Oh hell yes!
And hell yes indeed! I was so excited that I gave this game a 5 just because I managed a veeeeeery close Goal in One on the Hell Goal level! That sight alone made this game sooooo worth playing. Awesome job.
However, when it asked me to "unput my name", I replied with UNPUT? And thus, that's the name that is now adorning the top echelons of the high score table.
Lol thanks for pointing that out though, surprised i never managed to see that after test playing so many times. "Unput" lol.
Thanks for the review and good work on the hell goal lol. But it seems too easy for everyone!
Final Grade: B
Graphics: Backgrounds were a little noisy, making it difficult to see where the ball was. Paddle graphics were nice, though, and the opening interface was also well done. On top of that, much thanks for putting in a high frame rate. I hate it when people make Pong, but neglect to turn it up from 12 FPS. However, that aside, I feel that there wasn't enough "oomph" in the graphics. The ball falls behind, and it's a rather unfanciful affair. It hits a paddle, and it just bounces off without any satisfying fanfare. It seems to promise a substantial amount of glitz and glamor from the opening screen, but that's unfortunately where the really great looking bits end, and the less satisfying "on par" graphics begin.
Style: The pong thing is a bit dated, and has been done a lot. I feel that single player works well but doesn't introduce anything that new. However, the style gets bonus points for including a variety of gameplay modes, all of which really nice.
Hmm...I wonder. Didn't somebody make something that was recently on the front page, described as being "Pong on Steroids?" ;) *wink*
Sound: And what you probably just heard was the sound of a brick being thrown through my speaker. That music. That horrible, horrible annoying music! Well, I think that with a game as large as this, you could have given it the extra 500k by increasing the sound quality of the music, because even if it was Highway Star by Deep Purple, I wouldn't listen to something as metallic and grainy as that. Other sounds work well, though.
Violence: Yeah. When somebody makes a pong game that scores a 10 on violence, I will show you a man who probably needs a hefty dosage of therapy. Or a parent who at least loves them. Or a female's touch. They may take their pick.
Interactivity: There were a couple bugs while playing. Sometimes, when the ball was shrunk and it started going fast, it would get caught in a loop that would, hate to say it, make a really big "d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-dWOOMWOOMWOOMWOOM"!!!! Again. Mr. Brick meet Mr. Speakers. I like the scripting on some of the powerups, especially the one that makes the ball blue and droopy. Ah yes. Couldn't finish this review without a reference to droopy blue balls.
Humor: Which brings us to the last category. Well, can't say that humor is what's driving it, but I can't say it's lacking neither. The interface that seems to mock/parody the overenthusiastic tones of the newest generation of Arcade Fighting Games is nice. I remember when such a gimmick was done in K-Fed: Walking on Fire. Oh man. That was gold there. So for at least picking up and giving a proper execution of such phenomenon, I give humor a decent score, but it's a generous one.
Overall: It's still pong, which is still always a good way to go especially if your intention is to rev it up. A lot of people try, and this one's at least getting places instead of the usual "WTF THIS IS 12 FPS U R3TRD!" response that I usually give. Er-I mean...that THEY usually give. So, I give this one my blessing, as this one at least keeps up with the new trend of brining a new approach to Pong.
Final Grade: B
Thank you very much for this review. I really appreciate you taking the time to write such a detailed one. I have noticed that the main thing affecting people's votes has been the sound, namely the main song, so I've changed it in hopes of attracting more viewers as opposed to driving them away. ^.^
Here's why I don't like it.
Simply enough, it doesn't say where the pea is to begin with. So it doesn't even qualify as a game. It's very bare bones, doesn't do anything new, and visually doesn't deliver anything.
B+
I feel that it had a good solid start, and I love the control and aiming mechanism of this game. Perchance you've heard of an olde cult classic called "Abuse"? Ya know, it was rated in the top 10 in Computer Gaming World, hailed by critics as being one of gaming's most...cancelled projects of 1996? Not really cancelled, but the funding got cut somewhere down the line and resulted in a rushed ending-
BUT. I. DIGRESS.
This is a very well crafted game, I give it high marks for that. Musical score in the background really kept me going, worked really well, if anybody gives you lip about your music choice you have my permission to pin 'em down and jam a coke bottle where the sun don't shine.
Graphics: Stills work well enough. I just didn't like the character's run animation that much. See if you could get some hip movement in there, it seems to really be in desperate need of that. Just gives a little more bounce to her step, ya know.
Style: Reminds me of Abuse. TEN.
Sound: Music is nice. Guns have a good boom to them, but not to domineering (my own bad habit with my own pyrotechnics).
Violence: Plenty, but not too graphic or ridiculous. Maybe if she had a "get hit" animation, that would be cool.
Interactivity: Where you score massively. I'm in the game and pretty much know how to play the second my heroine begins hoppin around over spikes and presapices. Solid programming that remains, for the most part, bug free. I do wish there was some more actions though, like a "super roll", a very long diving roll movement that is a combination of sprint-forward-down. I kept trying to do that, and all that happened was she seemed to get confused/forgot which way was down. Also, somewhere in the tutorial, it needs to be made very clear how to switch between weapons. I would really like it if there was an alternate weapon selection method where numbers 1-5, upon being pressed, would toggle. Lastly, I wish that the game would introduce more weapons to the user as it progressed. Having weapon 5 at all times made it a bit difficult.
Hmm, also needs more enemenies of greater variety. Ya know. Ankle biters. Little dorky pushover enemies like scarabs and scorpions that go down ungloriously in a couple shots and approach the user en masse. Making a gooey bugsplatterfest would really give this game some satisfying OOMF, if ya know what I mean. Because fighting what are essentially the same two enemies repeatedly can get fairly frustrating.
Humor: Who needs it? I give a 5, because though this game actually has no humor to speak of, I don't want to give it a zero. Not like it matters. I just hate giving zeroes to quality games.
Overall: Regardless, it all looks good. This is certainly solid material for the front page. It's very good, but I think that with a few iterations, this game has the potential to become fantastic.
Thanks for taking the time for such a long review. I'll and try and take my time to respond.
I haven't heard of Abuse, it'd be hard to pin down where I got the idea of the aiming mechanism from, but it'd be from games here at Newgrounds. I used it in my game Tomb Raider Onslaught too where it worked pretty well, so I tried it again.
I think most people have creditted the music. Anyone who doesn't has an off button.
If I was to make the walk animation now it'd probably be better. But it was one of ther first things I made in the game when it was all pretty new to me. I'll spend a while upgrading it for the next chapter.
I don't really see why violence is a criteria here, I don't think it makes a game better. Some people have complained that the gargoyles didn't explode in a bloody mess, which is something I really didn't want. But a get hit animation is a good idea, not sure how I'd go about doing it, I'll look at some other games and see what they did.
Complex games like this attract a lot of bugs. This went through a huge beta testing program for over a week, but still some things get through. Sprint-Forward-Down should do a sprint roll, i.e. a faster roll.
I'm not sure why everyone gets so confused about the weapon switching! It says in the tutorial to use the scroll wheel or numbers 1-5 if you don't have one. I even put the controls in the Flash description just in case anyone missed it. Next time I'll put it in big flashing letters just to be safe. I intended on introducing weapons gradually for the next one, mainly because there will be so many more that it'd be confusing to have them all at the start.
The reason for the lack of enemies is that they took so long to script. I'd never scripted AI as complex as the gargoyles, and even still it's far from as good as possible. But I could probably get it more varied next time.
Thanks a lot for your review, it's very helpful. I'm hoping that an admin takes a shine to it and puts it on Front Page, but there's quite a lot of competetion for the space atm. At least I got myself yet another daily 4th :)
Not phenomenal, but definitely has utility.
I wouldn't imagine this as a fast-paced run-and-gun shoot-em up or an engrossing detective sim, but being what it is and for simplicity alone, I like it. Just about as much as I like the fact that it's a decent and humorous fortune-cookie generator that is packed in a friendly 20 some-odd kilobyte package. My bandwidth thanks you.
Strangely enough, I found that the "in bed" joke still works with a lot of these, but unfortunately, doesn't carry the same humor as the more serious thought provoking bits of pastry literature I'm accustomed to.
I can definitely see this being, with a little refinement, a really potent and fun birthday/Chinese New Year/et cetera eCard. Definitely could act as a template that, with a little bit of refinement, could become a popular sort of Email thingy that Hallmark and others make for people to send to their friends. To think, with just a smidgen of Java scripting, you can have people create their own message and embed it within this game. Ah, the potential. The possibilities!
Final Grade: B.
I don't believe it.
I saw the size of the file, and thought it was just some lame gag game. But you know what? I'm suprised. I figured that for novelty and efficiency alone, you have created a game that would be a SOLID game that could easily be crammed into a preloader for much larger Flash files. You know what I mean? It's so small, yet so quick to get into the action, the player is instantly into it.
It has amazing utility, a lot more than I'd bet a lot of other people recognize. This might actually start a new trend of "preloader" games; mini-minigames that are only supposed to be played for thirty seconds, but that ensure that the user remains looking at that one Flash file.
Hmm.
Darn it, now you've inspired me. I wanna make some preloader games now, too. As a stand-alone game, I wouldn't rate this one very high. I would probably give it only a 2/5 if you had like a 4 mb music file blaring in the back. But I thought.
Utility.
Since it actually can serve a purpose when latched onto another game, I easily and graciously bump that score from a 2 to a 4/5. Nicely done.
Dude first off I'd like to say you are clearly a great and inspiring artist, and added you to my favorites.
Great written review. I guess this could work in a loader, especially if it was even more simple and "mini".
Thanks again
I'd call it a good start, but not yet a good game.
The game needs more...objective. Ya know? Some sort of incentive to whack all those agents instead of just racking a score. I could just sit on my thumbs, watching a single hole, and if agent pops up BLAMMY down he goes. That's because there's no real penalty or discernable time limit on this game. If there IS a time limit, it's too long and needs to be displayed. If there ISN'T, well, it needs one.
It's visually sound. I'd just wish the whack effect was a little more comedic, like it would change the Agent graphic to one with his head bopped in and a booger comin' out the nose. Something like that. For kicks.
So, just to recap it needs:
-Time limit
-More satisfying "bop"
-Alternate "play the machines" mode where you whack Neo instead.
lol im not so sure about the giant booger explosions although rather funny.
as for the other comments. they are all very valid and i;m gona try and get around to adding several game modes like 2-ND sugested so ill upload the new game in the near future. thanks for the comment.
It's got a good look, but feels odd.
I've seen a dozen games just like this, and this one (gameplaywise) doesn't introduce a lot of new stuff. Well, I'll hold it right there, and talk about what it does introduce that I like. The file input system. You can create your own drawing (a very nice touch), import your own (even better touch), use a premade image, and THEN you can set how many squares it takes up. So novelty-wise, bravo on that regard.
Menu interface also looks really good. However, I muted the music after a little while. Not really annoying, but I've already got better stuff open and ready in my iTunes. If the majority of this game is music, I think you can limit the amount/quality of tracks, and set a "music off" button somewhere. Trust me. I'm positive that regardless of the music's quality, EVERYBODY is going to push that at one time or another.
Now for what I didn't like. The gameplay. I didn't like at all how you had to click twice in order to move it. That was just really cumbersome, as I would have much prefered that it remain to the classic and more widely used formula of having just one click move it automatically to the blank spot. It's just what I'm used to. The other thing that I wish this game had: animation. Now I haven't made a puzzle game like this before, but I wonder, how tough really would it be to have the pieces just slide very quickly into the space? Just a few frames, that's all. Just some quarter-second slide animation. That would be neat.
And the interface, I assure you, looks good. On most monitors. My monitor is on crack, so I can't see a lot of the features on display in this game. Took me forever to find out how to go back from starting a puzzle. Maybe a little more contrast to make those important bits stand out a little bit more?
Overall, though, it does take innovative steps in one regard. Yet unfortunately, the innovation stops right there, and seems to take a step back when it comes to the actual gameplay.
A 3 out of 5.
Let's take a vote.
All in favor of amending the site policy to include:
"Any user who submits the same crappy 'Madness Stage Creator' multiplte times to NewGrounds will be subjected to the strictest capital punishment allocable by law."
...Say 'I'.
Lots of good, but a little iffy things.
I noticed a couple bugs. Somebody else already noted that you can breeze through the computer just by clicking "durr I forgot" and tapping the next arrows. Let's exploit this bug, though. If there was some sort of a hint, maybe from Dr. German, that signifies that he never took the time to secure his stuff. Hmm.
Everything else flows well. I eventually figured it all out, and I remained interested throughout.
Basically, when all is said and done, make sure you say "hey" to all my homies on the front page.
Comic Colorist and Landscape Painter.
Age 40, Male
Comic Colorist
Joined on 6/16/06
Goal In One 
Pong Pong Revolution 
Osiris 
Ultra Fortune Cookie 
MAD BLOX 
Whack-An-Agent 
Picto-puzzle 
Jack French #2 
