PeteGrammarman's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[How to Make Game]

I enjoyed it!

The art was nothing special and the engine could use some fine tuning, but I really liked how you pointed out platformer tropes while using them to great effect. Some of them I've never even seen before, so good job in that regard. Just could have used some polish and maybe another music track.

[Donkey Kong Arcade Return]

Great remake!

Pretty much exactly true to the original, great job on this. A few things I found that you might want to fix: I fell through a ladder on the first platform on the first level. The fireballs tend to climb up DK's ladder on the second level. The corks on the fourth level can be removed simply by being next to them, as opposed to stepping on them. These are just some minor things that didn't really affect my playing experience, but I figured it'd be helpful to let you know. More people need to play this and you are awesome for making it easily accessible.

LilDwarf responds:

Thanks alot for the review! I did notice those things you mentioned when I was testing it out, but just like you said, they don't affect the gameplay that much, so I left them to make the game a bit different, since they are not exactly bugs or glitches. Thanks for liking the game!

[Bunny Bound]

The skill is there, but the design is lacking

Art is fine, the programming could use some work. For instance, the bunny can kinda stick in certain squares, getting too far in to move anywhere but out. Hopefully that made sense, but ideally the bunny would slide around the solid ones when colliding with them.

There are a few game design ideas I didn't really like, and could improve the game quite a bit if fixed. I didn't like how the bear trap hazards were invisible until they popped up. This coupled with the fact that they could only kill you halfway through their animation was confusing; you could step on the closed trap when it was completely closed, but not when it was a frame before. Although that seems obvious, it made dodging them more difficult than it should be. The player should know where a hazard is even if it is temporarily off. Maybe I'm just dumb, but I kept forgetting the placement of the hazards and it frustrated me. Even if the main challenge of the game was to memorize trap patterns, I would think there'd be a better way of doing it. The level design could use some work as well, there were several levels in which I could get a lot, if not all, the eggs, kill myself to go back to the beginning, and then get to the exit easily. This provides incentive to cheat the game, which I don't think you'd want. Another problem that ties into level design was the end goal of the levels. At first I didn't know where to go after collecting the eggs, as the goal line looks the same as the start line. This also provides the player with a cheap way of getting to and from other sides of the screen without penalty.

A major thing of course is the lack of diversity among the gameplay, but that is to be understood for a quickly made game. It was a good-looking game with an interesting enough premise, but the poor design choices and overall gameplay made it not very fun. Hopefully this information helps.

SamGreen responds:

Thanks mate, I appreciate your review! :)

[Cactus McCoy]

Really solid and polished

The game obviously had a ton of work put into it. Everything ran smoothly, everything worked great, and everything looked amazing. My problem is it wasn't exactly stimulating enough to be fun. There was no challenge, as all the enemies could be beaten by standing next to them and mashing the 'A' button. There was an amount of exploration you wanted the player to do, but you didn't give them a reason other than improving a score that could buy upgrades. With the game being as simple gameplay-wise as it was, buying upgrades was pointless, thus making secret treasures and the other many objectives pointless. My advice would be to cut down on all the extraneous things that have little effect on the gameplay and work more on making the core mechanics fun to play. There is little point in upgrading a system that isn't fun to begin with.

[BattlePaint]

Really great game

Loved this! I don't know if this was your intention, but I loved the way the remains of fallen enemies sort of mixed in with oncoming enemies, providing an incentive to move around as much as possible to clear the stage. The gameplay was great, everything seemed really balanced, the power-up always shows up at just the right moment. Excellent design and execution.

[Interlocked]

Loved it.

A simple concept executed perfectly. I would pay for this on the DS.

[Duplicator]

Really innovative!

I can't believe cloning objects hasn't been done in a puzzle platformer before, and I commend you for thinking of it. You manage to mix so many mechanics that could do great by themselves, but work even better together. One thing I would suggest, and this may not even apply(as I haven't finished the game yet), is adding some sort of story to it. "Go find your pet" isn't enough for me. I want to know what it is I'm playing as, what the setting is, and why this character has these abilities. Not every game needs a story, but I find that when a game can tell a great story that ties into its mechanics, it goes beyond greatness. But gameplay is certainly top priority and you did an outstanding job.

[Dromad]

Very good game

Love what you did with this simple concept, this game certainly deserves more recognition. The mechanic of banking kills for extra lives was very interesting and created cool meta-gaming for me. Graphics were great and the new enemies and weapons made incentive to try for higher scores.

[No Time to Explain]

This was brilliant

What you did with the secret ending and how it was formatted was just great. A simple mechanic paired with a hilarious story and characters just makes this game awesome. The music was fantastic as well.

[Tasty Planet]

Very impressive!

I went into this thinking it'd be another generic Katamari-style eat-um-up, but you really did a lot to push the genre forward. The fact that the creatures had AI and that it changed depending on how big the Grey Goo was helped keep things interesting. The fact that bigger things were always after smaller things created a great sense of competition, which made an incentive to complete the level faster. And the story was absolutely terrific and hilarious, it's a shame they weren't on every stage.

My only complaints are some of the stages dragged a bit, and I really wanted to follow the scientists into each stage.