ErasmusMagnus's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Free Icecream]

Cute little game, thanks for the Halloween present 15 years later.

[-TRAPPED-]

Once upon a time, this was a serious game

[Necrowave 5.0 (Old version)]

See, I told you this was one of the few games where the art direction with my normal color vision is what draws me in!

Do I even need to say the art is stunning in all the right ways? Playing your own beautifully realized cartoon is a surreal experience. The delayed pipe poof is a bit off putting, but the mime helps to balance it out.

Arfhis responds:

That's so good to hear! Thank you for the kind words. And thank you for the feedback!

[Size Matters]

Here to claim my place as the world record holder of "Size Matters"

[NG Dreamcast Collab: Homebrew Edition]

Gonna play this alongside my modded "They Hunger"!

[Lethal Potato]

The game design is quite strong. The loop is rock solid, with smooth movement. It's just plain fun to move around, aiming is very easy with the mouse and line, and the frantic pace of the game is balanced out by breaks for upgrading between the ever faster waves, allowing you to choose how to strategize in the future with great possibility for emergent tactics. It's just a visceral joy to dodge and weave through the playing field choosing the right moments to strike, and how. There is some oddness like not being able to predict how the potato will bounce off enemies, making combo strategies difficult, being in danger staying near the edges of the screen as enemies don't telegraph spawning in, or not being able to differentiate which potato flying around is the throwable one until it stops moving. But the gripes are minor and there is a huge amount of raw fun to be had here, making it all the more remarkable this polished work was made in a mere manner of 48 hours.

The mere act of being able to choose how you spend your upgrade every 10 enemies while the difficulty continues to climb keeps things perpetually interesting, and you keep asking, oh, I know I can get further next time. I can change strategies, do different upgrades, have different luck, etc. It's quite addictive with that 'easy to play, difficult to master' level of approachability. Combine that with the potential for emergent tactics, and it's simple presentation hides an engrossing little game.

Add on top of that a great visual style with the simple pixel art but made all the more excellent through the use of a CRT filter and admittedly a bias in the excellent sound work and music, what on paper seems really simple is just a damn fine game with all the bells and whistles you could expect out of an unassuming but intense arcade romp!

crypt1x-dev responds:

Ty!! If I could give this review a review I would give it 5 stars!

[Terminate]

Fine for what it is even with its clunkiness, but I couldn't figure out how to get past the second level. Finding the keycode took some trial and error since P isn't listed as an alternate PAUSE button. But it is. And that's where the code is. Fair for what it is, but breaks pretty easily with the menus and collision and breaking the keypad logic and whatnot. Not to mention even entering the right password first try is broken and you can't continue.

Update: Now the password works, but you get immediately stuck upon entering the 3rd level. Can't look around, can't move. Only shoot.

DevDynasty responds:

Thanks so much for the review and taking the time to play our game, we're students working on our first game and it's so cool to see this. We've already taken these bugs into account and will have these fixed and updated in the next build

[GÖRF]

Now I know where the Size Matters frog comes from! :)

As for the game itself? I hope you'll forgive me, but honestly, I can't say the design is good. There's no fluid movement or much strategy. Moving on a grid-based system feels stiff and punitive. Underwater, you can move left and right simply enough (not smoothly), but it doesn't help you get into a flow. The hit detection for the fly seems wonky, seemingly missing when it's touching the fly when not simply difficult to line up, since the there's no way to aim the narrow tongue, so you have to eyeball and hope for the best, and the heron barely telegraphs the bite by just briefly appearing with an open mouth above you for a split second, making it nearly impossible to react, and it's suddenly over in one confusing instant. If you do react in time, you'll still probably die, as you explicitly have to remember to press down, which isn't obvious as your first instinct is to chase the fly, that getting the fly automatically saves you, and there's nothing visually enforcing that you can only go down while above water for some reason. You just have to remember, so it feels like you get stuck a lot. And that's when you're not just missing the fly or dying instantly.

While the concept of a simple arcade game of being a nimble frog to pop out of water to catch flies to avoid a bird works well enough for this arcade game and could be interesting, there's really nothing to keep you engaged. Just a high score number, and that's it. One static challenge, nothing dynamic or interesting, and no possibility for interesting anecdotes.

The best part of the game is the aesthetic style. They're not bad, but they're not interesting. The retro pixelated style is nice, but there's not much to look at. There's the title screen logo, the hastily slapped together default buttons, up to three frames of animation per basic sprite, inconsistent black or white outlines, and the curvature of the fly's path. The sound too is nothing special. The music's fine, not amazing, and the sound effects are underwhelming. At least the details of the rewarding, exaggerated Minecraft chewing sounds in tandem with the frog sprite chewing, and the clown honk with trying to eat underwater are cute.

I'm afraid to say the game is pretty messy. With the gamey abstraction and confusion about mechanics, the distractingly modern sounds vs retro arcade noises, and a decent pixel style contrasting default menu UI, it tends to fall apart.

I can't honestly say I had much fun with the game. On the occasions I could get into a flow with the stiff controls, I tended to die in an instant to the heron, and seems to mostly be an exercise in precision. Mostly, the game left me bored when it wasn't frustrating. My high score was 15 and I didn't care to go beyond that. Finishing a game in 48 hours is always a feat, so props to you for taking on that challenge. Perhaps with some polish to could become a viscerally satisfying challenge. But for me, this game wasn't it.

crypt1x-dev responds:

It's ok, you're forgiven ;)
To comment on your review:
- thx for the feedback :)
- there is one strategy, which is quickly emerging and going back in to then emerge in another spot, which will make the heron go for the first spot you emerged and give you more time above water in the other spot
- i personally really like the music but it doesn't really 'come into it's own' (idk if that's correct but that's what google translate told me) because the game is very hard so you die very quickly
a highscore of 15 is actually really good, my own highscore is 17
- I'm not going to develop it any further, but thanks for the tips
- It's probably an underwhelming game compared to my newer games, but GÖRF was my first ever working game i made with Godot and also my first working jam submission

[Run as administrator]

Excellent. Reminds me of the Pepsi NEX game. And I love the GarageBand music. I made it in 56 lifetimes!

[The Lumlings Welcome You]

Clearly had too much fun making this. Wonderful for a first game.