Salamandre's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Valhalla Bound]

Really loved it. For the graphics, for the gameplay, for the story...

But I put 4 stars because there is a big problem in my opinion : The goal, the positive actions and negative actions are not easy to determine:
- I had to play the demo to understand that the ships were to destroy and not to protect. As you are a viking and the ships are drakars sailing off from your coast, the intuition is not to shoot them.
- Then the ghosts, moving and disappearing after a time, seemed to me like bonus target.
Those two points would be solved by a 5sec animation showing your character shooting a boat, the soul reaching Valhalla and a short text like"Stay in peace, brother". Or a more obviously positive and negative sound when you do the right or wrong thing.
- Then the condition of loosing lives (letting go a boat). This is not obvious enough either. First because this occurs without any visual effect, then because the player is focused on the center or left part of the screen and boats disappear at the very right of the screen, at last because there is no sound relative to the loss of a ship. You only have 3 lives, loosing a ship is the worst thing ever, it should make a big bad noise ! Another thing that confused me with the lives is the little head you put next to the number of lives left. I understand that it is a very common thing in videogames to do so, but your character doesn't actually die when you loose a ship. Drawing a little ship instead of the head could be more explicit ?
- The rune : you have to shoot especially the rune and not the angel right ? But it makes exactly the same sound.
- The rain mechanic is still a unclear to me. You have to shoot several times each boat ? there is no clear visual or sound effect that tels you when you're finished with a boat.

But yet it is a great game, I'll install it on my smartphone at once

Avizial responds:

Wow, you make a lot of good points! You are a very meticulous reviewer!

- For the tutorial, we added a little box with a "?" on the upper right-hand corner to give a quick synopsis of the automated demo/tutorial. It doesn't explain everything, but we think it explains enough. We'd like to let people figure out and learn about the game "retro-style" ;P But we can add more to the tutorial, perhaps a tip page going a little more in-depth?

- For the loss of a life, this is a very good point. Perhaps we can make it more obvious that a Viking soul has not been saved and make the results more apparent. We will play around and look into this one.

- We can make separate sound-effect for the rune and angels. This one is simple :)

- The rain mechanic has a chance to douse the fire you lit on the boats. It won't always put out the fire but there is a high chance. However, if you hit the boats with a charged shot, it will always release the spirits. Even if the boat's fire goes out.

Thanks for the mobile support! Every little bit helps :)

And thanks for playing our game. Your feedback will come in handy for our next update! Hope to hear from you in future games.

[Kill Billfoot]

Very nice and enjoyable to play !
Just few things :
- when you die you should restart with all your heart. Else it immediately turns into a non-damage hardcore mode.
-at the boss, if you are hit by a rock, you can't jump or escape until then end of invulnerability time, which means that if you are hit, you're dead already.
Great game anyways, the controls are responsive, you could put some harder levels

HenrikSahlin responds:

Ok I will make sure you spawn with 2 hearts instead of 1. And I'm going to make sure that you're hit further so that you can escape the rocks. Thanks for the feedback!

[Drink Beer, Neglect Family]

Great ! Very funny nice Donkey Kong-like pixel art. And nice idea, I love it.

Just one thing: It would be great to have a icon in the top left corner that displays the current effect of alcohol. I am not a native english speaker and I had to stop playing at every beer to read the text line. You should put both the text line and the icon I think.

esayitch responds:

That's a pretty good idea. I had a thought to also add a pop-up that announced the effect as well, but this was a relatively short project that I gave too much time to begin with, so I opted out of "polish" improvements like that.

[White Stone]

Very fun ! a little short

cobcris responds:

nice :D yea i know it's short, but i decided to release short games in order to polish my dev skills before i make the big one

[Adaptivity - Alpha]

Great game ! I love it !
two points :
- the small intro on levels that are bigger than the screen should be skippable
- some hints (question marks in squares) are too obvious and in the way. It hurt my pride to get help I don't need nor ask ;)

prasannakkcse responds:

Hi! Thank you for your feedback!
I have reduced the wait time of the intro for now. But made a note about skipping.

[Antumbra]

Graphic and audio art is really good, I can't deny that.
But it is not enough to make a good game. It is only a succession of illusion of choices. At first for example, the only option is to run away, else you die. Then the only option is to find how to lock the door. I lost patience before finishing the game, but as far as I've been, any choice I've made had an impact on the game. And hovering all the screen with the mouse on every panel to look for a golden eye is not funny.
I understand, by your description and other people's comments, that there is a message beneath your game. I didn't reach it. Many elements of the game were obvious allegory, but allegory of what ? You should make it more obvious so we try to understand it.
As an example, I'd talk about the guy you have to kill bare hands. You can't choose to spare him, nor to talk to him. As a result I don't feel concerned about his death as I haven't been given a choice. And there is a second character on the image. Does it have something to do with the story ? Then why don't I find a hotspot on him or near him ?
Actually I have no will to keep trying because I don't have a clue about if I am progressing or not. No map ? no goal plot ?

I understand that one of the goals of your game is to confuse the player. So you don't "offer" the answers too easily. But if you don't even inform the player if he's doing right or wrong, he won't stick to insisting on your game.

Vilehead responds:

Thank you for your detailed and long review Salamandre. Shame you rated the game so low :(
But I will take this on board for my next project.

[The Onion Knight]

Good game. Cute art, nice music. the difficulty is well balanced, last levels are challenging but you don't give up for boring (Few more levels would be ok). I love those menus you navigate in the same way than in a level.
the bad points are :
- No animations, even the fade when using a ladder is bad.
- a detail that got on my nerves: at the end of a level, you have a panel with "menu" "next level" and "restart level" and you have to use your mouse. But you don't use the mouse while playing, so it "broke the spell" each time(I'm not sure how to express it in English). I had to think back about IRL material things such as "where is my mouse". Why didn't you keep your great idea of level selection ? A tiny level whit three doors access menus of next level ...
- when you finish last level, you go back to level 1 if you click "next level". This is illogical AND unpleasant. No congratulations screen ?

Anyways I spent a good time playing this game.

alexandersshen responds:

Thanks for the comments! You bring up a really good point, actually. The fact is that you CAN use only the keyboard to maneuver through all of the game. All the buttons that have underlined letters mean you can press that letter to use the button (example: N for Next Level).

The fact that you didn't know that means I didn't teach it and that's failure on my part. Since this is made in an engine, I'll make sure the next game takes care of explaining this.

As far as no animations and the last level going back to the first, I was strapped for time. I wanted this released in time for Game of Thrones Season 5. The engine is certainly capable of handling animated pieces and cut scenes. :)

[Family Rush]

I really enjoyed this game ! I love those games with minimum control.
Few things :
- there is a peak of difficulty just before reaching the grandad, with a lot of flying enemies (or was my strategy wrong ? I should have boosted Mom's health maybe)
- Small bosses before each family member release would be cool
- The congratulation screen is way too poor in comparison to the intro and the game. Two of three comic strip picture with punchlines of all members of the family would be nice.

dennatolich responds:

Thank you for feedback!

[Mr Jonathan's Apple Quest]

I didn't have the patience to finish it because of the control. Accelerations and decelerations should be much higher when you're on the ground.
Graphics are good, music too. (just make the green static enemies a little more obvious).
Could be better, but yet enjoyable.

H20DDs responds:

Interesting. Thanks for the feedback.

[Stick Beard]

I love this kind of story telling !
One thing is missing : a "back" button to see the other animations in case you pick the right answer on the first try.
And the gems are super hard to click on ! The hit box is too small.

Stone-Steven responds:

I can add something like that in I believe, seen quite a few requests now. thanks!