Afro-Alchemist's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Deserted: Island Mystery]

This is a good one! I think it hits the fun balance of still having to think about the puzzles without the solution being too obtuse.

[Intense Room Escape]

I like this one, a fun brain teaser, and also fun to try to solve as quickly as possible.

[PICO NIGHT PUNKIN']

That was pretty great, great job!

[FRIDAY NIGHT FUNKIN']

Really fun game with fantastically cute art-style and fantastic songs. I find myself replaying the levels sometimes just to listen to the music. Great job.

[Not a Clone Demo]

This game was very good at replicating the feel the warioware games, it is almost nostalgic. I look forward to full game with hopefully more polish in general and more content.

[hitBox]

This was a pretty good skill game.
A kinda simple concept that was made into a pretty interesting game. I really appreciate how it was still able to be a challenge even after figuring out how to do it, which what I feel makes a good skill game.
The visuals were really nice, it was quite appealing to look at. The art style isn't very unique, but it works best for this kind of game, I feel.
The audio was good too, I didn't get tired of hearing the music in the background which I find to be veryt important.
The game itself didn't feel unsatisfyingly short while not being too long that it was just exhausting to get through, it had a nice little balance. The game functioned very smoothly, everything felt right and proper. I didn't encounter any glitches.
I had a good time playing this game. It felt somewhat rewarding to get through some of the puzzles in this game.

[Stealth at School]

Not a bad game. There isn't a whole lot to it, but it is solid and functional (I didn't encounter a single glitch while playing the game normally, good job).
I think the game is a little too easy. Except for the last three levels I had absolutely zero problem getting all of the coins while beating the levels for the first time. It wasn't until about level 15 that I learned that you could actually be in the enemies' line of sight ( I assumed it was an insta-kill like the first Classroom game), and wasn't until the last three levels that I didn't clear it on the first go.
Speaking of the line of sight, I think the amount of time you can spend in their (except for the bully) is a little too generous. The fact that I am able to dive in, grab the coin, and dip out all while the enemy is staring at me makes getting some of the coins that were set up to be a challenge to just be trivial. All while without even using the airplane.

Then there is the paper airplane. It's way too good. Even though the Nerds aren't much of a threat ever, the fact that you can stun, pick up the airplane and continue using it makes almost every level way too easy. The airplane should simply not be re-useable (you could have the tip be crumbled to signify that it can't be used again), and even then it would still be too strong. Like with the Bully, you cant recover the airplane if you use it on the Bully, not like you would need to. The Bully was a welcomed enemy, but with the fact that I can stun him in on position forever makes him more like a small wall that isn't a threat. What would have been better is that it stuns the bully for only for a little bit (like maybe 5-7 seconds[similar to the nerd]) so that the player can use the airplane strategically and with timing with the other enemies so they can dash and grab the coin, that would have been more enjoyable than just stunlocking the Bully.
I like the paper airplane, it's a nice concept for the gameplay. It just makes a fairly easy game even easier.
So overall for difficulty, I feel like two things would be a good change; make all enemies' line of sight's detection meter go up significantly faster (or even just make it an insta-kill) , and make the paper airplane an one-use-per-level kind of thing (maybe even some kind of powerup they have to grab).

Animation-wise. It is fine. I don't like how the enemies just snap in angles instead of smoothly turning around ( the same for the line of sight, which could have amped the difficulty a little more). But my actual complaint goes into the main character's walk cycle. By itself, it is fine, however, do you see how it is when he walks up, down, left and right? And then see how he walks in all of the diagonal directions. His diagonal walking looks like it would be a lot faster than his normal direction walking. His diagonal walking animation looks like running, while the up/down/left/right walking animation looks like he is just casually walking. It would be good to fix it to have all eight animations to be consistent in the appearance of speed, as it is currently jarring.

Art style is fine. It's appealing to look at, but that's as far as it gets.

The controls are alright, but a little clumsy-feeling when colliding with any object.

The audio is fine. Good choice of music, since I didn't get tired of hearing it by the end of the game, and I appreciate the option of muting it.

All in all, it is a functional game with an enjoyable concept. Zero story, but that is fine. No obvious glitches. Simply a good example of an average flash game, perfectly deserving 3 stars. It was enjoyable. Just kinda too easy, could use some more levels, and could use some general polish to make the game feel and look better.

MonoFlauta responds:

Thanks a lot for your review! We will take in mind all of them for our future games.

Also, about the difficult, indeed, maybe it would had been even better to have different difficulties. It would had been as easy as multiple the fill factor in this case... (if we wanted to add it fast). We will take this in mind for sure.

And about the multiple use of the plane. Now that you mention, I think we failed in giving the real need of using it multiple times, like, actually need to grab the plane again to finish the level. But maybe, that one is another way to fix what you say.

Other than that, thanks once again for the review and for playing the game, we really like these game design reviews, they help us to improve :)

[Ele-Masters]

This was kinda alright. Simple concepts can be quite beneficial for games. But this was simply way too simple. There just isn't all that much to it, really. It just takes a few levels to fully obtain all this game has to offer. I accidentally skipped the instructions page and still had no trouble seeing what all this game had to offer. I went back to see if I missed any other type of game modes. It's good that this game wasn't unnecessarily convoluted that I was able to understand the game without being taught it, but it's not good that that there really is to it. The only kind of progression is to the same puzzle but with a shorter time limit. It's something, but it doesn't really add anything to make the game all that much more fun. If I wasn't intent on reviewing this game, I would have had left after just like 5 levels.
It isn't very appealing to look at. Perhaps the elements having black outlines would help a bit. If the game was cartoon-y overall, it'll probably look significantly better, but not very impressive looking. The music is okay, I guess. Not good or anything, but it isn't atrocious. The sounds are kinda bad. The explosion that happens at the start of every level is really bad, honestly.
I do like the random trivia at the end of a level, I didn't care too much for it but it was probably my favorite thing of this game.
It's neat you made a game that is completely randomly generated and is still coherent, but it is currently far too basic.
Whether you try to expand this game or try something different, keep it up and good luck.

[Imperil]

This is a pretty good game. The concept wasn't overly complicated, yet there wasn't any feeling of handholding. The music, while isn't all too memorable, was quite enjoyable and I never felt tired of hearing it throughout the game. I was about to just stop playing by the end of the first chapter because it didn't feel engaging enough until I realized that there was more to the mechanics of the game in the next chapter. That's one of the things that really made this game to me. Having a new ability every chapter made everything refreshing and interesting to last long enough to continue playing through each chapter. It was quite apparent that each level had some thought into it. It was quite the basic level progression, but games can't really go wrong with that, just that nothing was spectacular or brilliant. The secret collectibles were nice and sometimes felt satisfying to find them, when they were actually hidden. The controls were tight and usually responsive. The boss was kinda fun.

Now, I feel like the game would have benefited quite a bit if there was more feedback in combat. It was quite clear I was hurting them and they were hurting me so it had an okay amount of feedback, but it didn't feel all that engaging to fight. Once I got the fire, I didn't bother with the sword anymore. The sword just felt impactless when it came to the spiders, like as if I was meant to upgrade it. Maybe making the enemies receive significant knockback, preferably enough to knock away the spiders a bit when they lung at me. I see that it does have some knockback, but if I attack at lunging spiders, it is often just enough to make them stop right in place which often ends up me getting hit anyways.
The secret collectibles (XP) didn't feel rewarding enough. The only thing to do with them was cash them in at the end of every level for more health. Especially considering that it's kinda hard to die in this game. The only time I died was to the lava, which my health wouldn't have helped.
I feel like the regenerative health wasn't necessary, or at least to the extent that it was. It was just too much. It made most enemies feel quite worthless.
I wish there was a bit more to it for the final boss. I initially thought it was a mid-boss. It was simply too easy and simple. With my amount of health and regenerating, I felt boringly invincible. And I didn't feel any challenge aside from figuring out that you need to hit one of the limbs once. It wasn't much of a challenge to figure that out as well, since there isn't a whole lot of options to try due to the game's simplicity. A game having a simple concept can go either way here, it's definitely good that I wasn't dancing around the tiny stage for an indefinitely period of time wondering "What the hell am I suppose to do?", but the boss would have really benefited from having more to it. It would have been fine if I didn't just have regenerating health. Then where the boss lacks in needing me to think and figure things out, it'll make it up for the combat not feeling boringly easy. I just really think this game would have been fine without the health regen and that you only get health back through checkpoint, death, and moving on to the next chapter, or maybe even getting some health back from slain enemies (would have more incentive to fight, while adding the risk factor of just losing more health in the process, making the game feel more engaging). Anyways, the boss really could have had a bit more to it. It's fine how it is in the first half, I suppose. But by the second half, it really is just the exact same thing but with a little more "hazards" that aren't that hazardous. You can just hang back in one of the corners then slash at the limb once it appears to go for the open mouth attack. The damage you might take while waiting doesn't really matter. It would have been good if the boss had a phase for every chapter, if done correctly it would have made the boss actually kinda incredible. It was fun, and had a bit of a nice concept going for, but the boss battle just felt kinda disappointing in the end. It felt like one of the weakest parts of games, especially when it made a lot of the problems with this game seem more apparent.
Also, the player physics sometimes didn't feel great. Mainly when there were walls, because sometimes you can stick to them. Not terrible, just not amazing.
Also I sometimes had an issue with the platforms made from the green chapter, sometimes I will just jump down when the only thing I was pressing was the jump key. But it wasn't much of an issue thanks to infinite platforms anyways.

This game shows to have a good amount of thought and effort into it. I have difficulty on imagining me rating it any less than 4. However, it does not come without a few issues, so I can't imagine rating it any more than 4. It was enjoyable, good job.

[Stick Jumper 2]

Earlier today, I said that if you used the same stick figure from stick jumper and put some sort of goal next time and not just have a large test-like room, it might actually be worth more than a blam, in a nutshell. Not saying you followed my advice, because that was just from today, and you also only said " >=l ", proving you didn't even try to think of anyone's review that gave you a lot more stars than your other games would ever had deserved, and probably don't even read reviews that are longer than two sentences.

Congrats. you made a game that is not completely inadequate. You used the decent stick figure and put in a game that has a goal. 2 stars. It is nothing too new and interesting. It is a stick figure platformer. 1.6 stars between 2 stars is what this game deserves, because I suppose it is worthy to be passed through judgement, but barely.
Good job on having the top barrier not be a "restart", that was another good thing. Still would have been better to just place a blocks all around the screen edges, makes it seem more professional when you don't allow players to exit the screen and you don't punish them for doing so, because they would not be able to with a blocked screen edge.

Now that you finally passed maybe most of the basics OF the basics of video game design, next time when you make yet another stick figure platformer, I reccomend adding more things than gaps and jumps. You know, enemies, hazards, surprises. Those kind of things. It would then make the game worth around 2.5-3.2 stars. Having a decent story, good difficulty with a nice rising pace through out the levels, and a satisfying ending will then make it worth from maybe around 3.5-4.2.
Maybe.
Unfortunately, the people who don't rate this game that it actually deserves, will probably rise towards 3-4 stars, even though this game does not deserve to be anywhere near 3. So don't think you are set by just copying the same formula you use can really get you by, just because people think it is okay to give this a 4-5 rating even though the quality is beyond far from ever deserving comparison to the popular games that actually deserved 4-5 star ratings. You gotta progress and be original.
TWO STARS.