EmmDubya's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Gravity Bob]

I like it, but this premise isn't too original.

The first thing that struck me upon opening this game was that the character artwork didn't seem too impressive, however looking around the fill for the scenery definitely gave me good vibes, with a nice calming look and later on little subtle details like small pairs of eyes in the walls and such that I believe gave a nice ambience to the visuals. One thing regarding them that I wasn't too keen on was the absolute lack of player animation. I know as a blob kind of thing, it's pretty difficult to make an animation, but the fact that there's just nothing wasn't good for my first impressions. It struck me that you're likely a programmer and that animation may not be your forte, and if so then perhaps collaborating with one of the countless great artists this site has to offer could be a good idea. You're certainly not half bad with stationary art, however, so this may not be a fair conclusion to come to.

It sounds slightly odd, but one qualm I have with the flash is that the UI feels a bit too... 'floaty' for my preferences. I have no suggestions as to how you could improve this, but it's something I noticed and now I'm not quite able to put properly into words. There's a lot of transparency going on and the buttons don't, to me, feel like buttons. I won't elaborate further on this as my thoughts are jumbled as to how to put it across properly, but make sense of this if you will and I will be thankful.

Out of the audio the menu theme, although barely audible due to how quiet it is, and very short, was my favourite piece. It gives a sense of tension and makes it feel as if an important event is brewing and coming nearer and nearer. The in-game music is definitely very different in that it's far more energetic and I think this fits the lighter side of the game eluded to in the character art and such, as opposed to the darker feeling the background art gave me, which reminded me of the third instalment in the DooM series somewhat in the darker sci-fi sort of area.

This clash of two different themes: the vivacious one given off by the in-game theme and character artwork against the slightly creepier and tenser atmosphere of the backgrounds and menu theme, to me detracts slightly from the overall experience. It feels rather mismatched and muddled, where at any given moment you're receiving both of them at the same time.

The concept of a platformer that swaps gravity around has been around for a while, with my own first experience being the Shift games, which I wasn't ever particularly fond of, although they were rather fun. Since then, I have seen it done over and over again. I think that you carried it off pretty well, although as I said, the fact that it has been done to death in the past reduces the score for unoriginality.

Last but not least, I'm going to come onto the gameplay. The first thing that struck me was the left and right movement feeling rather bloated and sluggish, and sure, perhaps that fits the whole space theme of the game, but I believe that slightly speedier movement would be an asset. As I previously mentioned, the idea of a gravity-switching platformer has been done often in the past, however one thing that I haven't noticed in other people's flashes (not to say it doesn't exist)is the ability to swap in the air, which was present in this. This is what I believe causes this submission to stand out slightly from the rest, albeit not much. In my experience with it, it allowed for more tactics and some levels were even based on getting the balance of each one in mid-air perfect, which definitely took advantage of it.

Overall, I did quite enjoy playing this, although admittedly it didn't captivate my interest for too long, possibly as I've played so many similar games. I really liked the soundtrack, however at any given moment the audio and art direction for particular objects seemed to be giving conflicting ambience out. The movement was slightly sluggish, but I can look past that.

7/10. 3/5. I definitely enjoyed playing this, and hope that you expand on this formula further in future.

ProfessorFlash responds:

Wow, thanks for the long and detailed review. I can't take credit for the graphics as I didn't make it. I did collaborate with an artist but he doesn't have an newgrounds account as far as I know so that's why I'm alone in there :). You can however check the credits page in the game to see info about all the people who were involved.

I set out to create a fun platformer, and originality was something I was willing to sacrifice. I've spend too much time thinking about original concepts and not getting anywhere because it's hard to come up with something original and fun :). I hope people enjoy the game despite it not being that original.

Thanks for your thoughts and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[Bieber Metamorph]

Hilarious but tedious.

I ended up on this flash in the search for medals and ended up with a far different experience than I expected. I first began the game after having read very little believing that it'd be pretty self-explanatory, and although it likely was I ended up initially pretty confused. At first I simply wasn't looking around for the van and ended up just waltzing around with a pair of little'uns at my feet, rather confused. After seeing the initials (which made me laugh, 'jail bait' and 'Justin Bieber' both fitting them), I finally worked it out and began to play properly.

Generally the controls and movement feel pretty clunky and sluggish. At first I barely noticed that I was moving simply due to the slow speed, and that was the main issue I found throughout. Even with speed upgrades (I ended up with either three or four at the end), it just seemed uncontrollably slow and I didn't notice the difference particularly at all.

The whole premise I found very funny. I recall a while ago reading a false news article (likely via The Onion), about Bieber being a middle-aged man in a mask and such, and this seems to be pretty similar, albeit with natural ageing substituting the coverup. Although very disturbing, the idea of him dragging such innocent little girls into the back of his van admittedly gave me a good laugh and left you open for some good gameplay mechanics.

Quite possibly the highlight of the whole thing were the sounds you make as you reach the van. They were crude and beg the question of 'what were you thinking?', however each time I heard it once again I had a slight chuckle to myself - which says a lot about my sense of humour, but hey. Otherwise in the audio department it was all positive, too, with fitting (albeit not outstanding) music going along throughout the whole ride.

Although simplistic, I really liked the general direction you went for the art. The large-head-small-body thing is something that I am rather fond of in games like this and it complemented everything else relatively well. There was also good variation in characters, and although sometimes I'd see identical characters it rarely happened in the same level until I got to the point where the street is essentially a huge clusterfuck with more people (and more police D:) spawning. Everything looked nice and clean (which cannot be said for the humour ;D).

In conclusion, I liked just about everything about this flash other than the most important thing: the gameplay. Although fine, the overall clunkiness, slow movement speed and the lack of variation that seemed to come around as I continued to play just came together to make the whole thing feel tedious, despite otherwise being a humorous and polished piece of work.

6/10, 3/5. I'd say for you to keep on creating great flashes, however I see you submitted one just yesterday.

[Seam]

An incredibly atmospheric game.

After looking at the small filesize I didn't think possible that you could fit such a great game in that small space. The main thing I believe you should be congratulated for is how well you capture the eerie atmosphere. The dark and gloomy graphical style combines with the high pitched music - it came together perfectly, and the props (such as nails and spiderwebs) added further how hostile and dangerous the game world appears.

The platforming itself is a little on the awkward side, especially while changing directions, although arguably this stopped the pace from getting a bit too much and detracting from the heavy and slightly lumbering feel - perhaps making your ragdoll of a character (quite literally) feel less vulnerable and unable to function than otherwise. After getting used to it, things started to feel a bit more natural, however getting stuck when climbing as you get to a piece of wood above, as you do right at the start, harmed the flow slightly, even if simply jumping could get you out of that position. One of the most important things with platformers is to conserve your player's movement so that you stop as little as possible - but that's just me nitpicking.

One thing that may have been minor but I really liked the idea of was the use of a keyhole as the medium through which to progress. As it is something not usually used directly in order to travel, it gave a feeling of escape to the game - like you were not progressing through a set path but instead making your way through the only way you can find. Perhaps that's unintended, but I certainly noticed it and liked the idea a lot.

As previously mentioned, I loved the art style and really do think that it went well with the rest of it. The choice of a ragdoll, a weak and pathetic inanimate object helped blend the idea of you being exactly that, and no more. As you traversed through the world which seemed to have no pleasantries - the closest thing to a helper being the webs of spiders whom have even left themselves everything just seems so bleak. The fact that you used sewing related objects throughout, fitting with your character, was a nice touch too.

The audio was what I believe really brought this from being a good game to one of the strongest games atmospherically I have seen in a long time. Although extremely repetitive, it had that high pitched, almost squeaky quality that I associate with horror immediately. I think that although the aforementioned repetition did start to get on my nerves a little bit further on, it felt a little bit... insane... shall I say, running again and again until it really started getting to me and perhaps making me feel slightly like Seam would - although perhaps that's extreme exaggeration.

Overall, a great game with some of most attention paid to getting the feel perfect I have seem in a long time. Well done to your entire team - this is definitely amongst the top few Flashes that I have came across in my time, as you can see from the fact that I bothered to actually write a review for it.

4/5 - 9/10

[What is Success?]

I'm not quite sure what I think, but it's positive

This was a really nice kinda break from the regular flashes that I see coming in, and the one thing I have to say is that the game is a really unique creation, and the spawn of thought rather than simply looking at what had already been done and building on that, and I really liked the almost philosophical feel the text gave, in addition to the unexpected method of finally completing it.

I also feel I have to commend you for your excellent efforts on the soundtrack, I respect the fact that you composed your own piece of music for the background, and even moreso for the fact that it's a very fitting tune for the kind of game, although that's not to say that it's not a really nice, beautiful piece on its own. After I've submitted this review I plan on downloading it for myself, to go along with my existing ambient-esque files.

There's not too much to say about this, or perhaps there is too much and I'm just struggling to find exactly what that is, however I have to say that I voted to protect this, and I suspect that this will comfortably pass, as it's far superior to the majority of Flashes that do, albeit more on the weird side. Keep up this kind of thing in future, I'll add you to favourite artists just in case you're planning on bringing out more flashes along these lines, or anything completely different.

8/10, 4/5, well done. :D

viewtifulday responds:

You're right, it is on the weird side. Though I'm glad you appreciate the thought and work I put in.
And I'm glad that you like the background music, too!

Thanks for the review! I enjoyed reading it :D

[Typo| (fixed)]

A pretty fullfilling test.

Firstly, I watched and voted (five, by the way) when this was in judgement, though I didn't get around to reviewing it at that time. It was only today when I was scouring through my favourites that I saw it and decided to re-take the test and write a review.

The concept of a Flash application that tests your typing speed and accuracy is quite unoriginal, though this Flash was executed brilliantly and I completely loved the feel of it. The three modes were all actually quite original despite the Flashes' concept being the opposite. The first mode was nice due to the fact that it was image based, the second because of the physics of the falling letters were very high quality and the third since it relied on accuracy more than speed. It had a good few extra bells and whistles that helped it along nicely like the fact that you could change the background colour and pattern whenever you wished.

The third level was actually quite easy to cheat, since you could highlight and delete with the delete key as well as overwriting the letter with another. I don't know how to prevent people from overwriting letters but you can quite easily disable the delete key, all you'd need is the keycode for it and some simple AS.

Thank you.

And by the way, I got an A without cheating the third level, and even when I tried cheating it, I finished with a similar result.

[Being a Helpful NG'er]

A fine tutorial.

I have to say that this is one of the most useful tutorials I have seen on Newgrounds. I watched it when it was first released and at that time I really needed to improve on my reviews and BBS posts, if you checked my posts at around that time you would see why. This Flash really was helpful and was what inspired me to join the NGPD and (just several days ago) the NGDD. Although there wasn't much of them, the graphics were well made and set out well. If you two are going to be carrying on making these flashes or similar I would like to contribute to them as much as possible as I found them so helpful. If one of you want to carry on though the other doesn't just try to contact me via PM or user page.

I feel that there could be a section on each of the NG forums to help people post their threads in the right section, as just not telling people to post their threads into the right section may not be enough for many users, they might want extra information on each of the boards. I would also suggest making small updates, maybe once a month, nothing more.

RohantheBarbarian responds:

Thanks a lot for reviewing, if we make any more projects in future we'll let you know :)

[Speed Maniac]

Eye-straining

A decent enough game, though the colours were all pale and hard to see, therefore it was very eye-straining, and my eyes hurt quite badly right now, as well as feeling watery, and blurry.

Therefore, I am not in the right state to review this submission, but I am writing this to inform you about this, so you could maybe edit the colouring and resubmit.

Thank you.

[Madness Apocalypse DEMO]

Nice, but could do with improvement.

Since this is a beta, I will not review in my normal style, but I will give you a review based on what could be improved on, and what should be kept as it currently is.

This game was very enjoyable overall, and felt like you had took a lot of time and effort on the programming and artwork. The physics were realistic and complemented the rest of the application well. There was a slight bug when the enemy and you are horizontally touching, which makes the enemy keep jumping and constantly changing direction, perhaps a simple hitTest may fix this. The artwork was satisfactory, although looked slightly block, I'm unsure about how to do so, but if a little fluidness was added to the characters, the whole application would seem more smoothly rounded off.

There were several small things that annoyed me slightly regarding the weapons that are listed below:
Pistols - Very little damage is dealt with the pistols, increase the value of the variable that declares how powerful the pistol is.
All non-projectile weapons - No damage is dealt at all.
All projectile weapons - I would like to see the actual bullet that is being fired.

Sorry if this review doesn't go in-depth enough, I'm not used to this style of reviewing. Thank you.

MwMike

[NG Office Adventure v1.3]

Completed.

A great game, based on a great event. Oh, and Murad, combine the bleach with the beer, for Luis.

Anyway, on with the review:

Sound:9/10:
Some well picked sound, the main theme kept the flashes mood up.

Art:10/10:
Very nice art, I especially like the art on Luis, which captured his motion well.

Story:10/10:
Trying to round up the NG staff and mods for a party is a hard deed, but it's a great concept for a flash.

Presentation:9/10:
Overall decent presentation, clean and not overdone.

Gameplay:10/10:
Addictive gameplay, that urged me to keep playing until I had unlocked all challenges, I didn't though, *sadfaic*.

Style:9/10:
A nice style flash, there were several elements of 3D (for example, the fridge and Jeff's computer) which were all very well styled.

Execution:10/10:
Executed great, with humour mixed in with the point 'n click aspect can be hard to pull off, but you all did very well.

Overall:10/10:
Just amazing, that's all that can describe this flash.

TL;DR:
Greatness in a flash, plus it had Luis.

[Swords and Sandals 3:Solo]

I am impressed

Animation:9/10:
Good animation. Improvements to the physics of animation could be made.

Sound:9/10:
A good, high quality, backing track that added to the submission. This suits the submission well. Well picked.

Art:8/10:
Good art. Detailed, high quality art and backgrounds.

Humour:Not rated:
Not enough humour to rate.

Presentation8/10:
I liked the way this was presented. The presentation helped out the overall quality and has improved since the earlier games in the series.

Preloader:Not rated:
A good preloader, but I only give scores if the preloader was created by the artist, unless you created the fizzy preloader.

Style:7/10:
I'm not sure if I like the style of art in this series. It's nice but the character style looks quite weird.

Violence:9/10:
The violence in this flash was very well done. I liked the blood effects if you choose to kill them.

V-Camming:Not rated:
No vCam (or none that I could see) used.

Gameplay:10/10:
Very good gameplay. The many opportunities regarding what to do were nice and stopped the flash from getting repetitive. The new options and places to go were very nice. A real improvement from the earlier games. The options for the character model were very nice. An improvement in AI was needed from the previous game and there was one, though it's hardly noticeable.

Execution:10/10:
Very well executed. Many good new features that make the overall quality of the flash just that bit higher.

Overall:9/10:
A very nice game. Though it felt more like an improved version of the earlier games than a new game.

hechaos responds:

MwMike, thanks for the in-depth review. Curious as to what a Vcam is?