boticelly's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Infinity Inc]

Very cleverly violent game. In most of the games where player has to control characters actions violence is usually something inflicted by player upon the surrounding objects or by these objects upon player's character. In both cases though player inflicts violence upon his character by using it as a tool in order to advance his in-game goals. In this game player has to literally objectify his character in one or many clones and use them as a standing/running/falling-to death body-tool.
This self-objectifying mechanic works very well in an uncanny desolated audio-visual environment, that tells a story of a grotesque violent corporate challenge (perfectly, in a Half-life 2/ Portal style) via diegetic wall writings and screens. This very successful (in my opinion) aesthetic decision works not only on creating a colorful and lively atmosphere (the pixel art work on environmental images is great, I particularly liked the coloring), but also on "dissolving" the narrative in a game's space, making it all more interesting to explore and experience (obscenely violent "welcome" door and seductive gift). Also the abovementioned gameplay mechanic produces, while being also a playable mechanic, a particularly interesting idea about corporative treatment of a worker's body and his individuality. As I've mentioned before, the playable character, also being represented at first as an individual character, quickly dissolves in a bloody mess of his own clones, thus losing the very least of visual identity that it had at the beginning. This is ironical, since some of the writings on the walls suggest appeal to the individual person. The most ironic "twist" is represented right before the ending (the celebration party with a huge "#1" goblet), when bunch of totally identical clones (individuals?) are celebrating player for passing the test, also the actual identity of the player's character or even its distinction from the other clones is lost and completely blurred.
Overall, the game is really fun and encourages playfulness with absurdly violent achievements and visually satisfying death effects. Some of the fun for me was taken away by somewhat clumsy jumping mechanics and one game breaking bug near the end (in the room before the elevator to the garden one wall is missing, and if you get through the empty space your character will get stuck somewhere between the levels). But that's not to say that the rest of the experience was spoiled because of these flaws.

[Specter Knight]

Very well done game. The mechanics are very simple, but serviceable. Same goes for animation and visual design. There's nothing extra and, in my opinion, this is both strength and weakness of the game.
The fighting and magic mechanics are very solid and provide for an interesting and somewhat challenging (especially on later stages) combat experience, that requires tactical thinking. In order to succeed in a combat you have to enter in a rhythm of a sort, an alteration of blows, spells, dodges and blocks based on the understanding and feeling of the enemy's movements patterns. In this sense the game is all about a rhythm, in fact, it is played in a single rhythm, with no sudden leaps or accelerations. Even boss fights are played in a very similar rhythm, with the same tempo as regular battles: learn your enemy's movement pattern, adjust yourself to it, move constantly, hit hard when the threat is minimal (bosses’ patterns are somewhat repetitive though). In combination with the knight's smooth and rhythmic movements this gameplay rhythm forms a very smooth (with occasional slips in permadeath, see below) and uniform experience, which is, again, both good and bad in terms of the overall gameplay experience. The procedural level generation works well, but variety of level's combination bring little (if anything) new in terms of gameplay variety. This would not have been a problem if the RPG element of the game would have been deeper and more complex (more meaningful loot variety, some items that could change or at least broaden gameplay experience). But since they are somewhat simplified (in comparison to the more traditional rogue-like games) the random gameplay generation feature remains only a feature and not a meaningful element of the game's composition. There is a similar problem the peramanent death (and by it I mean taking away significant part of players progress with characters death) mechanic. It would have been justified if only with every attempt the overall experience would have varied significantly enough to push again and see what new could you achieve/unlock/experience. This way dying and replaying again could actually be fun, despite the annoyances. But here dying only means that you will have to repeat same actions (clear room after room the same way you did it before) again with little to no variety. Why leave this feature at all? In my opinion, it is completely unjustified - at least, in terms of gameplay. Instead of variety of walkthroughs, it is only good for wealth accumulation.
It could be somewhat justified, though, if the very theme of the game - the undead, doomed to repeat the same actions over and over until his soul is freed - is taken into account. The there is some alienation between the character and the player: former moves and looks as a soulless machine, designed to eliminate his enemies, while the latter can experience excitement, boredom, fatigue and annoyance. In this respect repetitiveness and lack of variety are exactly how the game is experienced by the undead, it's an un-dead experience, soulless experience. This doesn't make me liking this experience though, as it lacks fun and in a few hours turns into a chore instead of entertainment.
This is not to say that this game has no "soul": as I've told, some of its elements (combat mechanics, movement and attack rhythm, variety of enemies’ movement patterns, etc.), just that most of its freshness an intricacy have run low within a couple hours of gameplay.

UknownXL responds:

Thank you for the review. I'm glad you enjoyed the game and I greatly appreciate the feedback. The whole dead repeating events as you put it is something I had thought about when making this game so im glad you pointed it out. Its a theme I would have liked to work in more as well.

I agree with many of the issues you pointed out. In the end we had run out of time and couldn't add much else in. This is a free game and we couldn't continue to work on it with out an equal return. I don't like it but its unfortunately the way it is some times. Thats one reason why we are working on pc and console titles now. (still some free games on the side though) There are a lot of features I would have liked to include but overall im still very happy with the game we put together. Such as hidden items in the dungeon and special rooms. (those bombs were suppose to blow up walls initially)

We do have some ideas for a sequel or even a spiritual successor so your suggestions are heard and appreciated.

[It Needs Care]

This game put's player in a very interesting position: he can either let his pet grow by feeding it, and then, eventually, get devoured by it, or let it die from disease and then get the usual "game over" ending. By such a clever positioning, game makes player, who use to think that he occupies active side in the gameplay, realize, that while playing seemingly on his own behalf he was actually acting on someone else’s behalf. I is almost as if you know that something bad is coming, but continue nevertheless, seduced by the game's space promise of cathartic closure. The main difference here from, say, movie being that it is the player, who is actively moving the game forward. It's interesting how, using its gameplay, this game manages to convey the idea about the activity of space and illusiveness of the freedom of choice.
With that said, though, I felt that as a game it could've been much better experience, if it had some progression in terms of gameplay, not only narratively. On each of the stages of your pet's development you have to perform exactly the same actions (usually in exactly the same order) with no change of rhythm, difficulty or variety. Due to your pet developing no new needs and requirements, the whole caring process quickly becomes boring and repetitive.
The only two things that kept me playing were narrative and audio/visual design. While the former was interesting and thrilling, but quite simple to follow and somewhat predictable, the former was amazing to watch at and listen to. Measured pace of background movements and wonderful ambient sounds created nice contrast with the simplistic tamagochi-like interface and sounds. It was almost suggesting that behind this friendly facade something sinister and ancient is hiding in the oceanic depths. This audio/visual theme well complemented the overall sinister feeling of helplessness in the face of coming doom and added some aesthetic variety.
I'd like to thank author for creating this wonderful game and wish him many more successful releases. In my opinion, your game is very smart and neat looking, but it's gameplay, the mechanics, that make any game a game, somewhat lags behind it's narrative and visual appeal.

Wolod responds:

Thanks a lot for this detailed review! I'm glad that you liked my game! You're totally right about the repetitiveness. This game was made just in a week for a jam. That's why I hadn't much time to implement all the features I wanted. I'm planning to release an update soon which will include multiple endings that will depend on player's choices and more variety in player's actions.

[Remove the dragon, wizard!]

What a wonderful joke! Very simple yet quite unexpected and effective. The overall estrangement effect is very captivating and worth playing for, but the game itself (the first part of it) feels somewhat rudimentary and schematic, almost as if it was not trying too hard to hide its "meta-gaming" nature. The surroundings and navigation through it are clumsy (sometimes fitting into a passage is unexpectedly challenging, because of wizard's head bumping into the corners), but this is excusable, since the main purpose of the game is not to create a cohesive gameplay, but to challenge player's perception of in-game reality. And this goal is well accomplished, being supplemented with a sudden change of the spatial arrangement and corresponding gameplay change (from top-down to side-scrolling perspective, and addition of "heights" and "jumping"). A fading music also adds to the illusion of estrangement. Also some of the opportunities, hidden within the "meta-game" space of code editor were, in my opinion, unrealized. For example, there is a "create new actor" option visible in the background of the last screen, which is, unfortunately, unavailable. And why there is no king in the "actors" folder? This is not to say, that the game itself is not good enough, but the chosen narrative and gameplay direction certainly contains more possibilities then was realized here.

[Drink Beer, Neglect Family]

Very nicely done game. It feels playful, humorous and somewhat ominous at the same time, as your "progression" means also further degeneration of your character's relation to his family. As in real drinking (I suppose) everything is in the last mug: you can't help but wonder, where it will lead you, and you pursue it against any coasts. I think the game have represented this sort of feeling very well by combining competition-inducing score based progress evaluation system with random obstacles (both internal - family members - and external - drinking effects) in a relatively easily traversable, but increasingly complex space. The characters themselves are almost as abstract as signs (or moving pictures) - very low on pixels and schematic - which, besides giving the game a stylish arcade-like retro look, also creates a sense of defamiliarisation and estrangement. Arcade-like, fun and engaging videogame that hides bitter social commentary behind it innocently looking and playful appearance.

[Hero Simulator]

It's a very short idle game, but in this case this feels like an advantage. All the features are unlockable/purchasable in a single day of real time playing. And since some of the content descriptions are humorous, it's interesting to unlock them in order to read more and look at some cool icons.
But ultimate goal, of course, is the overall efficiency increase, and with each item/action it feels like your money/honor producing machine is getting more and more enhanced, since almost each of it gives you a n% boost. The most significant additions to make the essential accumulation part of the game more addicting and satisfying are the investments system and the "Daily Kingdom News" reports. This mechanics keeps player on a constant edge and willing to spend in the game just a few seconds more in order to get giant instant boost or invest gained resources more profitably.
The design of the game, just as its inner mechanics is very nice, polished and minimal. Nothing superfluous, everything feels very businesslike. The jolly music and goofy hero sound effects, in addition to the comic-fantasy descriptions contrasts with this business manager-y style, creating an overall comic and upbeat feel to this game about greedy and lazy hero, who is clearly more concerned with the accumulation of wealth and honor and stock gambling, than in actual adventures (since all the game he stands still, yawning, while all the minions and recruits do his job). The contrast between cold capitalist calculations, involved in money/honor raising business, and seemingly heroic fantasy theme is very ironic and fun, especially at the later stages, when the search for Grail is becoming a mundane daily business, just more profitable than the others.
Overall, this game creates a fun and somewhat cynical experience of being a calculating business-hero machine, which chops off bandits heads at the rate of 1 per 1/10 of a second, petting a dragon for glory, purchasing a province and accumulating unimaginable amounts of money and honor.

[THERE IS NO GAME]

The game itself is an attempt to figure out what the game is about, and ultimately, when the answer seems to be close, charming voice reminds you that there is no game. The game 'slips' between the player’s fingers, but in a good way.
I liked how the game utilizes seemingly 'in between' elements of a traditional game space. The writing, the sing "There is no game" turns into a space, where the actual game takes place. This space of "no", the seemingly prohibits interaction and any action is actually inviting player to interact, break down, destroy or just play. Then the black nothingness of the screen turns out to be just a facade or a transitional space that hides nothing but its own "spaceness", its playability. The cascade of fantastic events that follows operates on the same logic, when player is encouraged to try different approaches to the traditional game space organizational clichés, like the ball as a counter / ball as a actual playable ball in the arcanoid section, or goblet as formal trophy / as actual functional "thing". Creation of words (what words can you combine from the letters left of the initial title? - "game", "goat" - I wish there were more though!) is also a creation of new spaces as puzzle pieces to advance your progression. The experience is something akin to what Alice must have been felt while traversing the Wonderland. Only the ending I felt was somewhat weak and abrupt.
The game is a clever and engaging study of a computer game's space conventions, which also happens to be entertaining and funny. Author - molodez, fine fellow )

[No One Was Here]

The time split/reversing mechanic is working well, and it is used to create some interesting gameplay situations. Unfortunately, it gets more and more repetitive as you get through the levels. As a result the game ends up feeling like a rehearsal of a bigger game, a play test of one particularly interesting gameplay mechanic.
This one mechanic though works really well, as with time it makes you change attitude towards game's space and the way you are traversing it. With each new level you have to pay more attention to the way you are moving - how fast are you walking, when do you stop and for how long, the distance and heights you're jumping at, etc. - thinking in advance how to create opportunities for an easier homecoming.
Story feels sketchy and barley even required, as it serves only as the most basic motivation for the player to get moving. Animation and graphics, though somewhat simplistic too, look and feel smooth and polished, so that they don't interrupt the gameplay and draw to much unneeded attention.
Overall, I think the basic gameplay idea is done well, but the gameplay experience itself lacks sense of integrity and feels more as an exercise then as adventure.

jeremyaburns responds:

Thanks for the review! We are indeed working on a larger game with a more varied take on the time reversal mechanic. This game was built in a week for a game jam so we didn't put a ton of effort in to the "story". You can follow us on twitter @reverse_game if you're interested in a more complete game based on this demo.

[Cube Escape: Seasons]

As you peer on some images of all familiar things, unsettling feeling arises, as if at this very moments cold geometry of infinite time-space shines through, revealing dark and terrifying abyss of mad man's mind. It is partially due to visual style, that combines simple hand drawn graphical strokes and 3D space animation, which is never quite realized (you can't experience 3D game's space by moving around objects, but only slightly sliding on its edges) but only hinted on, while the most of the gameplay takes place in a standard frontal 2D view. This aspect of game's space almost escapes the perception, yet is visible enough to produce an uncanny feeling, like you are not seeing everything and something hideous is hidden behind this corner or above this window - unfortunately though, this is rarely the case, as game puzzles never utilize this interesting gameplay opportunity.
Unsettling sense of fixation and cold terror of geometric space are also evident in game's claustrophobic setting and name: Cube Escape. It is fascinating to experience gradual regression of conventional logics though the use of familiar ready-to-hand items, like egg, cracking into some coal-black butterflies, or bloody nail in the pot of flowers, etc.
The sense of outside is also both enhanced and compromised: as you first approach the window, you can see a lady with closed eyes standing in the garden. This image establishes a divide between you as the watching subject and her as watched. Yet there is something strange even in this image: strangely flat trees and opaque horizon seem too unnatural. In the second cube's window you see a moon with a window in a room reminiscent to yours. Lady is now within the room, which makes you an outsider, but also suggests the image behind the window to be a mind image, a hallucination or a dream, not a real landscape. Window in the third cube enhances the sense of threatening outside yet again, but only for it to be completely messed up in the fourth cube, when you realize, by looking at the mirror, that ultimately there is no other - for all this time, room was all that was, and window, in fact, newer presupposed any kind of exteriority. Similar sense is also triggered by the violation of linear perspective in the oven-image (second cube). The only real "outside" is achieved through the adjusting of the mysterious cube in each section - which is conveniently situated each time behind a picture, as if, yet again, the transition was happening from one memory to another, and not in the real time.
It is interesting how gameplay and story are almost separated from one another, as items you uncover and the way you interact with them only slightly reveal the events of a supposed "story" but never explain or show things too explicitly. It is via this obscurity and evasion also the sense of surreal strangeness is achieved.
Overall, this game is amazingly done, also some of the gameplay opportunities, enabled by its visual and kinetic style, are underutilized.

[Little Phobia]

Very small, but very effective game. It utilizes all of its components to produce an interesting realistic experience. It allows experiencing space through the senses of a frightened child and thus represents some psychological truth, while also presenting very well applied together platformer elements, thus ensuring that gameplay experience through the whole game become more and more intense as the rules change and new sensory elements come to play essential role in the play.
I have to say, that my three major criterions in any game analysis are the extent to which game utilizes its gameplay mechanics, how this mechanics interact with the story and artistic style to produce an integral aesthetic experience of a game, and how fun and interesting this experience is to me.
First off, I think that platformer mechanics in this game are some of the best I've experienced in many games on NG so far. The "close your eyes when you are scared" mechanic is very simple, yet very original and ties into the setting perfectly. Each new spook puts both your reaction and sensual awareness to the test; game constantly holds you on the edge of toes, as with each new corridor segment you have to pay more and more attention to your surrounding objects, movements and even sounds. It is particularly good for (re)creating the child experience of walking down the dark corridor, spooking from each and every shadow and rustle and imagining things behind the corners. Achievements add another dimension to the space exploration experience, motivating to try to invent new ways of traversing the corridor and dealing with your environment. My only complaint is of technical nature: sometimes jumps and overall movements seem to lag, which cause some gameplay annoyances when in the sections that require precise and timely jumping.
Graphics and sounds add that something that is required for the game's space to be experienced as an actual environment and thus - to feel actual thrill and fear. Opening music sets mood very well. Sound effects are as appropriate as they are terrifying. Noteworthy, closer to the end of the game sounds, heretofore serving just as elements of atmosphere, become central "attractions", as you are supposed to listen to them closely and react properly at certain circumstances. Visual style of the game is very appropriate and, as with sounds, creates sheer amount of visual (like scary eyes on the corners of the screen) and interactive (like spooky mirror, that cracks upon looking at it) details, serving as a vital instrument for the tickling of player's senses. Finally, the story (or the premise, since there is no story) is, in my opinion, very simple and sufficient at the same time. The goal is ridiculously simple, but it is the child's imagination that creates the entire story with all the obstacles and dangers.
Overall, I think this game is a fine example of how much meaningful experience can be created with so little and in such a basic format. Such a small and seemingly insignificant themes are probably not to be explored in some bigger game formats; a story about a child going to the bathroom at night is hardly deserving what can be called a "full", or just a bigger game. Nevertheless, this small experience is extremely well captured, recreated and expanded in this game, that feels like a small quasi-humorous expressionist novelette.