Grent's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Target Practice - 1 hour]

Crappy

An hour is not enough time to develop a game. I'm sorry.

[Puzzle Book: Number Two]

Too many Riddler puzzles

You know why the Batman villain The Riddler bugged me? Because, while there was a "correct" answer to his puzzles that remotely followed some trail of clues, the clues in themselves were not self-evident to anyone (other than Batman, somehow). This game suffers from the same problem; when you know the answer already, it kind of makes sense how the clue hints at it, but most of the time the clues don't help to find the answer and I have to use both of my hints, which make me feel stupid, because the girl practically gives you the answer instead of a better clue, as if it was obvious. The riddles were (usually) pretty good, so I'd focus more on those next time. Graphics, music, etc were all great, it was just the puzzles that bugged me.

(Spoilers ahead)

Of most note was the damned cell phone puzzle. How the hell was I supposed to know not only that the answer wasn't the name of an object (as was implied by the ransom note), but also to hit each button multiple times to come up with the number?

FuNaNdMoRe responds:

I know I may not be a good puzzle maker but inventing puzzles can usually be pretty difficult, since everyone has a different way of thinking and doing. I tried my best on figuring out how people will solve the puzzles or what hints I should include. Anyway, you're right about riddler puzzles, I will decrease their number in the following book (maybe).

About the puzzle. The cellphone was practically the "important tool", as it said in the title, of how to uncover the secret. The "second piece of paper" also said: "FUNNY --> #" which meant to convert FUNNY into a number. You could type in just "3" since the keypad number of a cellphone would be 3 which included the letter "F" but since F is in the third position before D and E, you had to type three times the keypad number 3, as you would do with your cellphone when writing a short message.

Thanks for reviewing,
funandmore

[The Day (Gregory Weir)]

Not half bad

The point was interesting and the graphics, though low resolution, were nice and smooth. My major problems were that the game was really short, one of the endings provided almost no challenge, and, above all, the ad in the background. HOLY CRAP THE AD IN THE BACKGROUND WAS SO ANNOYING.

[Invader Void]

Like Space Invaders, but worse.

My main issue with this game is that the concept is one of the most worn out ideas in flash games. Shoot the things coming towards you. A lot of games on Newgrounds can get around the unoriginality of the concept by tweaking it slightly, but you just went with the same old crap. The enemies emulated the movement patterns of a game that is over thirty years old (with slight variations that I figure are more likely the result of lazy programming than you actually seeking to be different). You tried to spice things up with the "nuke," but that, too, has been done dozens of times before. The art is pretty well done, and without a doubt is the best part of the game, but without any real animation to it, it feels flat and unfulfilled. The music is a short, tiresome loop, but I don't really hold that against you since it's soft enough to be drowned out by the constant PEWPEWPEW noises. It doesn't loop porperly, though, so I would fix that. Honestly, I would try a different concept entirely, but if you were determined to make this type of game work, I would at very least add some more fluid motion in for the enemies, like how Galaga took the Space Invaders pattern and modified it to be less linear.

[Death Ball(really Hard)]

What.

While the game's pretty good for something done in 20 minutes, that doesn't mean it should be here. The gameplay gets old within roughly fifteen seconds, and the change in difficulty doesn't make it any better. I recommend making a game that has a deeper strategy than "move the mouse in circles really fast".

youngzoro responds:

I'm making it better, i am making more death balls go in circle, but doing this might make R U CRAZY EXTREMELY hard. I'll release it when I'm done...

[Hedgehog Launch 2]

Good, but too easy.

So after reaching Mars in a measly 6 days, I bought some upgrades and got to 100,000 feet on my first try, after which I decided to simply stop controlling the hedgehog and let him fall.

That was roughly 25 minutes ago. I'm still at 85,000 feet.

My point is that, with all the extra upgrades added to those from the original game (most notably fuel suck), the algorithm for spawning platforms should have been modified (perhaps slowly decrease it based on the amount of money earned in the current flight?). Still, the game is fun and extremely funny considering the relatively small amount of text there is over the course of the game. Overall, I enjoyed it.

[The Metallica Quiz]

I have trouble thinking of accurate review titles.

The questions themselves were okay (although no one but a Metallica fan would know any of the answers), but the flash itself was poor. The quiz consisted of questions you typed up (which probably took a whole thirty seconds per question) and the put on top of pictures you most likely got from Google or other soimilar sources, many of which were distorted when you inexplicably tried to make them fit perfectly on the stage (hint: tall or wide pictures don't look so good squished).The various screens that pop up when you miss a question showed more lack of effort, cotaining simply a drawn message, sometimes a completely useless hint (such as on question 10 when you hint at the standard guitar tuning when anyone who knew anything about tunings would know that already; a more useful hint would have been what chord(s) the song uses) and a button that often attempts to be witty and fails miserably.

Personally, I recommend giving up on quizzes entirely and making something completely different, perhaps a Metallica music video instead?

[-KS- Random # Generator]

What the hell?

This is hands down the most useless thin I've seen on the portal. The background is horrid, the music gets old really quick, and the coding itself is simple enough that I could do it blindfolded. The portal doesn't need a random number generator; there are plenty of websites out there dedicated to finding random numbers; all you need to do is search Google.

Kevin responds:

It's better than the single flash you've made.

[OCD+]

Face it, this game sucks.

This game is awful. There is virtually no gameplay. I understand that this is the point of the game, but that doesn't make it good. Any game where one of the objectives is "wait for 14 hours" should not exist. I played "Big O" and cheated to get the POW medal, after which I simply couldn't take it any more.

I can fully understand a game simply for achievements, but there are so many better ways to do it. Jmtb02, for example, made a game that was still fun in spite of being all about earning achievements. This game is entirely about making people sit at the computer for extended periods of time to earn pitiful achievements.

In my opinion, this game cannot be improved, except by scrapping it entirely and going back to making good games.

[Crumble]

THIS IS FOR COOKIE MONSTER, YOU BASTARDS!!!

A fun game, although simple. Doesn't make much sense that the gun's bullets randomly disappear. Also, how did this cookie get its laz0r powers? I WANT BACKSTORY!