Score: 7

"Needs some improvement"

submission: Wires

date: September 28, 2008

Well the title I chose for this review could make certain people think that I'm going to write a bad review, hence the score. But I only found one major mistake, but I'm going into that later.

The graphics were good, I mean, they weren't bad, but they weren't outstanding either. I personally prefer games where all the colors don't make too much contrast. Anyway in this case isn't too bad because you stayed focused on the boxes, I mean, they were easy to spot.

Regarding to the gameplay, it wasn't a new concept, but that doesn't mean a game can't be fun.

Something I didn't like was the speed of the game, OK, at the first level (maybe the second) everything must be slow so the player can get used to the game, but after some time it got boring. Really, the games where the players have more fun are those where things happens fast, when you need good reflexes to respond to everything.

Now, the worst thing about your name is the fact that whether boxes appear or not is random. Sometimes to beat levels the only things you need is luck, I mean, you need luck for the right boxes to appear to the needed speed so you can score a big combo.
This is the only thing that I really see the need to be fixed, because it is very bad to lose all your score just because it's impossible to reach the score (and believe me, sometimes it really is).

And the sound was very good for the game, it wasn't the most fascinating ever but I liked it. Sometimes I felt the beat didn't go accordingly to the speed of the game (when the boxes moved very slowly and the beat was fast).

So, overall I'd say you need to fix the way the boxes appear, it would be nice too if the game was faster.

My review score will be 7/10, and I voted 4/5 just because I felt 3 was too low.

Score: 10

"Original and challenging"

submission: Z-Rox

date: September 17, 2008

This is how this game is, I haven't seen something like this before.

I loved the style of the game, the graphics were good and fit perfectly with each other, and I liked the simplicity of it. Since the first moment when I saw the intro, I knew this was going to be a great game, and luckily it didn't disappoint me.
The audio was just great, the quiet and calm music suits perfectly for this kind of games, because it's good and it doesn't distract you from the main game.
The gameplay was great. Everything was done so you can focus on the puzzle. As I mentioned before, the quiet music, the simple graphics (I'm talking about the level selector and buttons), and the black borders contributed a lot to it. It was impossible to distract from the game, which was sometimes a nightmare due to the difficulty.
Talking about that, I loved the concept of it. So simple, yet so original and challenging. Some levels took a lot of time to figure out, sometimes I just rested for a few moments before looking at the game again.

It's nice to see this kind of games here, it really deserved to be frontpaged. I don't know what else to say, so...
5/5 10/10 - Faved

Keep it up!

Score: 2

"You could improve. A lot."

submission: Cannon Deffence

date: August 27, 2008

Actually, I thought you were going to improve much more than that when you asked for help at the Pre-portal Review Crew. Anyway, I'm here to write an objective review.

Animation/Graphics: As I said before, OK, not great, but not too bad. You put more effort in that skull, but still it wasn't good at all. You're lucky, it moves too fast to be noticed in detail. Maybe practicing would help. I liked the black triangles, but they were just that, could still be improved. And you really need to fix the base when it moves around, because the turret didn't move.
Story: None.
Audio: Good to see you improved and chose this one, which fits better.
Gameplay: Again as I said, this has been done lots of time, in many different ways, so when you're trying to do a game like this, you need to do something new. If you don't add something too innovative, it will be the same as many other games who most people have played before, and therefore boring. Once again I repeat the same, when you are hit by an enemy, you lose a lot of lives because the hitTest is tested on every frame. You could solve this so adding a var like for example a boolean, so if it hits you once, it can't hit you twice. Different kind of enemies would be a lot appreciated.

Sorry to have to be so hard, but I have to say that this game is not good. You still have a lot to improve, and you should have improved the things I said before submitting this. Anyway, Who am I to judge you?

I'll vote 1/5 and 2/10.
I don't vote 0 because at least you did something, and I know is low, but I can't give you a high score because you submitted a game with mistakes, even when you knew that they were there. But it seems like you grabbed a tutorial and you did copy-paste, because there isn't anything too innovative and there are a lot of mistakes.

--

Now, I'll add something more because I know what you will say in response.
I know it's your first game, but that doesn't mean you don't have to put effort into it. A lot of artists get a great score, and even awards in their first submission.
Keep practicing.

Score: 9

"Great!"

submission: Shadez: Black Operations

date: August 27, 2008

I loved this game, everything seem to match perfectly, it seems you worked really hard on it.

The art was outstanding, it was difficult to believe that it was only a flash game. I loved the backgrounds and the way they were drawn, the design and animation of the characters was great too, and the explosions were just perfect, while the game ran without any lag. I loved the fact that you could only see the characters' silhouette (everything in black), it made the game very stylish.
The audio was very well too, the explosions and the gun firing were really goo. I think it would be even better if it had some music, like war-themed, or some ambient music.
Unfortunately there wasn't any story.

Overall, it was almost perfect, I enjoyed every second playing it (although some difficult increase would be good). An in-game guide will be appreciated, so you don't have to go to other window to watch it. And also, I'm looking for the file size for the first time. Damn, how do you keep it so low?

To sum up, I think you deserve a 5/5, and a 9/10

Keep it up!

Score: 9

"Awesome"

submission: Anaksha: Female Assassin

date: August 6, 2008

This is a great game, everything in it fitted in an excellent way.

The artwork is just perfect, the drawing is very good and the character design was great too. The Sin City influence is very noticeable, and also gives the game that 'touch'. I read the FAQ and I can understand why you didn't include any female character, but if you ever make a sequel, women would be appreciated.

Although you say the storyline isn't good, I liked it, and the transitions between the misions (the cutscenes) were good and interesting.

Now, the game's strongest point: the gameplay. Having to pay attention to the people to figure out who you have to kill is a very good feature. The fact you considered using other keys to handle the zoom because of left handed people is very appreciated, and being able to use the mouse wheel is great.

If you make a sequel, it would be nice to have a save feature, so you can continue the game later (although it's not really necessary).

I voted 5/5, and 9/10 because there were no women (consider it a 9.5).

Score: 0

"Put more effort"

submission: Kano's Test Your Might

date: July 30, 2008

And also, is very annoying having to wait 1 hour for the flash to load, just for the music.
And the colors hurted my eyes.

Score: 8

"Great, but need to work on the difficulty"

submission: Space Wing

date: July 20, 2008

Well, making a game like this is not an easy task, because it has been done lots of times, but you did a great job.

This game has some good points that deserve to be mentioned, these are::
-Several stages: Each of them offering something new, after finishing a stage, you didn't know what was going to happen.
-Many different enemies: Just when you think there can't be a new type of enemy, it appears. Also every enemy has a different attack and that makes it good.
-Leveling up and upgrading, giving it that special 'rpg touch'. However I must say that some upgrades made you really strong, and made the game easy.

I will only complain about one thing: The game difficulty. It was too easy. The first stage is ok, because you're just learning and all that, but on later levels it needs to be more difficult, otherwise the game will be a bit boring. One of the things that made it easy, is that if an enemy's attack touches your wing it doesn't hurt you, so dodging the attacks was pretty easy. Also, some upgrades made it easy to, for example if you upgrade your attack power and get the missiles upgrade, enemies were way too easy to kill. Maybe to solve this, in later levels the enemies should be tougher. It was very difficult to die because you had a very big amount of HP, and enemies attacks were pretty harmless (and as I said before, they were easy to dodge). That also made the "Up HP" upgrade useless. Maybe lowering the player's life and making the enemy's attack stronger will solve this. Also, you should forget about the recovering HP upgrade, it also made it easy.
Also, adding 'mini-bosses' would be ok. I mean, bosses that are not so powerful as the real ones, and that come in the middle of a stage. Adding several mini-bosses per stage will make it much more difficult.

I think you should make a sequel and work more on the difficulty (and of course adding new things, I don't know, it is up to you).

I'll give you 8/10 because you need to work on the difficulty.
Cheers.

Score: 8

"Confusing :S"

submission: Amazda_24th June

date: June 28, 2008

Great game, the colours made it confusing=difficult=better
Making mazes is not the most original idea, but it's difficult to find such a great maze like this nowadays.

Good mazes, all of them, you should submit a game with all the mazes.

4/5 8/10

PS: I couldn't finish this one...

Score: 8

"Good concept"

submission: Arachnophilia

date: June 28, 2008

This is a very good game, it's very imaginative and it offers many posibilities too. However in advanced levels, it all happens very quickly and it's difficult to play (this also depends on the player's skill). Also when you have many bugs in your web, in runs a bit laggy, so I think the player should be able to change the quality. A pause button would be good too.

4/4, 8/10

PS: It would be good to play the inverse game, I mean, you send the bugs who have to break the web :)

Score: 9

"Great game"

submission: Governor of Poker

date: June 28, 2008

This game is great, it's very entertaining and the AI is good, it feels like real poker. Anyway, I don't know why it costs to play the full version....

5/5 9/10