Salamandre's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Escape]

Very nice game ! I really liked the meaning of it. About difficulty, the puzzle part is nearly too easy I think. The arcade part (the third picture) is hard, but not too much. I made it in less than 5 tries, so I think it's ok.
Just one point about the third picture when you passed the mirror : You sometimes bump into an invisible wall without making appear blood written words, so you have no way to know if you are still moving on of if you are stopped. Making so you always display a word when you bump into a wall or adding a texture on the floor would help.

For the meaning of the game, here is what I understood :
You start in the present time with the wish of ending up your life and a lot of possibilities (the rope, the window, the broken glass). But you want to take care of few things before you leave.
- first picture : a trauma form your childhood
- second picture : a trauma from your teenage-hood
- third picture : I'm not that sure. Is it birth trauma ?

Nastyfox responds:

Thanks for nice feedback and so, will try to fix it asap! :) The words are supposed to show everytime but I am no good in programming :D Will see what can I do though.

As what goes for your theory. Well, you got it quite right! Only the third picture is about your fears and self-hatred. So obviously you need to beat that side of you. But than again, if you fix yourself, you don'n want to kill yourself right? And you end up stuck between choices :)

[Spikie Vs Zombies]

Lots of bugs. When I got the green gun, bullet sprits would freeze on impact, so before I reach a half of zombies killed , the screen was full of those bullet sprits. Then when I used pause button, the pause menu appeared but the game didn't stop.
For the game play what is the point of permitting to shoot 360° while this is a one dimension game ? I did not notice that there was a way to do headshots. If there is, a little graphic *headshot* would be nice.
Then the difficulty raises on the first levels with new enemies, but then only raises thanks to the number of zombies. Each stage becomes longer, not really more difficult, and as a result, more and more boring. There should be new enemies at every stage until you reach the best gun (and only then, an endless mode with no new enemies).
As the game play and the game design are very simple, it can't entertain more than 5 min. Make things so people finish it in less than 5 min with a finish screen, a total score.
As such, this game is not interesting.

Anya12 responds:

It has been fixed, try again ;)

[Nova the Astronaut]

Did it ! Without walktrrouht. However, I never figured out the logical of the pink digit on the green-pink-blue code. I found the code by trying every numbers from 1 to 9. And the text codes are case sensitive. Is it on purpose ? It seamed a little useless to me.

JackAstral responds:

Awesome! Yeah people seem to be having a little bit of a hard time with that puzzle, ahaha. I think I need to make it a little more obvious,

Thanks for playing + reviewing!

[Land of Enki]

Nice game. Nice controls. But not enough challenging. And the price of items are too high in the last world. I had the ultimate sword before I could offer the 3rd sword (and had to go through all the levels a second time to farm enough to buy it).

TheEnkian responds:

We actually nerfed the game a little before releasing it by making hearts easier to come by and so on in case it was too tricky, but it seems that made it too easy rather than having a good balance.

[Dark]

For the gameplay, this is too slow, not enough challenging. It was relaxing one level, boarding the 4 next
For the graphics, the character does not communicate any feeling. You don't see any anger, or guilt, or sorrow. The black outs that make the only challenge of the game should not hide the texts on the background. And the death is not indicated clearly enough (a visual flash, a time break would complete the sound jingle).
For the story, the most important. It doesn't make sense. Showing the different psychological states of acceptance is sure interesting. But only if you know the deception we're talking about. At first you think he either killed his girlfriend or killed himself. At the very end, you learn that his crime is completely different. Much more dreadful indeed, but this is not the point. And using the innocence of a child to put the focus on the guilt of an adult is a cliché. Don't use it.

JackAstral responds:

Yeah I made the gameplay pretty simple so the player could concentrate on the story.

Thanks for the suggestions- I'm working on a big patch now, so I'll throw some of your ideas in.