TheReviewTrickster's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Christmas ADVENTure 2019]

A true sequel. Has the spirit of the original, but strives to take it to new heights. I like the feeling of the cabin, I imagine it's gonna be great when it's filled up! I like how last year's decorations have melted away in the outside area, but that just means they'll have to be restored, better than ever before! Also giant head in the background, that's a top-notch Christmas detail. Love it. I can't seem to get the second present, though, is it not in yet? Also, the rug in the cabin superposes itself over the character when you go on its far side. I hope I can get all the medals this year!

[Christmas ADVENTure 2018]

Well, now that it's finished, I can leave a review. It was a cool idea with the medals, some people say it's cheap, but it encourages you to come back daily. At least you didn't lock the actual art to its own day. Either way, you got some cool people to participate, and some cool art. The game world also looks nice and I really like how the presents and characters fill out the place. The background details are really cool too, with the little characters and shack in the distance rewarding you for looking around. That final day really brought ot the feels when I saw who the last character was. The igloo finally being enterable was nce, and so were its contents, but maybe you should have used the tank instead. Speaking of using different stuff on the last day, I think a different piece of art should have been used. This one was cool, and had a few iconic characters, but I think @Chobiluck, @Tyler or maybe even @Snailpirate's piece would have been better. A nice selection of characters for sure. The music was really great, very joyful and atmospheric. It can really bring out the feels. I wish it rotated out though. I seem to remember there being a different song at the beginning. Maybe this one is better suited to the mood, but I would like it if they switched from time to time.
Also edit: I'm sory, but the walking really should be a bit faster.
Overall a neat way to celebrate the holidays on NG, but some tweaks would be nice.

BrandyBuizel responds:

There's 4 songs switching out every 6 days.
I wish we had the luxury to choose which art was use each day but we ended up running out of our stockpile around the 16th. From then we were just using the next piece available and hoping one would be finished in time(reason for a lot of blackout in early hours of the morning)

Glad you could spend Christmas with us!

[A Hat on Time]

The graphics are okay, and I like the humor, though I've never played the original. The music is quite cool. The controls, however, feel a bit too sensitive and the gameplay is very annoying. The hit detection feels off, and it's unclear what you can and can't touch. Like, I think you can touch the ash from one side, but only to a certain point. Basically, it's very confusing. You've got decent mechanics though. Just work on making sure it's clear what can be touched and try to make the controls better in your future games.

platformalist responds:

Hi Thegamingtrickster! Thanks for the feedback!

Yeah, the hit detection could have been tighter on the ash clouds in particular, as you mentioned. I’ll be sure to tighten my hit detection in future games, even if it’s a lot more calculations per frame!

Thanks for playing! :)

['Arcane Cereal Duel']

Your style is as cute as ever, and you managed to come up with a very interesting idea with a game. It's short but very sweet. Trial and error is crucial here, and you do have to memorize what each thing does, but you also have to think. I almost failed and the hairdryer saved me in the last second. The animated objects are very cute and all of them feel useful, though in the run where I completed it, the scissors pretty much didn't come into play at all. There are definitely multiple ways to win, and I really like that. That's cool game design. However, there are some problems I would like to point out. Once you select animate, there's no ''back'' option, so you can either animate something you didn't want to animate at that moment, or reload the page, because there's also no restart button. The music is pretty cool for a battle while still being fun, but it can get a bit annoying, which is understandable. The game was made for a jam so you probably didn't have much time to make the music. It also keeps playing after you win, which makes the end screen less happy and more intense than it should be. Otherwise, it's a very fun game with a cool mechanic. Keep it up, and, if you can, please fix some of these issues.

Butzbo responds:

Glad you liked it and took the time to try different things!
The scissors act a bit like the "glass cannon" of the bunch, pretty strong but not the safest to use.
Also, good points, I made a quick update adding a 'back' button from the animate selection, didn't consider that at first but it does make sense to have the equivalent of a 'b' button as you navigate the interface.

Thanks for the review!

[Strawberry's Strawful Quebst]

I really like the opening cutscene, especially the ending. This is a classic Clock Day tribute. It's very simple, but I kinda like it that way. The difficulty curve spikes suddenly in F You mode, but that adds to the shock factor. Thank you for the medals, by the way, they're a nice incentive and reward, especially the 100 point ooone. I like how you gave it zero points on the in-game notification, and how your enthusiasm suddenly shifted in that medal. The sound effects also provide a bit of entertainment, especially when you're moving fast. They're diverse enough to be entertaining. Where are they from, if you don't mind me asking? That last difficulty was pretty cool, and it kinda felt satisfying to fill the maze in with the line; thank you for that btw. There was a really long path that turned out to be an elaborate dead end, but otherwise I wish there were more long dead ends like that (there were a couple intersections with those).
Overall, it's a simple Clock Day tribute with a good sense of humor. Happy Clock Day!

PhantomCat responds:

yeah, i was completely checked out by the time it came to animating that. Figured I might as well make it a real cartoon and only take five minutes on it.

the sound effects were all from the newest episode of Game Grumps. it picks one of fifty ≤0.1 second clips from it. There was going to be more but I am a shit

AND YES THANK YOU the mazes are random though, I make my computers work for me

I give your review a 10/10

[Memory.exe]

The game is interesting and very long for a Ludum Dare game. The concept is interesting and the graphics are nice. There was a lot of exploration, though it got confusing. There were so many different puzzles in so many different places I found myself wandering around a lot. I appreciate that you have to carry over runes and stuff and it's cool how you have to create platforms. I'm actually not sure what the five elements were. I think I just got lucky with that one. I don't know what that thing with some fire, but not too much, was. Was that the spark? I didn't think that would be an actual element, I thought that meant fire. There was also some annoyance with the slidy controls, though if you had more time for this, you probably could have worked that out. I think you ould have explained better that we're supposed to hit signal triggers to finish off puzzles, because I didn't know why those weren't removing the obstacles. I like the end, when the game starts speaking to you, and the ending itself was interesting. Just a memory, huh? Overall I'd say you did good with limited time and made some interesting metroidvania puzzles, though some were a bit confusing.

squidly responds:

Yea that's why I had that message at the beginning saying to take notes :p

The end game puzzle isn't that hard once you've noted all the messages.

[ZS Dead Detective - Murder Case]

Art is cool as always, though there is a bit of a disconnect between the backgrounds and some objects, or between backgrounds themselves. I do like the way you redid the deaduction system in the sense that you no longer have to arrange different combinations of clues for the solution to pop up even htough you've already figured it out. However, I'm used to there being a solution for every possible character being the culprit, so the first time around I gt the wrong thing because I didn't think to check the 'choose another suspect' option because i checked it before and no new options were showing up, and I thought that if I got the right deaductions it would just show up somewhere else on the page. Also, the fact that there were two conclusions, one about the brain, and one about the main culprit, may have confused me a bit. Otherwise, the story is good and makes sense, though the bit about the guy not turning into a zombie because he was already dead when the brain was eaten, was a bit confusing and maybe could have been explained better. Overall, another cool game, with some interesting updates that may need some getting used to.

Muja responds:

Thank you for your very detailed review, much appreciated!

[Raining Money With Upgrades]

The graphics are very simple. The gameplay is very boring and repetitive. It's like you put the mechanics of an idle clicker into a platformer but removed most of the parts where things get automated. It takes way too long just to be able to acquire the jump, the upgrades aren't satisfying for the most part because most of them don't change much. It takes around 4 upgrades (I believe) to get to the left block and it's barely useful anyways. The increase in upgrade prices is way too high, especially when you're starting. The money per second doesn't actually give you money every second and you should change the names of the 'more money' and 'coin timer' upgrades because it's misleading. I thought the 'more money' would give me more frequent coin spawn rates and the coin timer was a timer counting down until the next coin. I guess I should have gotten it anyway since the first upgrade for that was only 2 dollars, but still. Either change the names to make it clearer or add descriptions to every upgrade that tell you how much the upgrade would increase your whatever and just what they do in general. Also, you should really add medals if you can because it takes a lot of time to get these achievements and a reward would be nice. At least the music is fitting. Maybe you could add some background changes or something to make it more interesting. Please take these changes into consideration. Despite all these flaws, I just have this strange feeling that you put a lot of effort into the game, so I hope you've taken something away from all the reviews.

MisterTtocS responds:

Thank you for your review! It was the most helpful and I think that the feedback will help me make a sequel which, I hope, would be much better than this.

[Madam Mim's Bet]

A simple but fun game. It's not overly difficult, but not too easy either. The normal difficulty isn't too easy, and the hard is...well, quite hard. I like how there's also an arcade mode. The game is very addicting, and so is the soundtrack. It sounds really good. I like how the symbols light up when you connect something to them, even when fixing them. It can be a bit easier to keep track of where they are sometimes. The medals add extra motivation. The story and endings are pretty funny. The art is nice, although I'm not sure if you actually wanted the witch to look attractive, because the proportions are kinda uncomfortable. It's fun anyway, seeing as how Arthur's facial expressions are so exaggerated and the game clearly doesn't take itself too seriously. I wish when you click the bet button, you'd skip the last part of the cutscene. The secret ending was a bit disappointing. It took me way too long to figure out where I was supposed to input the code, because I just didn't even think of looking for a secret bet. Also, I think you could have excluded the voices. They weren't that good. Sometimes (not often) my keys refused to respond, but if I was quick enough, I could correct it. I'm not sure if hat's up to the game or my keyboard. Also, I saw someone complain about hte controls not being compatible with all keyboards. the easiest way to fix that would be to add an option for the player to customize the keys. Anyways, this was a very fun game overall.

PoliuxDimension responds:

So you are the second person mention the proportion problem. It's highly possible there is an anatomical problem...this bad habit of mine have to be fixed before my next game come out.

The hard part for the novice artist like me is that I watch my drawing too long, I kinda lost sharp alert of body ratio of my own drawing, but it's easier for other who have the first glimpse at the figure to point the problem out, it would be a huge help if you or anyone can point out which scenes of Mim contain weird body or facial proportion. Review or pm me, I appreciate that.

Maybe I'll totally skip voice, or just made some weird sound for the dialogue in my next game, welcome to give me more advice on how voice should be.

About the key problem...I'm actually digging that subject today, in JavaScript coding. I believe I will find a solution very soon.Thank you for this very detailed review. It helps a lot.

[Shamaniac]

A very good looking and atmospheric game. The graphics are cute and the puzzles and concept are interesting, though not the most intuitive. It feels like a very musical game.
SPOILERS
The fish's mouth has to be clicked too many times. I feel like hte cloud worked that way too. I got that, but I don't think everyone can. I don't understand the puzzle for the Luminous spirit and don't know what to do with the panel that, when you arrange it in a certain way, gives you the roman numerals. I don't see anything clickable and the hint isn't helpful at all. None of the hints are too helpful. With the swamp fish thing, we don't know what creature he's referring to. There are only a few hints, and they're really not that useful. Speaking of the swamp fish, it looks too similar to the blue bushes you can pick up. Also, it can be hard to zoom in and move the screen around. There also seem to be clickables that do nothing. The medals are broken, probably because they're worth 0 points. How did you even do that? Also, the ending of the game with the stick is just a random fortune cookie generator, and so is the magic eyed ball.

Bottom line, a game with a cool idea, but the puzzles are a bit too difficult and unintuitive.

CrounchyBrothers responds:

Thanks for your feedback!
Yes it's a puzzle musical game. OK in the next MAJ we will make more accurate hints.
For the medals, yes there was a problem. But it's fixed now ;-)