only changing the colour when the "boat" moves off screen, coming back with the same map, but painted a different colour is not variation. Surely the boat can turn when it it steered, as opposed to ploughing forward and "strafing" across screen, as if it were a pixelated crab.

The massive gap between the repeats in the tune was horrendous and could be fixed by linking more than just the one tune in there on a shuffle program or similar. Plenty of work on the Audio Portal would be suitable and people can have the option to skip, as they break records in pursuit of your unachieveable goal.

[Review Request Club]

VioletVulpine responds:

Sure, thanks

[Adventures of Thin Air]

Not all that good

To be honest, I still think that game would probably be horrible even if you had a cursor there, but it was still a very basic little game. You've got one music track, which you have no option to turn off or change - is there an audio credit for this at all, as it was the best part of the piece.

I would have made the cursor visible, but that's the hidden beauty of the game. What you should do is not shift the piece on screen, so people can get a decent idea where abouts on screen they are, since it seems to move independent from the camera. This makes it frustrating when you approach obstacles, such as jumps and you can't "fine tune" them, when you're coming in to land, it's just jump and hope for the best.

Some sort of indication of the controls would have been nice - you haven't shown any of us how to deal with the movement (I'd have also suggested the up key to jump, as opposed to the space bar, since that just feels better from my point of view.) Perhaps also a tutorial, where you can see certain things, such as the size and dynamics of the character you play as, so that you've at least got a running start to the game. I'm personally against getting into the pilot's chair with no experience and then trying to take off in a 747.

Overall, it needs some work, if you're going to make this piece take off, so to speak.

[Review Request Club]

VioletVulpine responds:

The proloader shows the controls, and I like the spacebar but I MIGHT make an option if I'm bored one day. Thanks for an ACTUAL review, sir.

[Icy Gifts]

Stunningly simple

Well, that's probably one of the most simple and effective physics games that I've ever encountered. The concept is fantastic, the artwork effective and the sound effects too good to be true. What I would say against the game is that it's too short, with total completion from start to finish in around half an hour, so I was expecting to see something a little more substantial, but you can't win them all.

I love the tactical element of this and a scoring system could be developed by timing it, additional points gained for combos, click explosions not used on the levels where you can ear extra and throwing in a high scores board, so people can get really competitive.

It's fact paced, really well thought through and it certainly gives you a lot to think about, when it comes to where your explosions will take you.

[Review Request Club]