johnfn's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Login Tutorial]

Not the best of tutorials

Mainly because you didn't explain the actionscript at all, which is my biggest pet peeve. Please do this in the future.

Cia-Vamp responds:

ok, I will :)

[SpaceInvaders 3D!!!]

Cool idea, but

It was very hard to judge where the enemies were going to be in a 3D game. For that reason you usually ended up just shooting randomly since that was the thing that worked the best, but randomness doesn't really make a game fun. Still. It was a cool concept.

Cybex responds:

Yeah, thats why i added the shadows. It makes it a lot easier if you use the shadows to work out where you should aim.

[TankMan DressUp]

Not bad for a dressup.

The graphics were pretty nice, although they were basically just tankman graphics so they weren't unique by any means. It was okay for a dressup, but very simplistic.

Also, have your A with a circle around it button's hit frame be a box, so you can click anywhere on it and move it around instead of just the red.

Zuggz responds:

okay will do. forgot about that :(

[WebCam Face Painter]

A cool idea, too bad no one has webcams

Yeah. The idea is pretty cool. It could do with some different brush styles and size modification (past 3 sizes, a slider would be nice) and opacity modifying so that even if the user didn't have a webcam they could still use the paint aspect to draw with it.

Also, background music never hurts.

TonioMiguel responds:

I like the slider idea thats a great modification and I am will certainly consider it. Actually it does function without the webcam but I definitely could add some music. Thanks for the great suggestions.

[Cursor Game]

Meh.

Nice cursor, but the electricity shouldn't be in perfect squares because that just looks ugly.

This is way too repetitive. Clicking on zepplins over and over again just doesn't do it for me. The music does not go along with it at all. At least the cursors have nice graphics, but they end up being distracting.

Funkylikamonkey responds:

The magic stuff was originally smoother and better looking but it just slowed down way too much

[Cloud's Arena Game]

Hummm

I wish there was actual user interaction, but there was none. Worse is that only the Easy battles work. The sound was rather dull, and all this game consisted of was watching your guy beat up 1 monster over and over again. One time, I saw his HP in the negatives. Thats a bug you might want to fix, or maybe you should just scrap this (no offense, but it's hard to make something like this fun at all) and make something with more interaction. Additionally, make the sound less repetitive. Add some background music perhaps.

TheLyron responds:

the medium and hard buttons didn't work for you because you need to have the money to bet (medium=50 gold and hard=200 gold), you idiot. The was no interation because it's a CASINO\RPG BATTLE game and I wanted to do it this way.

[The Basics (Tutorial)]

This has been voted down far too low

Me and my friend were watching your tutorial before it came out of judgement. We took a guess at what the score was going to be, I guessed 4.0 and he guessed 4.1. We both think that this was horribly underrated, possibly as a result from the lack of a fully working preloader, as it is an excellent tutorial all around. It covers the material well and it's even a little funny. If this doesn't get any more recognition I will be very upset.

DingoEatingFuzz responds:

I agree with you. I spent a lot of time working on this, designing the layout to be functional and attractive. Making the pop up videos, designing and programming the music player. It's very upseting to see it score so low. It's very enlightening though to hear other people think the same :) thank you.

[Skears DX]

More enjoyable then it seemed.

Alright, you told me to review this a while back, but I feel like doing it right now (because I am lazy). So lets begin!

Play Experience:

Right away I see a gigantic screen. Does it really need to be that big? After that, the first thing I notice is that the background looks a lot like a rather bad looking wallpapered BMP. While it isn't wallpapered at least (as I noticed when I tried to pretend it was one of those 3D image stereo grams), you could have done your background more justice with a subtle gradient. The font on the other hand looks good.

I get to the first level and am kind of dissatisfied to see that the skears are still generic purple boxes. The color is rather nice but they look plain and uninteresting. Subtle gradients would probably look more interesting, or you could have an artist do some cooler drawings for you. However, I'll put my graphics remarks aside for now.

The learning curve seems to be pretty well done. I would think that people who aren't as proficient with the mouse as I (I beta tested my mouse game hundreds of times) might have a little trouble trying to adapt, and this could put off a few beginners. I can't really speak from experience here, however.

I also notice that I can right click and see the full menu of items... although really I remember you can't fix that so you're okay.

With the red skears, the color difference between red and purple is such that you might be able to confuse the two if you took a really quick glance. I think that maybe the colors should be opposites (yellow and blue or black and white) to save people a little bit of frustration.

Also, sound could help this game out a lot. Just something minimal to set an atmosphere would be great.

Okay, started dying on level 3 - or was it 4? A level counter would be helpful. The death messages on the other hand were a nice touch.

Level 5 was innovative. I was also glad that it wasn't so long, since I kept dying.

Level 6 seemed like it was easier then level 5- but that could have been my own fault. It was a little annoying, but thankfully you didn't keep up the purple skears coming at all directions for too long.

Level 7's design was pretty ingenious as well. I think with proper eye candy effects and better looking visuals this one could be a lot of fun. Still, it was captivating and made me focus on the game a little harder and appreciate it a bit more.

Level 8: Beat it in one try. The back and forth motion of the mouse gets a little annoying after a bit.

9: Good use of the word penultimate! ;) Still, I beat this one in 2 tries.. . It seemed a little out of place as what should be the second to hardest level.

10: Oh man. That one was just plain annoying. I decided to grit it out and beat it, since I'm guessing you went through about the same with 3:3 on my game ;) At first those random spiraling purples made me really hate it, because they seemed so random. But then I realized that they weren't random at all and there was a certain pattern that I could do every time to get them all... I'm not sure if you did that intentionally, but it was very clever. All in all a well designed level here, but it was a little too long for me to properly enjoy it; however it was a fitting end.

All in all, great job here. Your game made me feel a full range of emotions from satisfaction to pure rage (at one point) It was certainly satisfying to complete, although I don't think it merits a replay to get a perfect score - although I usually wouldn't do that any ways. Once is enough... ;)

I have to also compliment you on keeping each of your levels interesting throughout the 30 or so seconds that it takes to complete. Not once did I get bored halfway through a level: the complexity kept me interested, even through multiple replays (point in case: level 10)

As a closing comment, this game was excellent, much better then it's outward appearance betrays it to be. With a few graphical and musical changes - because NGers are like that - it could easily be 4.1-4.2 material.

AcidDimensions responds:

Firstly, thanks so much for bothering to write this awesome review. It made for really interesting reading and

You know, as with when reviewing film sequels or flash as part of a series, a decision must be made - do I review this, taking prior installments into consideration?

With reviews, the answer is obvious. You made your points. You know I read them. The brilliant ideas regarding particle effects and whatnot still apply (though I still have no real clue if or how I'd do such things...).

This time, I'll break up your review into categories.

constructive criticism/suggestions
=============
You make a few complaints regarding presentation (graphics, sound, screen size, right-clicking...).

I'd like to have known your reasoning for disliking the 'gigantic screen' though. Also, I don't really understand WHAT it is about the background you don't like. It's good to know you disapprove though. (It's bad that you disapprove, but good to know.)
Your level-by-level review let me know that you found 6 and 8 rather annoying (though I have to make my own assumptions as to why they annoyed).
9/10

exposition of experience:
You let me know how you got on with each level. (I don't know how many lives you lost with the last level and a few others... but here we come to the question - is giving a breakdown such as this and interrupting the playing to review helping you get a false impression of the game, broken into segments as it would be?)
You also let me know how you responded emotionally to the various parts of the game.
10/10

praise/encouragement:
You know, simply by virtue of recieving a review with this amount of detail and thought put in, I get encouraged.
You do make a real point of ending on a high note, with a few paragraphs full of compliments, which seem to be straight from the heart.
Also, I liked hearing that you favoured level 7.
10/10

clarity of expression:
No big problems.
However, I'm not sure what you meant by 'wallpapered'. It took me a while to realise you were referring to the fact that it repeats. (It is actually tiled, despite what you 'noticed'.)
9/10

elaboration & being specific:
Well, you give some suggestions, like when you point out colour confusion.
I'd kinda like to know some of your reasoning though. Like with the tiled graphics - what exactly don't you like about them? Again - what's the problem with a big screen? And why were thos levels annoying? Was it just because you died regularly? Was it the somewhat repetitive nature of those parts?
It's the level design I'm actually proud of, so I always hope for as much feedback in that area as possible.
Still, far more detail in some places than I have any right to expect.
8/10

coverage (how much):
Every level (bar the first 3) are commented upon. Every aspect I can think of, and some I wouldn't have (right-click menu).
10/10

overall: 9/10

Quite possibly the best review I've ever gotten for a game.
I'd have liked some more feedback with regards to the level design though - your comments leave me unsure as to what I could improve upon. (I have my own ideas of course, but I'm disregarding that for the moment.)

I'm guessing that the linearity you mentioned for Skears 2(v0.36) maybe still irked you, but I'm unsure.

Really though, this review, coupled with the other one, helps me realise how much the graphics matter. It makes me kinda want to theme my levels, Breakquest style.

It makes me wanna submit more. Give me food for thought.

Practically flawless review.

Thank you so much.

[Evolve!!!]

Enjoyable

I didn't get too far into the game, but this is definitely an enjoyable game. I loved your use of the flashcam. The graphics were actually pretty good and minimalistic, although they could have been a little bigger so that I could see details more clearly. The game itself was a relatively new concept and it was pretty clever. My only wish was for it to have more things happening. Maybe tighter controls too. You seem like you know what you're doing with AS so good luck with your future projects!

jdubwatson responds:

thank you. this was my first game that had a larger play area than viewing window, so it took me a loooooong time to get the scrolling view to work correctly.

[God's Hand]

Surprisingly addictive

It was a lot better then it seemed at first impression. It still needs a lot of things to actually make it an enjoyable game. The music actually fit in pretty well which was surprising since it had words and usually vocal music doesn't work well with flash games at all. It could have used better animations, death animations, more chances to get powerups (since after level 9 it was practically impossible, and I really needed help...), a lightening bolt animation and sound effect, and probably a few other small touches that I can't think of right now >_>.

Oh yeah, it could have used more strategy. Point and click gets a little boring after a while (although you did try to keep it interesting, and you did it pretty well). Maybe you could build walls that they'd have to naviate around/ ram down? That would be fun and strategic. Maybe you could build em with gold that you got from killing the monsters...

This is pretty good, but you might want to show it to people on the BBS (or just me ^^) to see what they think first, because a lot of little touches on this could have really helped this one out.

BadFurDay responds:

Thanks a lot!

Chuck Norris is watching you with a positive eye from Mount Olympus!