Salamandre's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Escape Pong!]

I use Firefox quantum 68.0 64bits for Ubuntu, i cant see the game except the escape blinking up right corner

CubeBleu responds:

Thank you for the feedback, we uploaded a new version that should fix the problem!

[Retro Redux: Compilation]

Nice series of games. Some are not well balanced (the robot one is boring because too easy) and the scull castle have very frustrating commands. You hardly manage to enter a corridor on first try.

JeffreyDriver responds:

Thanks for the feedback. The robot game does get really tricky later on, but I'll look at ramping up the difficulty faster, And I'll see what I can do about the Skull Castle controls.

[The Jump to Nowhere]

Hi, The good point is the music, it matches the graphic atmosphere. then the game starts without warning and without advising the controls. The two first jumps are too hard compared to the next ones, and you can disappear above the screen.

TropicSquirrel responds:

Hey, thanks for the feedback! ill try to make it better and sharpen my skills. I also didn't take into account that you can disappear above the screen and that the game starts without warning so thanks!

[The Incredible Platformer]

Very cool game ! Levels very challenging, and the music thing is soooo cool

Chrisuan responds:

So glad you like it!

[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.