smokinjoeevil's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[W-I-G-G defender]

Fair game... a few flaws.

I like the graphic of the ship, but the outer-space aspect could really have used beefing up graphically. Add some planets, some galaxies off in the distance that pass by reallly slow or something. I didn't like the one-laser-beam per screen requirement... though I have to admit I am guilty of this same thing on my own game (there can only be one seed on-screen at any one time)... but there's just something about expecting laser-fire to be quick. Also, I was able to scoot off-screen in either direction, and at one point got completely stuck without the ability to move back into view, which could be a problem, and probably shouldn't be allowed.

iamironman responds:

ahem, nope. it was not posable to get ouside of the boundaries. i tested that myself about 30 times. the space backround... well i dont acualy know what a galexy looks like, but yeah planets is a good idea! and the 1 bullet system. if i had made a multy bullet system i would have had to have like 30 rox coming at once and that would be to hard for the kiddies. and i did try that, but the only one i could make myself looked like total shit and i would have givent it a low score myself. but thanks for the polite review!

[antiWirus]

Not too bad... but a bit jumpy

I like the variety of objects and items in the rooms. However, I didn't understand why the hills in the background kept jumping with me. I kept expecting that the Wiggis in the game were about to experience some sort of huge earthquake or something. Generally, the points of reference that are CLOSER to you are the ones that seem to "move" more quickly as you change perspective. It would have been more appropriate for the hills in the back to stay where they were, or shift only slightly in relation to the rest of the graphical elements. It was sometimes difficult to tell where you were able to go as opposed to where you were not able.. and I thion kthat was because the screen was so busy... which is a drawback to what I just complimented on, which is the variety of objects present in the rooms. Also, there were no sounds or music to cover the fact that there were no sounds. So it made the actions and reactions in the game far less satisfying.

code-mast3r responds:

laughed a bit while reading your review, but you have a point. More points actually...

thanks, I will change the background and the stuff in the updated version coming out later today.

thanks again for taking your time

[Wiggi Dance Academy]

Great graphics

And a pretty fun premise. As good as it looks, though, it seems like its missing something in depth of play... I didn't play very far into it though.

one thing i noticed was that in some of the text boxes displaying text, the text was cut-off. Which may be either because they were Dynamic boxes receiving too much text for them to hold on certain lines, or, the font you used isn't on my computer, so Flash is turning to a default (probably Arial), and that fits differently in the box.

A good game nonetheless. I wish my entry were as strong graphically... yours is pretty impressive.

Wonchop responds:

Hmm, dunno why that's happening. All the tutorial text used it static, and any dynamic boxes had embedded fonts. Cos of the flash filters, maybe? Looks fine in the original swf.

[Wiggis in Flight]

Kinda strange...

Honestly, I can't say I understood the correlation between flying and avoiding undesirables on the internet. As for gameplay, the flying was a bit jagged at times. In order to navigate any sort of small space you had to consistently tap the up arrow, which made it feel like precision movement was just not possible.

Otherwise, it works as a collect and avoid type game, and tries to make a point about things to avoid on the internet.

gankro responds:

well... I suppose the collective is what counts, right?

[Wiggi Maze]

Very interesting concept

My only criticism is that it is kinda all-over-the-place. It feels like you sort of have too many objectives that you're trying to resolve. Many times that's not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case none of the objectives seem to correlate with one another. Solving a maze doesn't generally bring to mind answering questions for me... nor does the attainment of items in the game reallly have any bearing on the other parts, like solving the maze or answering those questions. It seems like you tried to pack several games into one, and as a result, each of the separate "games" suffers a bit for it.

I can tell that a lot went into making this, and for what it is, it seems to be crafted well. I'm just not sure how much overall sense it seems to make.

Lantay77 responds:

Thank you for reviewing. I appreciate constructive criticism.

[Wiggminton]

Pretty good entry to the contest

It lacked variety, but made up for it in the "see how many you can volley" factor. And the AI of your partner wasn't too shabby. Normaly in games you end up wondering where the "intelligence" part comes into play with the characters who are suposed to aid/help you out in a game. But the girl actually kept up her end as long as you didn't smack it completely out of whack. The graphics were good too, though there was only one screen to look at.

The only thing I thought off was your comment that the reasonable scores started at 5,000. I died out at about 2,900 at my best... granted I wasn't trying to master the game or anything, so I am sure with more practice I could do batter, but how long does it take to reach 50,000?

The little object you hit around in Badminton is also referred to as a "birdie". Which is probably a little more kid friendly than the "shuttle", or "shuttlecock" nomenclature also attributed to said object.

bukKkk responds:

The scores don't go up linear, so the further you get, the faster does your score multiply. It's just a little to hard to get a hang off if theres nobody to explain by your live-action-side, like I was when I tested this on the target audience. It's a little late for an easy fix on that, but eventually the game will reward your restless attemps to get into it. Thanks again for the useful feed. :)

[PhotoFit Puzzle Game DEMO]

I had big problems...

My first image was a dolphin... of this I am sure. However, when I guessed "dolphin" in the box, I very quickly saw "incorrect, try again" and was then presented with another set of 9 gray boxes. So i cliked a few, discovered a plane... at this point began my frustration. I guessed "plane", "airplane", "jet", and even went into some more specific things like "airliner", "jet plane", etc. but to no avail. You should make the system smart enough to accept multiple answers. For the plane, unless I was supposed to guess the airline, you should accept both "plane" and "jet", or even the more specific answers like "passenger plane". honestly, how hard is it to scan a group of words to find out whether or not the correct answer is among them? Try answer.split(" "), you'll then have an array of all of the words typed into the box by the player as separate array elements. Loop through them and compare them against each o the acceptable answers. As soon as you find a match, you're done, and the player leaves feeling satisfied rather than frustrated.

picaxis-media responds:

well the images were each set to accept at least 3 answers each, i had thought of it, but also it was only intended to be a demo.

[PanG, PonG]

Control needs work

Like others have stated, the paddle kind of trailing the mouse was a bit messy. Had it more consistently followed it, it may have been okay... however it seemed really choppy. Like every third frame it was gong to the mouse position or something. It made knowing where to take your mouse to make sure you hit very hard to judge. The ball also seemed to be doing a lot of moving on its own. Like curving around, bouncing erratically. Maybe it was supposed to be like it had a mind of its own or something... but it just came out looking buggy. Lastly... in a game as basic as Pong (even programmed in a resource-hog like Flash), if you have to suggest that the user use "medium" or lower quality settings, there is definitely something wrong.

oversword responds:

yes the board graphics use up allot of CPU and i will change that. its also to do with the music tho and i don't want to get rid of it.
the coding tells the board to catch up with the mouse when you take the mouse away from the general board area. its just so Ur as good as the AI. the ball did those things cos i added a random function to it so it was more like the game that me and my friend made in class. it makes it more realistic and unpredictable...its like curve ball but in 2D. thanks for the review.

[Onslaught 2]

Could be better...

The upgrading was cool, like other shave said, but no sound makes killing enemies very unsatisfying. The graphics were too simple, the terrain too drab. Most of the time, the enemies died so quickly that you didn't even get to see your turrets play through their whole attack animation... which makes me think that the "hits" aren't really programmed as hits at all. It must just be that the moment an on-target turret it ready to fire, it smack the enemy with that much HP damage, without even really doing any condition testing on whether or not the "hit" was successful. Which is kinda cheap. It means you can't miss, and the enemies can't dodge, which is nothing like reality whatsoever. And, granted, the whole point is that it isn't real. But when you stray that far from the basics of reality, it takes away from the experience, I feel.

agby responds:

The only instant-hit weapons are lasers and tazers. Cannons fire a bullet that heads for the target, when the bullet hits the target the hit is registered. Rockets are fired by the red turrets and when the rocket hits the target the hit is registered. Rockets can also re-acquire targets if their original target is destroyed before they get there.

It's very true, you can't 'miss' but it's not a skill game, it's a strategy game, and one that operates in a confined set of rules. It is intended to be a basic strategic simulation rather than a perfect copy of real life. I appreciate what you're saying but if it was too real it wouldn't be quite as much fun to play.

[Billy McBusiness - Part 1]

Very linear, totally unsophisticated... and short.

My guess is that the entire "game" was mostly a movie, or series of movies. It can't have required too much coding. Not that that is so terrible, if you pull it off. But, in my opinion, you didn't. One of the most annoying things about today's games is the whole DDR jock-riding, push-a-button-to-survive crap. Its a cop-out way to get more complicated reactions from the in-game character without actually having to support or code the actual ability to perform the activity being represented. For instance, jumping out of the way of projectiles using fancy jumps and ducks becomes a click or press of a button, rather than having to have any actual skill to pull off the move. And then, if you do pull off the "move" by pressing the all-powerful button, you get to watch a little movie of the character doing something cooler than you are able to do with his sorry ass using the game-controls. Which is actually quite boring for the most part. Oh, and as for bugs... I was able to pick up the toothpick and the quarter 3 or 4 times... and probably could have visited the table more times, but I decided to move on to see what else the game had to offer. Then things got wierd... I fought a demon in some room using the toothpick for apparently no reason, and then I saw a chick with a penis. If it was humorous in any way it was lost on me.

WifeBeatingProd responds:

What was that? Make more games like this? OK!