ErasmusMagnus's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Days of Survival]

Not bad. The day/night resources/monsters loop works nicely. The biggest problem is that during the day phase, I was mostly just waiting around for resources to spawn. There wasn't anything else to do. At night, when the monsters attack, the way the sword always points right or left makes it hard to hit enemies above or below you, making me vulnerable. If I got hit, and I did, I never was able to get enough ore to make potions to heal fast enough.

The game's lacking in depth. There's nothing really to do outside of combat and resource mining which often involves idling about. I was at a point where I was at one heart from the mentioned difficulty hitting enemies, and the pressure increased. I tried to survive until daytime, where I could then mine all the resources that spawned at night to hopefully make a potion. But I died. That was on day 5. It took a while, so I ended it there. So if that was polished up a little more, if the timer was hastened, or other mechanics like hunger was added, that'd improve the experience. As for everything else in the game, it's nothing special, but it works well enough (graphics, music, premise). So while I had frustrations, and wouldn't play it for a long time, I still had fun with the game.

MacaroniAndGames responds:

I’m glad you could still somewhat enjoy the game, but I do know from play testing that it is definitely boring during the day. Maybe I could add animals to the game that would spawn during the day, and that would be useful if I added a hunger mechanic. I definitely have some ideas for an update now, thanks for your feedback!

[Madness: An FPS Demo]

The day 1 patch helped to smooth out the gameplay from the first version. Before, controls were very stiff and enemies could easily gang up on you, making it hard to retaliate. Not so anymore. Because enemies can no longer stun lock you, it's much easier, fluid, and allows for a feeling of flow. Not that there's a whole lot to do at the moment, but current mechanics work well with no real glaring issues. Except of course, a severe lack of enemies to test with. After about five, they're all gone.

Repeatedly spawning enemies, while stale, would increase the engagement, allowing for more experimentation with mechanics and more fun to be had. Can't gauge the difficulty without enough enemies to test with. But thankfully, it no longer feels cheap. Even if it is ultimately easy, that's still infinitely preferable to cheapness, because it means you can actually play around in the game without getting killed by surprise.

Aesthetically it's unpolished, but the implementation of the art style, models and music are quite well done. Details like flipping the bird and HUD effects are appreciated. The one location is very sparsely detailed, and sound effects are slightly lackluster, but the aesthetics are the demo's strongest asset by far. Overall, while it's very empty with not much to do, what little gameplay I did have I enjoyed. I'd love to see more from it; at the bare minimum more enemies to fight.

frdy responds:

I made some changes last minute that apparently negatively affected the gameplay -- I nearly left a bug in that would have made the ai MORE aggresive, among other things. Besides that, I'd like to hear more about what you think needs changing when it comes to the movement, punch mechanics, and enemy ai.