Score: 9

"Hah, weird"

submission: Jerry: The End

date: November 1, 2009

More depressing than funny, but a fitting end to a great series. Kinda funny how you were adamant in past comments and responses that he "wasn't coming back" and "he's dead, you know", but we end with an episode completely centered around Jerry, himself. It was necessary to tie up loose ends, though, and not a selling out in any sense. Not sure what you plan to move onto, from here, but I look forward to it.

Score: 6

"Hrmm : /"

submission: Dream Adventure!

date: October 26, 2009

I appreciate that it isn't Super Saiyan Sonic VS Cast of Naruto, but I still don't dig on unlicensed sprite usage. Still, that's not why I'm writing a review. The bit that got under my skin was that this is being hailed as clever and creative, whereas it's lifted - practically verbatim - from the surface story of Braid, a *truly* clever game in every respect. Not sure if this note will be met with "Nuh uh", or "Never heard of it", but it feels a bit too impeccable for me to be convinced otherwise. At the very least, your taste is in the right place.

Score: 7

"It's good, but the formulas need work"

submission: TCT RPG

date: September 8, 2009

I always appreciate it any time someone actually goes to the work of creating a feature length RPG in Flash. But when you put that much work in, you really have to be careful about the details that could make or break your game. The frequent save points were a good idea, art was decent, gameplay had enough variety. A couple of things hurt it though. Above all, some of the balance curves. The difficulty from one area to the next didn't make for a graceful transition. When you finished one area, you'd be handing the enemies asses to them upside down, then in the next, you'd squander all your items in ten minutes. Naturally, the solution to this is grinding. However, each area only had about three different kinds of enemies, so grinding got suuuper tedious. Also, whenever you picked up a new character, they would be absolutely useless for the next area or two. More of a liability than a help.
But these are just the points of improvement on what I must consider to be a highly respectable piece of work, and not a ripoff of Earthbound, as some seem to say.

Score: 7

"Geez"

submission: Telefrancais collab

date: August 20, 2009

Just when you think you have an obscure childhood memory, it's a highly rated submission on Newgrounds. Decent collab, no real weak sections, and most importantly you made sure to fit in Les Squelettes.

Score: 8

"Hooray, more Nitrome!"

submission: Twin Shot 2: Good & Evil

date: August 1, 2009

I always enjoy Nitrome games, and while this wasn't among my favorites, it was still a strong addition to your site. I have a few reasons why I can't give it a ten though. There were some gameplay elements that would have been good on their own, but just suffered when combined together.
The most prominent combination is the slow response combined with the looped scrolling. The game had you jumping into the unknown a lot of the time, which could be a fun and intense mechanic, if only you had any chance of reacting to your new surroundings in time. Unfortunately both jumping and firing have a very noticeable delay.
This reached a critical breaking point on stage 46. While I was so close to the end, I just couldn't deal with the tedium of having to jump into those two side pockets with an incredibly tiny window of opportunity mixed with already having your own momentum pushing you towards the enemies, lovingly sprinkled with the amount of time it takes you to then jump up to the next tier and fire before one of them hurts you. I realize it was nearly the final level and therefore justified in being hard, but there's difficulty wherein you saw what you did wrong and could improve, and then there's difficulty wherein it feels like the game mechanics are working against your odds.
Lastly, I can't give a perfect score to a game that does not offer its full range of content in this venue. I really do appreciate that you took the moral high ground and gave us a good full half of the game though. I know it's hard making money on these things without pissing people off.
I know I've spent this review offering almost only criticisms, but that's not meant to be taken negatively. It's just me speaking developer to developer, offering the words I think would genuinely help. The graphics are great, lots of variety, and it seems absolutely bug-free. But then you already know all that. Just thought I'd chime in with some points of improvement. Keep up the good work.

Score: 7

"Very promising"

submission: [Frontier Psychiatrist]

date: July 31, 2009

Animating very closely to the song's lyrics is actually a huge pet peeve of mine, but you still managed to keep things pretty interesting. I'm sure The Avalanches' screwed up, scratchy, sample-heavy style lent well to that. The subject matter was part topical, part-offbeat, without being 'rofl random purple monkey cheese', the way a lot of people would have ruined it.

Your animation has some sure room for improvement, but you're right on track for your age. You'll be a strong animator in due time. For now, you have what matters most during this creative development process - ideas. So all in all, while I wasn't blown away this time, it kept my interest and hinted at some real potential for you in the future. I'll try to keep a watch out for your stuff.

Score: 9

"Haha, I am not entirely sure what I just saw"

submission: Gravitaxis ++

date: June 15, 2009

...but I liked it. I'd expect no differently from old Vinnie. While some bits of animation felt a bit more rough than your usual stuff, it was quite a long animation so I'm sure it would have taken ages to polish it to the usual standard. Very engaging animation, particularly for not being story-driven or heavy on action. Looking forward to more - that was a long hiatus unless I missed something of yours.

Score: 9

"Haha, beautiful"

submission: Covenant of the Sword

date: July 26, 2008

Started off kinda tame, but picked up as it went along. Most people can't really pull off crude humor in a surprising way, but you've managed to be consistent with that, today's submission being no exception. With the CD out, hope that means that the flow of animations will pick back up. Looking forward to more.

Score: 3

"I don't like to leave negative reviews"

submission: This Game is a Joke

date: July 17, 2008

But this is shitty, even for a joke. You stuck some asian titties in a weakly programmed sandbox. I see what you were trying to do, as we were greeted with "THIS IS A JOKE YOU GUISEZ" pretty much anytime you had the opportunity to speak, but the execution lacked any creativity whatsoever. I'm not sure if you're familiar with "You Have to Burn the Rope", but it's a great example of a self-parodying submission done right.
That said, you've got the start of a platforming engine here, so maybe run with that and make an actual game. Knock off that lazy click interaction crap though, anyone and their dog can make buttons in Flash.

Score: 8

"Entertaining, as kids' games go"

submission: Androkids

date: June 21, 2008

Pretty well put together game here. I've thought about making a game in that drawn-on-paper kinda style, and it was pulled off well in this case. The jump didn't work in this build, though perhaps your game is in admin-approval limbo at the moment. Either way, I don't think a jump was necessary. Not being able to jump provided the only serious challenge of the game. Using clever navigation of the springs and ladders to evade the AI was decently entertaining. That said,the AI was largely perfect for its purposes, but there were a couple of places where it would get stuck in a two-block area housing one of the tokens, so you really had no choice but to get hurt. Course this is rare, so you'd probably never die from it, but still a slight bother. Two more bits of constructive crit and then I'll shu'up. The bomb aspect was really underused. I actually forgot it existed for a span of about 15 levels until it was necessary again in level 22. Also, the level repetition was kinda weak. The game was plenty long with the number of unique levels it had, so the repetition seemed pretty unnecessary. Could have just added those levels as a 'mode B' or something.
Anyhow, all of those are just suggestions on how this could be better. It's already a great little game and I stuck through it happily till the levels began to repeat.