Vert's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Relive Your Life]

... oh man, this is the game I wanted to make all those years ago, but ended up not being 1/3 of the quality of this, I truly admire your skill, talent and dedication that lead to such an exceptional game. Seriously. But wait, you probably don't have a clue what I mean, so I'll explain at the end of my review:

This has quality oozing out of it's pores. Polished, lengthy, clever, interesting and funny, it's a huge accomplishment and you sincerely deserve huge praises for managing to pull it off. Very impressive stuff. Let me detail my review:

- Presentation-wise, this is excellent. Very well drawn, even if it is stick figures, and despite the sparse animation, the cut-scenes flow very well. Good choice of buttons and menus too, everything is clean, functional and professional-looking, whilst fitting in with the light-hearted tone of the flash.

- Narration is very, very good. Egoraptor is, of course, a solid voice actor and he manages to convey sufficient emotion and sounds interesting enough to enhance the lines he reads. Similarly, the choice of songs fit well and complement the on-screen action well. Overall, in terms of sounds, it's all very good too.

- The games are a masterpiece of design, an excellent way of conveying the player choices without making things dull or too simple. They are simple, but work well for something like this; the last thing you'd want is for them to overwhelm the player. As such, they provide interesting ways of allowing the player to choose for different paths, as opposed to simply presenting the options and asking for a selection. And on that basis, they work well and a short-but-fun and keep the overall flow of the movie going, by not being too time consuming.

- The writing is excellent. The rhymes aren't the most complex around, nor do you follow a rigid structure, but who cares? The story themselves are highly imaginative and interesting, telling all sorts of different tales, and they connect really well. It's good enough that it compels you keep going and explore further choices, not to mention revisit them too. The overall tone is good too, you keep the writing 'light' and match that with everything else.

So, overall, a truly fantastic game, rich, polished, fun and smart, you deserve accolades and kudos for producing of this quality.

^_^

And to explain my cryptic comments at the start: this game is uncannily similar to a game I created more than 3 years ago. I too had a poem, narration, multiple choices, and told very different stories. I imagine that you were inspired by the same source material, choose-your-own-adventure books, which explains the many similarities, but what I created pales so insignificantly in comparison, that I can only express my sincere admiration, understanding all too well the problems and difficulties of creating something like this entails.

FrozenFire responds:

Yes! I did get inspiration from the Choose Your Own adventure books.

There's a lot of reasons the game turned out this way. Some people say it's sexist or not fair to the LGBT community, which is fair seeing the extreme inequality.

All of these things are being fixed in the sequel, which should address every aspect of this game and enhance them all. The games will be a little longer but they should yield more results too.

[Closure]

...

... very, very impressive. You two have taken a great, but very dificult to implement ideia, and made a really impressive game. I'm suprised, however, at the number of abusive reviews being made by people who obviously don't have flash 10 installed or can't graps simple game mechanics. Anyway, allow me to detail my review:

- Graphics are very interesting. Highly stylelized and looking great, intentionally un-polished and really adding to the atmosphere of the game. I think you hit the nail on choosing to make the game look as it does. Animation was a but simple, could have been alightly better, but maybe this simpler choice was made so as to keep the filesize down? Apart from that, looked really good.

- Music. Mein Gott! That was excepcional music, among the best 'silent hill type horror song' I've ever heard. The muted, but constant pulsing was perfect and the randomly distributed, distant sounds came at the right time. Although I am very fond of that sort of sound, so maybe I'm being a bit biased on this aspect.

- Gameplay. Wow, just Wow. I mean, what an excellent ideia you've had, just exepcional. I've never heard of a game that uses light mechanics in the way you do, I honestly haven't. And it must have been very dificult to implement too, so I'm very, very impressed with Glaiel-Gamer's programing. However, see the paragraph below.

- The level design was coming along great, presenting an interesting challenge and with a decent learning curve, and then came along level 10. I'm pretty sure I know what I have to do, follow the light below me as it creates a path on the wall, but if that is the solution, I simply can't make it work. Everytime, and I've tried at least 15 times, I fall through, by blocking the light.

Maybe this isn't the solution, though I can't see what else I could do, but if it is, then I'm sad to say that you need to improve the light mechanism, as it seems to be working improperly.

So, overall, an atmospheric game, with an excepcionally original ideia, pretty well implemented and with a great sound and visual presentation, but let down, if I'm not doing anything wrong, by a problematic level 10. Cheers and kudos for making such great game!

Glaiel-Gamer responds:

[spoiler]
The black orb shrinks as you get near so you can't use it as a platform

You need to find a way to follow the white orb instead

[Bright in the screen CLNR]

...

... this is the game the CHAOS should have been. The improvements you've made are significant and make for a much better game experience. Allow me to detail what I thought:

- Graphically, the game has a pretty unique feel to it and is very polished. I mean, your characters aren't much more complex than stick figures, to be sure, but they're very well animated (did you rotoscope them?) and, when combined with overall minilistic, clean and depressing style you use, they stand out pretty well. I like the choice of colours too, using just a few shades (except, of course, for one part) gives the game a repetitive / monotonous feel, which is pretty much what it needs.

- Musically, pretty much spot-on. NIN makes for the perfect soundtrack for a game like this and your other musical choices were just right. I have to admit that it's not all that dificult to choose a 'depressing' (for the lack of a better word) soundtrack, but you still managed to get it right.

- Gameplay-wise, well, here's where things get more interesting. You've taken some very basic gameplay ideas, created a one or two original ones (the guitar one, in particular, is probably the most creative of the bunch) and mixed things up wonderfully well. It's not easy to be so creative when making platformer, but you've succed like few have.
However, there are a few problems here. I know that your intention is to provoke frustation and that that is a integral part of the game experience, but in CHAOS, the frustation level became to overwhelming due to some poor game mechanics.
For example, the movement speed and overall control over the 'red freak you' remains slightly to fast for confort and I think is what makes the second level so that part so frustating, not the level itself, which is doable and I think that was 'dumbed down' a bit too much. You have, on the other hand, made the 'put the mouse over you' area larger and that is an important improvement, it was way too small in CHAOS.
The biggest problem, however, remains (albeit improved) and it is the whole shoot-yourself-in-the-face-with-mouse issue. I admire that it's clever way of making the player tenser and more touchy, and it works (for the most part) in a legitmate way during the levels themselves; the doors, however, turns this mechanic into a cheap, unrewarding and underserving death. Above anything else, I feel that this issue is the one that must be solved.

- Bugwise, I <thing> most the bugs I encontered before are gone, but I did see the ocasional red freak disapear out of nowhere.

- Storywise, I'm not sure there is a story, per se, but maybe it's hidden in there somewhere. I mean, what is the overall metaphor this game represents? I still can't figure it out. Maybe there isn't one, in which case, you've managed to make it seem that there is, so kudos either way.

- The overall presentation is outstanding, almost certainly the best part of the game. You've most likely been influenced by 'Portal' and 'Mindfeed' (it seems that way), but that's not a problem in my book. Sure, there currently seems a small 'glut' of these types of games, but I enjoy them in any case.
=]
In particular, the 'touch screens' are a brilhant and novel way of interacting with the player (I prefer them to the fixed message system of, say, Hunted Forever) and presenting information the player (and the messages are very clever and haunting!). The overall atmosphere you've created in this game is excepcional, really.

So, in the end,this is a masterly designed game, using a slew of clever game mechanisms (and one or two original ones!) with a terrific presentation, great polish (now that most of the bugs are gone), spot-on soundtrack and graphics. The only thing keeping me from a 10 are some questionable game mechanims choices you've made that I feel take the frustation level too high, albeit, it's much lower than in CHAOS.

So, cheers and kudos for an excelent game!

Oh, and don't expect too much attention to this new version, since I imagine most people have had their dose with CHAOS already (it isn't diferent enough).

HapPie responds:

Heeeey, I read all of that.
I've read longer reviews though
Anyways
I'll try to address the issues you commented. Maybe reduce the damage you take fro shooting yourself. As for the speed issue, maybe make it a little slower, but I wanted the player to feel the power their enemies had, and feel awesome and yet completely powerless.
About the story, did you get to the end?
The end alone makes this a lot different from CHAOS.

[:the game:]

...

... really, really funny stuff. I think you nailed down the funny and really hit the sweet spot, if you know what I mean. I'm also impressed with the (relative) depth of some of the humour, aka, they weren't all just "through away" jokes. But let's get to the details:

- The overall graphical quality isn't bad, but it's not brilhant either. I mean, the animations were pretty slick and everything was polished as hell, but the drawings themselves weren't very complicated / dificult to draw or detailed. On the other hand, maybe that's part of the message of the game, so I shouldn't be so harsh on this aspect.

- Music was pretty much spot-on, it fit the game perfectly! The sound effects were also pretty good (kudos for the scream), but the voice acting could have been slightly better. I think that a more "mature" sounding voice would have fit the game more.

- Gameplay... well, the games all worked well and are pretty fun to play.

- Humour wise, that was excellent. As said in the start, the humour here is both really funny and has quite a bit of depth, morew than I'd expect from a flash animation. In particular, democracy the game and prisoner's dillema the game show an impressive amount of (random) knowledge.

You managed to combine slapstick with highbrow with completly random and non-sequitur. That's something that only a few (and when I say a few, I really mean it!) comedians have ever managed to pull sucesfully. In fact, the closest act I can think of is no less a group than the Python crew!

So, overall, this is just a dammed fine game. It's funny, (slightly) provocative, has depth, satirical and very polished, with a few things that could have been improved. I'm hoping a front page happens soon, because it certainly deserves it! Cheers and kudos!

Nutcasenightmare responds:

Thank you so much for liking it, and of course, putting the time an effort into a very comprehensive and helpful review! (And my reply, in comparison, is only two lines long.)

[Draw-Play 3]

...

... I've always been a fan of the Draw-Play series, and this final instalment is worthy of carrying the name. It is, quite simply, fun. And I really liked the way you've made the levels into more action oriented ones too. Let me get detailed:

- Graphicly, the game still has that minimilistical style that's both inevitable, but somewhat dispointing. There are one or two graphical improvements, but the series finale could have used more detailed and interesting graphics.

That's not to say that it's bad, on the contrary, I like the minimilistic black and white style you use, but it could have used more details and / or variety. Still, the animation is fluid and since the art style is very clean, it dosen't get in the way of the gameplay, so it's not a big complaint. Oh, and the overall polish and presentation is great!

- Nice choice of music, as always. Ever since the very first Draw-Play, you've managed to select excepcionally well the background music, that's both interesting and that dosen't become boring after a few repetitions. The spearse sounds effects were adequate too.

- Gameplay, I think that you nailed the spot on this version. Mainly because of two things, the way the action plays out with this game, allowing you to simultaneously draw and move, and the somewhat lack of precision (because you're moving the character), puzzles don't work out so well as more action oriented levels do. And the levels themselves where very creative and interesting.

Because of this, this version is extremely fun to play. I felt that the dificulty curve was excelent and the challenge level was reasonable (although easier than previous versions).

The gameplay mechanics of drawing and erasing, however, was a little off. Most of the time, drawing and erasing is easy and occures immediatly, but whenever you try to do this <near> the no-draw zones, it can be a bit problematic sometimes. It's no big issue, but it can be a bit irritating.

- Loved the humourous touches (i.e., some levels and the unlockables) that you've put! They made the game even more fun and were a logical addition to the series. I also liked the "multiple paths" levels select design you put in.

So, overall, this is a fine way to end a fine series. You've added one logical gameplay mechanic, changed the overall feel of the levels and made things as polished as before. The only place I think this game could have been better was the graphical departments, and even then not by much. Cheers and kudos for a great game!

EggysGames responds:

Well I guess we could always argue on the graphics, but I'm not a huge artist hehe.

I'm glad you liked the music, a lot of people hate it. To be honest I was a little unsure for this number 3 but found nothing else that really suited (hmm what does suit a drawing game? :P)

I always try add humour to keep things interesting, I just can't help myself, and I'm glad when people notice my little fun jokes :D

Thanks for the great review

- EGGG

[Pico: Ace Attorney]

...

... very, very well executed. You know, after so many Phoenix Wright parodies, I was wondering when someone would actually try to implement the game system in a flash game and you've done a very good job! Added to the fact that you've pulled this off during Pico day and you deserve extra kudos. But let's get to the details:

The game system was very, very well implemented. It's a shame that you couldn't pull of the best part of the system, the whole "objection" part, but it's quite understandble as it's pobably the hardest part of the game to do. The rest was pretty much flawless (for a flash game) and this is by far the best aspect of the game. Major kudos for managing to code everything so well.

The graphics were decent and adequate, but sometimes lacked a bit of polish (the final animation comes to mind). The sound aspect, on the other hand, was quite poor. The music (I'm using flash 8, by the way), despite being reasonable for a game like this, would finish and not begin again, leaving the rest of the game silent. The sound effects, on the other hand, were spot on if sparse.

The story was pretty good. I'm mean, it's no pulitzer, but it was reasonably interesting, albite short. I realise that it's pretty hard to make something corehent and interesting for a flash game of this sort, but maybe a bit more caracther development could have been welcome. The flow of the game / sotry was spot on, on the other hand.

So, 'grats on such a fine game. You pulled off a somewhat tricky game with a good interface and, really, all the game needed was a bit more length and polish. Cheers and kudos!

burningice579 responds:

It means a lot, coming from you. Yeah, I didn't really pay much attentionon the sound and sound quality, but I'll fix the sound looping right away, but I might as well find a better sound./song... you think? Well, anyway, I am really very happy you liked it. I promise to do much better in my future works. Thanks a lot =D

[Russian Boxer!]

...

... another great game from I-Mockery! You've done it again RoG, this is worthy of your other great classic, Domo-Kun (which is one heck of a complement, considering how brilliant that game is)! The idea for the game in itself was very creative and the "story" quite funny too. The graphics were really good with, in particular, the sprites you used being really well done and, unlike other games that use modified sprites, I honestly couldn't tell if they were completely original (in which case, you deserve extra kudos!) or "just" modified.

The gameplay, although simple, was really well-implemented and quite fun (especially with the secret characters), although a little more variety in attacks would have been nicefor Ivan. On the other hand, the enemies were quite creative and interesting (especially the Segway).

The music was pretty good, but the sound effects were a bit limited, i.e. repetitive and simple and the voice samples used were really bad (but that may have been intentional). So, all in all, this was a great Christmas present from I-Mockery! Now, if I can play the epic that will be Pickleman, the game, any time soon, my life will finally be complete! Bid cheers and kudos for this!

Mockery responds:

Thanks a lot, I really appreciate the compliments! All of the graphics in this game are 100% original and PoX did most of 'em. Hope you get to unlock all the characters because the final character unlocks a special mini-game! :)

[Aqua Slug]

...

... this is a really, really good game! I mean, c'mon, who wouldn't want a non-violent Metal Slug game? The graphics, whilst obviously based on the Metal Slug sprites are creative and very well drawn, the animation is superb and the whole game oozes style. The sound effects however, were "only" adequate (but really, it couldn't be much better in any case) and the music, although good, extremely appropriate and well selected, was a bit repetitive... almost inevitable in a game like this.
The gameplay was, however, flawless (albeit a bit slow, but that may have just been my computer), the level design was very creative (although the narrow corridors are a bit of a cheap death, no way to jump out of the way) with the same going for the enemies and weapons design. Or better yet, they were Very creative! This is really, really good stuff, extremely well made and it the effort really shows. Congrats and kudos for a truly excellent game!
=]

Glaiel-Gamer responds:

thanks a lot. It's always a pleasure to read a well thought out and written review, especially from someone who likes the game.

If it runs slow, try changing the quality to low or downloading the game

[Hearts]

...

... Very, very good stuff. The game, whilst actually quite simple, was very interesting and well made, having the crucial element of skill as an important factor (gameplay wise), which makes the game pretty rewarding (something few flash games offer), especially if you consider the possibility of getting a high score. The presentation was excellent, since it (the game) was very polished, the graphics were very well done and the response time (between pressing the button and getting a reaction) was very small, a common problem that fortunately does not occur here.
The only criticism I have is with the music... I know that any music gets repetitive if heard a couple times, but this music (whilst well recorded) was particularly tiresome... the option to turn it off is very important, but even better would have been other options (but that&#8217;s nitpicking really). All in all, top notch stuff here. Kudos!

DBarbarian responds:

Thanks for the in depth review.
I'll try to squeeze in more music options for the next game.

[Thief: quest for jewels]

...

...amazing! Simply the most incredible game ever! This game could single handly cause world peace! Everything about it makes it the best thing ever! Graphics, style, sound and it is damm adictive!
Great job. No kidding. =]

Unicamper responds:

Thanks dude!!! I´m happy you liked it so much!
More games will be done! just wait for it!