Ditocoaf's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Quick Sand]

Whee

As fun as I hoped it'd be. The falling sand thing worked well.

I-smel responds:

thanks

Oh hey it's Diticoaf

[Super Mario Crossover]

Excellent!

I can't believe this turned out as well as it did.

One thing I'd recommend, from a game-design standpoint: It'd be interesting if there was something other than curiosity that would compel you to play with all the characters. For instance, if killing a character meant you could no longer select him until you pick up a 1-up. It would add a fun (for me) element of strategy in which characters to choose. I might even want to 'level up' a good character and then save him for an especially hard level.

Great move with the saving mechanism! This is something all flash games should do -- I don't have to worry about cookies, and could even carry my save to another computer if I wanted to!

explodingRabbit responds:

It's funny you mention that. I originally designed the game so that when a character died, you couldn't use them unless you revived them with a 1up mushroom. I decided to take it out for simplicity's sake, but it's something I'll consider for the future.

I'm glad you like the save. It was very easy to implement that feature. In fact, it was so easy that I feel nervous I overlooked something! But I'm glad it works.

[Vectorus]

Great style!

I love it when a game manages to avoid most cliches in visual design. This game did that very well! The look, feel, and sound had me from the very beginning, and they stayed enthralling until I died.

The gameplay was very fun, but my gun felt pretty useless after the very first section. When none of the enemies are killable, it's an avoidance game, but it looked so much like I should be able to shoot things, that I never stopped trying. The bosses always were a relief in that way; it felt good when the bullet hit something and actually had an effect.

Lack of a continue option is the only thing keeping me from playing this longer. I got to the boss like a spiky-snake thingy, and died. While this game is definitely fun enough that I want to keep playing, replaying the first few sections sounds horribly boring right now, after I'd already made it that far. The game can still be hard without making the player redo the entire thing if they screw up one too many times. If you had fewer lives, but with checkpoints after each boss, then the game would be excellent.

Volcanic-Penguin responds:

Thanks! :) And those are definitely some good points!

[Reverb]

Fun, unique

Entertaining and interesting. However, the click-to-shoot wasn't working properly for me, I'd have to click several times before I could fire. If I held the mouse button, I'd shoot much more quickly, but I'd prefer to click for each shot. Fix this, and you'll have a great game here!

greystone227 responds:

I didn't go with the click to shoot method because I wanted to have power-ups for the rate of fire. Thanks for the suggestion though!

[Fervor]

Okay, so...

Clever idea (I've got a window open with the game running still), but the name doesn't really seem appropriate? I'm giving you a 10/10 for ingenuity but a 4/10 for effort.

K-Guare responds:

Eh, don't really care about the name. It just sounds cool. :]
Glad you like the game for what it was, though.
Thanks for the review!

[Dodgeman 2!]

First, the bad news:

I know you made the collisions "unforgiving" on purpose... but I think it's a bad idea. A large part of what would make this game fun is the possibility of "close calls"-- seeng a couple objects coming at you, no room to run away, so you have to slip between them with careful timing. But instead, with this "single pixel" rule, the only way to survive is to stay miles away from any objects altogether. If you wanted to make it harder, you should have just added more objects. Frankly, even if you made a decision to do things this way, I think part of your motivation had to be laziness.
I made it to level seven, but there's no way I have the patience to play a whole level with those spinning things; at least with the game mechanics the way they are.

Okay, now that the complaints are out of the way: this was a pretty fun game. At first I laughed because such a big deal was being made out of such a simple game; one of hundreds of easy-to-code avoid games. But even though the gameplay was rudimentary, the humor and style of the game kept me going. Little touches like the moonwalk made this all worth the while... to a point. In any case, you definitely deserve a supportive rating.

Holmfry responds:

Thanks! :) I'm glad you enjoyed it, thanks for the high rating! I love getting feedback that is both positive and will help me with future projects.

I think your comments are fair and honest and I very much appreciate that. However, I do feel that I need to address the presumption of laziness. There was definitely none of that with this project! ;) This being my first flash game of this type, my artist friend and I worked very hard figuring it all out. The only motivation for me making it this way was simply that it was how I wanted to design it. This project was a revival of a very old game I made in Visual Basic over 10 years ago and I was trying to imitate how it worked.

I see what you're saying about the close calls, the truth is I have pulled this feat off many times - and knowing the collisions are so brutal, it's that much more satisfying. (it's tricky because he turns back and forth, you gotta watch where his hands are going to be) It's even possible to run under the spinning laser swords like a turnstile if you time it just right. That said, it seems that I'm in the minority being able to pull this off, which is why I've said a few times in my review comments that I will be changing the collisions for the next game.

After submitting on Newgrounds, I took many user suggestions for additions and changes, and put them into the game. For the collisions, I would have had to go back and recode the entire game, and I didn't want to do that - especially when the game was how I liked it :) I had other projects I wanted to move on to at that point, as well.

But! Fear not.. I hear the people and even though I'm leaving the collisions in this game the way I like them/designed them, I gotta pay attention to the players (the resounding opinion seems to be "Awesome game! WTF collisions!") so if and when there is a Dodgeman 3, you can bet this collision topic will be addressed.

Thanks again for the feedback and the awesome score! :)

[Green Moon Lab]

Great!

This game was excellent! While the graphics may make it look at first glance like it will be an amateur effort, the game itself proves that wrong quickly. The gameplay is very smooth, and very fun, and the level design is some of the best I've ever seen. The difficulty curve is just about perfect, as well. I had to play through the whole thing, then do the challenges as well (level 18's nasty). Very good job!

Rather than have us wait for a sequel, you could just make some extra levels.

FXcorporation responds:

well... there is 21th level if you complete the 3 challenges

[Monkeymetric]

Level design.

A lot of effort obviously went into the art, however the level design was incredibly, incredibly bad. I just want you to know that, for every complaint the people below me have written, most of what they're saying (whether they realize it or not) is that the level design was bad. (For instance, you don't need to put a "reward" for beating each level; the move-on thing is normal. That person just felt let down because the level wasn't rewarding itself.)

The levels were either too easy to beat (a level like "Ice cubes" doesn't belong in the fourth world. In fact, it shouldn't belong anywhere. All of the levels where you're just waiting for a bot to do something, are a waste of time. Some decision should be made by you.), or the ones that were hard were only so because they involved a shitload of switches that you have complete access too, and you have to flip them all back and forth until you figure out which combination lets you through. Those kinds of levels aren't fun (the "lava switch" level is the perfect example of this), but are just incentive to leave the game.

These levels were "mess with switches" levels: 1-3, 2-3, 3-1, 3-5, 4-5, 5-3, 6-4
These levels were just waiting for the bots to press switches: 1-2, 2-1, 4-3, 4-4, 5-5
These levels were just wading though a crowd (not difficult, but annoying): 1-5, 3-3, 5-4
These levels were just plain too easy, as there is never any question as to what to do: 1-1, 2-2, 4-2
These levels were the closest you came to decent puzzle design; they had something to figure out or do that wasn't just switch combinations. They are too easy and simple, but you're on a better track: 1-4, 2-4, 2-5, 3-2, 3-4, 4-1, 6-1, 6-2, 6-5

Two levels deserve specific mention. 5-1? That's just silly. Not worth a whole level. 6-3 was weird, as it looked like it would be another switch-fest, but hitting only the first four switches solved it-- the "puzzle" was solved before I began.

Like I said, the art was good, and your programming skills definitely show a lot of promise. Just improve your puzzle-making skills, please, or move to a non-puzzle genre.

The-Super-Flash-Bros responds:

No one works out the secret to lava switch...

[Random Adventures]

Fun!

I like basic platformers, so it's always fun to see a well-made one show up. While this was short, it was entertaining in its randomness. The ice, lava, cave, and sewer-themed levels were kind of disappointing for being stock levels (y'know, forest, mountain, etc) in the middle of more creative themes, but the level design was very good for its difficulty level (low).

In many games I'm annoyed by the long wait every time I die, but this game probably takes it to the opposite extreme-- a half-second pause, or maybe a simple "press space", would be nice. I kept not releasing the aroow keys soon enough, and killing myself right as I respawned.

TCurrent responds:

Thanks. I'll look into fixing the insta-respawn.

[Scriball]

One of the best!

Really fun, and definitely one of my new favorites. I normally am incredibly bored by those draw-a-ramp games, but this is something completely different: it's more open and freestyle, and the puzzle aspects mesh nicely with the action aspects to create a perfect skill game. The ability to jump (giving yourself more motion potential as you go) was the key that made this more than complete.

When my ball suddenly turned into the super-bouncy-ball in level 32 (be happy), I felt very let down. The bouncy gameplay is significantly different, and I was looking forward to another 12 levels with the normal ball. I don't know if this is a glitch or an intended feature, but to me it's enough to knock 4 stars off my review...

TheGameHomepage responds:

It only lasts for a couple of levels that were designed specifically for that ball :)