xalezar's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Grapple Tongue]

This game is very polished! The vibrant graphics, the chiptune sound effects and music all complemented each other well. I think the animations and dust particles really to the experience and make the game delightful.

[Laser Push]

Nice! I love how all of your games have your trademark art style, but the mechanics are always fresh. I was expecting to have mirrors, and then bam, the next level had mirrors! Sound effects are well designed—the level-complete sound feels very appropriate.

One thing I might suggest is making the laser beams have a glowing effect, to make them feel more like lasers, especially since they make up the main mechanic of the game.

[Chessformer]

It's super creative how you combined the concept of gravity with a 2d chessboard. The music helps me think :) I am stuck on level 18, but determined to beat it.

Finally beat level 18. Didn't know that the rooks can move through those platforms. Would be nice to be introduced to that mechanic earlier.

Stuck on the last level, darn. Really fun, addicting game.

[Out Twogether]

Interesting minimal platformer. The animation style makes me think of VVVVVV.

I know this was made in 48 hours as you describe, so some of my feedback might suggest out-of-scope ideas, but I included them all in case you decide to expand in the future:

I thought the intro scene was a bit long, but I wanted to jump into the action sooner! Maybe the story can be intervowen into the gameplay little by little. I like the tone and atmosphere though, quite engaging.

It wasn't very obvious at first that the goal is to head towards the door, as the dark rectangular shape wasn't immediately recognizable. Perhaps you can point it out with a little arrow (at least for the very first level). The first time I played it, I noticed "p-skip" in the corner, but didn't know it meant pressing "p" would skip the level, so I accidentally skipped some levels.

Controls wise, personally I prefer to use one hand for movement, and another hand for jumping (normally I expect to use the spacebar for jumping). In the end, I used WASD to move left/right, and the up arrow on my right hand to jump.

Cool mechanic with the "working together" bit. So the idea here is to make the ghost-shaped character stop on a space that has a dashed outline. It wasn't apparent at first that once you move over a tile, the space is filled in and you can no longer traverse it once you leave "working together" mode (hence restarting the puzzle becomes necessary). I felt the two mechanics were a bit disjointed—the platforming vs ice floor puzzle. A little bit of onboarding might help.

Overall, I am quite impressed. The game includes music, sound effects, narrative, transitions—not easy to do in 48 hours. Bravo!

[Sloth Simulator 2]

I think you just need to adjust the viewport size (in your Newgrounds upload settings), as the game area is being clipped and one has to actually scroll down inside the iframe to see the rest of the game. Some players might not know to do this, and I only found out by experimenting. However, the artwork is beautiful so far.

Nesteaboy99 responds:

Yes, but even if i do 1920 x 1080, you have to scroll down as well. I hope it's understandable though xd

[Elemental Tiles]

I had a fun playing your game. I played until Level 17 (probably will keep playing). It's like sokoban but with special powers! The music was very catchy, and kept me playing. You did a good job with teaching the player how each power works.

Some feedback:

When beginning a new levels, sometimes it's hard to tell where the player starts, since the color contrast between the player and the background texture isn't very contrasting. Maybe highlighting the starting point with an arrow, or some kind of a pointer for a brief moment may help.

At first, I wasn't sure if the edge of the screen was a barrier. (Turns out it is.) Wondering if it was intentional to not use an outer wall. If so, why?

Thanks for sharing your game!

[Screw And Engine]

It's pretty fun! The music was very appropriate--it had this industrial feel and a driving rhythm, that went well with the fast-paced nature of the game.

It wasn't clear at first what the different colored screws meant, but I later found out in HowToPlay. Most players skip instructions, so perhaps some in-game onboarding would be helpful. Even something like showing numbers that fade in and rise up to give some quick info, e.g. "+1 speed" or "+1 luck".

I'm still not clear what the correct strategy is here since the screws seem head in random directions--there's no way for me to predict where the next screw will be aiming towards (or maybe there is a pattern that I haven't noticed yet).

I can see this being quite an addictive mobile game. What are your future plans for this project?

EDIT: Great to hear it's on Google Play--congrats!

MatRN responds:

All my projects I update from time to time, I also have them in PlayStore, but they are not updated.
If you want to follow me to know more about my projects you can do it :).

[Legend]

Very fun! It took me just a few seconds to figure out that there are a limited number of jumps. At first I was trying to figure out why I kept dying, but then I noticed the little squares. Was it intentional to not explicitly tell the player? For me, it was easy to discern after dying a few times. But some players might not notice for a while.

Perhaps you can make the removal of health boxes more obvious, e.g. like a little explosion, so it catches the player's peripheral vision, and they draw the connection between landing on the ground and losing one HP. What about making the health boxes hearts, to associate them with the heart refills? Just some ideas.

I thought the introduction of the heart refills was well done. You mention "health" in the in-game text previously, and the heart icon is generally associated with health. So no additional onboarding text was required.

Not sure about the music style. It has a sort of wandering, pensive feel to it. The drone-like texture is hypnotic. But your game is much more exciting! Something more upbeat with a conventional rhythm would be nice.

EDIT: Beat all 20 levels! The gameplay had a good hook that kept me wanting to keep trying until I finished it. I think it was because the levels were designed in a way that informed me it they are reasonable and possible to clear. The delightful particle effects were a nice touch. Do you have plans to expand on this game further?

MostlyMadProductions responds:

There is definitely a possibility for this game to be taken further and turned into a steam game, as it has a very simple to implement mechanic, however this game will only be attempted to be expanded after my current big project is completed, (Codename: Vylan). I am glad you enjoyed the game and I hope to see your name in the comments of an expanded version of this game in the future. Definitely follow my twitter to be aware of the release of any of my games. :)

[Emperors v.0.4: Age of Heroes]

Music and sound design are brilliant! I could really feel the excitement. :)

However, the gameplay and onboarding experience I felt were a bit lacking. The user interface was quite complex, and as a first-time player I felt overwhelmed with all the cards, buttons, etc. For your style of game, maybe an overlay tutorial would work. Or maybe you could have a guided campaign mode, where the first mission is very simple, so only a few controls are available, then each successive mission unlocks more and more features so the player can gradually learn how the user interface works.

I think this game has some real potential. I wasn't able to get into the gameplay very deeply, but from what I see, you have quite a bit of the mechanics built out already. So my feedback to you would be to have more user onboarding, so the player will know how to enjoy these features that you've worked so hard on.

[Angry Robots]

It feels like an Angry Birds clone, but missing many of the original game's features, such as zooming out to view the whole level, player onboarding, etc.

I'm sure it took a lot of work to build, but unless it can offer more value or unique gameplay than the original Angry Birds, or is substantially different, it is hard for me to give it a higher score.