Lesuperchef's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[No Help No Hope]

Art : Super nice
Music : Amazing!
Story : Interesting, a bit hard to hop in but really mesmerizing once attached
Ambience : Great sucess, thanks to the above
Gameplay : ...uhh... eh...?

I won't review the art, music and ambience, they are mastered beyond my knowledge in these domains. I don't see anything worth change. I can't even find the words to describe what make them as good as I found them :)

The story was a bit hard to get into because the characters weren't introduced (for ex. the main character - who is he? where does he come from? what's the current context?). Also, the justification for the title of the game comes too quickly; usually that's something that feels better toward the end of the game. If given too early, it feels a bit like getting rid of a story element.

Also, a tiny plothole (potential spoilers?) : why wouldn't the rescue crew accept the main character and their crystal before it turns black? They can let the crystal finish "aging" inside the rescue ship rather than in a deteriorating ship, it's much safer and it saves a lot of time (one or two days?).

Frankly, neither are a big deal. The story is still really cool and worth [reading? scrolling? clicking through?]

--------------------------------------
Now, for the real problem...

The gameplay... I understand it's a visual novel, but most visual novels involve more player activity than clicking for progress.

Usually, there are frequent decision making, in the forms, as you said to another reviewer, of dialogue choices or minigames. That helps the player to identify as the main character, which is, to me, an ultra-important element of visual novels. I need to believe that the character's choice are actually my choices, and giving me a list of options to progress can help creating such an illusion. The single choice I had in this game felt quite... fake. I can take any of those in any order, it'll do no difference and I'll end up picking them all anyways.

The minigame at the very end was quite interesting. Not too long, not too hard; still, I'd have two complaints :
1) It felt like a rushed way to split the ending. It's a bit cliché to do an obvious good ending vs. bad ending, especially when the difference between both require absolutely nothing from prior to the minigame. It feels like everything I did in the game before the minigame had no impact whatsoever on what the ending would be, and the result of the minigame was too obvious to feel like a real choice.
2) No retry button. I failed the minigame three times before succeeding, and each time I had to start the entire game over and over again. (Also, I had to refresh to start again; letting the game start over bugged the mouse, which I couldn't move after the game was completed once.)

The gameplay (or lack thereof) is the biggest problem here. Don't waste the entire idea, it's a really nice one, I'd just recommend something that's more interpelling and requires more than simply clicking.

I feel like the NG emote from the score I give is representative of how I feel about this game; I feel it's a quite interesting game, not exactly something that's complete as it is now, but definetly something worth building upon.

Good luck with your future projects!

GameDanTeam responds:

Thank you for your detailed review.

We are happy that you liked the game. About the gameplay we'll work hard to improve in our next games. We are a young Indie Game Team, our first releases were a learning process for all of us. We are right now in the process of polish the details of old games and publish them on the net.

We are developing right now a game with stunning digital art graphics, we improved the gameplay but taking a look at your review we know that we need to improve more on it.

For the next script and game design we'll develop we'll take this review seriously in mind.

Your comments let us understand what we really need to polish in our work.

About your complaints we'll work to add a retry button to skip the need of play again the game to reach the good ending and about the bug we'll fix it soon in a new update of the game.

Thank you for take your time into write a such detailed review. We encourage you to try out our other games uploaded here on newgrounds.

Thank you so much.

[[BTNverse] Curse of the eastern god]

I really like the story and the end - the very, very end, of course :)

Only one small problem : when I fully finished the game, it redirected me to a third-party website. I don't like it as often I write extensive comments as I play the game, if I did that now I would've lost my entire comment. Plus, it feels a bit spammy to have a random redirect to a website I don't know (GameJolt, I suppose it's another website you use since it showed a page about your game). But I like the idea of the game that closes itself, so if you could change it so instead it flat-out removes the canvas as a whole, it would be great :D (and, I suppose, a small greyed-out message to not leave the user too confused)

Good job overall :D

adriendittrick responds:

Oh right, I forgot that I used to include that in all my games when I used to only be on gamejolt.
Maybe I should recompile this one but with a link to my newgrounds profile instead X)

[Sticky Sam]

Looks like a cool idea (the sliding thing is a classic but it's always fun to me), but there are several issues with how the idea was developed.

- Many times, the level is a copy of the precedent one but with an extra part at the end. Minor issue, but it makes it feel a tad bit repetitive since I have to re-perform the same thing I just solved.
- Alongside the thematic bugs, there are several bugs that don't seem like they're part of the game. Many other reviewers already reported a few, mine was quite strange; I could move the character around, but it wouldn't interact with anything but walls. Spikes and teleporters were effectless, rendering me stuck in the level. I indeed had to stop playing there. Not sure what can cause this, a race condition maybe? (Relevant info : I have pressed escape once since I saw it was the key for the pause/menu, which didn't appear, so I went back to playing and realised the bug.)
- Sometimes upon dying (not sure if it's random or if there's a rule), I have to restart the entire stage. Never, ever do! Forcing the player to re-do what they already did is extremely boring and the best way to lose their attention! I'm not sure if it's a feature or an unintended bug, but in any case it is important to fix that. At least (if it's a feature), you would need to implement a life count system so it's clear to the player.
- The effects are cool but waaaaay to invasive. The small effects (like the fish-eye and intermittent "glitch curve" passing through the screen) were quite nice, but some really look like they were abused. For example, sometimes, when sliding, there is a clear visual & audio glitch effect playing. It looks cool, problem is it plays way too frequently. Considering how imposing it is, I'd recommend you don't use it more than once per level on average. You can, for example, play it when a level is finished or just started. (At the same time I don't recommend playing it too sparingly or randomly; it might feel a bit jumpscare-ish.)

Not sure if the jam had a harsh time limit, but if it did, it definetly played bad for that game. It looks like a nice idea, but it feels quite rushed and untested. I'd recommend to spend more time testing, polishing and asking people to test your games to have some user feedback - don't undervalue the user feedback!

Best of lucks for your next projects!

MostlyMadProductions responds:

I don’t usually respond to comments but I do read them all.

I understand all the unintentional bugs and glitches that people are experiencing along with the invasive glitch effect.

I am working on a project right now and I am still contemplating on remaking this game with improved levels, better user feedback, a button to enable and disable glitch effects, an actual pause button, a level select screen, Wasd for movement along with the arrow keys, lower frequency of the glitch effect, giving a better use for the effect, fixing all the soft lock glitches, adding a restart button, and making you restart from the start of the level and not for the start of the stage.

I do admit the poor level design and over excessive glitch effect but it was my 5th or so game jams and I felt quite pressured by the 3 day time limit.

So what I would like to know is if I fixed the game would it be worth it or is it better off if I just continue my next game instead. (If I do start fixing the game the current project I’m working on will be paused and not quit)

Thanks for the feedback!! :DD

[Listeria Wars]

Alright, so I stumbled upon a tiny-tiny problem...

Level 17 :
- Enemies can spawn 5 units in the span of a single second. I can spawn at most 3 per roughly 10 second.
- A single regular enemy unit can beat two of my units before dying.
- Those suicide bomber units can wipe out my whole fleet at once. They do waaaaaaaaaay too much damage and have no limit as to how many units they affect.
- In addition to the above, I can only move my units in pair of three, which means I can't send a single unit to die on the suicide bombers, but rather *three* units at a time. Considering I have to hold the entire thing with three units until I have enough mana to generate a new group (which will most likely be exploded at spawn), I don't think I can't afford to lose my entire fleet while the game decides it's a good time (when I have no units left) to spawn 5-6 more enemy units and end the game.

I'm not sure if this results in poor decisions in upgrades, but since there is no way to neither :
1) Revert upgrades and recover gems; nor
2) Go back to previous levels in case of defeats to get more gems and help improve; nor
3) Reset the game in a neat way (the button to restart from 0 is literally called "Quit" - kind of means I shouldn't press it until I abandon playing the game at all);
I expect it shouldn't be possible for me to get to a point where I'm stuck and I can't win with the upgrade set I have. It shouldn't be expected from the player to know which upgrade combination will be optimal and which will result it guaranteed loss. If such combinations exist, you should make sure the player can't achieve them : for example, if one shouldn't upgrade a unit to the max before unlocking a few others, lock the higher upgrade levels until very far in the game; if one shouldn't buy one unit (say, the second last unit available) before buying all those that precedes it, then you should lock units until the player purchased all other units that precedes them.

I'd like to give a boost to what @vamprewill said : it really needs something so I can improve when I lose ten times in a row and it's obvious that I can't pass the level I'm at.

Other than this (very, very) surprising boost in difficulty, I have nothing else to complain about. I've never been a fan of bloody/gore/medical themes so I won't review them, I'll leave that to someone who's more used to the genre. The whole thing looks quite professional and complete, apart from some very minor details that could get improvements (make the play button stand out more so it looks less the same as the menu button, the spawning bounds seem pointless and are invisible until you do a mistake, etc.). The overall idea looked quite interesting and well developed, but really, really not balanced starting from level 15+, which pretty much wipes all the fun.

Really deserves a fix, hopefully it's not too painful to update, because I could have a lot of fun with that game if it wasn't for me being stuck.

=== TL;DR ===
If you played until level 14-15, expect a HUGE bump in difficulty in the few upcoming levels. I even recommend not playing them at all (at least until we get an update or some advices) unless you're rageproof, as they risk to just ruin your experience from the game.

MrRubel responds:

Wow, thank you for that big review! A lot of useful information for me. Currently, I make the Steam version from scratch and I will consider all that you said!
Yeah, the game isn't balanced from level 11, also I want to add some new mechanics. Initially, I wanted to upload only 10 levels here

[Sun Temple]

Pretty cool :)

I confirm I had the same bug than @3p0ch - on a computer running Linux, so it wasn't the OS's fault. Could manipulate the rocket properly, but thrust wasn't strong enough to lift rocket. Fortunately, I have another computer and it worked fine on that one.

This looks pretty basic, but quite good for an HTML5 game and the idea has a few good things to keep. Overall looks promising, if you ever intend to work on something like that again :)
+ The game was surprisingly easier than expected - I expected playability to be atrocious with such a control mechanic, but it went pretty well, I managed to get the rocket where I wanted without much trouble (had to try a few times over, but that was expected). Also, the passages are (often) large enough so it's possible to get the hand of it and not constantly hit the ceiling or the walls. So, good thing there :)
- The health system does feel a bit random. Losing health isn't always proportional to the impact that feels when the rocket hits an obstacle. It wasn't too much of an issue to me because I'm used to the kind of game that would straightforward crash the rocket the moment it merely touches the corner of an obstacle. But I'd understand
+ Short levels, and not too many levels. Prevents boredom as well as some risk of rage :) (Not all risk, but some of the risk)
+ There's only one song throughout the whole game, but it felt quite in-context and not too repetitive.
- Graphics. They look pretty cool but they feel a bit... unrealistic? I'm not expecting the whole thing to be photorealistic - it's an HTML5 game after all - but it really felt like models placed in Unity. I'd recommend 3 things : adding small visual effects to make it look more natural, make the movements of the blocks more natural (it's a basic ease method - I'd expect rock-against-rock friction to be more linear and irregular) and make the textures more rough (add dirt, sand, cuts in the stone) and the models' corners smoother (if it's an old temple, erosion rounds the corners of stone). Also make sure blocks don't pass through each other and that they are always linked to a static object (in opposition to floating in the air).
+ Graphics (again, but a plus this time). Despite what I said above, I have to admit the amount of models is just right, not too many, not too few. I can see where I'm going pretty easily. Even the bright lights weren't a distraction :) What I mentioned in the precedent point are only minor changes, just to make the whole thing look less like it has been edited in Unity.
+ The hitboxes of the coins are super large, making them easier to collect. THANK YOU! Also, you can't crash on the landing pad at the end of a level, avoiding common deaths at the very end of the level. THANK YOU again!

Overall looks promising, I don't know if you intend to go back on this game and improve it (or make a sequel?) but it would definetly be worth it. If you want me to explain better anything I just said, feel free to send me a message :)

Keep up the good work! ^^

R3CO1L responds:

Thanks for the feedback, I was thinking of coming back to this game after a long time :)
This helps a lot.

[Air Nomad]

Pretty cool game!

It looks pretty advanced and polished. Finished with 60 deaths :)

I know some content creators are trying to improve their works and don't like just bland "t'was cool", so if you are searching for end-user thoughts, here are mine :
+ First of all and most importantly : Thank you, thank you, thank you for these checkpoints. They really made the whole thing more encouraging to keep going :)
- The air time limit is a bit tight on some levels. They aren't *too* tight though, I finished the levels pretty easily without having to re-do a passage over and over again to master it; but it really feels like you're not allowed to do any mistake. Thanks to the checkpoints, this wasn't too big of an issue. If you had less checkpoints, I'd say add a single second to the air time, maybe even half a second, so a hesitation wouldn't mean instant death. Generally, this just feels like the kind of problem that happens when a dev playtests a level hundreds of times over and over again and end up mastering the entire game, and feels like the difficulty is less than what it acutally is. It isn't too big of a deal, though.
+ The game mechanics added throughout the levels were really cool! It really felt like something new each time, and it kept me playing for much longer than I usually play a Flash/HTML5 game :)
- Changing wind direction should have its own arrow set (for example, WASD for the wind and arrow keys for movement, or vice-versa - preference setting for the player?). It was a bit uneasy to set the wind while trying to hold position mid-air, and to avoid having the character move in the direction of the wind for a split second.
- Sometimes, there were some sprites that were off-screen (such as the green teleporters) that made the progress a bit guess-and-try. Didn't happen often, though. I suppose it can be solved by simply "zooming out" the game, if it's possible and not too complicated.
+ To counter-balance what I said above : Everything looks clean, the important elements stand out very nicely and I have no problem seeing where I'm going - granted that it's displayed on my screen ;) I mention that because many creators use some complex art style which makes all elements stand out at the same time and it's hard to make the distinction between the different elements of the game. This game avoids that nicely, so thumbs up on that :)
- The absence of diagonal movement was a minor issue. I'm not sure if you deliberately choose to not implement it because it was, for some reason, too hard to implement (it felt like it was something like that) but there were a few times when I instinctively tried to move diagonally and it resulted in a death. Not too big of an issue, just a minor discomfort (mentioning it in case I'm not the only one to feel that)
- Instructions lacking? I'd agree to say this game doesn't really need instructions to be understood, but it would help avoid some questioning (on the first level with the moving blocks : what must I do to remove the wall of spikeballs? After some time I realised that I could crush the boxes together : I felt like I should have known that from instructions) and would also help fix the fifth point, about the off-screen elements, for example if you hinted there were teleporters in the places where I couldn't see them.

I'd like to underline that the game is already very good as is - I had a great time playing it :) The suggestions above are only if you want to make it even better. Feel free to DM me if you want to explain anything :)

Keep up on the good work!

[Ascii Patrol]

Pretty impressive for an Ascii game! Good story and graphics, it does feel like a retro game :) It must have taken a lot of time to make it.

[Memory.exe]

Pretty cool game! :)

I like these puzzle that links everything together :) My only question would be related to the ending; I read a sign saying I should go back to the beginning when I completed the, yet I didn't find what to do there.

I also found a small bug that kept me form searching further than I wished : when I managed to get my cube higher than the screen limits, the cube simply disappeared (clearing the memory) but did not respawn. I got stuck there and I couldn't do anything.

It's a pretty fun game despite that small problem ;) The simple design and music are just enough to be clear without being invasive or distracting. Good job overall!

squidly responds:

Did you search the true beginning? The very beginning.

[Brutal Planet]

So, well...

First time I loaded the game, first match :
- Everything went normal, except for two details : 1) there was gravity for some reason and, as expected, the top of the screen was empty and therefore seemed pointless to me (before I understood there shouldn't be gravity) and 2) the symbols did not show up correctly (Life was "$", time was "%" and money was "&". This applies only to the interface, interactive objects in-game were fine).
It felt a bit weird to me, but it didn't prevent the game from being fun.

Second match.
My headphones and my ears almost exploded as the game decided to generate objects 10 times faster. At this point, I went up to the thousand in money and reached 500 seconds of time. I wasn't sure what kind of bug was that, or if I activated some cheat code without knowing it.
I bought every item in the shop, essentially finishing the game. Tried to play a third time, same thing happened; way too many objects spawned. (Nice sound effects on that special mode, btw)

As I read the review @FishPudding left, I recognised the symptoms and tried refreshing the game. This time everything went fine for me.

I'm running Microsoft Edge on Windows 10. I've been playing several Newgrounds games for a while now, and no such bugs happened to me before.

List of noted symptoms when it doesn't go well :
- Symbols for health, time and money are shown as ASCII symbols (respectively $, % and &). Note that in-game collectible items are shown correctly.
- The item description text did not auto-size. Some text was going off the text container bounds.
- Gravity, somehow.
- Overload of objects after the first match.
It happened only the first time I load the game. Maybe it happens when the game can't find any save data?

­> Since I'm leaving a review :
It's a pretty decent game. The bug described above do make it look unprofessional, but I won't take away stars for this, hoping it gets fixed. Good timekiller imo.

Bigaston responds:

Hey thanks for the comment!

For the different bug you said, I don't know why. This is the first big game I create with Construct2 and all work on my computer.

For the special caracter it's because I use this caracter and a custom font to display that. Normaly, Construct2 don't take lot of time to add the font but maybe on your computer, the font take more time to load than on my computer.

So I've try to upgrade the game but maybe it's not fix the bug :/