boticelly's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Flatwoods]

This game is about exploring interactions possibilities, offered by a two dimensional, grid-based surface, by navigating a rectangular character block with limited actions (walk, describe, pickup, open, transfer, etc.). The character is the real eyes and senses of the player in this game, since he only deals with character's descriptions of the surrounding objects, while looking at simplistic, abstract models of absolutely identical images. That is why this game relies on its character's personality, expressed through his words, portraits and cut scene animations, and provides a pleasant experience on this behalf. Each description and its delivery adds to the uncovering of a story with some detective elements (like the connection of a shooting star to a lumber-mill day off), but also with many questions left intentionally unsolved (where did Lemon's father go, and why? What is the old man's story with the tractor? Who used to live in the abandoned cabin? etc.). This creates a feeling of a larger-than-this-story world and adds to the immersiveness of the game. It also emphasizes sense of a spooky adventure, mystery and unknown (the fantastic music and animations are largely to blame for this), while also staying warm and childlike with its light humor, friendly animations and cartoony appearances. Throughout the whole play I was expecting for some dark turn in the story, but thankfully author has wisely decided not to play this card and instead focused on a more subtle feeling.
The game itself provides little to no challenge, which, in the case of this particular story, seems appropriate. The game's only real puzzle is the forest, but it literally solves itself due to a good level design: from the very first location player is told to be on a lookout of an item, that will allow him to remove the trunks in order to get to the sparkly things; next few areas show him where all the items that he want are situated, so he can easily come back to them later; finally, the way wraps in a big loop, allowing player to instantly return to the initial location after acquiring the required item.
Overall, this game is very simple in terms of its mechanics, but this simplicity is compensated and ideologically justified by the story, since it paves the way for precisely the experience it strives for.

Gerkinman responds:

This review is super in depth and I cant thank you enough for taking the time to write up something so well thought out. I am glad you had a good time! :)

[Wickebine Kigyouden]

The game is about unlocking, memorizing and performing time-sensitive key combinations at required moments of gameplay to defeat enemies with different attack and movement patterns. Game delivers well at this regard: the sheer kinesthetic feel of each combo is very attractive, and the reward-punishment system seems fair, also it took me some time and a lot of frustration at first to adjust my senses to the animation delay. I had no to test if all the skills are well balanced, but upon completing first area I failed to found any useful application to one of them (sliding). Overall graphical style seemed inconsistent, especially if characters models and animation are to be contrasted with somewhat clunky backgrounds and dry, businesslike menus.
With all that said game is full of frustrating bugs. One of the most common ones is caused by jumps/meteor attacks and is sending my character through the floor and eventually killing him. The other one sends character at the beginning of the level under the similar circumstances. The second area (swamp) was especially full of these bugs. Eventually, they've spoiled my experience and made mw quit the game.

ShadowWhoWalks responds:

My bad. This engine is poorly optimized (written in AS 2.0) so it interacts horribly on some browsers. You're not supposed to get input delays, it's supposed to play smooth like butter.

If you're willing to give it another go, I strongly recommend downloading the offline version in the channel description.

[Blackstorm II]

This game is about intercepting projectiles that move along several vertical lines by moving a pad along a single horizontal line, while protecting a horizontal line beneath it (supposedly). This setup sets two challenges that player is to accomplish simultaneously: to protect a lower horizontal line from projectiles and objects, leaning onto it from above and to collect green projectiles in order to harness energy and ultimately progress through the level. This combination of challenges (protecting and collecting) and mechanics (sliding alone the horizontal line, shooting alone the vertical lines) composes an engaging experience. Also different enemy types and movement/shooting patterns, different types of weapons and upgrades enhance this experience greatly.
Collected projectiles produce energy, while projectiles that hit the ground drain energy. Energy can be used to charge shields, charge level-finishing gun and charge player's weapon. Each way of energy distribution is supposed to be useful, but in my experience I was only using it to charge gun and weapon, since shields can repair themselves over time. The projectile collecting mechanic creates a nice little economy, that player has to manage on the fly, as he shoots and slides from side to side. For me this was the most interesting part of the game: forcing me as a player to look at each enemy and projectile from both tactical and strategic points of view, i.e. both as a threat to be dealt with and as a source of energy to harness in order to finish the level.
In my first hour of play I was very nervous not to miss any projectile since I thought that alien ships pose some actual threat to the city below. But after surviving some vicious onslaughts and reaching wave 11 in one go, I decided to test game limits. I stopped and did nothing for several minutes. Enemy ships continued to bomb my city, but nothing indicated that my progress was under any threat. Later I repeated this experiment on a higher difficulty with the same result. Discovering that game has no losing conditions have significantly decreased my interest in playing, since it eliminated essential part of the challenge: protecting the lower horizontal line from invading projectiles. It made enemies look less like a threat and more like a mere nuisances that slow down your progress towards the next wave by draining your energy.

AleGui responds:

That's a very complete review, I appreciate it.

I think it's fair, you just forgot one element. When the city takes damage the canon energy drops, if it drops enough the game goes back to the previous wave. It can revert up to 3 waves, so for instance if you were in wave 10 and go AFK you will go back to wave 7 after taking enough damage.

But you are correct, taking damage does not kill you, it just slows or reverts your progress.

[Dreams and Reality]

This game adds an interesting element to the basic mechanic, common to most of the platformers: instead of just trying to make perfect parabolas with their avatar’s jumps, player is also forced to draw dotter curves and then use the dots for further time-limited jumping. With that said, however, there is not much to do with this interesting new mechanic: the level design is poor and never really challenges player to take full advantage of his ability and draw, for example, a long zigzag curve with many platforms to reach new places and/or avoid obstacles. Instead he is forced to repeat one or two same actions over and over again: draw a 45/60/90 degree ladder, jump platforms as fast as possible, repeat. No new mechanics are thrown at him, and even this one is, in my opinion, greatly underused. This game's 'monochromatic' mechanics combine surprisingly well with its monochromatic visual design, but for the game focused on dreams you are assumed to expect something more. Hopefully, this mechanic will be explored more fully in your future games!
The one gameplay feature that has pleasantly surprised me was the "safe platform" mechanic: each time you fall from a high platform, small white cloud approaches to catch you and bring to the nearest platform. When I've first discovered this little detail, I felt that the designer of the game have actually foreseen some of my actions and incorporated an answer to them in the game. This was a little moment of an in-game dialogue between the designer and the player. With that said, however, the dialog seemed nonexistent when I was exploring the far edges of the level that turned out to be meaningless dead ends.
The music, graphics and animations in the game are very good, but in combination with the monotonous gameplay and level design they feel lulling, rather then reinforcing the feel of wonder. The way the game mechanics try to communicate the core idea about "dreaming small" is interesting: you can't "dream" your "ladder" too high, or else it will fall apart before you will be able to use it. But this message is not clear until the "moral" of the game is revealed at the end. The fact that at the end game have had to explain its message to the player is for me an indicator of the game's weakness: it fails to make its message clear through the gameplay itself, through the very way the player operates within the confines of the game. The dreaming mechanic itself does not resemble actual dreaming and after a while feels like a monotonous action, that you had to repeat over and over again in order to reach the goal. In this sense, the "reality" aspect of the game seems to be more valid than that of the "dreams".

AlceX responds:

Thanks for the review! You really seem to have understood what I was aiming for with the game, and that makes your feedback really useful.

[Playing With Letters]

This game is about solving puzzles by collecting and contextualizing visual clues and answering riddles. Both of this mechanical elements works well together: player is taught to notice both visual and textual clues and combine them in a proper way to get the answer. Sometimes text's meaning contains all the required information ("Math" and "Aibophobia" levels), sometimes only a visual clue (color) can give this meaning new direction ("Name Calling" level). This way the gameplay combines very well with the detective story against which it is set. Although operating only in the textual medium, player is forced to take notice on something unusual in the text itself, i.e., its visual properties, that serve as clues (not unlike a detective that looks for inconveniences in a convenient scene). This way the intensity and thrill of a detective story is masterfully achieved with what seems to be an absolute bare minimum means of procedural expressiveness, and are further enhanced with the story, the music and with the text animation and coloring (white against black background).
P.S.: I've played this game after I tried playing "A Sweet Typing Thrill" and got stuck on the "abjurer" level. Probably, the second game has put me in an appropriate mindset, and the puzzles here did not seem as difficult to me. Although the challenges in this game are objectively easier than in the second one, their subjective difficulty for me is larger due to the fact that English is not my native language. With every word-based puzzle I had to ask myself: "Do I even know the word that is hidden here?".

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Heh, thanks for leaving your thoughts, boticelly! Seems like you take the "review" format seriously ^ ^
Your analysis was entertaining to read! It's to a large part, pretty spot on :)
It seems like you enjoyed many of the different elements in the game too, which is awesome :D

I'd agree that the second instalment is more difficult, even though to a certain extent, these valuations are subjective :3
The games, although similar, differ from each other in theme. This one is more focused on wordplay, while the other one is more about outside of the box information gathering, and other types of puzzles.
I'm well aware that English is not everyone's first language; after all, it's my own third language. But seems like you did just fine either way, so great job!

Thanks again for playing, and for writing a review :D

[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.

[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.

[Antumbra]

Very enjoyable puzzle game. I've never been a good puzzle game player, but this liked, mostly because it rewards each and every type of behavior and choices. It encourages experimentation with space and rules, which, in my opinion, is the most interesting thing a game as a social practice can accomplish.
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.
I've found a combination of point-and-click and text-adventure mechanics inventive. Also this combination felt bewildering at beginning, after the first puzzle I quickly grasped the idea that the space of the screen is usually a part of the puzzle too, not only a shallow decoration. Then I also learned that audio and timing are also important for to keep attention at. That adds great deal to the feel of insecurity and danger, as I had to keep my sensual awareness at high level all the time. After the first 3-4 puzzles, however, game ceased to feel either challenging or scary for me. As I get used to die over and over, I was no longer afraid of the surroundings and possible jump-scares. At this point I started to pay more attention to exploration and trying different options, even looking for different ways to die. This approach was well paid off with cleverly placed and written achievements, most of which were not only quantitative indicators, but also interesting, funny and insightful comments on my actions as a player, and on some of the gameplay conventions in general. For example, I was clicking at random on the swamp screen :) Even at this moment, after two hours of gameplay, I still sense that there are some secrets of this game, that I haven't unlocked yet, which motivates me to play it again, this time trying something new.
Second aspect, story, sound and visuals, was my least favorite, also I thought it was executed on a decent level too. At some point, as I've already mentioned, scares are becoming less and less terrifying. At this point my emotional connection to the game's space and images was amputated (also the game was still interesting) and it transformed from a deep, emotional tragedy into a kind of dark humored farce. The emotional moments all work well as I've got through them at the first time, but it was the fact that I had to go through them over and over again that made them less and less empathy inducing. What I liked though, was the fact that game somehow adjusted itself to this new tone, while taking itself, so to speak, less and less serious. That was a well crafted move, as, in my opinion, it prepared me for the game's defamiliarizing ending: breaking the conventional screen space and proclaiming itself not to be a game. Also, it is rare to see such entertaining end credits :)
Overall, I've found this game enjoyably hard, challenging and inventive, also maybe little less then I've expected it to be. I'd like to express gratitude to the author for creating this game. Thank you very much, and surely, you should continue your work on the next Antumbra game!

Vilehead responds:

Wow.... Boti. Wow, thank you. I love reading this kind of reviews. Detailed, well writen long and interesting. It is I who thank YOU :) I promise I'll do my best to keeps this level of quality.
Lots of love mate <3

[Love me, fast!]

The funniest game I've played on NewGrounds yet :) It's not saying a lot, since I'm only here for a few months, but this game definitely leaves a mark for me.
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.
The game's main memory-oriented mechanic unveils itself gradually, as it is almost impossible to hit high score in the first couple attempts: you have to learn on your mistakes few times and figure out some repetitive patterns in girls’ questions and answers. I actually started to pay it as an actual dating sim: carefully reading all dialogue options, suggesting, etc. But at some point I realized, that there's a time limit and score is not cumulative, so I had to answer ALL questions in only 20 seconds! What the hell?! But then I realized that there's a time bonus for each right answer, and game opened in a totally new light to me. I started looking for some hints that could've helped me to answer right questions before even reading them, to enhance productivity. And I've found those hints in words different color schemes, certain key words and themes that interested different girls most, etc. Discovering this hidden patterns and deeply though-out connections, and then memorizing them was extremely fun.
Audio/visual style, story and characters are very good as they are, but what makes them even greater is the fact that they interact cleverly with gameplay mechanics and endows them with lively humor. Each girl’s character develops gradually, and knowing and understanding each of it actually helps you to get higher score. Also the idea to combine incompatible: aggressive, assertive powerlifting-training tone with such a delicate matter as dating was very clever, as it ridicules the very concept of dating simulation, while also providing clever farcical satire on excessive, ostentatious masculinity. Music and visuals are excessive and flamboyant as well, but this actually serves both to enhance overall game's tone, and to make visual memorization and recognition easier.
Overall, the greatest thing about this game, in my opinion, is that its gameplay, its story and its music/visual style dynamically complement each other to drag you into its farcical merry-go-round travesty experience. It achieves dialectical interaction between gameplay mechanics, story and audio/visual style to produce meaningful and extremely fun gameplay experience, which stands as a great artistic achievement for me.

CreativeVomit responds:

Wow, this is... this is the most in-depth analysis of this game i had received ever. The thing i like about this (and other reviews too) is how random people can get and notice the faintest details about some design or aesthetic decisions that i took, not mattering how subtle they are. Knowing this is invaluable, because asserts the fact that with enough sensitivity any artist is able predict the extents of how any of her creations can get into any person, thus enhancing her abilities to envision and deliver any message or experience through this art form in exactly the way she wants or maybe even beyond. Thanks!.