Valio's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Scrap Memories - Chapter One]

What I like about this game:
- Very nice pixel graphics
- an interesting story start
- it's a round-based RPG (I like those a lot)
- Music that is okay (it's getting annoying over time though)

The worst part of this RPG is the controls; they're really awkward and sometimes really frustrating (I currently fail at bunny floor 8). I applaud the attempt for a novel battle system, but there would be better options.
So here are some suggestions:
a) Is there any part of the story, where it's necessary to control the characters separately when they're not in battle mode (i.e. not a single enemy nearby, or even in the room)? If not, you can safely assume that the player solely intended to have separate controls only for fighting.
b) There should be a better visual cue, which character currently has the lead (e.g. a circle around it's feet) and which one is currently controlled (yes, I saw the grey box).
c) During a battle where I control both characters, I have faced situations where I pressed the arrow key to finish a move of one character, but accidentally that was interpreted as another move for the next character (i.e. I moved with one character in a position that I didn't want to). This is a very frustrating situation, which lead to lost battles.
d) Is it really necessary to handle weapons and (healing) items as if they were the same? i.e. I find it really awkward that I have to switch from a weapon to a healing items during a round...
e) Have you considered using more than 2 keys? Sometimes I get confused over the multiple modes especially during battles. I'd rather prefer to have a system where I have to press ctrl+1 to use a healing item. I accidentally used healing items or stood still when I wanted to attack, etc....

and some minor details:
f) there's probably no need to switch to cinema mode, just to tell the player that a door is locked ;-)
g) I don't want to go back to the start screen, when I'm killed (or at least not by default), but to respawn at the last save point
h) add a skip dialog/cutscene option; especially for those times when the player already saw it, as they had to respawn
i) it would be nice if there was a permanent or icon if a room has been cleared/is safe (not just a disappearing message). Also it would be nice to prevent the player from accidentally waste weapon usages (e.g. remote weapons) in these situations.

BigBossErndog responds:

Thank you for the in depth feedback! It is definitely helpful to have such an in depth review like this!
I guess I can respond to this in parts.

a) It's not necessary to control characters separately, it's more a feature I've implemented for the full game Scrap Arms. You can get separate dialogue (e.g. taking to Humlas) depending on which character is your main. But it's not required for battle, though it can make battles easier if you directly control the other people rather than leaving them to the AI. But yeah, again, it's more a feature for Scrap Arms rather than Scrap Memories (I'm using the same game framework).

b) I totally agree with this. Will be doing so for future episodes, will update this game too when it's implemented.

c) This is very useful thanks for pointing this out. I will be experimenting with ways to make this more clear.

d) Again, this is more a feature for the main game Scrap Arms. I guess it doesn't work for Scrap Memories, but right now my main priority is using Scrap Memories to develop the framework for Scrap Arms. There is a reason they are treated the same.

e) I've decided with a two key system. After playing Mystery Dungeon my biggest personal complaint was how many buttons was required to play the game, and roguelikes like this are notorious for their use of many keys. My biggest challenge personally was to reduce the number of keys as much as possible. Of course this is just a personal challenge, after the feedback I've received I will be looking into what will be the optimal way to spread out controls. If you can suggest some ideas for keys for specific functions in a private message it would be really helpful!

f) This is interesting. Right now the only textbox I've got is that cinema mode. I'll see how it streamlines the experience to have a separate 'classic' textbox specifically for small tasks such as the locked door.

g) That's a good idea. I will be implementing that soon.

h) Right now you can hold down the Z key to speed through text. As for skipping cutscenes entirely, this will require more work because of the way cutscenes are set up.

i) This is a nice idea. It's definitely not at the top of my priority list, but it's a good idea I'll consider in the future.

Again, thanks for your feedback! I'll definitely consider a lot of these in the future!

[Dying In Dungeon]

There should be a Seppuku option.
Somehow I managed to dash into the wall and then couldn't exit the room anymore :-(

Thoof responds:

Oof, I'll have to fix that at some point. Thanks for the feedback :)

[TentaCat: The Lost Lineage]

I gave up after being killed by Seth for about the 90th time with 581 fish

What I liked:
* Great style and pixel art
* Fitting music and sound effects
* Keyboard controls are good and can be adapted in the options screen

Suggestions for improvements (prioritized):
* On the continue screen, the "No" option should _not_ be the default option (make "Yes" the default or add a superposition state before the player has pressed any key), as novice players are likely to accidentally to choose this one
* Kill enemies that are depleted of energy immediately, instead of keeping them on-screen until you stopped shooting. Else players will get frustrated, as they're uncertain at what point an enemy is dead (especially if it's a new type).
* Provide a better possibility to anticipate, when Seth is going into a new rage mode (e.g. make him shortly stop in an invincible mode [e.g. panting] or provide graphical/numerical indicators within the energy bar, so that players can adapt their behaviour early enough without getting hit
* Do not reset killed enemies, if they're off-screen.
* Consider an option to leave a level, while keeping the fish in order to level up at the shop.

PKTORA responds:

Thanks for trying out my demo and for giving feedback! I'll tweak things so it's not as frustrating. I really like the idea of giving Seth additional animations for additional anticipation.

[Shadow Of Deception]

I think it's a good start for your first game!

I generally like it, but I'd improve certain parts, namely:
1) Why is there an "Exit Game" menu entry?
2) provide easier clues what the letter keys (Z,X,C) do. Most games do this with a background icon/drawing nearby (that visualizes the character doing the action) or place the key hints right at the point where you first need them (e.g. first the arrow keys, then at the first platform for jumping you show the jump key, etc.). So e.g. in the first level you wouldn't need to display any letter keys at all, just the arrows.
3) I managed once to be unable to finish the first level (the door wouldn't work anymore). I'm not certain what the cause was (probably pressing Z nearby or waiting too long)
4) Make one-way platforms (passable from below). It's not fun to reset the 3-fireball level all again to start, due to a timing issue.
5) Consider a different style for the reflection triangles, e.g. filling them with a light & half-transparent color. It took me way too long to figure out, that it wasn't just a diagonal reflector that worked both way (I didn't see the vertical & horizontal corner lines well enough)
6) Consider adding a level selector at the start screen, for levels that the user finished.

VivAZ responds:

Hey Valio!

I completely understand regards to your second point you made and I was thinking about doing it rather then just implying it in the description of they game! With your 3rd point yeah I feel it seems it has been a common occurrence that people mistakenly press the z button so I'll definitely will have to change that perhaps into the R button in the future update! i'll definitely take all of your tips and pointers into mind when release a new version!

Thank you so much for your feedback!

[Seven Days in Purgatory]

Fought for their country is a cardinal virtue?
Do you really believe that?

kypello responds:

Yea

[Current Tycoon]

Some improvement suggestions:
* Let the user save the current progress. Loosing all of it is a huge letdown.
* Offer a mini-tutorial to introduce the game mechanics. Even if it's just a blinking "rub here with your finger/cursor" before reaching 1000 Kilopowers
* Fix the medals!
* Consider using some statistical user tracking on progress. I think there's room for improvement in the game balance aspects.
* What is "kilopower"? I know I'm a nitpick, but why not use actual units (i.e. "kWh" or "Joule")? It would add some minor leanings to players

applessmillion responds:

Hey,
I'm about to publish an update that adds a save button to the main screen. You'll be able to manually save your stuff by clicking on it whenever you'd like.
I'm also looking in to adding some extra stuff for endgame. I have a few ideas, but it'll take a bit getting it up and running.
I also plan to have a mini-tutorial up and running for first-time users. This should run for everyone.

EDIT: Tutorial and save button live.

[INTO THE ABYSS v1.1]

Things I liked:
* nicely drawn and completely fitting sprites
* a perfect retro atmosphere and style (music, palette, animations); including the end boss that is really "shocking" at first, given the previous cute enemies
* overall a well balanced and fair gameplay (possible dangers are foreseeable almost everywhere)
* a casual game that can be easily played in one go, but also offers possibilities to come back later

Thoughts for improvement:
* I mapped my keyboard keys to my joypad, but couldn't do this for the start screen and on the death screen, while the latter one was worse for me. Everytime I died I had to find the mouse cursor again (or constantly keep it within game frame). Overall this slightly spoiled my experience. Thus please consider adding keyboard controls for those screens.
* It's very difficult to avoid the boss attack when encountering it; especially as it is not clear at which point the character can be controlled again. I'd suggest some hint that would indicate when the player is controllable and when not (e.g. a question sign above the player character)
* Consider adding a (possibly cryptic) hint that there might be secrets, before the ending screen. I was somehow not willing to start/trackback all over again, after I finished the game.
* The spikes on the bottom in the first room with a scorpion can't be anticipated at all and are hard to avoid. Please consider to add a "look down" function.

gamesbynoe responds:

Thank you for your awesome review! Realy helpfull!

[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

[Acid Bunny]

I was very pleasantly surprised.
After watch the title and the intro I would have thought that it was some crude teenage humor game without some solid, original or variative gameplay. The opposite was the case.
The music, graphics and the details were all great; including the bonus stages.

There were a few glitches:
1) One could use the mine car if jumping correctly in areas which were probably not foreseen; but that wasn't really a bug, but more a (probably even intended?) feature
2) Sometimes the character did not turn right away from one in the other direction in the end boss fight when throwing carrots, despite pressing the correct key (which resulted in carrot loss)

Furthermore I would suggest
a) providing a hint that it's possible to jump farther if you run
b) adding some hints with the whip usage like putting a sign next to it, "do not jump from moving whip! you might get thrown far away."
Especially the usage of the whip was not so obviously intuitive at all.

SeethingSwarm responds:

Thanks for the great review and the 5 stars! I know what you mean with Acid Bunny not being able to turn around immediately when hitting the ground. He first does a little hop and then you can move around properly again, but I think I will change that in the next episode and make it easier for the players to control the character. Thanks for mentioning it! I'm not sure what you mean with the mine car, so it must be a glitch, sorry :P ...and I guess with the "whip" you mean the Swing? Yeah, I guess the swing is a little bit tricky to use. It was quite difficult for me to make it work. I've never done anything like that before, and I'll see what I can do to improve it for the second episode :)

[Pong Revolution]

I overall liked it due to the retro feeling.

I especially liked the music.
What I find a bit of a pity, is that you did not mention that the song is "Deleted from this World" by "Radio Giraffe" (it took me some time to figure it out).

BTW: If you have made no agreement with the artist, you should fix that; CC-BY means that you can use freely *if* you give credits to the creator.

rocky10529 responds:

Try click in credits page!
You'll find something special.
artist and song name is there too.
:)