boticelly's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Shark Lifting 2]

A very funny game with some great mechanics and wonderful kitschy style. I think this game should be played through in a single breath: this way the experience of EXTREME competition and excessiveness with which this game bathes player already will be enhanced even further.
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, this game's mechanics are quite simple, but also very physically exciting. This applies primarily to the main shark-lifting clicking mini game, which made me strain and scream in excitement more and more with each level. All side mini games are good too, as they create contrast between very physically intense parts, applying to other skills and senses. Unfortunately, due to the lack of their variety and difficulty progression, they become somewhat repetitive closer to the end. Achievements only serve as markers of player’s progress; they do not encourage experimentation with gameplay possibilities.
The style - both visual, acoustic and story - is great. The greatest part of it is that it works perfectly to enhance gameplay experience by creating this wonderful delirium world of excessiveness and extremity.
Overall, I've found the experience of fun extreme this game produces extremely fun :)

[MURDER]

The game's mechanics are absurdly simple, but the game's environment, story and achievements (especially achievements!) encourage you to use them in as various ways as possible. For example, I mastered the backstabbing technique pretty quick, but then discovered that after the successful stabbing game enters a new phase: counter-stabbing, if you will :) But its tricks were not over yet, as there was no counter-stabbing answer to death of old age. So I forced myself not to give in to the temptation and not to turn around few times. And even when it meant death, I was nevertheless rewarded with even more funny and unexpected endings... This games feels like a good dark humored joke: it's shortness and simplicity only enhance the experience.

[Perdition]

Interesting game with some good ideas and ambitious story. 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.
As to game mechanics, I think that some of them could have been improved to create more seamless gameplay. For example, actual platformer mechanics in this platformer game are, in my opinion, somewhat rough and bumpy: the heroine is too tall (or the ceilings are to low), so at many points when jumping over a pit was required her head was the cause of frustrating death on the spikes. Also squatting, crawling or other ways of interactions with environment would have add more variety and depth to the gameplay experience. However, game achievements, in my opinion, work really well, serving as a supplementary motivation source for search for new ways to complete the game.
Visual and sound design are impressive, the atmosphere of rust and decay is conveyed very well. But since visual undertones, contrasts and details are quite few, these two major visual themes pall somewhere in the middle of the walkthrough. The story though is not devoid of satisfying sense of horrifying mystery and is narrated in a very seamless and creative way.
Overall, with all the positive aspects mentioned above, I think this game's major drawback is lack of undertones and variety - both gameplay-wise and visual style/story-wise.

[Clicker Heroes]

This game is a masterfully designed time trap. Which is something that is worthy of respect on its own, but not enough to produce interesting and meaningful experience. This game's three main forms of progression - level progression, characters progression and achievements - are totally quantitative: monsters on each new level are just bigger sacks with gold and HP, characters only differ in how much damage per second they induce (which makes low level heroes with no special abilities useless pretty quick), and achievements does not motivate you to experience some new ways of playing the game - basically, because there is only one way you can play it, so they are just marks on a straightforward pathway that leads into infinity of pointless repetition. Nice graphics and lovingly designed animations go down the drain, since the only way these curiously designed monsters differ is their HP and loot size. Same goes for the characters.
Overall, this game exhausted me as much as it has made me addicted. I think that variety - even in a clicker game could and should bring more meaning and broaden not only quantitative, but also qualitative dimensions of the game's space.

[Blue Box]

Good game. Simple and intuitive mechanics allow for some good puzzles that are never too complicated or too easy. The visual composition is, in my opinion, quite new and interesting. At first I saw only the lower section of the screen filled, and thought that it was unusual for puzzle games I've played so far. They tend to utilize the whole screen space or at least place puzzle in the center of it. Here the composition was actually more like that of a platformer game, then a puzzle. But after the introduction of a purple box mechanic the initial purpose has become clear, but the platformer-like feel left.
The puzzle mechanics itself was interesting and unusual. They required logic, but also a bit of precision and reaction, which I think is the reason why each puzzle feels fresh and dynamic. The music and simplistic visual style also work to produce the overall exciting experience.

[Game about Squares]

Fascinating game! It's wonderful how it does so much with so little. When I rate any game, I rely on three major aspects: the extent to which it 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. This game, in my opinion, manages to succeed at each of this aspects: the very few of its gaming mechanics are quite simple and yet allow for great variety of challenging puzzles; game's minimalistic story and visual style are set just on pair with it's simple mechanics; and finally, the overall experience I get was very satisfying with interesting challenges to solve and some funny comments to read between levels.
I also liked the 'transparent' background. Never saw this effect here before, so it felt refreshing and complimented game's overall visual simplicity and restraint even further.

[Orion Trail (Prototype)]

Great game, it combines accomplished visual style with interesting gameplay and great omnipresent sense of humor :) Music is fitting too. Also not much in terms of gameplay, which is basically just a sequence of dice rolls, this game actually offers some challenging situations and different tactics to approach them. For example, the last mission I've performed was to deliver as much fuel as possible, so I ended up sacrificing my crew (which is not a counting resource) on every possible occasion and ended up with a full fuel tank and a single surviving crew member :) What I have also found interesting, was the resources and skills managing mechanics. Each one of your four main resources has it's specific applications and requires thoughtful handling in order to stay alive. Balancing out your captain's skills with those of your ship and commanding officers creates space for tactical decisions and additional replay ability.
I'm also very impressed with the variety of content - ships, characters, events and outcomes - for this prototype stage of development. For now I've played the game three times and the only thing that was becoming somewhat repetitive was events. Also since each of them has a wide variety of options and even wider variety of outcomes, this does not seem to be a problem.

[The Broadenlands]

Great idea for the "Entire game on one screen" challenge and solid execution! The idea to transform single space into different places gives some great opportunities for interesting storytelling. What this game creates is a kind of meta-gaming space, where a player plays a game of playing a game. This is interesting, considering how computer gaming itself is about creating and exploring new spaces while staying at the same room.
Overall, I think that initial game idea is great deserves greater exploration and development in future games.

[Ender Story: Chapter 1]

As for an entry chapter and game mechanics demonstration this is a solid game. It's very restrained and restricted on every level: clean and seamless UI, pretty standard combat and exploration mechanics, basic story. It feels even a little too restricted at times, but it's hard to tell whether this is a drawback or part of the attempt to recreate SNES-like RPG artistic style. On that level, however, everything is done very well and functions properly. Also, there are two quite questionable design decisions that, in my opinion, can greatly worsen the overall gameplay experience. First one is somewhat overcomplicated controls: J, K and P buttons for use, cancel and menu respectively seem neither intuitive, nor practical. Why not make game controls more mouse-friendly – since mouse is already in use in the game? Other problem is a saving mechanic with very limited checkpoints. Walking back and forth in order to secure your progress feels like and unneeded and easily avoidable chore. Even if these design decisions were parts of old RPG gaming mechanics, they are definitely the ones that should be avoided or at least somewhat improved.
The lore of the game's world even at this point feels extensive, rich and is not devoid of humor. Books are well written and interesting to read, dialogs feel alive. It's pleasant to participate in something clearly created with a passion.

TheEnkian responds:

Thanks, the lore has had a lot of effort put in. Some of it is just to expand upon the world, other parts will actually come into play later. For example, maybe you'll be able to find Captain Booru's treasure in future chapters? ;)

[Bloody Hell]

This is a very fun and simple game, its fun results in part from its simplicity in every aspect: graphics, music, gameplay and even story (or the lack of it thereof). It is good as it is, but its repeatability and lack of meaningful progress quite quickly wear the fun off. I think much more could have been made with its core idea.