Galneda's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Abobo's Big Adventure]

Phenomenal! Top 50 of NGs TRUE ALL TIME.

I have never laughed out loud, or thoroughly enjoyed the gameplay of a flash game like I have this....EVER. From beginning to end, it's just non-stop entertainment. ESPECIALLY with the challenge.

The NES games were particular very hard. Especially with no such things as continues or what have you; once it's game over, it's game over. Even still, while this flash game MERCIFULLY allows us some continuation on a chapter by chapter basis, it's still very challenging, and ALLLL the more satisfying once we earn that ending.

To the NG achievement whores, this is nothing short of a complex goldmine for you.

I'm personally a Mega Man fan, so I was a little miffed that Megabobo couldn't slide; that would've REALLY come in handy for the boss fight with Robobobo. That's really my only huge criticism, and yet I cant bring myself to score this any less than a 10. The craftsmanship along with the entertainment value is too great to ignore.

I actually laughed out loud A LOT while I was playing through this. It just screams NG humor, while simultaneously brining something fresh, yet nostalgic to the table. It's unreal! I absolutely loved this. The boss fights, the mechanics, it's just a wild, wild trip. I especially love the Balloon Fight DEATH BLOSSOM special! Abobo would have been a fantastic Last Starfighter!

I have 2,700 characters left, and really the rest of the body of my review would have been gushing over everything I liked. A lot of time was spent on this, and admittedly, the hype that was attributed to it with the front page countdown clocked immediately implied to me that it might suck. I'm SUPER RELIEVED that when NG makes a countdown clock for a submission, they mean business. This absolutely exceeded my expectations, and it rocked my socks off. This was damn fun, and really funny. 5! 5! 5! 5! 6!...err...5!

This was excellent! Damn all the haters, for they do not matter!

And hey, Haters! Try playing this on Firefox like someone who's not a fucking idiot. lol

Thank you for the badass game.

Abobo responds:

We argued a bit over whether to allow sliding, but decided to not include it since it was not in the original megaman 2 that the level was based on.

Thanks for the review, we love hearing from people like you that really connected with and "get" the game!

[Trippin Kitchen]

Not bad for a game jam!

I can appreciate a game that tries to teach the player patience under circumstances of urgency...while I was frustrated about tapping "A" in the wrong order, (repeatedly swinging 1, 1, 1, 1! 1!! 1!!!) I quickly learned to pace myself for the first volley 1...2-3...then, luckily, Grandma can spaz out and I can unleash a flurry of 1111111's until even Flour bags don't stand a chance.

While that game mechanic was unique to me, I'm also all too familiar of the character not wanting to turn around in mid attack. Poor timing on my choice when I initially began an attack in the wrong direction? Possibly...but it seemed "sticky" to me when she wasn't responsive enough to turn around after a finished attack, and cover her back.

The introduction gets the point our clearly, Even though this seems to be a predicament where Grandmas seemed to have forgotten her meds moreso than just drinking expired milk. But what was daunting was the game's method of showing us our progress.

I just beat the game, and I'm still unclear as to how it treats the wave / round / level increments. Is it...five waves = +1 round, 5 rounds = +1 level? Just before the explodey carrots came in, I was beginning to wonder if the game had an end... after the explodey carrots, I wondered if I was near it. As I zoned out, it seemed the waves of baddies after the explodey carrot was introduced was thinning...it actually got less challenging, even though there's more enemies, and this could be attributed to mastering Grandma's combo patterns. Then all of a sudden FRIDGE BOSS, but it turned out to be more a survival mode...held out, defeating the baddies, and we got a neat pose and a sort of underwhelming ending. One play through, I never even saw what the Game Over screen looks like.

By being a Game Jam submission, that alone seems to dodge it of fault, but if I were to criticize anything, I'd sum it up to it just lacks depth. Even for a Grandma tripping out in her kitchen not unlike a cartoon interpretation of the mother in Requiem For a Dream, it lacks deeper mechanics, clarification, and payoff.

A breezy, fun timekiller, the music was excellent, and so was the art. The wide-angled background looked awesome, though there seemed to be missed opportunities with changing the sky outside of the windows. Grandma's floppy titties did so with grace. Good job, y'all!

Mattster responds:

Thanks for the review!
All round has 5 waves (except for a few which seem to have 6 -.-), level 1 has 2 rounds, and each level after has 1 more round. The waves were quickly put together last-minute, so that's why they seem unbalanced. Most of the time was focused on gameplay rather than wave design.

There were lots of features and ideas for this game, but time became an issue since as it is a Game Jam game.

MC was pretty proud of those floppy tits.

[Madotsuki's Dream Dock]

I don't get it.

For starters, "Warned" is misspelled in the beginning...err...warning.

But this isn't very accessible to your audience. Usually, during a point and click adventure, you're pointing and clicking at different things, and typically, sometimes, actually go on an adventure. The idea of which implies different environments, or things of significance to a story going on. While I admire your creative license on the concept, I stand by that it's not very accessible.

You hype it up to be a Halloween, scary type of flash. Yet you have the most non-threatening, calmest, what I can only assume to be anime soundtrack imaginable in the background to a girl staring at a body of water in the dark from a dock...more accurately, the BACK of a girl's head...even more accurately, the back of SEVERAL anime girl's heads. Sometimes she's a traffic light. Sometimes she's a street lamp. Sometimes she's decapitated. This makes no sense.

There's no explanation. Not even for the hooded man walking in the background, and his identical whiter cousin floating in the lake. There's no explanation as to why she turns into C-3PO and changes a color filtered layer over the whole thing. Or the multi-colored amoeba that descends among the sky. Why does she turn into a little girl, that when clicked multiplies herself over and over again until a very pixelated picture of a ghost woman consumes the background and screams? It's all very disconnected...a lot of waiting and clicking one spot, hitting one button, for little payoff. All over an obscure anime that you can't possibly assume the majority of your audience would be familiar with.

I imagine this took quite a deal of programming, and for that, I admire it's craft...for I KNOW THE HORRORS of Actionscript, lol. But I didn't really connect with this.......

....okay, admittedly, I didn't expect the startle at the end, but the graphic's pixelated quality detracted from what terror it was trying to emote. The sound? That was spot on. If it were louder, it may have made up for the visual quality...but I'm pleased that the jump scare couldn't have happened early on...not sure how it could.

The lack of diversity in interactions hurt it's score a little bit too. What was the point of that vending machine if it didn't do anything? Why make the girl on the further dock a button that does nothing? Why do we only get to stare at the back of the heads of so many characters? The lack of details are frustrating. Though at least the dock itself looked good. The white thing that seemed to be an amorphous blob of limbs coming out of orafices? Well, not to be rude, but that wasn't scary, nor did it look neat. If you truly wanted to go for psychological horror, you could have dug much, much deeper, and not relied on a Japanese Kid's show for influence. ;D As it was, it was a startle at most, and only at the climax. The rest was dulled perplexity.

Halloween is my favorite holiday, so despite all of my criticisms, I'm still voting 5, despite the score on the review itself. Give us more things to work with, and REALLY dig deep if you're going to try and scare us. Keep up the good work! You should aim your next flash into a direction of greater complexity. Challenge yourself, and kick some ass! :D

-Review Request Club-

Pienkaito responds:

Great review from club. Never expected less.

First of all, it's not based on anime. This animation is tribute to a 2005 independently produced surreal adventure PC game by homebrew Japanese developer Kikiyama. (Thanks wiki)

I can understand the non-logical aspect, because... Well, if I am making a tribute to a game that makes absolutely NO SENSE AT ALL in the first place, then I can only say this, even though it's a bit harsh: "What in the fuck is this shit?!"
It will lead to many confusions and endless open questions, so that it will render this animation on itself as uninteresting and boring if you haven't played the game, which is unfortunate. ;_;
The animation contains various sections of the game, so everything you see actually appears in the game in some sort of way.

In short, it's not a japanese kid's show. If it was, then they are seriously fucked up.

This was actually never meant to be scary in my opinion. It's very open to the audience to find it either calm, depressing or scary. (Excluding the last part, which is a lame attempt to scare someone)

I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE PROGRAMMED THAT FREAKING VENDING MACHINE. >=(
It was a nice easter egg in the game...
Speaking of content, yeah. It may seem lacking, but the game itself is exploring world and interactive with objects. That's that.
It would have been a nice jump-scare, if Madotsuki (the main girl) simply twisted her head like in the movie "The Excorcist". I actually planned to do it, but time was faster than me.

By the way, you should check the game out if you have NOTHING else to play. It's...surreal.
I also think that making this in less than 3 days is surreal as well IMO. lol

I really want to thank you for this constructive review. It totally pleases me and at least a few people left their opinion on it now.

PS.: Grammar and spelling mistakes are unintended. (obviously, haha)

[20 Seconds to DIE]

Ahh, the nostalgia!

This kinda of brings me back to what was especially popular around the time I signed up to NG. Since it's early years, interactive stick deaths were regularly uploaded through the Flash Portal, and with the popularity of Xiao Xiao, making the simple suckers move in extraordinary and brutal ways proved to be a very quick and fun way to satiate entertaining bloodshed.

It's good to see that the genre has come a long way since then. :)

Psycho was so detailed, and contained such REFRESHING dramatic camera angles that I began to wonder out loud why even bother keeping the characters as stick figures. The animator involved did a spectacular job. With stick flashes, it's all too common for the camera angle to either remain stationary or treat the movie like a 2D side-scroller; a terminal stage perspective with no diversity or environment to roll around...admittedly, that's simpler to maintain, but this flash threw that rule out the window! With over-the-shoulders, dramatic angles both from above and below both characters, it heightened the immersion intensely. Furthermore, the bloodsplats that remianed in air seemed very artistic, and the transition into the black figure's insanity ended the short with a fantastically brutal maneuver. Bravo!

Beard Ninja contained some stunningly powerful anime-inspired sword movements, with even more surprisingly brutal executions, like stabbing the torso from ABOVE the handle while the sword is already impaled in the victim's leg. The most interesting detail about this artist is how...CONVINCING the blood splatters off of the victim and falls to the ground. It just looks right somehow. Though the ending did get increasingly ridiculous with Beard Punches and Beard Sticky Bombs...it felt like an awesomely violent tale of what would happen if Milla Rage from Guilty Gear had a kid with Chuck Norris and that son became a grand master and kicked ass with a katana and manly man-beard. Still, as silly as it was, it was entertaining and I liked it.

Multiplication ended with Troll Physics in action. I laughed out loud :D, but what I especially liked about it is I always enjoy it when the victims put up a fight. It's just not honorable to see someone just take a beating and not even try to resist, in my perspective. The camera angles tried to tilt around to be immersive, but when it rotated the screen so wildly in the middle of when that guy's...balls(?) were getting ripped off, it seemed out of place.

Mining had your typical beat-down with an item, in this case a pick-axe, and it was decent. No details really stood out for me, except I liked how he kinda reacted to the torso hitting the deck after that climactic hit. It was more gratuitous and goofy than it was hardcore and brutal.

But the overblown gratuity and goofiness was multiplied from Mining as we got into Yoyo. The toy was doing impossible things...it looked good, but it made no sense how the round, stringed object could maintain grip, roll and bounch a fully grown man back, and Shoop Da Woop the poor guy into oblivion. The guy stood there and took all of this DBZing, and somehow the whole sequence just wasn't engaging like some of the others.

Lightning excelled with some very human reactions to the circumstances the befell him. Along with his overall body language I was impressed with the realistic hop and shakes as he realizes his ankle caught on fire. The wrath of God left a great taste in my mouth with his demise. Great job!

Exploders was hilarious! Where it lacked in perspective angles it made up for in body language. Though I thought it was odd the stub from his wounds were pinkish and floppy, I suppose it makes sense.

Beat Down though was more of a let down. Nothing extraordinary, and a pretty standard, less engaging brawl. It was my least fav because we've seen all of this before hundreds of times, some of which with much more impressive choreography without suspending disbelief. Granted, this one is probably the more realistic of all the shorts, but it didn't try anything new. No boundaries were pushed.

Overall, great job! 5'd

Stone-Steven responds:

I love to see reviews like this. Time was spent in these animations ( believe it or not! ) and it's great to see someone analyze it as for those who did the very same in creating it.

Thanks for the detailed review!

[Madness: Premeditation]

Great idea!

It's very, very trial and error, but it's still a very fun game. AP is pretty slow to accumulate, but maybe that's a good thing.

A glitch, unfortunately, ruined my gaming experience. Y'see, by the time I got to the worm right after the two sentry guns, I died from the worm once for not moving. No lie, on the second try, I sprinted ahead, shot twice behind me, and chucked a grenade in the bottom right corner. The timing was so perfect, that the grenade exploded and destroyed the worm in the bottom right. I had survived, standing on the crate in the middle, boss's health was depleted, explosion animation, sound effect, all that jazz...but it told me I had failed.

...What? I killed the worm and lived to tell about it. How did I fail?

I retried the game from the very start. Frustrated I couldn't repeat my lucky grenade hit, I devoted that 1 AP to the other pistol...and in my continued frustration, realizing I'm having a pretty bad time with the FIRST BOSS, I basically rage-quit. One thing I can't complain about is it's certainly not easy, so the challenge is a plus!

Additionally, it would be most useful if you could remove the targeting nodes after you've placed them, instead of having to restart and maneuver your way around level again. It's a pretty brilliant system, with how it's layed out, and it does a good job not to over power Hank...but perhaps he might be a little underpowered.

The atmosphere, characters, and all-around artistic style looked awesome! Sound effects were all good, and the music was appropriate for the mood, but not very interesting and never grabbed my attention. As far as programming goes, it felt very nice! Hank was reliably weighty, and I pulled off the wall-jump well, the targeting system is accurate, and I suppose disallowing targeting nodes to be close together makes sense for recoil, but they should still be easily removed should the player make a mistake. And what's the deal with those grenades? Was my boss mishap a similar result to SangerZonvolt's (below me) deal?

I'm still voting highly regardless of it because it was a good lookin', good feeling game, with a good idea; it's evident you guys spent some time on this. Happy belated Pico Day! Voted 5.

BoMToons responds:

you can remove nodes by clicking on them after they're placed (then clicking an "x" in the gun assignment menu), I'll look into the worm boss grenade bug, thanks!

[crushd]

Addictive, Simple, and cool! Great time waster!

I think any added complexity would stave the challenge from this High Score time-sink. I love it for it's retro feel, yet surprisingly intuitive puzzle-like challenge. Just keeping Red from getting crushed is a challenge on it's own, and when it inevitably happens, he seems to want to land on the one spot that'll make him drown...(or perhaps I've been too patient with the water level to rise to that point.) Either way, every error I've encountered through the game was by my own...accidentally trapping the guy, and having to dig him out against the clock, while some other block descends...there's something just very classic and timeless on the premise, though I know I haven't played this game before. It's very interesting how it handles...I like how over time, the Red block will try to force his way out of a tight spot, which can either help things or complicate them.

Loved the game! I'd try talking to Tom about implementing the medal system! It's not necessary, of course, but it would definitely accrue more hits.

I will definitely return to this game, either way, to shave off some time. Again, it's very cool!

MrPiglet responds:

I'm extremely happy to hear you say that. One of the hardest things to do whilst making this was to find ways of balancing out the quirks in my initial concept/prototype to try to achieve the 'timeless' feel you mention.

Much thanks for sharing your thoughts :)

[M-Bot The Game]

Ran out of room in the review space...again.

For starters, on a game that has looping sound on the preloader, it's always a good idea to have a button that toggles mute (ESPECIALLY if it's a huge filesize, where the player will be subjected to it for a prolonged amount of time.) The music loop wasn't particularly annoying to me, but it's always a conscientious option, as there are some who would disagree.

One way around it, though, since you have our control options there, with our protagonist chasing an antagonist, is you could use the preloader space to provide us with an interactive warm-up of a minigame. But a mute button would be easier to program to accommodate the whiners. :P

The control scheme with the mouse takes a little getting used to. But once you learn to concentrate on the red line-of-sight, it gets a little easier. It's a recurring theme throughout the game where it's pivotal to your survival to know exactly where on the street your player is, and that's tricky to get a hang of since the camera is terminally side-scroller on a plane that contains depth. It would be merciful for us if the angle was viewed higher, looking down at the player...or if you REALLY wanted to be expiremental with flash, take from Einhander, an underrated Playstation 3D side scroller, and consistently switch up the perspectives, while never taking away from the fact that it's a side scroller.

The point of view makes it difficult to navigate with the mouse when the landmines came in. Instinctively, I wanted to switch play-styles without losing progress I've gained, so I seeked out the pause button for the menu. The "P" for pause was there, but it simply froze the game. It would be a great feature to have a menu where you could swap out play-styles without disrupting the whole game...like say you've tried keyboard and decided you wanted to give mouse a try.

It wasn't until the barrier section that I finally figured out that the health was indicated with the score, and similar to Da Pink Knight, also parallelled with what power ups you were granted. It's a good system that rewards the player with incentive to keep as shiny and untouched as possible, but it's not clearly established. Like even just an arrow that laid it straight for us at the very beginning WHILE we're getting used to the controls would've sufficed. "See this? This is your score. The more you got, the beefier you get. Don't let it drop to zero. Off you go." dusts off it's hands and let's you play the game.

*sigh*...I'm going to run out of review space...this review window's open WHILE I'm playing.

The music is actually pretty awesome. It gets you pumped, and it's remeniscent of arcade games, especially with the inclusion of dynamic sound effects that almost seem to be a part of the remix of the song you're listening to. Like the "Honk...Honnnk" going with the beat, and the whiplashes and shit. It only adds to the awesome. However, since it's ABSOLUTELY important to pay attention to where the red line-of-sight is, it keeps your eyes off of your character and the score-board more often than not. When you take damage, the little "Kzzzkkt" is barely audible when you take a hit. There were also missed opportunities for the jet-boost noise, and the gun SFX on the double-barrelled powerup don't match with the rate of fire...in other words; there are some SFX that are just right, but there are others that need to catch up to par with the appropriate ones.

Visually, I was taken off guard by the visuals. You had submitted 3D material as early as 2003, and it shows you've been pumping some polygonal iron. I was immediately reminded of Einhander, stated earlier, with the immersive bridge/tunnel thing the character had to pass through early on. While I already mentioned my beef with the fixed POV, the wall/barrier sequence was a little disorientating at first with the collision detection of the character. Sometimes it felt like a coin toss, and other times I accept responsiblity for being too slow to get to the weak-point. But everything looks great! I especially like the epic power-up vignettes.

Great Expirement! 5

MindChamber responds:

Thanks for the awesome review. This 3D rendered stuff is definitely something I've been holding near and dear to me for many years. its definitely a novel ideas thats became anitquited over the years. Back in 03 it seems so revolutionary, I had plans to do heroes of cybertron2, STagger, even wheelman. but as you can see they all fell by the waistside because I just couldnt find that balance between detail and filesize. In fact I never did, which is why all those projects were backburned. That is why i felt the need even finish one thing like this. The good news is Flash CAN do 3D and someday I will be able to use real 3D and not just prerended, and have a decent filesize to boot!. but yeah thanks for noticing..

I do agree with you there isnt enough info on how to play the game, I was much more thorough with Baron and to a degree pink knight. I just felt no matter how much material I put out, no one really reads it, and its imperative that the game is as intuitive as possible. And as you can see it isnt always easy. but I will keep trying harder to make the readability of the game from beginning to end.

I agree about the mute button AND the minigame. orginally the pixel art in the beginning was supposed to be an interactive tutorial, but this game had been delayed so many times, and schedules are so hectic that we just wanted it out by the time we saw the finish line.
not trying to make excuses, just saying you are right about that and we knew about it. :)

also yeah an isometic view of the game wouldve ruled!

thanks for the review

[crazy lander]

Interesting!

At first, I wasn't impressed by it in the slightest...another Lunar Lander rip, but with the fuel gauge taken out.

"Infinite Fuel?" I thought. "Well then there's no challenge! The angle is even fixed so you can't land sideways...this'll be a piece of cake!"

Then shit got really interesting. Rotating the planet instead of maneuvering the ship around the land and flipped landscapes. "Okay...it's a little more challenging, I'll admit...but still do-able!"

Then the lights went off. Then the ship began to malfunction...shit got creative!

I voted highly to praise the switch up in the gameplay that isn't typically associated with Lunar Lander. I can't vote highly, however, for the lack of sound, background music, and basic, BASIC visuals.

It needs a facelift and a soundtrack, but overall it's still fun to play. I stopped playing because I actually gotta jet at the moment, but I didn't get to even cover the later levels...if you were to do a sequel, however, come up with even crazier original gameplay elements, and expand on it so it has intense replay value.

amoebadan responds:

we are currently working on a sequel at the moment and looking at iphone app possibilities.

p.s. cows may be involved in the sequel