WarpZone's game Reviews on Newgrounds

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Games Factory can do better than this, guys.

I used to use Games Factory, back in the day. This was long before I got Flash, and indeed, long before Flash could be used to make decent browser games.

Among other projects, I created a game called Heart Attack, which won a contest on their website. I was deeply involved with the community for a while, and I saw a lot of games come and go, good and bad.

The reason I'm telling you all this is to put this submission and my review of it into context. It's obvious from the author notes that ClickTeam put this game on Newgrounds to advertise their games creation software, so I feel it's only fair to review the game according to how well it make the pitch.

Quite frankly, I remember Games Factory as having the potential to be better than this. They had scrolling backgrounds, for example, even back as far as the ol' Click & Create engine, if you knew how to kludge it. There were additive blending effects. There were rotations. There were not alpha blending until a later version of the tool was released, I think that was MMF, but that's beside the point.

The point is that this looks like the same old top-down shooter that was bundled with the my original Games Factory disk back in 1992. You got 3D spaceships pre-rendered into tiny sprites. No alpha channels, so individual pixels don't blend into the background. No scrolling. No glow effects. Echoey explosion sound effects and cheesy techno loops that sound like the filesize limitations of wav were the deciding factor in how long they could be... just a lot of really old ideas and old implementations, even though the content itself, from what I can tell, appears to be fresh.

Adding insult to injury are the stock Flash buttons with antialiasing intact. I have no idea if this represents the capabilities of the new Games Factory 2, or if it's just some sort of interface layer encapsulating the GF2 plugin, or if the entire thing runs on some sort of emulator in Flash. All I know is, Flash can do better than this. Love2D can do better than this. Perhaps Games Factory 2 can do better than this. But if it can, they didn't show off all its strong suits with this demo.

(If it can't, then they should be showcasing this technology with one of those extremely retro games that use pixel art!)

Maybe I'll take a look at the source later, since they offered. :P But as of this build, I can't say I'm too impressed. Either with this game or with the product that made it possible.

And that really hurts to say, because I had a lot of fun playing around with good ol' Games Factory back in my youth. ;_;

FlyinV responds:

Heart Attack was a great game.

[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 ^^

[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 =)

[Defense of Mochiads]

Not a defense game. No ads. Otherwise fine.

This is a solid effort from an up-and-coming flash developer. It's not really a defense game. It's more of a side-scrolling shooter with advancement elements taken from MMORPGs. The gameplay works well, mechanically, though there is still room for improvement.

The only real glitch I could see was with the health bar. It was larger than the frame for it and I couldn't die. I assume the health is expressed as an integer, game tried to subtract a higher number from the health than was there, it went lower than zero, and as a result the integer value wrapped around to the highest possible value and now I can't be killed. Try expressing the health as an integer that can include negative numbers, and instead of

if (health==0){ gameOver();)

use

if(health <= 0){ health = 0; gameOver(); }

That should prevent that kind of problem from re-occurring, if it's caused by what I think it is.

Overall, this is a solid early effort. I'd like to see enemies that do different things based on their appearance, difficulty that advances automatically, more stuff going on at once (good things to collect, not just bad things to avoid,) more levels, bosses, and generally more content. Also, it's a good idea not to split up the control between the keyboard and mouse if the keyboard already uses two hands.

This is great for an early game, though. We all start with tutorials. I look forward to seeing what Sparkplug90 brings us in the future as he hones his craft.

Sparkplug90 responds:

thx for the help i found the issue and i fixed it please try the game now

[Aether]

Totally worth the obscure learning curve.

A game was submitted
where nothing quite fitted,
into the game industry mold.

And although the logo
did boast pixel mojo,
I was kind of dropped into it cold.

For even though these
mouse-gestures and keys
were familiar and easily used,

By degrees and fractions,
the game's interactions
left this newbie player confused.

My only invectives
involved quest objectives
which at times did seem quite obscure

Although this game's sleek,
Excessive mystique
can cause a game's focus to blur.

Or such was my thinking
my heart sadly sinking
as I questioned each NPC.

My mouse set to clicking,
My monster, clouds licking--
I thought that I needed a key!

For I had been trained
by previous games
to care for them more than I aught.

And though it was boring,
I kept on exploring,
with my gastro-cosmonaut,

I needn't have troubled
with all those text bubbles,
because at the height of my swearing,

I learned there's no worries
about rock backstories--
They are nothing more than red herrings!

Each talkative rock,
whether happy or sad,
is just part of the backdrop!
When I learned, I was glad.

Like most button-hunts,
this puzzle's mechanical.
Once you learn all the stunts,
it's much less tyrannical.

I started to sneer
and soon swelled with pride,
for I'd learned to steer
My Lovecraftian ride.

It's about licking, mostly:
Moons, crystals, and blobs.
A Cthulhu-esque Yoshi
meets Calvin and Hobbes.

This game's quirky fun,
novel and mind-bending.
And nothing and no one
prepared me for that ending!

So this game earns my ten.
'Tis a romp without equal!
Now I lay down my pen...
to dream of a sequel.

Bluebaby responds:

Best review Evar!
Gold star!

[Mech Slayer]

"I LOVE IT!"

This is an especially solid shmup hybrid, not unlike Smash TV.

The control is excellent, and the enemies and their projectiles move slow enough that you really feel in control. All of the weapons are quick and responsive. This isn't one of those games where the sniper rifle takes so long to reload you can never use it, and there's no need to worry about splash dammage from your own rockets.

You will occasionally go after some money and get pinned down, forcing you to take a hit, but thankfully you have enough health to act as a buffer.

I thought that the shop between levels was kind of a letdown. Basically because there's no real choice. You always just buy the next thing on the list. There is never any reason to do otherwise. Also, I would have liked to see max HP powerups for sale in the shop, not just healing. A good shop lets the player restructure their abilities to suit their play-style. This shop just felt tacked-on. They could have just given you a new gun every 2 levels and the result would have been the same, so the shop is kinda a red herring.

I got as far as the second boss, and then I died instantly because there's no obvious charge-up before the beam attack comes out. I don't really feel motivated to try again, because I know there's nothing I could have done differently, shop-wise, to improve the odds. I just happened to be standing on the left when the stage before the boss ended, and immediately after the fight started, I got raped by the beam attack. Two hits was all it took to take me from full health to dead, and I certainly didn't have any chance to study the boss's attack patterns or learn from my mistakes. Lack of any continue feature means your first mistake will be your last. Or more accurately, the first enemy you encounter with an attack that can hit you quickly, cover a huge area, and do a lot of damage, represents a bottleneck where the difficulty spikes and the penalty for making a mistake suddenly goes from a little health to all your progress.

Up until that one boss with the instant-death beam attack, it's a perfectly solid game. For all I know, it might resume being a solid game afterwards. But I have no desire to do it all over again just to find out.

It would also be nice to see a variety of rooms, or even scrolling levels for the player to explore. maybe some health power-ups so it doesn't come down to a choice between buying health or buying a new weapon, both of which feel necessary after each wave.

I did like the mecha designs and the graphics. The strangely silent intro animation, while impressive, felt overwrought and kinda pretentious for such a simple little game. Overall, it's a great but simple game that could have been incredible if it were a little deeper and the difficulty didn't spike in the middle like that.

xdragonx10 responds:

Thanks for the really in-depth review, I'll form a proper reply later.

[Escape the Den]

"You don't have the screwdriver."

Escape-the-room. You know the drill by now. Perhaps you've even gotten burned enough times in the past that you automatically hunt for hidden buttons along the floor near chairs and bookshelves and such, just in case there's something hidden behind it and the game's standard interface doesn't include an obvious way of doing that. You write down every number you see, and you rub every two items in the known universe together every time you find one. It's force-of-habit by now, right?

Well, unfortunately, that won't help you here. You see, there's one particular item, the screwdriver, which is jammed behind the computer monitor. You might consider that a spoiler, but it's not really, since you can't see the friggin' thing even if you look right at it. It looks more like a black sharpie cap on a very dark grey background.

I could overlook (no pun intended) something like this in an Adventure Game like Sam & Max, where every wrong move equals another easter egg's worth of hilarious hidden content, or in a game like Submachine where the atmosphere keeps you constantly tense. But this is a sterile, lifeless escape-the-room, more like Boat House. Only, instead of being creepy and alien, it's just a regular room with some ridiculously advanced gadgets hidden in the desk and wall.

There's no real story, so bizarre objects like the vibrating orb, which should have been thought-provoking, just felt tacked-on. I think the choose-your-own-adventure-style story concept was to blame. If you'd left the protagonist completely silent, and maybe given us notes left behind by the last people who were in the room, then the control panel hidden in the desk would have been intriguing. As it is, the objects in the room serve no purpose at all, other than to be part of the escape-the-room puzzle.

And I guess it's not fair to criticize the game for that. There's nothing wrong with making liberal use of genre conventions. The problem comes when you build an entire game out of nothing BUT genre conventions, and the button-hunt becomes an end unto itself.

If the screwdriver and other clues were clearly visible before you clicked on them, the game would be a trivial but playable 5-minute Escape the Room. As it is, it's a frustrating button-hunt that serves no purpose other than to direct traffic to the walkthrough.

Better luck next time. Next time, give us some characters, at least in note/diary/email form. Give us a simple-looking room at first glance, and then gradually transform it into something greater and much more meaningful. Not by exposing hidden control panels and weird alien Magruffins, but by revealing the story, bit by bit, to the player. Gradually filling in the blanks and adding meaning and significance to the room and its contents.

Or I'd settle for a purely functional puzzle game where I can actually see all the stuff.

Kyjast responds:

Ah, the joys of being a noob. Thanks to you and everyone else, I know all the problems I made in this game. My next one will have a plot, everything needed to get will be actually visible (Gasp!), and I'll make it a little more interesting by adding background music too. More meaning, coming right up.