WarpZone's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Gemworks]

Not a game. A puzzle with only one right answer.

Largely unplayable in terms of a video game. This is like one of those really really old puzzle games you'd see for Windows 3.1. You know what I mean? Like one of those box-pushing games or a maze with keys and doors, and there's exactly ONE right way to clear the room? The (lone) risk/reward schedule is set up like one of those games.

In other words, it's boring. Even worse, the deceptively simple interface obfuscates the game's deliberately obtuse matching rules. The player has no agency whatsoever until they deduce which combos will cause a gem to form where, and since these rules are never explicitly stated in the tutorial, it means you'll need to lose a few games before you'll even have the foggiest idea how the game is played.

The final nail in the coffin is, when you realize you've inadvertently made a large gem in the wrong place, THE GAME WILL NOT LET YOU RESTART THE LEVEL. You need to start a New Game from the VERY FIRST LEVEL if you mess up. This is poor form and very unfair.

Labeling this title a "gem matching game" is false advertising. People hear "gem-matching game," and they think of classical puzzle games where you match small gems, the small gems disappear, and you keep doing it ad infinitum. You know, "easy to learn, difficult to master?"

Well, this game plays more like a cross between a button-hunt and a combination lock. It's a pain in the ass to learn, and if you put up with its bullshit long enough to get the hang of it, it just adds more ways you can fail so you need to start over more often, and random chance means it's more likely you'll end up in an unwinnable state than you'll solve it, even if you work the system right. Just bad game design, all around.

Candystand knows how to code and they have good art, but it's clear they don't know the first thing about game design. Gameplay should be simple and intuitive at the most basic level, and additional complexity should emerge as new risk/reward schedules are added to the game. Overall success or failure should be a long-term thing. It should NEVER hinge on the first move.

And if your game MUST have a ton of opening moves that lead to inevitable dead-ends, the player needs to be able to reset the game at any time, so they can re-do that first move over and over again until they figure out how to frigging play.

Yes, if we took the time to learn the bizarre vertical/horizontal system, we'd be able to play as well as the game's creators, but when the game's on a portal and we have hundreds of other games to choose from, we'll quit a confusing game and keep coming back to a game that's fun. This game was confusing, not fun.

I'm all for games that make you learn, but the learning can only occur in the space of experimentation. If the first wrong move screws your entire campaign, or requires you to make a dozen other moves for the game to say "NO MORE MOVES" and start you over, that game makes you waste a minute or two between learning events. Nobody's going to put up with confusion for that long.

The difference between novelty and confusion is subjective, so I can't prove I'm right. But assuming you want people to actually enjoy playing your game, you want it to be easier and more intuitive at the micro level, and complex in ways that can be addressed gradually over several (successful!) playing sessions.

It's possible this is a "thinking-man's game" and I'm just not the right audience for it. But if that's the case, neither is most of Newgrounds, I suspect. I recommend some serious introspection on the part of the authors, if their goal is to create a fun game that many people will enjoy playing.

If the goal was just to pad Candystand with as much content as possible, congratulations. Mission accomplished. Nothing me or anyone else says about the game can take that away. Maybe there's a big market for boring games with bad gameplay, I dunno. But it's surely not for the Newgrounds crowd.

[Bomb Detonator]

Great gameplay! Make it longer! Here's how:

Here's how you take a quick mini-game like this one and turn it into a full-fledged Casual Game:

-Separate the gameplay into discreet stages. (Each stage should have vastly different backgrounds, and one slightly unique twist on gameplay, such as motorcycles instead of cars, or stationary buildings you have to drive around.)

-Make some kinda map screen so the player can replay old stages and unlock new stages.

-Keep a local "top score" for each stage, that represents the player's personal best.

-Add a level-up system that the player can use to "spend" points to improve the capabilities of his vehicle.

-Save these per-stage top scores (and other persistent player stats) to the user's hard drive as a saved game file.

Once you've implemented all of those features, you'll need to balance the game:

-Give the player a way to be a daredevil. That is, let him take on more challenges if he thinks he's powerful enough to get away with it. Let the player up the ante at any time, making the game harder but also increasing the potential rewards.

-In order to beat the last stage, the player will almost NEED to buy all the persistent powerups.

-Achieving the highest possible score in all the stages should give the player PLENTY of points to buy most of the powerups.

-You should be able to beat most of the earlier stages even if you have only minimal powerups.

-A high-level character should be able to replay the earlier stages and, because he's so strong now, be able to take on more challenges and therefore achieve a MUCH higher score than before.

And yes, I stole all of these ideas from GemCraft. :) It's a tower defense game, not a driving game, but it uses a lot of game design ideas that are just good sense for any casual game with quick, simple gameplay.

If you implement all of the ideas above, you'll end up with a long game with plenty of challenges all the way through, wherein the player has total control over his actions, but he gains a slight advantage after every stage, and over time he can be more and more of a daredevil, constantly improving on his previous best scores and learning new obscure tricks towards getting the best scores. And, yes, in this case the scores would actually mean something tangible then just competing with the 20 most hardcore players on the internets, it would be how you level-up over time. :)

You can get away with just a fraction of these things, of course. Just make the game end not when the player finally can't keep up with the escalation and runs out of time, but when the player finally beats the last stage. That alone makes the game more rewarding. "Can I beat the game" is just psychologically much more fun than "How long can I last?" That and some kinda persistent level-up system instead of an oldschool collectable powerup system. Those two things will lend any decent mini-game considerable replay value. You don't necessarily need to copy GemCraft, it's just that GemCraft did a lot of things really well.

[The quarry]

Nonstandard interface makes it pretty clumsy.

It's not very approachable because of the strange interface and layout. The dotted line triangles were strange, but at least they were consistent. The less consistent part of the interface just made the game confusing, though:

-Apparently you can't pick up a small rock. Because of this, I assumed I couldn't pick up anything else until I found a bag or something. Later, it turned out I was wrong.

-The scythe as seen from far away turns into a battleaxe when you get closer.

-I don't have a very good sense of how the cavern is laid out, because no matter what room I came from, I always appear in between the various dotted line triangles.

-"I could climb into this tube!" Okay. So do it. Click. Click. "I could climb into this tube!"

-And then you enter the maze carrying a torch AND a weapon, and you see something that looks kinda like a brazier where you could light it, but instead you die. You don't see what killed you, you just randomly die. I guess it was a monster or something. Whatever.

That's as far as I got before giving up on it. I'm not about to load it again because you have the most pretentiously long splash screen in the known universe. I realize it must have taken a long time to draw, but seriously, it's not worth 45 unskippable seconds of my life.

I didn't say anything about the graphics, because I think the gameplay is more important. It's an adventure game, after all, and those have never had good graphics.

Overall, it's a decent first effort, but I feel it would benefit greatly from a more unified interface, and generally just a little bit more detail about the world, so you know what you're looking at and what's going on. I definitely look forward to more games by euopun. The world always needs more adventure games. :)

euopun responds:

Thanks alot of those questions are good points... let me try and evaluate

1 this is an easter egg

2 there is a map somewhere in the cavern... you just have to find your way there first

3 uhhh... you should use spacebar for action.

4 yeah this maze is a bit tedious... the map might help you navigate.... and omg that was a spoiler!?!?!?!?!?111

Thanks alot for the response btw

[Gemstone Hunter]

Nice concept. Too bad it's an arcade game.

The graphics, sound, and gameplay mechanics are all excellent. Unfortunately, the arcade paradigm ruins the game. You can only play for a minute or two before dying, and then all your progress is lost. The only long-term goal is to get a higher score than everybody else, and the sheer number of other gamers competing with you online means that even this goal is impossible.

I played it once, then I quit forever after I died. Maybe if the game had some sort of story mode where you do this snake-eating stuff in several different arenas, interacting with new elements, leveling up your snake, acquiring new skills, winning persistent awards for accomplishing certain meta-goals (I.E. Achievements,) and building up towards some sort of climactic final goal (even if it is just a local high score for each stage, like in GemCraft,) if the game had these things, it would be worth playing more than once, and for longer periods of time.

As it is, it's pointless unless you only have like 30 seconds or a minute in which to game. Which might make it suitable for a cell phone game, except that the screen is so frigging big. The concept is good, the surface is good, but the backbone of the gameplay is flawed. A throwaway arcade game submitted to the wrong portal.

[Castle Run]

Easy, but surprisingly fun to work through...

I really enjoyed this game for some reason, even though the risk/reward schedules made the game pitifully easy. I think the reason is because you're always learning a new trick.

Each room is unique, and presents a unique challenge. It doesn't matter that each individual challenge is fairly easy, and all the threats are obvious. You just need to pause and look at the new room for a couple of seconds, and that simple moment of evaluation is all it takes for the magic to happen. Each room demands a different approach, and that novelty alone goes a long way.

This game exposes something that toddlers playing with plastic rings know automatically, but it's taken the video game industry over ten years to actually put into words: simple problem-solving based on pattern recognition is what makes video games fun, and unlockable content is a potent reward.

As long as your game has those two things, nobody will care if the challenge is trivial, the game takes all of ten minutes to play, and the control is obnoxiously floaty. They'll still play it once, and have fun doing it. Add Achievements and some semblance of challenge, and you could rule the unverse.

[mission to Saturn]

Awkward control + sudden, deadly threats = no fun.

I'm all right with dodging incoming fire, or taking out enemies before they have a chance to unload their deadly payloads, or collecting some things while dodging others, but these cliffs are just bullshit, okay? By the time you know there's a cliff coming, it's already too late. You got hit.

There are many ways to make a game challenging. This way was just cheap.

[Blueshift]

Sloppy, rough, and shoddy, like a used tank.

I think I get what the author was going for, here. First of all, ignore the fast, light-armored fighter. She's a waste of skin. What you want is the big honkin' tank.

This isn't a curtain-fire game about weaving between enemy shots. It's not even a game like Einhander where your ability to grab, wield, and maintain the right weapons loadout is key to success. This is just a balls-to-the-wall merc run. Your objective is to dish out more damage than you receive, so you can auger your pock-marked, smoking gunship into a health powerup just before your hull comes apart at the seams.

Unfortunately, it's very difficult to get into that mindset, although the rough & gritty graphics and sounds are a hint. The risk/reward schedules here are quite different from the shooters you may be used to. Getting shot all to hell isn't a risk so much as a fact of life.

I suppose if you can master the fiddly little split-second shield, you could block a lot of shots, but if you don't have great timing skills, you'll need to develop them. I'm not a DDR or Guitar Hero player, myself, so I couldn't hack it, and this game *really* put me in the mood for a standard sh'mup.

I might come back to this later if I'm bored and take another crack at it. But really, it's just a totally different game than the genre conventions would suggest. This is not a traditional Sh'mup. This is a damage-soaking sh'mup. You're flying a tank in every respect. Try to keep that in mind.

[Pandemic II]

Lacks sufficient feedback mechanisms.

This is a really cool sim and all, and as an Edutainment title, it sure teaches the player a lot of symptom terminology. But it's not very much fun to play as a game.

The main problem is, the game lacks proper feedback mechanisms to inform the player as to what's going on. This stuff could be happening at random, and a lot of it probably is, but if I don't have any way of knowing it. I have no clue why I earn evolution points at a given rate or how a low visibility rating helps me.

Is low visibility only good at preventing the initial detection? Infection seems straightforward enough, but does "the government started killing rats" mean rats no longer work as a vector in that country? Or do one or two rats still slip through, as in real-life, and bite someone, regardless of the government's best efforts?

Abstracting complex real-world events down to numbers is fine, all computer games need to do that. But further abstracting the numbers into colorful textual descriptions just makes the interface too nebulous. I understand how to click all the buttons, that part of the interface is super. It's just that I have no clue what clicking any particular button will DO. I mean, what they REALLY do, in terms of gameplay.

What does "Almost undetectable mean?" Is "Spotted in America" different from "Comes to America?" How deadly is "Very deadly?" I chose every deadly-sounding teir III and IV attribute I could afford, but it still only filled the meter 1/3 of the way up. If they would just show me the XP cost and the ammount of Visibility and Lethality, as *raw numbers,* maybe I'd have a chance as a gamer. But as things are, there's not enough feedback to develop a successful strategy.

Even with zero visible symptoms, they still notice me on the third day. Even with zero deaths, they still seal up their borders and pour their GNP into developing a vaccine for me. WTF?

I tried being highly infectious and resistant and spreading only through obscure vectors like rats and air. I was able to turn the whole world red in this manner, and I even developed immunity to the vaccine, but then I stopped getting evolution points, so I couldn't evolve any deadly symptoms. After watching my 1ep sit there motionless for a few weeks, I quit the game and tried again.

I tried being as deadly as possible and as stealthy as possible, but that led to what seemed like slower evolution (or maybe it just felt slower because the other build path was cheaper, I dunno,) and I did mannage to kill some people, but then the vaccine worked and I couldn't spread any further. They don't say Game Over or anything, they just tell you that you're pwned and the game keeps running.

(Madagascar is fucking cheap, BTW. They close their borders at the drop of a hat, and even Moisture Resistance IV + Waterborne isn't enough to get you across the ocean.)

As intriguing as this concept is, I just don't feel motivated to play the game, because I have no idea what I'm doing. Some kinda particles or other effect would be nice to show how exactly our virus is spreading from nation to nation. This would make it easier to see at a glance which tactics work better than others.

I also don't understand why the tutorial had to be on YouTube, which means it's "No Longer Availible" for some reason. Which is odd, because you can still play it and you get sound, but the screen is too dark to really see what's going on. Would it kill Blips to type all that up and put it on a website? Or better yet, directly into the swf?

Ultimately, playing the game feels pointless. Much like the original Sim City, you'll think you are doing well, but then all of a sudden, player growth drops off with no real visible cause, so you can't see your glorious plan through to completion. Maybe the "realistic" mode is better, but I've seen the "fast" version of the game lock itself up into unwinnable states, so why would I want to try playing the game even slower?

Great concept. But the gameplay just isn't fun. It needs better feedback to the player.

[Space Wing]

A great, if short, curtian-fire/collecting shmup.

I'm not sure what is meant by "90's sensibilities." The graphics and music all feel reminiscient of the 80's, except for the fact that it's all vector and not pixelly. Perhaps it refers to shmups that came out in the 90's and weren't availible to American audiences right away.

In any case, this flash sucessfully marries curtian-fire gameplay with cheesy retro ambiance, with the ever-popular "level-up your weapons systems between levels by spending experience points" dynamic that's become so popular with the Flash format.

Collecting the little score chips that drop when enemies die is important because that's how you level-up. It took me a while to figure out that multipliers come from collecting so many chips in a row with no misses. Levelling up automatically funnels all nearby chips into your ship, but this doesn't happen often enough for you to really plan to make strategic use of it. It might be a good reason to max speed first, though, since this makes it easier to collect chips.

I managed to get through the game upgrading vulcans, speed, missiles, bombs, and HP in roughly that order. I'm not sure if a bomb-centric levelup strategy is viable or not. Playing the game is great fun, tactically, with waves of enemies that require different tactics. Some foes require you to pull back so your spread vulcans get maximum coverage. Some work best if you pull in close to maximize dammage to a single large target. And some simply require you to stop firing and concentrate on dodging.

The bosses are also great, and every bit worthy of the moniker "curtian-fire." The generous health meter gives you plenty of wiggle room, especially if you choose to level it up. Hardcore shooter fans, of course, will try to get through the game without ever taking a hit, and from what I could tell, that is in fact possible. Just not easy.

The only things I could possibly ask for would be more stages, perhaps some sort of Achivements (especially clearing stages without taking a hit,) better graphics, or some sort of story. All of these things are unneccessary, though. I had more fun with this romp than with Drakojian Skies and Star Serpent Sigma put together. This is pure shooter bliss. CLOUND knows his genre well, (he had me at "Touhou",) and I can't wait for his next game! :)

[Star Serpent Sigma]

I would have prefered keyboard controls.

I loves me a good sh'mup. :) And this game has a lot of the neccessary ingredients to make a great classic shooter. It features great, epic music, sleek CG spaceships, and collectible power-ups. Unfortunately, it makes some compromises between classic shmup gameplay and Flash expectations, and this ends up spoiling the experience.

It starts off very nicely. You choose your ship's weapons loadout from a menu that reminds me of one of my favorite shooters of all time, Axelay. After that, it's a single very classy pane of backstory in the form of a mission briefing, including the most epic description of a black hole I've ever encountered. One click from there, and you're into battle.

And throughout most of the stage, the gameplay stays good. A few sweeping mouse gestures are sufficient to dodge enemy fire, then dart back into position to fire at the enemy drones. Ships come at you in waves and feature various movement patterns. A few enemies fire back (from off-screen, even!) but I'm happy to report that enemy shots travel slower than your ship, and enemy ships travel slower than your shots, so there's no "that's not fair" drama.

In fact, this game smartly avoids most of the mistakes you will often see with sh'mups implemented in Flash. Collision seemed perfect, the first stage was easy but not too easy, and the handfull of overlapping risk/reward schedules (powerups, enemies, and bullets) were intuitive and responsive, with the sheilds giving you *just* enough leeway to make a few mistakes without having to start over. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with the invisible line you can't cross in the middle of the screen, but it wasn't a deal-breaker. (And I know from expeirence that proper collision detection with a full-screen boss is be a non-trivial problem to tackle in Actionscript, so I can see how a half-screen approach like this would be a tempting shortcut.)

Unfortunately, Star Serpent Sigma drops the ball when it comes to the first boss, for a couple of reasons.

First of all, when the boss kills you, all your powerups disappear. So one hit pretty much wipes out your chances. I would have liked to see the powerups scatter from your ship so you can re-collect them, or perhaps a "memory" system that keeps track of your maximum power level accumulated during the stage, and when you take hits, it reduces your weaponry, but when you die, you would respawn with the ship fully powered-up again to the level you were at. This is a matter of taste and varies from shmup to shmup, and it wasn't the main issue here so I won't say much more about it.

Another minor quibble was that the boss's charge-up effect for the beam weapon was very subtle. I didn't notice it until it hit me the first time, and after I did notice it, it was hard to tell just by looking at it how close to full-charged the beam was. Some other games have had very explicit visual cues for this, in the past... but I was able to get the hang of it, after a while.

The most urgent issue I had with the boss was, when dodging the cross-fire from those mini-turrets, I would usually move the mouse off the edge of the flash window and click on the web page. :( I quit playing then, because it kept happening, and I realized the game would probably be full of places where my instinct would be to dodge quickly, and the delayed-reaction mouse interface would cause the same thing to happen again and again.

Ultimately, I think it was a bad idea to use the mouse at all. I realize menus in Flash are much easier to do with a mouse, and that going froma mouse-menu to a WASD game is awkward. However, a more graceful solution would be to make everything, even the menu, keyboard-driven. It's hard to do, but I've done it before in a game, and the cohesion and classic feel to the control was worth it IMHO.

Also, the boss would have been AWESOME, if instead of the invincible arms over the core, it had lots of parts you could break one by one.

It's probably too late to implement all of this NOW, but consider it for future games. :)