Knuckstrike's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lost Catacombs]

Very nice

This was also one of the hardest of the requests to review for me.

I liked how the first levels were with scientists and other researchers, and the later levels were with no people. It gives more of a feeling that you're going through a cript on your own.

I did find the puzzles a bit boring at the start. I'm not very good at these puzzle games, but I could just walk through the first seven levels without thinking. After that it got really hard though. So maybe you could make the difficulty curve a bit less steep?

The only real negative point I can think of with this game is the control scheme. Although it's an angle in which you can see everything, I'd rather have a map which let you walk down if you press down, and not that you walk to the bottom-left. Most of the time where failed was because I pressed a wrong button.

It's still a really nice game though, and the majority of the things are just fine. The addition of a level editor is great, and I love the large amount of puzzles there are. I didn't get very far in the game either, but certainly liked the puzzles I did complete.

Review request club

SantoNinoDeCebu responds:

Yeah, I chose the 'isometric' view because it looks pretty and and stuff but in the end it turns out to be fairly impractical as I ruled out using the mouse to click to positions because it wouldn't work on later puzzles (all the ice and sand tiles). It should have just been kept straight on instead of rotated.. but ach well!

Because of this controls issue though we made the first few levels simple so try allow players enough time to get the hang of the controls so it was difficult to balance stupidly simple but still kind of fun at the beginning.

It is a shame I feel that it is the later levels are where the puzzles begin to shine because the more complex elements just can't be introduced in earlier levels or it becomes too hard to fast (which is apparently still present!)

Cheers!

[El's Quest]

Not too bad

But not too good either. There is one thing I liked about this game more than the average game of these sorts, and that is the magic. It's a nice addition, but unfortunately that is the only really good thing about this game.

Although everything works fine though, I haven't passed across any glitches. It would be nice if you got a warning a second before a bomb or circle goes into the screen though. You will have to have an insane reaction time sometimes, for example if you have to go to the right completely to dodge falling rectangles, and suddenly a circle rolls in your screen.

It was a bit wierd how setting a bomb on fire didn't kill you. A nice extra would be that you die if you tried that.

I had hoped for an instruction in-game though. After reading all of the author comments I found out that the rupee-like things falling are worth points. You could've said that somewhere, along with simple instructions.

The high-score function is nice. It gives you something to keep on playing. An additional thing like new levels after a few thousand points would be nice though.

Review request club

[Aura.]

Just one or two things that ruin the fun...

At first it's a very nice game. Though there are not really some sort of instructions, the game is still easy to play. I hoped for a bit harder levels, but that's where I got really disappointed: the levels don't get harder, they just get longer. Instead of some puzzles or a bullet storm kind of game, it became a "search endlessly for one or two squares" game. If you gave an indication where the next square is after a few seconds, it would be fixed. But now it loses its addictiveness after a short while.

There is also not a story, or something else that makes you want to keep playing. The medals are a very nice addition, but a game like this shouldn't focus solely on medals.

Such a shame, because nearly everything else is okay. The idea is fine, and has a twist on other games like this. The graphics are perfect. The abstractness really fits with the game.

I also really liked the idea of the stars on the map shining less brightly if you don't have all orbs there yet. It would be nice if it was explained though.
The map is also a bit unorganized. After a while I had over twenty levels unlocked that I hadn't played yet. It would be nice if there was some sort of indication of how long and/or hard they are.

[~Strange Thoughts~]

I wanted to review this one at least

You kept very close to the Game Jam theme, which is good.
I liked how the graphics changed with the sobriety changing too. It was a nice addition, and I guess that's what makes this game kind of special. A bar not affecting how you play the game but how the game looks like is something I hadn't seen before.

It wasn't really clear what you had to do though. A bit of instructions would be nice, apart from pressing up for floating.

A few additions would be nice too. The only two really different power-ups were health up, and sobriety down. It would be nice to have a powerful power-up, or at least something different. To pull you out of the trance you're playing in for a second.

The enemies had only two set patterns too. Either I didn't come far enough with 2950, or it just keeps on spawning the same kind of enemies.

Overall it's a nice game for making in a few days, so for a Game Jam submission it's nice. But for a real horizontal flight game it isn't diverse enough to enjoy playing it more than a few times. It was really nice to play it the first few times though.

Review request club

[Symbiosis Snake]

I think it deserves more recognicion.

I haven't seen this twist of the classic snake before. It's addicting, and while it gives the same addictiveness as the old snake, it still gives a new kind of twist which prevents me from getting bored.

The graphics are neon-ish, and it really fits into a game like this. The character choice is a bit limited though. Maybe you could just give a small 8x8 or 4x4 character editor. It would give an even more complete feeling, and solve the problem of the limited characters.

A bit more variation would be nice too. A hurdle to jump over sometimes, enemies that you had to dodge, a wall you can't go through or something like that would give less of a feeling you're constantly doing the same thing.

After practicing a bit it starts off a bit slow. Maybe you could implement a feature that allows everything to go 2x as fast, for 2x points.

Those features aren't neccesairy though, since the game is already quite hard. Perhaps something for a next game?

Also, sorry for not writing a review before. I kind of forgot :(

tenentenen responds:

I wish people knew of this game!
Also you can change the speed, and you get more points for higher speed.
The score is calculated per movement, and is based on how fast, and how short the snake is.

Thanks for the review!

[OONi Battle]

Too much of a grindfest.

I like this better than Zambu dance, because you have more choices. You can design your own character. Although the variation in battlefields is small, it's enough not to make it really boring.

What I don't like is that it's almost impossible to defeat all the enemies without items. You first need to grind, and if you grind long enough, you can finally have a good chance of defeating the last boss. I don't mind grinding sometimes, but this game just doesn't seem right for it.

After you've gathered enough coins, all you needed to do was buy a bunch of attack and defense ups, and spend them all in the first turn. It becomes impossible to lose after that.

It would also be nice to know what the battle power does. Now it was just a pretty random number to me getting higher with each battle. If it were possible to choose attacks based on its battle power or class it would be more of a tactical game.

Review request club

[DK Arcade Returns 2]

Absolutely not completely glitchless.

I know it's hard, but it's not that all deaths are because of bad playing. The jump hight is pretty good normally. At least enough to complete all levels. On the first three levels, I didn't stumble across any difficulties. But on the level with the platforms moving up and down almost across the entire screen (I thought it was after 75 m), I sometimes could not jump well because the jumpman (mario) doesn't stand on the platforms all the time, but bounces on them. Because you only have four hearts on hard, and you will probably lose a few in the game, one or two "glitch deaths" are too much to have a good chance of completing the game.

Another glitch is that I sometimes can't jump on the platforms in the middle of the level with the cement pie machine, because I then get teleported to the edge of the screen. I don't know why though. Just wanted to share it.

It would be nice if the enemies had a set pattern of movement. On levels like two, where some pins are guarded by flames, sometimes it takes a while before you can actually get to those pins because the flame in the top right remains on the middle floor constantly. This is only irritating on hard mode though. Your time is quite limited already on hard mode, and with a flame blocking the way I sometimes lose hundreds of points, and even lives, because of bad luck. If you gave some enemies set patterns, it wouldn't be so much determined by luck. And I don't think you wanted to have the element of luck in your game.

I really like the challenge though. Hard mode is a bit too hard for me, but I can get through normal mode without much difficulty. I'm currently #4 all time on normal, #1 this month.

The graphics are perfect. I haven't played the original, but I can guess that this is almost the same. It gave me the feeling like this is the game like it was originally built. And with a few levels having other colours, it didn't look boring.

Along with the great graphics and the gameplay, this game deserves a higher score than it has now IMO. It wasn't frustrating enough for me to rage quit after dying very often. So overall it's a very successful remake.

[Zambu Dance]

Too easy

I didn't have any problem with this game at all.
The speed combo wasn't too hard IMO, every sequence up until 22 I got with a speed combo.

I did like the atmosphere though. The OONi are perfect characters for a game like this. And the background wasn't distracting. The game played fluently, and there are no glitches I've found.

The coins were a bit too easy to earn. I could unlock all items and fully upgrade health with one run to 23.
The items you could buy with those coins didn't really make it any easier. The only times I died was because I forgot which arrows I had to press, so I didn't need the stop time at all. The hint option was nice to have, but it only lengthened your streak by one.

It would be nice to start at the point where four arrows are. Or that you would be able to start halfway down your highest score. Because the first few arrows are really boring.

It also crashed once while I looked at my inventory, I don't know why.

Overall it's a very nice minigame, and a few of these will make a very nice game, but as a game apart I don't think it really stands out in terms of quality.

[Ballz! Bounce]

Some major flaws

The largest that you really need to fix is that you gain money for clicking the ball, and not for the length or time it flies. This is especially irritating on the later levels, where you get for a ball 23500 above the clickable screen only about 40 money. If I spam click the ball for a few seconds I get more money.

Another is that it takes really long for a ball to reach the ground. Having to wait a minute for a ball to land isn't an exception. With a very boring background, I'd rather play another game while waiting.

It's just too plain and boring to be really enjoyable. If you could cut off the current "throw" it wouldn't be so boring. A button to the main menu would be nice too.

I think it's better to NOT buy some of the upgrades, since it makes the game a lot slower and more boring if you do.
And the tries taken and ball clicks are indeed broken.

Another nice addition would be to be able to edit the background and ball, maybe even with your own .gifs.

Review request club

Gimmick responds:

I like the suggestion ("edit background and ball"). I'll incorporate it into the next release.

I understand that you gain money only for clicking the ball and not for making it go high, whoa, major mistake on my part. I should've known better >.<

I was going to add a go to main menu button, but ah, my memory serves me badly...it's not the first time. Anyways, I will refer back to these helpful reviews to see what I've forgotten, completely justifies the low score, since I didn't plan anything and just created something spontaneously :P

The tries taken and ball bounced...funny, it worked in the internal flash environment...

Anyhow, thanks for the review, it was really helpful!

[Madotsuki's Dream Dock]

Good

I understand now that it's not a point 'n click game, but it would be nice to know that it's just the girl changing form before you start.

Now that's clear, the rest is just fine. The sound is relaxing, and the small "ting" when the girl changes her appearance fits perfectly.

The next step would be that everything moves to the side slowly, and that you would shift between several surroundings, each with different things you can click on.

For three days you did great though, and as a small interactive loop it's just fine.

Pienkaito responds:

The thing is that I can't find an appropriate genre for this. It's literally a point 'n click game, but for the general audience it isn't.

It's funny, that you mention that idea of yours, because that was exactly what I've planned to do. It just didn't make the cut, because of the short amount of time.

Anyway, thanks for your comment on my animation.