jamus-se's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Maganic Wars Final]

A Mix Bag...

In short: while the game mechanics are slightly broken, the game itself is visually appealing, which largely makes up for the lack of strategy thereof involved in the actual gameplay.

I love the blood splatters, the sound effects, the little animations, and the opponent comments. Those are the strong points of the game.

My biggest gripe is with the card system itself: it's too dependent on luck, too situational, and strategy doesn't take you very far.

For example, there are cards that are obviously worst than another one (heal+<heal+, asp+<asp++). It's excusable in a TCG when availbility is the balance factor, but here it's painfully broken as there's no good counter when your opponent, say, has a hand of 5 Dmg+18 cards.

The card set itself is strangely short of chainable cards (there's only crit. strike). The rest of the game boils down to a buff and debuff game that's strangely reminiscent of RPG fight mechanics. Rune buffing is especially unnerving since there's a card that simply max a level and the only counter is a rune-20, which you may or may not have (there's no library manipulation, meaning you take your chances on what you can have).

Give some thought to why each card exists and why, despite of all other cards in the set, the card you hold is still useful. When a card game is devoid of a resource system, all cards should have qualities that makes it uniquely useful, and that should remove people's gripes about the card mechanics.

Give it some thought. Your next work maybe your greatest yet.

Maguas responds:

I'm reading carefully all of your comments and I agree with many of them.

In particular Jamus you are right when you say that the game needs a more clear strategy factor and more unique cards, but I don't want to change the basics of the game so I'll have to think about it very carefully. More balanced cards are needed too...it happens too much often that you got a card that you never use, that's quite anoying.

Anyway I want to clear something about the deck:

1.- The deck has from 24 to 35 cards (depending the level) and all of them are different.

2.- When you receive a card it disappears from the deck.

3.- The enemy has 5 cards from the same deck as you. ONLY 5 CARDS! . He only decides which of them is better to play (depepending the level too). Someone said he had 5 Dmg+18 cards...that's impossible. It is possible that he has a +18 card and when the deck is shufled he receives another +18 card as when it shufles the deck includes even the cards of the table (I'll have to change that I know).

4.-The deck is shufled randomly so you have the same chances as your opponent to get a good card.

Finally I have to say that I think I don't deserve such a good rating...there are lots of fantastic developers out there...thanks to everyone! The game is not concluded at all and I have lots of things to improve, this is only the beggining, but I enjoyed so much playing my own game (specially on my palm) that I wanted more people to know about it and I wanted to know what people thought about it.

BY THE WAY...this is for the people who have found the secret button on the "i" at Raistlin's shop...well done! ;D ...in future versions you will be able to find a little key on the floor...I'll keep you informed...SEE YOU!

[Pico's Cousin]

Getting there...

Hey, it's a good start. True homage to Pico's School. Take your time on your next project, refine some elements, and you'll get yourself a smashing hit next time.

I agree with some comments about the guns, the candy, and the IR security - I admit, the IR security is a smart quirk, but casual flash viewers usually don't know about the right-click/zoom in option. Perhaps if one of your post-its has some hints about right clicking... it should help.

Giving the player more freedoms to move around helps too. I like to see places that are not part of the story- shooting things randomly is a nice touch; if the candy store is not an essential part of the story, it would have been a fun addition. Or, if you shoot out the lights in a room and later your enemy has a disadvantage because you blew out the lights earlier (or similar things), it would have been great.

My greatest gripes would have to be sound effects- a lot of essential sounds are missing from the game, it shows especially around the credits, when it's just absolute silence. Hint: download tons of game demos. Especially ones from cheap ass companies that you've never heard of.

Still, kudos, man. This game really captured the pico spirit.

Magna responds:

Holy shit! That was very constructive! I'll definitley use some of those tips.
And i'm glad you think i captured the spirit... but did i reeally deserve the 6?

[Stardust]

......

So much good materials, and not enough content to show it.

Tracing drawings like those are pretty tire-some and labor intensive; I can well imagine most of the production time going into that part of the game. Sadly, the eye candy warps from one to the other in a matter of seconds, leaving some well paid effort unnoticed.

Of course, a more sensible story would be nice. But you alredy know that, right?

The music are rather chaotic... they cut in from mid-song and cut out in mid-song. If you're going to start the sound track midway through, try employing some fade-in techniques.

The clean layout, the short combat sequence, and the overall presentation of the game all shows that you have a lot of potential to create something really great. Now that you've had a first taste of success, just sit back, and take your time on your next project.

I am more than willing to collaborate if you need some programming help, by the way.

Wiesi-Mausland responds:

hey thanks alot for your suggestions!
i played your ronin game and its just incredible! i really hope you´re making a sequel of ronin or a different game as ingenious as ronin.. who knows.
if i´m in need of programming-help i´ll let you know! thanks dude!

[Spindle: Character Beta]

Getting there...

The basic engine seems to be doing well. Most of my recommendations will come in the form of game tweeks.

In the traditional fighting game the player usually has a better vertical reach while the computer enemies has a better horizontal reach (see: Angry Domo-Kun Smash Fest FAQ). I don't feel that this is present in the game; but of course it'll be up to you to decide if you want to stick with the classics or try something innovative.

It's most probably because you're placing dark characters in a deep blue background, but the animation cels are hard to tell apart - and some people may get frustrated to memorize combos involving 6-7 keys. I would recommend breaking it down to a combination of two smaller sets (i.e. there'd be two sets, AAA and SAS, then you'd have combinations of AAAAAA, SASAAA, SASSAS, etc.) It's easier to remember combinations that way.

It's a bad idea to have AIs all gang up on the player, although that's what happens in real life. Have some idle states for the AI so some would stand around for a bit before attacking, and some would walk away then run back and tackle, etc. You can also consider having some enemies intentionally moving around the player toward his back too, for more variety and challenge.

Try punching random objects in the house, record them and amplify the sound. You'll be surprised at the interesting sound effects that you'd get.

I'm a little worried about the frame rate though - your characters might be a little too detailed, especially the enemy characters. When it starts to lag with 4 characters and no background, you should start worrying about the frame rate...

Best of luck. It's looking good.

AngryBinary responds:

That's some great feedback, tho I'm kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to AI and framerate. The more complex I made the AI, the fewer characters I could fit on screen before it started lagging, even after some pretty clever workarounds to offset different characters' scripts to keep them from running concurrently. Flash is very sluggish with processing game-style code. So, I just made the enemies tougher and more aggressive, with the idea of only having 2 or 3 on screen at once.

Good idea with the sound FX, i've been punching alot of things around the house since i've started making this, now i guess i should just put a mic on it.

[Flash Flash Revolution]

Better than my own game.

This is an example of what I wanted to do in my original game, but never got the time (or effort) to actually go about doing it. Great job... this is way better than my original!

BAHArts responds:

Thanks. I think I figured out the problem with the quality. I'll just hope they could follow the instructions.