Score: 8

"A very ambitious flash project."

submission: Darkness Springs

date: April 18, 2008

Gameplay (8/10):
This is one impressive game for a flash project. Darkness Springs is a single player roleplaying game played in the isometric point of view. Think of a dumbed down single player Diablo and you'll get an idea about how the game is played.

Most RPGs that pop up on Newgrounds tend to be on the shallow side not offering all that much. Darkness Springs is a full on attempt to recreate a single player experience using Flash. Most actions are done by simply clicking the mouse. To move your character around, you simply click in the direction you want him to move. To attack an enemy, you click on the enemy, etc. It works out rather nicely. The only problem with movement is that your character moves rather slowly. It would have been nice to speed up movement just a tad.

It's not just about bashing enemies though. You can carry and equip items, barter with merchants, and complete a variety of quests. Questing is one of the strong points of this game. Quests are logged in a journal making them easy to keep track of. There is a major quest line along with introduction quests and side quests. They will keep the player busy.

Combat and customization go hand in hand. You can train your character to wield magic, different types of swords, and wear different sets of armor. Everything requires skill points to use so it's really up to the player to choose which path he/she wants to take.

There are two major flaws in the gameplay that I noticed. The first and most frustrating is when you are trying to manage your inventory; the game still runs in the background. So if you are in a forest with tons of enemies, the action won't pause while you try to loot and fit in the item into your bags. This game is not an MMO, and therefore does not need to run while the player performs management tasks such as inventory, reading the quest journal, etc.

The second flaw is there is no help for new players to get into the game. Intro quests simply consist of "kill the skeleton down in the cellar", etc. The player is left to learn all the details himself. Of course the game is easy to learn, but having a help menu or a true tutorial will really allow the player to understand all of the mechanics.

Presentation/Graphics (7/10):
The graphics are top notch for a flash game, but I am going to be a bit hard and say there is room for improvement here. Everything is in the isometric 3-D point of view. So the style resembles a VERY simple Diablo or Ultima. There are not many models in the game. One male, one female (maybe there are more in the full version on the website.) Though a minor point since this is a flash game, the graphics could have been a bit more enhanced to give the game a non-generic RPG look.

On a side note, the torch effect adds a very nice touch making the player feel he really is immersed in a world of darkness.

Music/Sound (7/10):
The music fits perfectly with the theme. Depending on the location, the music will change. Once again, it reminds me of Diablo. However, repeating very short clips of music can become annoying to listen too after a few minutes. Expanding the length of the songs will probably result in less muting or turning down the volume knob. This issue seems to be present in many games and unfortunately this game suffers from it too.

The sound effects were great. Every sfx made the game sound like an authentic 90's RPG. It fit really well with the gameplay. Sword swipes, looting coin, even the subtle button clicks really livened the game up. Really good job with the SFX.

Overall (8/10):
This game isn't perfect, but it was executed extremely well for a flash game. I am sure this game will rank high and even perhaps make the front page. Other than the minor flaws (which all can be worked out in a future version for the author's website version), this game plays very well, it's addictive, and it's more than what you'd expect for a RPG Flash offering. Good job.

Score: 5

"Sloppy physics, missing features and buggy gamepl."

submission: Tractor Spheres

date: April 17, 2008

Gameplay (5/10):
Gravity based puzzle games are not new. They appear somewhat frequently on Newgrounds. Tractor Sphere's falls into the same idea of trying to manipulate a ball to the goal. Instead of directly controlling the ball or setting its course, you place the objects that attract the ball. Due to the game's sloppy physics, missing key features and buggy gameplay, Tractor Sphere's can be nothing but average.

Lets start with the good. The scoring system is well done. There are many bonuses the player can achieve by maximizing his performance. Some stages are a bit more challenging than others. The ramp up in difficulty was done well.

The physics in this game is just wonky. The player can't really tell how strong his Tractor Sphere is. Size does not seem to wholly reflect the strength (its really how long you hold the mouse down.) A visual meter would have been nice for precise accuracy. All that aside, the physics are very loose. I do not understand how I can put a maximum sized Sphere further down from a smaller sized one and yet the ball still has trouble getting over to the larger one. It also seems the ball has difficulty curving and orbiting.

Certain key features make the game more frustrating than fun. For example, instead of being able to reset the playing field whenever the player wants, he must hit the start button and then hit reset. On the same subject, once you hit reset your previous data disappears making you have to guess where you placed the spheres. This is a game of precise accuracy so it would have benefited the player if he could see ghost data of his previous placements to allow him/her to tweak his new placements. These missing features really make the game more frustrating than fun and have been used in most other "good" gravity games.

On the same subject, the only obstacles in this game were walls. There were no additional obstacles such as moving objects, items that manipulate gravity, hazards, etc. A game like this grows boring fast when there are not any new challenges after a certain amount of levels.

Lastly, the game is not coded well. If the ball bounces quickly in a small area, it will often go into the wall. This bug occurred the most in the "Polka Dot" stage. The author clearly did not take the time to evaluate and fix his game before submitting it.

Presentation/Graphics (4/10):
The game has a very bland "black and white" theme. The only animation is the blue exit object that simply rotates about its center. There just was no creativity or attempt to create a unique theme. Taking the time to enhance the backgrounds, adding animations to the ball, etc would have made this game more appealing to play.

Music/Sound (4/10):
What is it with people making extremely short loops and repeating them over and over again? I muted the song after about 30sec into hearing the 5-second clip repeat. When creating the spheres, the player hears a charging sound. However, the sound does not go hand-in-hand with how strong you make the sphere. In fact, the sfx repeats its self during the charging process. At least the sfx goes well with the player's actions.

Other than that, there were no other issues with the sound. There isn't a whole lot to do with sfx here anyways.

Overall (5/10):
This game is nothing but average. I wouldn't recommend playing it to the end, it isn't worth it. The author has a lot room for improvement to make his idea stand out among other gravity based games. As of right now though, there are too many wrong things with it that will make most people move on to the next game quickly.

Score: 7

"A fun take on the Mouse Avoider genre, not perf."

submission: Mouse Under Siege

date: April 16, 2008

Gameplay (8/10):
This game puts a unique, and strategic twist on the Mouse Avoider genre. Instead of trying to avoid falling objects or moving shapes, your mouse is placed right smack down into a battlefield where enemies come rushing in from both the ground and air. Though this game is labeled as a mouse avoiding game, there are strategic elements that make it more than that.

That is the great thing about this game. The player has the option to clear the battlefield by moving his mouse over the parachute troops or airplanes to shoot them down. The player can also try to click on the ground troops and tanks to kill them. This mix of choosing to clear up the skies or the ground introduces a very nice strategic twist that allows the player to make more decisions other than where to move the mouse too. Very nice touch.

The other good and major point is the mouse has HP. If this were a one-shot kill game, it would be overly difficult and frustrating. The author chose to give the mouse HP to allow the player to mess up every once in a while. Of course when you have about 50 enemies on the screen shooting at you, HP plays a huge role.

The only down side to the gameplay is the lack of variety in enemy types and the pace at which enemies ramp up. These are minor details, but it would have been nice to slow down the frequency of enemy appearances. There are only a few enemy types. Adding some more variety would have been nice.

Presentation/Graphics (8/10):
The bright colors and choice of stick figures as enemies compliment each other well. The black bullets are easy to see. The red tank bullets and missiles are also very easy to see. The presentation is wrapped up in professional looking menus and artwork.

My only complaint, and its a very small one is the background is rather static during gameplay. Fast day/night cycles, destructible buildings, etc would have spiced up the presentation a bit.

Music/Sound (4/10):
Unfortunately, the game suffers greatly here. Both the music and sound have been sloppily put together without much care to bugs or sfx related issues. The music and sfx fits the game well. However, after you play the game once, the music does not come back automatically. Instead, the player must figure out to hit the M button twice (once to turn off the music, and once to turn it back on) in order to revive the song. I lower the score greatly on very obvious bugs that could have been fixed before making the game live.

The other big problem is with the sound effects. As enemies increase in numbers, the number of "shot" sounds also increase. The author did not put a limit on the number of simultaneous shot sfx. By about 70 seconds into the game, the SFX saturate the speakers/headphones to the point where the player must turn the volume down. Once again, this could have been fixed before going live.

Overall (7/10):
The music/sound issues do not bring this game down to the point of average. This is definitely an above average game, with unique gameplay and strategic elements. It is definitely worth playing and can become quite addictive trying to push your mouse's lifespan out ever so longer.

Score: 6

"Interesting concept, but very repetitive/bland."

submission: The Horrors from Planet10

date: April 15, 2008

Gameplay (6/10):
This game presents a unique twist on the Turrent Defense genre. Instead of shooting from a fixed location, you control a ship with a phyics based ball attached to a thether that you can freely swing around to bash enemies. At first, this concept seems to work well. It was rather entertaining to bash baddies with your mace. However, it was apparent after the third wave that there was little innovation beyond the concept.

The gameplay becomes bland and repetitive very fast. New enemy types are too few and far between and waves last longer. In fact, by the 6th wave (the first desert level) there was STILL only two enemy types. The only thing that seemed to change between waves was Core and Recharge locations.

It almost seemed this game was designed for an upgrade system. Or at least a power-up system. The only power-up I saw was a smart bomb. Oddly enough, it only started appearing in the tougher Desert stages. By creating an upgrade system (larger mace, more core HP, helpers, etc) it would keep players hooked for longer durations.

Presentation/Graphics (6/10):
First off, the game looks polished and somewhat professional. Characters take on a rendered 3-D appearance. The blue glowing mace glaringly contridicts the rest of the theme. However, it stands out well when fending off the hordes of enemies.

The big problem with the graphics is beyond the nice looking 3D characters, everything else is bland and hardly anything is animated. It would have been nice to add animations to all the enemies and create more varied backgrounds. Playing through 5 "grass" levels is not really appealing when all 5 maps looks exactly the same.

Music/Sound (7/10):
The choice of music fits well with the gameplay and theme. However, only one song is repeated over and over again. It would have been nice to add different theme songs for each area (grass, desert, etc.)

Sound effects are what one would expect from this game. There are not really any issues with the sound effects. They were implemented well.

Overall (6/10):
This game presents a unique concept. Unfortunately the concept was not taking far enough to make the game really stand out. It is fun for a quick play until you grow bored at about wave 3. There is definite room for improvement and I hope to see a sequel of sorts that add depth to the gameplay and graphics.

Score: 4

"Video game roulette is boring in general."

submission: Goldrush Roulette

date: April 15, 2008

1-Line Summary:

Video game roulette is boring in general, this game is much much worse.

Gameplay (4/10):
There isn't much to this game. All you really do is place bets and hit the spin button over and over again until you grow bored of doing so. For me, I got bored after the first spin. Probably the main reason why this game is so dull is because there is absolutely no reward system in place. The goal is to increase the amount of "nuggets" or money you have. By increasing the amount of money, you also increase rank. However, with no tangable rewards, there really is no reason to play after the first spin. Rewards could rangee from anything like short, funny animations, to collectables or trophies for accomplishing certain tasks. For example, it would have been nice to receive a trophy for winning 5 times in a row. Its these little things that can really hook a player into doing repetitive tasks such as this game.

Presentation/Graphics (6/10):
The actual presentation of the game isn't all that bad. The instructions are clear and easy to read. The graphics are a bit generic, though well drawn. However, it would have been nice to enlarge the betting table and make the Spin and Nugget Selections easier to see. It also would have been nice to animate the ball with the wheel to give it a more realistic touch.

Sound/Music (2/10):
To be completely honest, the music is extremely terrible. I rated this section a 2 just becaue there was an option to turn the music off. There is nothing worse than a low quality 5 second banjo loop that constantly plays over and over again. The SFX were very low and hard to hear (I use BOSE headphones.) Overall. the sound was mixed badly, and the music choice was terrible.

Overall (4/10):
This game is bad, don't even bother playing it. You're better off going to Yahoo or AOL and play their casino games. Casino games played with fake currency don't really work unless there is an addictive element or goal orientated gameplay. Unfortunately, this game is neither addictive or goal orientated. Along with the terrible sound, I would just move onto the next game.