WarpZone's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Wiggi Rush]

Probabaly the most impressive Wiggi maze game yet.

This game uses a good, solid scrolling platform engine. I kinda missed not having any baddies to fight or objectives to clear, though. I realize this is Wiggi World, so we can't just make a normal video game where you blow stuff up, but still it would be nice if there was something else to do.

For what it is, it's impeccably well-done. You might need to change the music, though... they're all remixes from Sonic games. I know BOT said we could use portal audio, but I assumed he only meant "copyright-free" stuff, not remixes of commercial songs. But then I've never been too clear on a lot of these copyright issues... seems like any time you ask somebody, they give you a vague answer that could be taken two ways.

Skeik responds:

I wanted to choose some more kid friendly and copywright friendly music, but I had no other choice :P This was the only royalty free music I had on my computer so in the game it went.

If you like this engine then you should look out for my next game, which is going to be using this engine.

[Wiggi Maze]

Tries to be too many different things.

I'll agree that all of the elements seem to conflict with each other. The player's character looks like the grittiest action hero I've ever seen in a wiggi world game. The music is light and cheerful. The background is throbbing red-hot pain. Running a maze is a tried-and-true gameplay mechanic, and a rotating maze is a nice(pardon the pun) twist. The questions seem just right for a wiggi world game, but outside of any meaningful context they're basically just a button you push to advance.

Collecting items of the list seems like a tacked-on play mechanic... there's not even any rhyme or reason to which items you collect or avoid; you're just following an arbitrary list of instructions. I guess that encourages obedience, but really, virtually all game rules promote obedience on THAT level. In Super Mario Bros, for instance, you jump over Goombas because the rules say you die if you don't.

Most importantly, there's some issues with your character overlapping a portal and an item at the same time. Stepping onto an item brings up the Yes/No menu, but then it detects a new collision with the portal (perhaps due to hitTests coupled with the player's breathing animation, or something like that,) and rotates the maze before you can answer.

This happens most frequently with the bubblegum and the soap in the first maze. The easiest way to reproduce the bug is to keep saying NO to the items and keep using that corner portal. Try and stop walking exactly midway between the item and the portal. You'll see what I mean.

If I were you, I'd either make the graphics and background cuter and softer, or else rplace the music with some hard techno. Splitting the look & feel down the middle like this is just too confusing.

Lantay77 responds:

Thanks for taking the time to play and write a complete review I will take all of your comments into consideration.

[Power Swing]

Points for originality.

The first time I played, the ball just bounced in the middle without going left or right, so neither of us could really hit it. Then as I was thinking about what I might be doing wrong, trying the arrow keys and whatnot, just in case I was supposed to walk towards the ball or something, an eagle suddenly killed me. LOL!

The second time I played, it worked like it was probably supposed to.

The premise is original, and the surface is excellent! Meaty sound effects, classic music from the audio portal, and cool, well-drawn, stylized characters. After playing a few times, though, I found myself wanting deeper and more familiar gameplay.

Keep up the good work!

[Commissar Advanced]

Exactly like Metal Slug, only broken!

Nice job on the sprite rips, controls, and physics engine.

Here's some suggestions on how to improve gameplay & approachability:

Make it possible for the player's shots to detonate the missle. This is much more than just a simple collision test! The bullets and the missile need to be lined up so that if the player fires, the shots can collide.

Basicallu, you want it so that when the player's standing on solid ground, his feet need to be aligned so that the bullets coming out of his gun will actually hit the missile. You could also make the missile track vertically towards the y position where the bullets come out of the player's gun. (I.E. Not towards the player's head or feet or whatever it's aiming for now.) This means that the closer the missile gets to hitting the player, the more likely it is that a shot from the player's gun can do the job.

While we're talking about shots colliding with their targets, the player's target area is too big. You're doing a simple hittest, aren't you? Bas idea. If a shot grazes the player's hair, and he dies from it, that's a problem.

Ideally, ducking should make it possible to avoid shots fired by standing soldiers. (Crouching snipers, of course, are a different story.) There's no point in having a duck button in the first place if it doesn't protect you from some attacks.

Another thing you ought to do is give the jump more air time. There's lots of ways you can do this, from increasing the initial jump speed to changing the rate at which gravity overcomes his ascent. Without looking at your jump code I can't tell you what the best way would be to go about this, but in the original Metal Slug arcade game, these dudes had crazy air time. They had to. The gameplay wouldn't have worked any other way.

Untimately, you need to be constantly playtesting your game while it's in development, and listening to player feedback afterwards. If a jump is too hard, you need to look at ways you can make it easier.

Nobody likes a game where achieving the goal is impossible or almost impossible. The trick is to make sure every challenge is easy to overcome, but then throw the minor challenges at the player in combonations that test his staying power. It should be easy to jump over that missile. The challenge should come from taking out several soldiers and tanks, then a big ol' boss.

If I Game Over twice in a row, without getting any further than my first attempt, I don't keep playing. I don't try to figure out the perfect way to clear that jump. I shut your game down and go play something else. Maybe a few players are extremely patient or like the challenge, but most just get annoyed.

Good luck developing this further. It's got some great graphics and animation, and a lot of potential. You just need to fix that missile. It's not a reasonably difficult challenge. It's a deal-breaker.

[AD&D Engine - Fighter]

Not quite D&D. Not quite Diablo or EQ, either.

I gotta give Rob credit for all the trouble it must have taken to make this game, but when you play it, it just isn't much fun. Porting D&D to a video game is always a little hit & miss, but this game was mostly all about misses.

For starters, you absolutely MUST min-max by abusing the reroll button , and buy the best armor, or else the wolf can one-hit you. As far as I know, there's no levelling-up mechanic, so grinding only yeilds more gold for buying more fire wands. (And yes, even though it's supposedly a fighter sim, you can use the wands. WTF?) If your int is 9 or less, you're a drooling moron, but can still use the wands. I'm not sure if the dexterity stat actually does anything. There's no skills or feats, so tumble checks and weapon finnese are out of the question. I'm not sure if heavy armor caps your dex bonus, or if the two simply stack, because almost all the math is hidden, but building a swachbuckling dex-heavy character is pretty much out of the question.

So it fails as an AD&D sim, so what? That's okay. Most AD&D video games fail to deliver on the franchise's promise. Even Neverwinter Nights falls short in some respects. So, brand names aside, how does it measure up as a game, based on its own merits?

Well, unfortunately, not so well. There's no terrain or map to move about in, so tactically it's no fallout. Looting is minimal and there's no levelling mechanic, so it's no Everquest. It's not realtime, so it's no Diablo. The combat is a weird hybryd of turn-based rolling with realtime item use tacked on... I guess it plays a little like Dragon Warrior, but with both you and the monster hobbled to the point of being almost entirely impotent. On a good day (meaning you min-maxed well,) you miss 75% of the time, and the monster misses 90% of the time. That means lots and lots of time wasted doing nothing but watching the d20 roll back and forth. Kinda tedious.

Even worse, though, the game's not approachable. Even with prior knowlege of D&D, iguring out the interface and gameplay balance means making some mistakes. Unfortunately, all too often, a mistake means death in an unwinnable battle you can't run from, and death means re-rolling your character... which makes learning the game a moving target.

There were some bright spots. There was some dialogue and storytelling, and I thought the riddles were a nice touch. Attempts were made to leverage Charisma and Intelligence against NPCs and traps. I fivened it because I really do want the DM to keep moving forward with this. It just needs further refinement to make the game easier to play for the first time, and less drawn-out and boring.

For starters, I'd like to see the hit/miss system replaced with one that simply deals and reduces dammage. Give the player a reliable, straightforward way to purchase better equipment. Maybe even add a true levelling system so he can have more than 13 total hit points. I realize that part of the goal was to implement the AD&D combat system in a Flash game, but I don't feel the combat system is what makes AD&D fun. So instead, you should design the simplest combat system possible that's fast, intuitive, fun, and diverse. I don't know what that holy grail of video game turn-based combat would be, of course, but I can say that lots of other RPG-style video games have com closer than this game did.

I advise the author to learn from the other computer games out there, then design your own combat system that uses the best features from each. Good luck, and I wish you the best for your next game.

[Thrives Drum Machine]

Impossible timing = bad drum sim.

I like the cocnept, but there's too much silence at the start of every drum sound effect. When I click my mouse in time with the beat, each click needs to play the sound instantly. Even a fraction of a seconds' delay ruins the whole thing.

Unfortunately, I'm thinking Flash might not be fast enough for this kind of project. If you're using Flash 8, there are a few things you can do to speed things up. Start by ensuring all vector objects get cached as bitmaps, by not rotating anything in realtime, and by setting a very high frame rate.

Also, reusing the same sound object (or a finite number of them... say, a series of 8 snares that get stepped through every time a snare sound is played)) instead of creating one every time the button is clicked can help, by reducing the ammount of garbage collection going on. Hiding buttons and menus when they're not on the screen instead of creating and destroying them dynamically can help with garbage collection, too.

Good luck. This seems like a really cool idea. Without a fast, responsive implementation, though, a steady rythym is impossible, and a drum is basically useless without rythym.

[Wiggi Trash PickerUpper]

Not bad. :)

Nice title screen. :) The control feels a little sloppy. I've always felt all action game characters should stop on a dime when I take my hand off the key. Ruined controls is not the same thing as a legitimate challenge. Also, when you lose, it looks like all the trash you collected gets dumped on the ground again. You should probably destroy those objects (or hide/move them) before the end screen.

[Water! -Wiggi World Entry]

Nice concept, some execution flaws.

Like everyone else is saying, getting stuck in the rocks sucks. What you want is a "projection" collision/reaction system instead of the simple hittest/deflection model you seem to be using. Also, I don't like the invisible wall of certian death just to the right of the town. Especially with the more powerful jet upgrades, when I'm coming in hot I need to be able to swing around in a wide arc, dodging cacti, and spiral in towards my goal.

Personally, I liked the music. The game doesn't last long enough for it to get too annoying, and it's a damn sight better than the 5 second atonal piano music MP3s they give you by default.

Some buildings around the well, and some wiggis who cheer when you deposit your water would be nice cosmetic additions.

And I agree that the arrow should point towards the fullest oasis. Weighted arrows that show the relative depth of each oasis would be nice, but trickier to program, and maybe a bit too complex for a 5 year old to read.

[Dirty Dishes]

Wish I'd thought of that...

Maybe it's just me, but rubbing my mouse on the desk felt almost exactly like scrubbing a plate. Story-wise, no, SilverSurge was right, the kids will see right through this edutainment crap. But on a subtler, more insidious level, well... kids are scrubbing and earning experience points for it. If they grind on this 5 days a week at school during computer lab to earn wogs, it just might form a habit. Sure beats the "talk to the NPCs and then choose to do the right thing" paradigm. This invokes muscle memory! The only way it could get any purer would be to combine this with Chore Wars.

flame862 responds:

thnx! I couldn't believe i came up with it too.

[Food Fall]

Wow! A game on NG with viable controls?

Great job on the collision detection. Most of the time games of this sort are impossible when all the food's overlapping, but you managed to pull it off. The stuff I was trying to catch went in, and the stuff I was trying to dodge never did, even in the busier moments. Nice!

A-Wahl responds:

Thank edit-undo for that one. Thanks!