Zhon's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Battleground Legends]

Loved it! I love games like this - I am a total loser when it comes to stat crunching. Played through the entire thing, got all achievements, ended at around 30k kills I think.

There are several things that could be improved, despite the awesomeness of this game.

1 - better records. Simply put, this game would have been way more fun if I could look back at old battles and see what equipment I had, kills, graphs of my HP / Armor / DMG over time, etc.

2 - a back button. Seriously, cannot tell you how many times I made a mistake and wished I could go back. Only choice is to refresh the page or pick bad armor and try to die quickly. But if I refresh, that poses the problem of "crap, did I save?" Which brings me to my next point...

3 - autosave. Plain and simple.

4 - build sharing? Just an idea to make the game more social.

5 - as everyone has said, a fast forward button. Not to go through the entire thing, maybe just speed it up. Especially important for the kind of build I like to go with.

***SPOILER***

Now that that's said, here is a fun build for you guys to try :P
Stack up on HP and Armor over time items as much as possible, with either the 1dmg over time dagger or no damage over time at all. Your HP and Armor will skyrocket because danger is based on how many kills you have. Staff of Healing could be great for this, especially since it won't boost your damage. Pre-endgame, use the spellsword. If your armor and HP get high enough you could reach ridiculous killcounts, except that it takes a hell of a long time. Consider a high AGI build with the HP/Armor per dodge as well.

[Steam Rogue GB]

Fantastic game. My only gripe is that you weren't making this for the original Gameboy back when I was a kid :)

[Dynetzzle]

This feels like something you'd find on Luminosity, only better quality haha. Loving it! Thanks for the mental exercise - I could use some.

[KillAllRobots]

I love it! Only two criticisms for you:
1) Not sure how I feel about this one, but I think it would be better to have some kind of indicator of where the catapults will land. On one hand, I like that you have to estimate it - gives it a retro game feel, where nothing was handed to the player and info had to be gathered manually. On the other hand, it's a little frustrating to fail a level from missing one of those shots.
2) I understand that it was made in a short period of time, but the presentation could use some work. I like the simplicity of it, but the title screen design and level select screen really need some tightening up. The in-game text could use some as well.

Luciuspain responds:

The retro feel was entirely on purpose and its ment to not frustrate you to the point of its impossible but Ive beaten it a tonne of times already and yes the menu does need some serious cleanup but I just wanted to see if people enjoyed the gameplay and they are so ill scrub up the menu and update it cheers.

[Second Game Experiment]

Alright, feedback time:

If you got anything right here it was the controls. They worked properly and as intended (I'm assuming) so good job with that.

This was obviously a test of skill for you, not a real endeavor to create a game, so I will ignore the subject matter for the time being.

Things you could improve:
- Add delays. Timing is everything. For the start of each round let the ball sit still for a second so the player can get their bearings.
- Sound or visual feedback. Feeling like you had some physical effect on a two-dimensional world is half of what makes games gratifying. You need some kind of audio or visual response to hitting the ball and losing.
- Polish. You are using placeholder graphics... Fix that.
- Delivery. You set us up for a negative reaction when you end the game basically saying "I suck, hate me". Even if you are selling shoe strings, sell them with confidence.

Now... About the game itself. I know you're probably excited to share you work, but don't bother submitting tests and milestones to the portal. People will just get annoyed and blam it. It would be better to make a thread on the forums to show your test games off. To that end, now that you have two games under your belt, put 10 times the effort into your third one. Even if it doesn't come out for 10 times as long, it'll be well worth it and you'll learn a lot!

Matthcw responds:

Really appreciate this man!

[Recycle Sort]

I rocked this game. #2 was the most fun for me, I am a Taiko vet haha.

Really love the idea. Only thing I would say is add more variety. You had the right idea with five different types of gameplay, but take it further! I know it was for a weekend jam but if you are looking to take it further, that's my recommendation.

[Fate Machine 1.0]

Cracker fairy, the vegan Bean. I shall shed manly tears for soccer moms.

I shall also give you respect for using the laughing man logo.

Yomuchan responds:

You still remember GITS?!

*high five*