JeffersonTD's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Bros]

Quite good for Flash Mario but wall jumps are bad!

In the group of FLASH Mario games I've encountered, this is actually relatively good. You just didn't copy the sprites from the originals, but recreated the characters with quite nice graphics, and you've taken some personal directions (eg. with the swimming) that don't destroy the basic concept of Mario. And the controls are mostly okay, except for those wall jumps, which - believe me and the other reviewers - is indeed a problem here.

As a reply to a comment regarding the wall jumps problem you asked:

"Though I wonder if if those commenting on wall jumping ever played New Mario Bros and share a similar opinion there?"

Well now I'm a bit confused. This puts me to question are we really talking about the same games? I have played and enjoyed New Super Mario Bros and definitely share that opinion! In New SMB the wall jumps are close to being the easiest wall jumps in a game ever! In New SMB you don't need to time the wall jumps as you automatically slide against the wall and can jump of the wall whenever you want. And when you jump you always have a proper jump. So I'd say the wall jumps work perfectly there. Then there are many games where wall jumps are more difficult than in New SMB since you have to have the right timing, but even in those games, once you time the jump correctly, you'll usually do just fine.

In this game the biggest problem with wall jumping doesn't seem to be timing: you can quite easily do one wall jump to reach a slightly higher sledge (like in the short introductory scene). But the problem is that usually the wall jump is just a very small nudge upwards (and I think that's the thing people are having problems with). Once you study the controls a bit you can find a way to leap away from the wall, but still the jumps reach very low, and going short distances is already a trouble. And by the way, I found the same, if not even more troublesome issue problem with that swim-wall kick.

The bottom line is that the basic controls (which the wall jumps are a part of) should be easy and intuitive. In this case the wall jumps are neither. The difficulty should be reached through challenging enemies and situations, not having to cope with difficult controls. Difficult controls just make people frustrated and annoyed.

If you can fix the wall jumps (and maybe redesign the levels accordingly a bit) this could be quite a good flash game. Still, the fact remains that the quality would still be far from the real Nintendo Mario games. Thus, like you said in the game description, maybe it's better to work on a new personal idea next. Then you can have the best existing implementation of that idea! :)

Berkman responds:

This is the best kind of review; thanks Thomas.

I, "personally", found NSMB's wall jumps difficult. Not because they were hard to do, but because they were so easy to do by mistake. I mean, think about it - you're usually holding right to travel right and if you jump by mistake against a wall (whether you thought you were going to land and came up short, or near the bottom of a wall and preemptively hit jump), you fling yourself in the opposite direction you were holding. </opinion>

You have a valid point on the jump height and i'm glad someone brought it to my attention - I can definately make the height more forgiving. I can run through the whole game without dying and never failing a wall jump, so I always have a fog of bias on these things since i'm trying to create a challenge. That and, unfortunately, I don't know anyone who enjoys 2d era gaming, so its always hard to test.

And this is something true of every game i've submitted: someone complains that something is too hard and some people think its fine. It is so frustrating because i'm inevitably making something too easy for good players or too hard for more causal players. I grew up in the time of Ghosts 'n Goblins, so for a game to offer challenges that can result in death or frustration aren't *always* a bad thing. But they certainly can be, and I think you've made a solid case as to why this instance is.

Again, great review. Part of the review is explaining what about a mechanic makes it frustrating so that I know what to look at.

[Upgrade Complete 2]

Quite an elaborate joke

"My favourite part was the bit with the upgrades"

Yep yep... Once again a game that kind of questions the purpose of a specific game type or feature in a game. Just like "Super PSTW Action RPG", this feels more like a joke or a statement than a normal game, even though compared to the SPSTW ARPG, this has more choice and actually some gameplay.

Any way, for some reason I just always wanted to see what the next upgrade would be like. So once you get in to the game you can get easily addicted.

The somewhat disturbing side to games like these is that after playing them, it can feel silly to play the types of games these games are basically a parody of: eg. playing some real RPG after SPSTW ARPG or playing some normal game with lots of upgrades (like Arrow of time) after this.

[Bast Attack]

Waves or some special menace would make it better

I don't mind a simple game, but this has a couple of issues:
- It remains constantly the same. More and more aliens come, and there are different species, but it just gets more intense each moment till you die. Waves would be one option to make it more interesting. Another option would be some kind of more specific and threatening menace that you're hoping to avoid.
- Once most of the buildings are destroyed you can keep the basic aliens away by just shooting a bit above the last building(s). That makes playing the game feel stupid.
- The big bombs felt very powerless. For the regular enemies they are just more unhandy to use, but surprisingly they didn't really seem to be effective against those stronger ships either.
- At least I often find it difficult to enjoy a game where the controls are very restricted. So since you cannot move the cannon, there should be something really special to keep the player interested.

Superpoo2 responds:

Thanks for the feedback, all constructive criticisms are welcome. The waves ideas is a good one, would provide more structure to the game and then allow me to better introduce tougher units as well as break the game up so I could introduce some kind of upgrade mechanism.

[Hunters - Stage 6]

Like a good SNES game!

Woah. Quite a long stage this one, especially on hard, but I made it through. Nice epic stuff with all the Alcor battles. :)

I was earlier comparing this game to NES games. Well, in fact, SNES would be a more approriate comparison really. Great stuff.

There are many details in game design that could have been messed up, had they not been properly though of. A few examples:
+ If you've accomplished some parts of a level on hard you can directly access that or earlier parts on easier levels. This may seem like a given, but I don't think all games are designed like this.
+ Regular enemies appear in different places when you enter the area from another direction - which prevents them from appearing on top of you.
+ Boss battles are very well designed. They are versatile and creative. Very tough at parts, but even the toughest attacks can be dodged with perfect timing. Perhaps sometimes a bit too patterned though - in a way I think I prefer the Mizar battles, since they are more about skill rather than memorizing the patterns. But that's pretty much a matter of taste.
+ All guns have their purpose.
+ The powerups aren't just pointless gimmicks: they do add up to the gameplay.
+ No bugs ( at least I don't remember encountering any). One thing that could be considered as a design flaw though is that in the training area boss you can jump back to the beginning of the area.

(if these reviews could be edited afterwards, I would probably add something more later on...)

Some small complaints / things I wonder:
- There definitely should be a mute or volume button.
- Am I missing something with the speedrun mode? Are you seriously supposed to play the whole thing through in one session, without dying and actually trying to be fast about it? Woah. Have you Rhete, even done that yourself? :)
- Medals wouldn't do harm.
- This has about nothing to do with the actual game, but I find it quite funny that according to the instruction booklet the semi-leader of a huge evil organization is only 22 years of age, and the leader (being her bigger brother) probably not that much older. How did they end up being leaders of this huge hunter organization? :)
- (SPOILER WARNING) The fact that you had the yellow orb in you should have meant something, some final special extra powerup for example.

ps. Don't take the "should aim with mouse" comments too seriously. This is not the kind of game that should be played with mouse.
pps. Congrats! This is the first game I've given a 10 on NG! :)

[Psychosomnium]

The dream concept could be developed much further.

I liked the dream idea, and since this was showcased, I thought that there would be some almost jaw-droppingly innovative features in it, where the reality would bend in some surprising ways or something. By this I don't mean anything that would have to be graphically outstanding (even for a flash game), but creatively fresh gameplaywise.

Well, after the first surprise it ended up repeating the same idea a couple of times and that was basically it. The dialogue didn't feel that dreamish either. Still, with its short length and all, you don't really have enough time to get bored, so for its short duration, it's a nice little game to play through. So I do recommend checking the game out.

[Shadow Agent]

One of the better point to shoot games

I usually don't like point to shoot games, since they are usually action games, where you still don't get to do much to actually avoid being shot: all you do is try to shoot the enemies as quickly as possible. Now this takes a more puzzle-like approach which feels more fresh.

[Toss The Nerd]

Toss the toss.

This is a cheap version of toss the turtle (and the likes). Since I don't get what's the point of toss games in general either (where there usually is very little to no control over what actually happens after you've done the toss), there's not much this has to offer.

[Blob's Adventure]

Sadistically difficult!

The skeleton boss says "You will die". Now that's a mouthful. Who would have though a game called Blob's adventure would be this difficult? So if you're not up to a challenge (or for example find the Hunters too difficult), this is really not for you.

Pros and cons:

+ Very difficult
+ Decent graphics
+ The levels have variation.

- Very difficult
- You have no control over the height of your jumps, in other words you always jump to full height. This among some other things makes the game difficult for the wrong reasons. This is particularly annoying when you should be jumping from sledge to another while being in a hurry and the distance between the sledges is something like 2/3 of a maximum leap length, so you cannot skip any sledges but have to still stop in the air for a while.
- I think this game requires some code optimization. I usually don't get any lag from flash games, but even though this is a very simple game (both in content and graphically), this still sometimes lags - especially when the skeleton boss makes his omnidirectional attack.
- A game this difficult maybe shouldn't be this long - at least not without hints about how long it's going to last. I wonder how many levels there are?

ps. I played this a little bit further from the Vase scene in one session (maybe two levels forward from the vase, so maybe level 18 or something?), but now the game was reuploaded so I lost the status. Couldn't you just update the submission without making an entirely new one?

[Elephant Quest]

Very well designed

The game has a very good design: graphics, the level up system and the menus work very well. It's probably a good thing that a game like this is easy, but on the other hand as the game is so easy that there is not much use for all the levelups. And additionally, credit junkie seems to be by far the most important perk to concentrate on, whereas some of the others are quite useless (what's up with that cantering?).

On the technical side probably the only complaint would be the map screen: it constantly scrolls back to the basic position, which is kind of annoying, when you try to check the rest of the map.

All in all, it's a nice and cute little adventure game.

[Hunters - Stage 5]

A more megamanish level - but with more variation

Decided to try hard on this one. The most hard time I had with one of the middle bosses (Polmire), where it seemed that I had to have perfect timing and aim in a situation where I should also be dodging but couldn't really do both at the same time.

Anyway, there were many things to keep you interested through the level, like the gardens, the zero grav area, and the innovative bosses. So once again, a great level. I think this has to be the most entertaining flash game I've played.