NekoMika's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Ball Run]

This game needs a seriously heavy amount of work done to it!

For one I actually have not beaten the game yet as you spawn in the corner for level three and no matter how carefully I plan out the movement to get out of the corner I get hit by one of the balls anyways. To me it seems like that is simply making the game unwinnable. Should do as you did for the first to and have them randomly going somewhere on the screen rather coming right into the corner so you can't beat the level and finish the game. Fix that and do the same for any of the levels for four through seven as that just seem to be making the game unfair to most or all players.

The medal should either be removed altogether or actually given a name and description, "M", and "y" don't tell me anything about the medal or how to get it, for all I know it could be for getting hit by the balls a certain amount of times or restarting or whatever. That and seeing the medal, it looks like it has "Level 1" on it which makes me think even more that it's just for doing something on the first level rather than trying to complete the game.

Graphically, this game was boring. Black and white visuals aren't very appealing and since you aren't really having to do much aside from trying or attempting to beat the game you could have spent more time, far more time on the graphics and making it better than what it currently is which is bland.

The game play itself remains difficult and seems you did not spend very much time trying to code it very well. The circles while they do bounce seem to have been coded with a square in mind since multiple times for the bigger balls even when they did not touch me I would die and have to start over again, need to check and redo the coding there. Another minor thing is when I go right after doing the coded walking motion the character will be facing left again instead of standing and looking right. Playing around a bit, you coded the walking left correctly but left out a frame for going right since they auto turn left.

Another thing that could be done is giving instructions of how to play which seems rather easy as it is left and right. That and possibly giving a back story as to why they are running from the balls so they have a purpose to run. Do that much and maybe the game will be better than it currently is.

Sadly, the only thing I was even able to enjoy from the game was the music which was not too bad of a choice although a couple of other songs could have been used maybe to try to be more fitting to the game itself.

Overall, aside from the music itself which was actually alright, the rest of this game needs to be worked on a lot! The coding is a bit unfinished, level three cannot be finished or even get started long enough to survive in its current state, walking cycle for going right is missing a frame, no instructions or back story, medal has no purpose and needs to be updated so players will understand how to get it even though it is possibly just beating the game but I have no idea if that is what it is for. Graphics could use updating, maybe another song or two. Game just needs overall, a major redoing and lots of fixes.

[Santa Quest]

Could be better

Well the game starts out well but I wasn't too sure on how to get a score since no matter how many candy canes or rockets I destroyed I got no score from it. The game was pretty fun anyways as you start out in a room and strangely as long as you stay there nothing seems to come in there until you are about to leave the room.

The graphics were quite simple and looked almost like 16-bit to me too. The background, floor, and all was pretty simple too. I also laughed at the title screen with the snow flakes bouncing off of the ornament which was pretty cool anyways and kind of reminded me of other games were snow or sand bounced off of the surface.

The game play seemed simple enough with destroying the things flying everywhere but I was unaware of how to get a score sadly. That and staying alive. Would be more interesting if you added a Gauntlet Legends aspect to it where you can destroy the generators the enemies come from and after so much time they come back on screen, would be neat anyways.

The audio chosen to play was rather simplistic and nice feeling too so that was good to hear since the tunes were themed for the season.

Overall, great game but kind of falls short with a score lacking and no true goal.

Review Request Club

shrimpchris responds:

Thanks for the review.

The graphics were supposd to look 16-bit so I'm glad you noticed that. All of the graphics were made in the TGF 2 image editor thing, which is similar to MS Paint, but the airbrush effect is better and it doesn't havea curved line tool. I have GIMP, but I just prefer the TGF 2 image editor for game graphics.

The snow bouncing off of the ornament was just something random that I thought would be appreciated by anyone who happened to notice since it can be fun to mess around with. Glad you noticed it.

About the score thing, I didn't give me enough time to come up with an ammo system, so I decided to connect ammo to score in a way. Basically to deter people from just firing like a mad man since there is no ammo limitation, I decided I'd make it where you lose 10 points per shot. After I submitted it and played it, I realized that
-10 points didn't affect your score so much since the missiles added 100 and the spinning elves w/candy canes gave you 50 so I made it where each shot costed you 25 points.

I do plan on coming back to this and making this into a full game when I have time, so don't expect to have seen the last of this. ;)

[Super Brick Duel]

Really just Pong with new graphics

This game essentially just felt a lot like Pong except there was background music and power ups added to the game making it a bit better anyways. However aside from it just being a pong remake I didn't find much to be completely fun here and kind of felt boring too.

The audio was alright and sounded pretty nice along with the voice. Kind of sucks that the voice is only there when you win though and never win you lose asking you to try again or anything at all. The song during game play was still pretty nice though.

Now for the game play....

The classic mode felt like normal pong except with said power ups of arrows, fireballs, freezing the opponent, and the power up that removes any and all wall siding left making it harder to keep the ball in the game. Also as there is no break between starting it feels like you are being cheated a bit. Could try coding the ball to wait until you press one of the arrow keys giving you time to take a bit of a break rather than keep playing. However even up to Hard mode it still felt easy and very winnable.

The tutorial was nice and helpful so great work there on doing that for those new to this game.

Lastly it looks like you missed out on and did little with Fourplay which could have been the stand out moment of the game. I doubt everyone has four people to play with at one computer on the game so a better idea could have made it online play and allow lobby creation while people wait for others to join the room allowing for maximum chaos in the room.

Another thing you could have done with fourplay is allow all the opponents to be AI and then putting them all on hard mode would make it far more interesting to play too. Fourplay could have been what made the game stand out but as it requires four people to play it feels a lot like a let down.

Overall, it's pong with new graphics, some power ups, and a fourplay that could have been the crowning moment of the game but fell short of it. Have fun with more games in the future.

Review Request Club

JPB responds:

Seems I really shouldve focused more on making the game more fun/fast/chaotic.
Regarding online: I spent a month trying to understand smartfox server, Still didnt get it, maybe thats to much for me

Unfortunately a lot of what I would answer here is in my other responses, so sorry about that.

Ultimately, thanks for the review!

[2011 - A Quiz in Review]

Neat quiz

Well the graphics on the starting screen are nice and the only problem I see was clicking the back button on credits took you back a few extra frames and the title song would start over rather than going back just one frame. Very nice quiz.

Most of the questions were interesting and if you ever do mess up on a question at least you learn something that happened during the year. I guess it's nice for anyone who just wants a quick run down of some of the stuff that happened this year.

I notice there were spelling errors but then on the credits page it said you made them either on purpose, accident, or maybe even a joke. The songs that play are nice and relaxing too.

Overall, nice quiz and review of some of the stuff that happened this year.

Little-Rena responds:

Yeah, I did that with the menu button to replay the intro, it made more sense to cut the looping audio to do that, than to leave it, wasn't sure the mustic was a huge deal, lol.

I did struggle to come up with some of the questions because some months, not much of any global significance happend, as for the spelling mistakes, that's more because I am a bad speller and I often miss some of the words when correcting them and flash doesn't have a spell check.

[BBS Awards 2011]

Nice work

The way this was presented was rather well done and that NG BBS Awards! song never gets old. Only bad part of the song is maybe you could have tried to cut a second of it off so it would loop perfectly.

The graphics here are Newgrounds BBS styled so that was rather nice to see. The writing for each winner was also rather well too. The voice at the start was a nice touch since previous award flashes have not had that.

Overall, nice presentation of who all won. Nice collaboration.

thinking-man responds:

Thanks!
(Good, a review NOT bitching about them winning/not winning which is out of my control because it's the BBS AS A WHOLE who votes on this crap)

[It's a wonderful FULP!]

Pretty funny

I actually started off with getting one present a day then waited until yesterday (Christmas) to open all of them.... or so I thought. Since even though it was Christmas all day I strangely couldn't open the big present which I found a little discouraging since now i must wait a full year to try again and see what is in the giant box. Not sure why it wouldn't open for me yesterday either as I had opened up all the other gifts.

The graphics here were very nice and simplistic retro styled graphics. It was kind of fun watching Tom's child annoy him enough to open up a present every day. The gifts were all nice to and I like how they linked to separate pages on Newgrounds. The ban hammer, guns, and other various gifts were pretty great.

As for audio, it was really simple and just gave that feeling of happiness just being there with a family and feeling like you're warm by a fire place while opening gifts on Christmas morning. Really nice choice for a song. Only thing that maybe could have made it all better is adding a baby crying sound effect for when his child was crying.

The game play was simple as you just open presents by annoying Tom enough to let you open one every day except Christmas where you can open them all up. As for the little mail thing allowing you to open a second gift during any day I think it was kind of false as I clicked on presents and made the baby cry again but couldn't open a second gift. Not sure what it was for.

Overall, fun little time waster for a few minutes on different days. Only sad part for me was trying to open the big present on Christmas day as it didn't do so. Fun little game.

deathink responds:

as for the audio, there was a baby crying sound, but i wanted the baby to annoy Tom not the player, and trust me, it got really fucking annoying quick...
as for the mail thing, it only works one time. It actually mails this game to your friends and it worked when i tested it, but for some reason it doesn't work now but its still neat the way it is, so i kept it in. Sorry it didn't work for you "COMMANDER" , please check your inbox for your stocking stuffer :)\
COMMANDERS always make the nice list, even if there naughty.

[Upgrade Complete 2]

Great effort and upgrades!

This was a fun game however I had to come back and play it a second time after awhile mostly because the first time around I was getting the upgrades so fast that the medals did not always respond and so I had to start all over again to get the rest of them. Still a rather fun game.

The graphics here start off looking like crap but after doing upgrades the graphics gradually get better and better. Probably my favorite part was upgrading my ship to have five magnets in front to get the money quickly and then the rest of the time was spent buying lots and lots of lasers since they were more efficient than any other weapon to me. The avatars were really nice, going from simple to really nice too.

Another favorite thing I enjoyed with the graphics was playing it in 3D mode since it made it a little less flat and still quite fun and then Indie mode was pretty interesting since it changed everything to shades and tints of white and black. Graphics on the endings were also really nice. The dead pixels were kind of humorous I think.

The audio here started with nothing at all and got better and better. I found the beatboxing menu music to be pretty funny. Then the music just kept on getting better and better as you kept buying more upgrades. The only annoying sounds to me were the humming which isn't all that bad and then the voice acting was a tad bit annoying if you were buying lots and lots of upgrades at one time. Aside from that, the sound effects were really nice.

The storyline seemed pretty simple in which you had racked up a debt from borrowing a little money from the first game and I guess the interest had stacked up by twenty fold since them and you have to pay back first. Then the upgrades keep coming and coming. I found that the more lasers and magnets you get earlier the better off you are playing the game into later waves making them go from several attempts to simply completing them in moments by holding down the mouse and letting the lasers destroy all the ships.

The medals were also nice but as I had said earlier I had to play through twice to get them all since if you get a lot of upgrades too quickly in succession the medals would not always appear.

Overall, great game, takes awhile to complete but getting every upgrade is well worth the time.... except maybe the OCD medal. Aside from that, excellently fun game.

[Depict1]

Deceptive

Well that was a rather fun game and at first you don't really understand what to do as your dark self keeps telling you to do otherwise to prevent from completing the game. However after a bit of time I was just pretty much trying some speed running and the only level I could never get perfect was the last one as I would mess up a couple of times trying to hit that one block with one ammo, timing is just a bit tricky is all. Great game though!

The game play here was great since at first you are told to use the arrows but instead end up using some WASD configuration by using A and D to move on and J to jump. The thing kept on lying for the most part and when you figured out something it would either yell at you or take credit and say you could trust it most of the time.It just becomes real evident early on when it says those dark flaming creatures can be jumped on which results in death and when it says that space bar is jump when it actually kills you. Very interesting how you have to think a bit sometimes or just wait to move on.

The audio used here was nice. The thing talking was sort of like a tune in itself or at least it sounded that way to me when it spoke in the first level. Then the "first level" begins and music begins after a couple of seconds. It makes you feel as if you weren't always being lied to and helped keep you calm as you kept moving on. The sound effects were great!

Story line here was pretty neat since you start being unaware of where you are or how you got there. Then that thing begins to instruct you in ways that could get you killed and after awhile you learn to simply ignore most of what it says as it tends to give information that tended to be inaccurate a lot such as when it said to collect the gems even though those harm you.

Then you come face to face with it at the end of the game and that actually is probably the easiest part too since you just jump forward and shoot your own ammo at it as it falls to the pit and you manage to live on and it looks like the game breaks as well and then you move on to be finally free from the place. Great story.

The graphics were really nice with all that goes on. The beam was nicely created and the eyes during the last level kind of make you feel as if that thing had been watching, mocking, and laughing at you the whole time as you tried to complete the levels. Then it gets to a few of the later levels and the blocks give you hints of where to jump but they are invisible making it a little harder to move on for a moment. The background was also neat since the squares would move in the direction you were moving also.

The medals were rather nice and quite easy to get after figuring out what to do too. The statistics for the three endings also provide a slight amount of humor saying only so many people tend to get them. Most of the medals were easy to get and the game is great.

Overall, deceptive commentary, fun medals, great graphics and music. This game turned out pretty great. Excellent work on this game, would be interesting if you made a sequel to this game or possibly a prequel explaining how you ended up there. Fun game.

[Falling!]

Could use some work

As far as game play goes it is rather simple and reminds me a little bit of Plumet where the lower you go the faster the screen scrolls. However instead of characters you have a little ball that moves and can bounce off of the walls if it is going fast enough. One thing making this one different is you can break the floor and go down a bit quicker which is rather helpful when getting down toward the latter parts where the screen is going really fast.

The game play is similar to Plumet anyways except you only have a ball and instead of rolling to get down a bit quicker you have hammers which are as I stated earlier helpful down into the lower parts of the game where the screen begins to get really fast. The ability to destroy the floor is helpful although I did encounter a glitch from time to time where if I broke the floors very quickly in succession then I would not fall even though there was a hole below me, it did not happen often though. Just a minor thing.

The graphics are pretty simplistic yet bland at the same time. While the gray ball is nice and the floors are made to look obviously breakable. The walls at the side kind of make it funner as you can bounce off of them and fall which is good anyways. The only bad things graphically are the walls which looks rather bland and the background is also pretty boring. If they begin to change shades or even into new backgrounds as you went further down then that would be nice to see.

The audio here is pretty simplistic and nice sounding at least. Although I did find a small audio glitch if you decide to play without sound, then pause and turn on the sound. The track will mess up and be playing twice at once with the track playing and then it playing again one second behind the current playing piece. Really minor there too.

Overall, it's not too bad for your first try although it could use a bit more work and possibly even a second song here too. The hammers are a nice game play item too, have fun with other games in the future.

Review Request Club

agdgames responds:

Thanks a lot for your comments!
I will try to improve next time!

[Gravity Bob]

A bit different

Not the most original idea but unlike most other gravity games this one allowed you to change the direction of gravity in mid-air which is real helpful but sometimes your speed doesn't slow up or change either. The game is still pretty interesting though.

The graphics here were pretty good, the only bad thing is the Bob creature, I think he could have taken on a different look altogether but not really too bad for an art attempt. You could try doing a collaboration with some other authors on here though. The creature peering out of the walls from time to time was pretty cool, not sure what it was though. Is it after Bob or what?

The game play itself seems to be really nice as well. The gravity kind of annoyed me at times since I would try to keep good speed and make it to where he was almost not moving at all in air so he wouldn't hit spikes but later in I kind of found it a bit harder to do since I still hit spikes anyways when trying to enter the portals at a slow enough speed.

Began to encounter those problems at level twelve as well. From there I could see the game was getting a bit more challenging with each level I got to. Level thirteen made me feel pretty annoyed so I took a break for a bit and then came back to it and eventually beat the game which took awhile.

The audio used here was actually pretty good. The music at the menu felt a bit soft but still audible and then the music playing during the levels seemed to make you feel pumped and ready to keep on playing which is good to keep players interested in seeing how much tougher it gets before reaching the end.

While the game doesn't exactly fall under the most original or best game category, it does have something most other gravity games don't and that's allowing you to change direction mid air adding to the fun and challenge of the game.

I think you did well for a good gravity game and adding the ability to switch in mid air was a great idea. Although I didn't like how you kept going in the one direction for a moment when switching the gravity. Then again I think it helps if you try to hit the space bar a bit until you're slowed down enough to have enough control of where you are going in the air in later parts of the game.

Overall, not too bad, different from most other gravity games I've played. Good job on this game.

Review Request Club

ProfessorFlash responds:

Thanks for the review. Good to hear that people can beat the game.