xalezar's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Newgrounds Virtuattack]

Feels pretty polished and intuitive! My only suggestion would be to add some kind of indicator that you need to press a key to read the next message—maybe like a blinking cursor at the end of the dialog box—as I was waiting for it to autoplay. Do you get penalized for shooting the civilian cars?

EDIT: Nice, I see the new indicator for indicating a key press is required after the message ended. Though I think a downwards arrow blinking or displacing up and down is more commonly seen. And I wasn't meaning that being able to shoot civilian cars was a bug; just asking whether shooting them earns you points too.

Default responds:

I added a space bar indicator and hopefully fixed the car problem

[The Nine Puzzle]

I think this game has a lot of potential! The color palette gives it a nice retro feel. That said, there was a lot of walking through empty areas—I’d love to see more interaction or visual variety there. Personally, I found the E key for interaction a bit unintuitive; spacebar might feel more natural. I also wasn’t quite sure what the goal was, so a bit more guidance or context would help.

NomarOmens responds:

Thanks so much for playing! I added a run button on Left Shift, hopefully that can alleviate some of the monotony, but I'll definitely keep this in mind for my next game.

[Kinesis]

This is pretty fun! I'm wondering if the controls can be smoother. It's kind of hard to control where you direct the objects after linking with them. But maybe that's part of the challenge.

EDIT: Yeah I am using a mouse and keyboard.

crowbarcoder responds:

Thanks! Yeah well are you playing it on a computer or phone? It’s easier to control with a mouse.
Yes the controls are meant to have the objects follow your cursor a bit laggy so you feel like it’s a challenge to have to move your mouse and control the objects. Which is why you can upgrade your manipulation speed.

[Wispy Dreams]

This was pretty fun! I read a bit of the tutorial but it was a lot of information upfront, so I skipped ahead. Maybe the mechanics can be taught gradually as the player progresses, so it's more interactive and natural. Wish I could run faster.

Regarding the menus, the design is creative, but I think the font was a bit hard to read and the press and hold to select the option added unnecessary complexity. Also the menu style changes quite a bit across screens, so at times I wasn't sure which option was highlighted...

Great job on the game!

recon-project responds:

Thank you so much for the kind words!
You're right that the way the tutorial is presented is quite outdated. Since the game is based on old arcade platformers, I kinda tried to imitate the tutorials of games like Snow Bros 2 and Nightmare in the Dark. But I hope it wasn't too confusing.
And, believe it or not, I changed the font a few times to make it less hard to read... But I guess it's still too stylized haha.

[UVSU Demo]

Wow this is incredible! Was the artwork digitally rendered or actually photographed from clay? Either way, the gameplay and atmosphere are very polished. Played just a few minutes of it so far and am already intrigued. Seems like it will be available only for Windows it seems, so I'm out of luck with my current MacBook which barely has any space left lol.

What was your inspiration? And was this a solo project? Cool to see such cool stuff made in GMS2.

EDIT: Finished playing the demo, nicely done with the cliff hanger there haha. That last fight was hard, but really fun. I think people who enjoy a mix of puzzling and platforming will like this game.

dietzribi responds:

Thanks! It's real clay that I'm heavily editing digitally.
It's inspired by many things but visually mostly by The Neverhood. Yeah it's a solo project, I'm doing everything except for the music :)

[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

[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 :).

[POLY WARS]

Hmm ... I wasn't sure how to play it. I see you have the controls down in the description, that's fine, but many players tend to not read it. Might help to have some in-game inboarding. Maybe start the player in a safe zone so that they learn the mechanics one by one. Then introduce an enemy once the player familiarizes with the controls.

I found the WASD controls to be confusing. It seems you use the mouse to change your forward facing direction, where W is move forward, A/D strafe sideways, S to move backwards. I understand how it works now, but I don't think most players will get it at first. Maybe the mouse can just be for aiming, while WASD move the player.

I am digging the music. It is very appropriate for this kind of genre.

AbhiTechGames responds:

thank you so much for your feedback I will definitely update the game by keeping your points in mind