Score: 0

"Well..."

submission: Epic Battle Fantasy

date: November 13, 2009

Eh. Call me old-fashioned, but I just don't like games where a boss can insta-kill the entire party even when they're fully healed, with the player not being able to do anything about it.

Score: 9

"Great"

submission: 5 Differences

date: November 11, 2009

Very nice. I really love the art; the only thing it's missing is some music, as the second instalment had.

Score: 8

"Very nice, but"

submission: 6 Differences

date: November 10, 2009

Very nice, but not as good as the first one. I preferred the clean artwork in that one over the photography here, and I also thought that the differences were harder to find now; in a few levels, I ended up just randomly clicking around in frustration now because I simply couldn't see any differences anymore.

The music was a nice touch, though, and of course, the game was still neat itself. But that said, if there's gonna be another sequel, I'd recommend going back to the first instalment, art-wise.

Score: 8

"Nice so far"

submission: Dragon Boy

date: November 4, 2009

Nice so far.

Hey, is that teleport sound effect from DOOM 2? I'm pretty sure it's the same one the Icon of Sin uses when spawning its evil thoughts... ;)

Score: 8

"Nice!"

submission: Colour My Dreams

date: October 30, 2009

Very nice. The scary effects were unexpected, but certainly fit the time of the year. ;)

I've got to admit I liked the first two better, though, simply because they had more coloring etc.; the plot-based interactions in this game were nice, too, but whereas the first two were novel and provided a different take on jump'n'run games, this one was more traditional.

Not that that's a bad thing in itself, mind you: but I enjoyed the more alternative approach of the first two more, and I also think that moving closer to "regular" jump'n'run adventures like Knytt or William and Sly also means you'll have to add more puzzles and generally make the game longer and more complicated in order to make it work.

As long as it's mostly an art game, closer to an interactive movie than anything else, a lack of puzzles, short time needed for completion etc. is perfectly fine, of course, but once you try to be something other than that, you've also got other standards to live up to.

So I rather felt that this game was neither fish nor fowl. I still liked it quite a bit, but I hope that in the next installation - if there's going to be one - the focus is going to be on coloring and "unnecessary" interactions with the environment again.

But yeah, all in all, 8/10. :)

Score: 4

"Worse than the first"

submission: Hedgehog Launch 2

date: October 25, 2009

Very confusing launch. The first installment of this game was OK; this second one, though, isn't all that great, especially since it doesn't really seem to add anything new.

Score: 8

"Nice"

submission: Achievement Unlocked

date: October 24, 2009

Nice - an interesting twist on the typical NG game.

Downsides: no real replay value, unless you want to lower your time, and some of the achievements really were rather tricky - but then, I guess that's the point.

8/10!

Score: 9

"Sweet!"

submission: Bunny Invasion: Easter

date: October 21, 2009

Haha, neat. :D

I'm not usually a fan of action games, and I've never played a defense game before (except maybe for a few invasion WADs in Skulltag, but I doubt that counts), but I really enjoyed this.

The graphics were nice - not the most professional-looking I've ever seen, of course, but nice enough, and the tooniness fit the game well, as did the fact that the protagonists were at least somewhat reminiscent of Madness characters. :)

Good sounds, too; the music was fitting, and the various comments from the two often made me chuckle ("Mwahaha! I love my job.")

Finally, the gameplay was good: balanced, and never too easy or TOO difficult. I was in a bit of a tight spot a few times but always managed to pull through; at the same time, though, the game never felt overly easy, either, but rather presented a constant challenge, starting with a low and beginner-friendly difficulty level and progressing until it reached a certain sweet spot where your upgrades and the increase in the enemies' number and difficulty always maintained a balance.

So why just 9/10? Well, partly because I don't like giving out 10s these days until I think that a game is *literally* perfect (and which game is); but I also thought the final boss battle was a bit anticlimactic. Simply aiming the heaviest gun at the easter bunny's navel and firing away took care not only of him but also of all his eggs (which always followed exactly the same trajectory and always got nicely caught in your bullets' path and destroyed this way), so he didn't actually present any challenge.

That said - last not least, I very much liked the in-game trophies (and the extras!) and the Newgrounds medals the game handed out, and I managed to collect them all during my second completion of the game, too.

Cheers!

Score: 9

"Lovely"

submission: William and Sly

date: October 20, 2009

This was an extremely cute game - I really loved it. Everything went together really well, too, from the artwork (I can't call bring myself to call it nothing more than "graphics") to the music to the sound effects and the story itself. I really love these calm, creative games where you can, for the most part, just explore and enjoy the world around you; Knytt is probably a good example of that sort of game, but this one is, too.

The boss battle was unexpected, and a bit annoying at first with the sudden shift to action, but I managed to figure it out, and it wasn't too hard.

What I did NOT like, however, was the "you can only kill darklings with white magic which you'll only have for a limited amount of time after activating a runestone and which cannot be regained once all the runestones are activated" bit, though. This makes the game entirely time-based, hasty even, and is completely at odds with the atmosphere (and appeal!) it otherwise has, and this is also why I'm only giving you 9/10.

Nevertheless, I still enjoyed it a lot (even if I didn't manage to find the last key and also remained 14 mushrooms short in the end). I hope you'll make more games like this.

Score: 2

"Buggy"

submission: Match Game 51

date: October 20, 2009

Buggy. If you click the cards too fast, you can make the game take the wrong pairs away, and you'll end up with two non-matching cards left in the end.