KazumaKyaroru's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Come2Play Checkers]

Several complaints.

First off, load time can be pathetically long. Secondly, if you get into a position where you can jump someone, you have to. This is very annoying and for the most part, accomplishes nothing but annoy your players. Thirdly, if you get into the position to jump and can do a double jump or more, you must rapid click or the game assumes that you have finished your turn, there is no indicator that you must do so and this can cost you the match quite often, especially if your reflexes are a bit slow. Overall, this is a very good game, but as I say with all things I review and rate lower than a 10, there is room for improvement.

~Kazuma

[super sweatshop mastar]

Warning: Game is better than stated in review.

Personally I like this game. It's based around simple concepts and easy controls, but it's confusing as heck. Several suggestions for improvement:

1-Crashing into a landmass resulting in a megaman-death-ish explosion is not quite the most obvious way to signify victory.

2-Also, I recommend finding a way to better differentiate between victory and defeat. The guy waving his arms around in the air and the large print "PWNED" seems more appropriate as a reaction to defeat as it is rare that an AI will say "PWNED" if you beat it. I recommend adding some way to show better difference from win and lose as these two could very well be reversed and possibly understood better.
-The simplest solution to all these problems (or rather ambiguities) is to dictate an actual set of directions rather than saying basically, get to America (which makes the game seem like a fly-as-far-as-you-can game (the fact that it cuts you off after you reach a certain point anyway makes it seem like it is such a game))
actually say "fly into America" or something. (also, in order to save the broken-English effect of the game maybe just change "PWNED" to "Win" and "Lose" on the screen (in a game that uses such broken-English to add to the feel and mood of the game, "PWNED" is a slang term so it doesn't really fit so well).

It took me several days to figure out that the point of the game is actually to take your giant flying shoe and crash it into the floating island originally from Sonic 3 (apparently America has discovered the Master Emerald). Perhaps you should eliminate the "floating-island-America" concept here and just make the cut off for flying too far be the victory spot. (I mean seriously, how can one do better than they were supposed to and still be penalized for it... it makes less sense than the floating island thing.

3-also another suggestion, add music. with the exception of the win and lose chimes and the sound effects, this game is practically soundless. Now I like silent movies as much as the next guy, but perhaps that could add to the effect (especially if you added music that is specific to China and the like)

Overall however, it was a game that was much better than the average game submitted to newgrounds, hence why it's on my favorites. I just think there's quite a bit of room for improvement and reduction of ambiguity. All of that being said, excellent first flash.

~Kazuma

[Space Invaders v1.0]

Very nice rendition...

Personally, I love what you've done with this game. I love the sound: from the effects to the actual song in the background, I enjoy the way the sounds just seem to work together. I also think that the design of the enemy ships is very nicely done. Also, the lack of shields, while making it slightly more inaccurate to the original, I think is a good point that makes this version unique, it adds a bit more challenge to the game as opposed to having a player just sit and weave in and out of shielding practically invincible.

Two suggestions however:

1.) When the wave is shortened (e.g. a full column of enemies is destroyed) the full wave doesn't move to the same spot at the sides of the screen that it would've with that column intact. I recommend (and I'm very new to flash (though not to programming), so I don't know if this helps) having a hit box (or some kind of borderline or something) surrounding the screen where you want the wave to turn around (and lower one level) in order to add consistency to this. I don't know if it's possible, but you may be able to make this change in movement by the enemies an event linked to their collision with the hit box. (Just a suggestion that may make it better, mainly in my own opinion though.) I've noticed, though, that you mention in a response to another previous comment that the wave is made up of one container sprite, so maybe add a line of code or something that will (upon the destruction of a single column of fighters) shorten the length of the container by the length of the column. (Again, I dunno if this is possible in flash)

2.) I suggest making it so two bullets can be on screen at once, (I don't remember for the life of me whether or not the original had a limit of one bullet on screen at a time or not) or maybe increase the speed of the bullets. (I do remember that the bullets in the original (or at least the version I played most) were a lot faster than the ones here.)

Other than that, I loved it. Best flash Space Invaders I've played thus far. And if you had some sort of solution for both of those things, well then I'd say it'd be a solid 10.

Hope that helps,
Kazuma

[Marble box]

Great concept, excellently executed.

Only one problem I found with it: when you reach level 12 (I think it's level 12) it gives you 0 seconds to clear over one hundred marbles... is that even possible? Unless this is meant to be the end of the game, I recommend changing it to have a minimum of at least 5 or 10 seconds at the start of a level. Overall though, I like the concept and (while it's not original) it hasn't been overused, like some concepts on Newgrounds, so good work.

[Mario&Luigi Style Battle]

Um... good, could be better, but not bad.

I give you an eight cause the buttons' display pictures could've been better and perhaps the damage done could've been displayed on screen, but otherwise it seemed really good to me. The facts that if you keep healing yourself Mario's health can peak at over 100 and that the Goomba seems to have infinite health are both awesome and horrifying at the same time, though I dunno if that was done purposely or not, so I will not use that in scoring. You might have something really great if you improve upon the previously mentioned things as well as perhaps implementing a button press system rather than a click system (click system gets confusing in a way (dunno whether to click on Mario, the enemy, or anywhere)) Overall, more than decent, but there's room to improve.

dannydk6 responds:

Wow, that is the best idea I've heard for a while( the button press thingy). You have a point, though. Next time there will be a story.