Valio's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Larry The Looter]

Overall I liked the implementation, but it was more of a joke than an actual game.

The "Content" medal was not very straightforward to figure out; I would have rather expected a medal from escaping from several shot attempts from the shotgun guy.

Aprime responds:

I don't think they'd be happy if I made an actual game from it.
That's why content gives more points :D

[The Clockwork King]

I really liked the overall game.
For me the controls were not laggy, but then again I have a rather new machine.
I would not say that I guessed the story from the beginning (although I had some suspicion about it).
But I was almost certain about it after the end of the first cycle and even more after the second.
After that it was more about finding the ending for me, than a real surprise about what will likely come.

Things I would suggest to improve on:e
* let someone spellcheck your game text; use Google Translate if you can't help it. I'm lnot a native English speaker and I spotted lots of mistakes in the text. Overall that diminishes the enjoyment :-/
* while you're at it: as I guess you're not a native English speaker yourself, why not localize the game to other languages? It would broaden the potential amount of players, as not everyone speaks English well enough for a game whose main USP is it's story (the graphics and the sound are certainly okay, but unfortunately not exceptionally great).
* please, please, please make it clear how I can get rid of that tutorial text, when it appears. Probably add a "close" icon or some special key for that. In at least 2 occasions it appeared on the screen and I could not figure out how to remove it. So all text that was displayed, was rendered OVER this tutorial text, which diminished the enjoyment of the game a lot :-(
* lastly: consider to add a mechanism which provides players with some possibilities to unlock hints for medals that were not achieved yet (e.g. when completing all cycles). I have no clue which monitor I missed, what I would have to do to break Lynn's heart or to get the "True Sky" medal. I can only assume that I may have to finish the "medium" and "hard" version, but without knowing it, I'm not that eager to try out...

[Goblin Treasure Hunt]

I liked the graphics but overall it was not a very novel concept.
The music - while at first quite nice - got annoying over time, so I was happy to turn it off easily.
What bothered me particularly from a game design decision, was the missing feedback about the awards progress (almost all of the awards were purely quantitative achievements). I think it's more encouraging overall if you know how far or close you are to such an award.

[Get Beneath The Surface]

This would have been a great game if there were options to rationally plan ahead or to eliminate mistakes with skillful controlling. Neither is the case. Playing this game is just very slightly above playing randomly in a lottery.

[Think Up]

3 points for the game idea and it's implementation.
The main problem is that this game has a completely unnecessary rage factor, as you can fall back to a save point which you thought you previously passed.

[Two Pipes 3]

I like it overall.
The graphics and music are fitting. The game mechanics are interesting (e.g., that you can't die).

What I disliked:
I most platformers you can jump again as soon as you touch the ground. This is not the case here and was a constant source of annoyance.
Furthermore I tended to restart level 19 very often in order to get the timing right and not having to walk back all the time. But I had to use the mouse for that, which was a distraction as I had to change my right hand between keyboard and mouse. Please add a keyboard shortcut for restarting a level such as "R".

[Valentines Love Room Esca]

Graphics:
Overall the graphics were okay, but some of the items were hardly recognizable. E.g. I didn't realize that the purple thing was supposed to be a spray (I had to use the video walkthrough). A good workaround to avoid such problems would be to offer the player a command to get more details on all of the collected items (e.g. provide an enlarged display or a description of an item by double clicking or hoovering over it).
It was good that you used letters for the color heart puzzle solution as the red and orange were difficult to distinguish.

User interface:
Why is it possible to move some of the items in the inventory over another without actually combining them? E.g. the purple spray on the lower left side could be moved over the yellow thing (was it a glue pen?) more about in the middle of the lower bar.
The animated logo and the animated frog are terribly annoying as they distract from the actual gameplay. I ended up pulling another window over the toolbar, as it didn't allow me to concentrate on solving the puzzles.

Music:
The elevator music was okay at the beginning but I was happy to have the option to turn it off after a while :-)

[Crystal Story II]

This is probably one of the most awesome RPGs in Flash. It really took me back to the old times with console games (despite the vectorial graphics and the minigames). I don't know anything to complain about.

Okay: probably I would have hoped for a slightly more story twisting at the end like the knight being turned into a miniboss by Rita (similar to Lemon/Red Baron in Shining Force 2).

[Candy Bird Saga]

a well executed allegory on the quality of games made by king

[Disposabot]

If this was a movie with humans, it would be an awful horror flick.

Nothing to complain. Interesting backstory, nice level design, good graphics and an overall well planed game concept.