ProfessorFlash's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Block Puzzle?Block Puzzle]

my review

I'm not too fond of this trial&error puzzle solving in a game that is slow paced like this one. The effects that happen from pushing a block on a plate is a total surprise to the player. It may create another block somewhere, it may remove/add platforms, it may not do anything. Accepting this in the earlier levels was alright, but when the levels start getting more complex, you just get annoyed when an effect happens that you didn't want to happen. You notice that "oh, I should have moved block #5 first, now I need to start all over again".

Moving the blocks around takes time, this game is too slow paced to justify such trial&error gameplay. Didn't like it, sorry.

[Tillo]

good start

How much does the frog weight? My guess after playing would be about 2 tons, am I close? Gravity pulls the frog down like he is a big truck. If you'd fix the gravity and make the frog a little faster and put more than 5 minutes in to the graphics, this could be a decent platformer.

[Pill Cannon]

disappointing

I thought this would be like ragdoll cannon or something like that. I like those physics shooters, but this one was disappointing. I guess it is a physics shooter, but the objective of the game makes it very boring. For example in one of the levels I need to fire 28 times on 4 different targets that you can hit very easily. The game is too repetitive and boring.

[Damn Birds 2]

good like the first

Unlike many others I found the game to be too easy. I can see where everybody is having trouble but once you get through that point the game gets very easy. This game has the same good gameplay like the first, but the difficulty is inconsistent. It starts out 'ok', then it gets 'hard' and here is where many quit and say the whole game is too hard (reading the reviews), but if you manage to get through that critical point, then the game gets very easy.

The zapper, probably a good idea on paper, but it kinda ruins the game because it just owns. You don't even need to aim, just point approximately at the right direction and it drops down everything. I skipped flamer and went to zapper after sniper and then the game was smooth sailing with no problems.
Taugun sucks btw.

The raygun is very laggy. And I'm not running on an old computer. The fps drops considerably when shooting with it, and it also isn't very accurate because of this. The lag makes it shoot off from where you are actually aiming. But it's very powerful and easy to use so the game was very easy again after you buy it after the zapper.

I had fun playing the game but the difficulty levels need adjusting. Good job nontheless.

[Hopyon]

okay

I thought this game was very easy. I died eventually at around 18k points but not because it got harder but because I got bored. This game needs to get harder the higher you get.

[Neon Climber]

good

Nice addictive game. Basic concept but you made it well. I like how the main character moves and jumps, the double jump looks good. The graphics are simplistic but work well in this game. I liked the music as well. This is what flash games should be, simple that you get right into the game, but addictive so you still come back. Good job.

[Scribbland]

ehm

Unique controls? Yes.
Good controls? No.

Not much else to say. Other than your control scheme, it's a very basic platformer. The graphics were decent. I like the main character.

Skellus responds:

What are good controls? Those which make the game easier? Or those which increase the challenge? Or perhaps both? Or none? I don't know what you mean when you say the controls are bad. For me bad controls are such which make things more difficult without a real point. It's like using QAOP instead of Arrows or WSAD, or QEP; But here I get the feeling that the controls are just too difficult for you to master in a short period of time thus making them Bad. Noone is good at anything from the start, you also had to learn how to play platformers with arrows.

[Time Time Two]

find a better programmer

First time playing the game I had a massive pop up in the middle of my screen and a button below it reading "Go". It didn't go away when I pressed the Go, it didn't go away when I advanced to another area.

The thing that bothered me was that you shoot with the mouse, but you only allow us to move with arrow keys. When ever you add mouse control to your platformer, it's common sense that you let people use WASD to move the guy, you obviously didn't know this, now you do.

But despite all of the above, I continued playing. What made me close the game was the shooting system. You have to click exactly on the target for it to damage it. There's no bullets flying out of your gun, I guess you just have a toy gun and must concentrate really hard on a spot for the bullet to reappear there :P. I can't believe anyone would deliberately choose to make gun shooting like that, I suspect a lazy or incompetent programmer is the fault here. After the clickfest on hades, I closed the game.

You got good story and good presentation of it with the clips and the dialog, but it's a shame that it's ruined by sloppy execution.

joe-kangaroo responds:

A pretty scathing review there! I don't know what the pop-up is, as it's not happened in testing etc. You've got a very patronising writing style haven't you? It may be that you're trying to be helpful, and indeed a couple of your points are valid, but i'm sure me and other artists would probably listen to you more if you weren't so arrogant with it? Just a suggestion. Thanks for the review.

[Furious Moles]

very good

Excellent game idea. It has addictive gameplay and the graphics are great. One thing that was a bit weird was the difficulty levels. Since this game doesn't have any story or so and is thus a highscore driven game, it was interesting that playing the 'normal' difficulty gets you much higher score easier than the 'hard' difficulty. I couldn't get more than 48k in hard, then I tried for fun the normal mode and made over 100k (currently #5 on the boards). So in conclusion, I don't see any point in playing the hard difficulty.

iojoe responds:

Thanks to all again for the votes/feedback :)

ProfessorFlash - in truth I find hard difficult to get good scores on too, but in testing with friends they seemed to do well with it - it's certainly a lot more frenetic. In hard you get a fixed '2x' multiplier plus by level 10 (which you start on in hard) 'cover time' is worth more points.

[Elastoman]

good idea on paper

Unfortunately you failed with the execution. The controls were bad. The trajectory was many times very weird and wasn't consistent. For example when I was on one of the roofs, the trajectory showed that the guy will bounce twice on the roof before shooting off from the roof, and because of these extra bounces trying to get where I wanted to was nearly impossible. I had to twist and turn the mouse to accommodate for this weird trajectory it was giving me.
And then there were those objects that moved, like the hot air balloons, it was a nightmare to try to launch yourself where you wanted to go.

All in all very frustrating experience. I think you should go back to the drawing board with this one. The graphics were good, but the execution is very lacking.