WarpZone's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[AS3 Tut: Data Structures]

An excellent primer for non-programmer developers.

Newgrounds needed something like this years ago! AS3 is much more focused on traditional programming than AS2. Now Mind-Blight presents some very common design patterns every programmer should have in his toolbox. Bonus points for using animation to illustrate some very abstract functionality that usually languishes behind the scenes.

If your game lags, I'm not 100% sure these objects and methods will solve the problem, but they're definitely faster than a typical Flash Array. I'd love to see some examples of use cases (simulating a deck of cards comes to mind for FILO, for example,) or examples of step-through, sort, and search methods which could make these objects as versatile as standard arrays.

Oh well, maybe in part 2! For now, this should be required reading for anyone who uses AS3! Keep up the good work, Mind-Blight!

Mind-Blight responds:

Thanks a bunch!

I'm thinking of creating a second which focuses on OOP philosophy and AS3 in general. I've been browsing the forums, and a lot of people seem to be scared of AS3 because of its more rigorous adherence to OOP styles.

[PixEvo - The Fountain]

Thoroughly explores the core mechanic...

... but is that necessarily enough?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a good retro game, and like Braid, this game explores every possible permutation on the core theme exactly once, with no real duplication of puzzles. This game takes the run n' jump side-scroller to its logical conclusion, forcing you to make exactly one of each kind of jump possible in your quest to collect 'em all.

So if it's so definitive, why doesn't it get a 10? Two caveats:

One, video games have been around for long enough, that I kind of feel like jumping and collecting have been explored already. Deeply and definitively. Ad nauseum. To the point where in some games, this type of gameplay is sometimes considered a lame way of padding out the gameplay. (Yhatzee's review of Psychonauts springs to mind.) So does it really need to be explored in its purest form?

Two, and for me, this was a bigger deal, some of the jumps require you to make jumps that are *exactly* the mathematical apex of what is mechanically possible in the game engine. This makes that last pixel an exercise in frustration, and one that you'll repeat basically forever until you get it right.

Yes, it harkens back to when games were hard. Yes, it has iconic style and is executed with panache. Yes, the music is catchy as hell. Yes, it is the definitive treatment of as classic theme.

No, it's not fun.

It's not fun for the same reason that any given ultra-low-budget first-generation NES title you care to think of may not have been fun. Something licensed from a movie franchise. With dodgy hit-detection and insanely unforgiving mechanics. Think Ghostbusters. Or that first Ninja Turtles game, not based on the Arcade.

Okay I admit at the time the first TMNT had its charm. :P

But the point is if you play one of these games today, they don't measure up. Not in terms of graphics or spectacle, but specifically in the way that games like 8-bit Mario or Megaman have stood the test of time. It lacks approachability (despite the thoroughly modern integrated tutorial and pacing,) and that all-important fun factor.

Maybe your keyboard is a millisecond more responsive than mine. Maybe I'm just getting old. Maybe you'll love this game. Maybe you'll snag each pixel in that magic zone between difficulty and frustration.

Maybe this game deserves more credit than I have the patience to give it.

But for me, I got tired of trying missing jumps at 15/16 long before I collected it. And around 26/32, I started to realize that not only were there a LOT of borderline impossible jumps I needed to make, but I had to jump through more hoops (I.E. off of more ledges) in order to set myself up to try the jump again.

Heh. I just realized. In reviewing the game, I've somehow turned a critical eye towards my own gameplay experience.

That's what art is supposed to do, right? Make us question our preconceptions?

All right, screw it. :) As a fun video game, it's 6/10.

As art, however, it is made of win.

Evil-Dog responds:

Well thanks for the unconditional 10 and I see where you're coming from, I may haev overused the pixel-perfect jumps but with such a short game, I felt that the chalenge had to lie right there. Yes I could have enemies, many more puzzles, more intricate platforming devices and a lot of stuff but as a small project I wanted to do in the few days I didn't have the internet, that's the scope I came up with and decided to stick with it. Many people find fun what you describe as painfully frustrating so that is pretty subjective. I know this game will not appeal to the vast majority, although it's length might. But all around I pretty much agree with everything you said other than the conclusion which is that certain types of gameplay have been used beyond their fun value, something as simple and trite as jumping can become fun when a twist is added to it in my opinion. Thanks for taking the time to write a lengthy review. I appreciate it.

[Claytus Hood TowerDefense]

Another "learn by tedious failure" TD.

Pick a number between 1 and 4.

Got your number? Good. Write it down. Now pick another one. In fact, keep picking numbers between 1 and 4 until you have a long list of numbers. I'm not going to tell you in advance how many numbers you need to pick, but just pick about 20 or so for right now.

If your first number was a 1, you lose. Start over. Read this review again, starting at the top.

Good job if you made it this far into the review. I'm afraid you're going to have to keep waiting for me to get around to telling you whether you got it wrong or not. I'm just gonna sit here and waste your time. There's a button you can supposedly click to tell me cut the crap and finish this review faster, but clicking it doesn't seem to do anything.

If your second number was a 2, you lose.

Notice how you have no idea, when you first pick your list of numbers, what's going to cause one number to be right or wrong. Notice how you have to play the entire game just to discover whether or not your previous choices have locked you into a fail state or not. Notice how long and tedious this review has become. It's not very fun, is it?

If your third number was anything but a 3, you lose.

If I were going to try and convince people that this review is worth reading, I might claim that it has "suspense" and "keeps you guessing" what the correct sequence of numbers is "right up until the very end!" I might claim that it's a review you will re-read time and time again.

If your fourth number was not a 1, you lose.

In fact, one of the first two numbers should probably be a 1, too.

Sorry I didn't mention that sooner.

Of course, most people would probably not call this review fun. If you did find this review fun, then you will probably enjoy Claytus Hood TowerDefense, as it uses the same pacing, risk schedules, and feedback mechanisms, as this review. It also respects your time and intelligence just as much.

The fifth number should probably not be a 1. But you won't really know more until I review Claytus Hood TowerDefense 2. Until then, enjoy blindly picking numbers and wondering if you're going to lose or not.

Rafarel responds:

I love your review ! Just one thing : Claytus is based on strategy, not on random numbers :) I'm coding a mode with a lot of money for people who just like to chain kill enemies with a lot of turrets :) Thanks for your time

[ShellCore: Skirmish]

Totally different than Ep1... but in a good way.

I had mixed feelings about ShellCore: Skirmish the first time I played it. It's a huge departure from the epic ridiculousness of ShellCore Command: Episode 1. But that version was buggy and got removed from the portal. Then I found an old version on another website and played it to the end, just to see if it would ever go back to it sroots and unlock the magic of the first game.

It does not.

But like reviewers of Herzog Zwei for the Sega Geneis (a game which apparently served as the inspiration for ShellCore Command,) I would be doing gamers a tremendous disservice if I judged this game based solely on the basis of its predecessors.

ShellCore: Skirmish is not an open world game like Episode 1. Instead, it plays out more like a real-time tactical game. I say tactical and not strategy because the winning strategy is based entirely on the level design. (Generally, it boils down to "drop a tank on the enemy's base," but it's not always that simple.) It's the tactics of implementing that strategy which form the juicy core of the gameplay experience.

If you loved the mindless fun of building a giant ungodly brick of level 1 lasers and parking it directly on top of the enemy's base, you may be in for a disappointment. Skirmish keeps the player on a much tighter leash than Episode 1. Everything from the number of parts to the value of each part to the ratio of weapons to regens is carefully and purposefully regulated by the game itself to keep whatever you build balanced against the enemy. I'm hoping the different naming convention implies what I think it does, that Command and Skirmish are two separate branches for the series, and that both will be allowed sequels in the future.

Or even better, just slap the black and red zones of Episode 1 around the green zones of Skirmish and call it one big game. Let the player cruise around the overworld in an insanely powerful craft if he wants to, grinding enemies for parts. Then have him to whittle that monstrosity back down to something reasonable and balanced for the missions.

After the insane freedoms and excesses of the first game, all this structure can chafe a bit. But if you stick with it, you may find it grows on you. Certainly this one offers deeper gameplay than the first. Whether that increased strategic depth results in increased fun or not is a matter of taste.

ShellCoreCommand responds:

Thanks for the excellent review!
You're right, Skirmish is a spin-off that focuses more on tactics and single battles. Episode 2 on the other hand will be an open world again, continuing the storyline. I hope players will like both despite the differences ^^

[Troll's Rage]

Completely accurate Troll sim.

...in the sense that trolls are stupid, have no control, and never do what you tell them, this game succeeds in being the ultimate troll brawler. Basically it suffers from the same design problems that plague every 2.5d beat 'em up-- vertical movement and attack collision are stacked against the player.

Presumably this is because when they tried testing the game with reasonably wide player attacks, it was "too easy," so they artificially increased the difficulty level by making your attacks never hit when it looks like they should, adding a delay to all your attacks, and giving the AI ranged attacks. The result is a constant struggle, not against intriguing tactical combinations of enemies (though it has those,) but against the game's own internal stupid bullshit.

Maybe I'm being too hard on the big blue Trogg. After all, he has plenty of health, an omnipresent healing mechanic, a variety of attack moves which fill different roles, gorgeous (if delightfully brutish) graphics, a hilarious special attack, plenty of variety as you make your way from left to right, an unobtrusive built-in tutorial, and a perfectly consistent look & feel.

Despite all these good points, though, the muscles in the back of my neck tightened up from the constant frustration of my attacks missing, being too far from the enemy when my attack when off, being too CLOSE to the enemy when my attack went off, having my attack animations canceled by enemy attacks, archers and shamans harassing me with their CHEAP TRICKS while I was trying to EAT...

...

Huh. Maybe the poor control really IS an attempt to make the player feel like a brutish, enraged troll. Frustrating control for artistic reasons? I'm not sure I buy it. Even if that's the case, though, it detracted from my enjoyment of the game, didn't add to it, so I'm not going to reward the developer for it.

Intentional attempt at immersion or not, it just doesn't do it for me. There are better ways to achieve Troll Immersion than by tying one arm behind my back and forcing me to fumble in the dirt, trying to crush fire ants with my awkward, clublike fingers.

Overall, good game, with great production values, but slightly frustrating when it comes to the core mechanics. It gives you a troll's blunted tools, and then asks you to engage in a dance which rewards finesse and fine control. You just don't have what you need to manage the game's environment. I'm sure it's probably beatable, I just don't feel like getting constantly webbed and pelted in the back of the head with arrows for the next five levels to find out.

[The Impossible Magic Tric]

That was AMAZING!

Holy shit! I couldn't believe my eyes when the movie finished loading and it knew I was logged in as WarpZone! That was incredible! I've never seen anything like it. I know a magician doesn't reveal his secrets, but I'd really love to see the code for this. Simply incredible. Easily the best trick I've ever seen on Newgrounds!

Oh, and there was some card stuff after it...

[Bullet Chaos]

Casual aesthetics. Hardcore sensibilities. Why? :/

Start with another permutation of simple geometrical vector graphics, add some nice bloom effects and quirky techno muzzak, and a shop full of viable upgrades, and you've got the next great casual defense game, right?

Well, not *quite.*

Spend some time with Bullet Chaos, and you'll see that under the surface, it's got hardcore arcade-style roots, and not in the good way. A good action game rewards skillful gameplay. *THIS* game instead *punishes* certian upgrade combinations.

For example, you could buy different weapons and switch between them, *or* you could install homing auto-turrets in those slots which stack with your current weapon. Sounds like a good idea, right?

Well, not really. Lots of levels have targets you're not supposed to hit. The best auto-turret releases shrapnel when they hit an enemy, which you had better believe cooks off every friendly target on the screen. Then when you blast through the enemy ships spawned DOOM-style from the friendly fire kills, you get a 5 star rating for that level. What? Was I supposed to not shoot them or was that really what you expected me to do all along?

I'm not saying the game is impossible to beat with this strategy, but it *is* impossible to get a good score in some levels with this loadout. And since the penalty for selling weapons is 25% of the price, and it takes about five levels before you really have enough money to buy anything interesting, experimentation is a long, slow, frustrating process.

And if that weren't bad enough, Bullet Chaos likes to hold out on you until the last wave, meaning the first wave in a level is something that all weapon combinations will take out without much trouble, but the final wave reveals that you're not doing enough damage fast enough. It's just one more way Bullet Chaos lets you think you're doing fine, then comes out of nowhere with something you didn't see coming, couldn't prepare for, and now you have to start all the way over from the beginning so you can buy a different weapons loadout. Strategy is developed incrementally over the course of the whole game, but challenges are presented only at the last moment.

It's a time-sink combined with on-the-job training and plenty of failure. I consider this the worst possible way to artificially extend gameplay.

The sad part is, this game has a ton of quality and nuanced gameplay. It's a great engine, with interesting variety to the levels and a ton of unique weapons. The final boss is awesome (once you figure out how to spawn it,) and not too hard. But the bullshit "Nintendo-Hard" difficulty curve ruins it. It could have been much more fun.

I'd like to see this game, same gameplay, only with *casual* scoring rules and failure states. Make it possible to sell weapons at no penalty; at least the un-upgraded ones, so the player can experiment freely. Make it possible to re-play earlier stages for a better score. Put a progress bar at the top so players can see how much longer the current stage is, and spread the difficulty out a bit more over the course of the stage. (Climactic endings are good, but not when they ending is so hard that my success in the beginning is misleading.) Counting down green dots to a true Game Over is pointless, because if you fail once level once, you probably need to start over from the beginning anyway and buy different weapons.

Bottom line: Replace the pass-or-fail surprises with stages that are easy to beat, but challenging to master. Encourage players to re-play earlier levels to suck more points out of them, perhaps with increasing difficulty levels (and score values) every time they beat the stage. Make experimentation easier and reward long-term progress, rather than punishing rookie mistakes.

This is a great game engine, but with poor meta-game planning choices on the part of the developer. By meta-game I mean menus, shops, and everything but the levels. I recommend gamezhero take some lessons from GemCraft and The Space Game, which had great meta-game rules and scoring systems.

Good game... Coulda been great. :/

[Splitty Adventures 1]

Insert coin not to die.

This is basically not a game, but a very elaborate donation button. You'll get as far as stage 3, then you need to get an account and convert your real money into some kinda fake money in order to buy the *entirely necessary* double-split power-up in order to advance. You can't turn 180 degrees with 8 splits. You just can't.

I guess everyone wants to invent the next new business model that looks free but secretly wrings money out of you. I don't think this approach is the next big thing, though. It basically combines all the "surprise you don't actually have the whole game" annoyingess of shareware with the nickel-and-dime-you-to-death annoyingness of MMORPGs, without the positive value-to-the-consumer of either business model. (Making a one-time payment to own the whole game, and being able to show off your lewt to other players, respectively.)

Anyway, there's an actual game lurking underneath the horrible business model. It seems like a novel, but simple casual game with adequate vector graphics, inspired design, and a single innovative and elegant core mechanic. Basically everything a good Flash game could aspire to... and basically what you get for free constantly every day here on Newgrounds anyway. It's just too bad the gamersafe bullshit killed it for me.

I get that the author needs to make money somehow. I can appreciate that it's a balancing act of trying to wring fifty bucks out of a Mochi ad here and there. I get that a combined business model of click-throughs, donations, ads, and optional extras makes sense. I just don't appreciate a game that pretends it's free and then asks for my credit card info part way through.

No, I take that back. Even shareware is fine, as long as it says on the title screen, "this is shareware." What I have a problem with is throwing an impossible challenge at the player, and then burying a menu with the power-up in it, as if to say "Oh by the way if you want to not fail, you'll need 100 GamerGold." I don't even know how much 100 GamerGold costs, and frankly, I don't want to know. This business model frustrates and infuriates me to the point where I'd rather spend $20 on a game whose creators have the guts to just TELL me up front that it's for sale, than to spend fifty cents worth of GamerGold and risk encouraging more of this crap in the future.

You buy into this crap now, a year from now every single game on Newgrounds is gonna have some impossible bullshit level you can't get past without spending money. Think about that.

Based on graphics, gameplay, and length, this game actually is worth a lot more than the 2/10 I gave it. How much more? In order to find out, the author of this game needs to send me 100 GamerGold, 500 GamerPoints, and an apology for wasting my time. Then we can talk real scores for a real game.

Badim responds:

you can beat all game without buying anything. just try harder =)

[Crop Circles]

Y'all can whup them piddlin' varmits, sho' nuff...

Well, last year was a tough one. I get set to plow the fields, n' here comes this big ol' flyin' saucer out of the sky. Chock full a' gen-u-wine extraterrestrials. Little green men. Ugly as you like, and dumber than a sack of hammers. Come down right on top of me. Well, I like t' high-tailed it back to the house as fast as Mr. John Deer could carry me. But I got turned around. Left a big ol' zig-zag path through the fields. I call up the army and the national guard, and they sent out some trucks. Asked me where I wanted 'em. I told 'em to just put 'em anywhere, and we held out for a while. Lost a whole heap of money when they asked me if I wanted to buy a stealth bomber between waves. I said, sure. Told 'em to build it between waves. Come t' find out, their idea of building a stealth bomber is to fly it overhead and just drop a whole bunch of bombs. Lost the whole crop that year.

So, this year, it looked like we was fixin' to do better. Soybeans came in early. Sent the boy out to plow th' fields. All of a sudden, he comes runnin' in the back door, yellin' about aliens. Shit, I thought, they're back again? They about wiped me out last year!

But my boy says, naw, it's okay, pop. On account o' some p'thag'rian theorm. I tole him, this ain't no time fer book learnin', I gotta call for the cavalry, and you git in the cellar. When he finally went down there, I grabbed my shotgun and went out back, ready to face those ornery bastards again.

Well, I get out there, and it's just this big line, like a Z, cut clear across my parcel and leaving a straight path to my house. Just two crop circles in all. There was something strange goin' on, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Then I saw that he boy had already bought a missile launcher and put it right in the middle. I sighed. Them missile launchers, see, they fire slow, so I knew there was no way it could take out all them aliens. But the money was already spent. So I just had to make do. I hunkered down and waited for the first wave.

Sho' nuff, here the martians come, walkin' in a straight line down the path. Make a right turn and cut across the field the long way. And the rocket launcher lays into 'em, but a lot of 'em get through. So then they get to the end of the long zigzag, and all they need to do is make one more right turn, and they can come get me and my family and eat my damn brains again, just like last year.

Then, and I swear to you, this is god's honest truth, the lead alien turns around and marches right back to the first bend of the path! The rocket launcher tore 'em up. The next wave came, and they went back and forth a couple of times, that one piddly rocket launcher lighting into them over and over again as they keep goin' back and forth.

My boy was at my side by this time, jumpin' up and down and tellin' me to build more rocket launchers! I looked real close and I saw now what my boy had done. There wasn't two crop circles, there was the usual number, it's just the boy had stacked 'em on top of each other so it looked like they was all in the same place. This here was a path eight times as long as my entire field from one corner to th' other, and it led the aliens back and forth in front of that same turret over and over again.

We built more rocket launchers. We upgraded 'em all the way. We called in as many stealth bombers as we liked, not that they ever did much. Eventually we come to find out there ain't no end to this game, so after cleaning up on government bounties for a while, we sold the farm and moved down to Florida. Can't say much for the view or the neighbors, but at least there's no goddamned aliens comin' down out of the sky at all hours, interferin' with a man's livelihood.

Oh, and my boy? He's drawin' triangles or some such for NORAD now. Never been more proud to have an egghead in the family.