Lazarou's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Blast Master]

great game

awesomly addictive game, but where is the mute button? trying to play the game whilst chatting to someone on skype isn't possible :( The music and explosions are just too loud to be able to talk to someone at the same time.

Add a mute button and it would have got my 10

GameBalance responds:

wow. or u never used any music players or u just got silly. Mute music by set music volume to 0%. Options in the gameplay

[the Hermit]

Looks great, but I think I broke it...

First I have to say, I really like your game's style and theme. It actually reminds me a lot of my own games, both in theme and content (I'm the creator of the core series of escape/adventure games).

-I like that all your puzzles are logic based. That definitely gets a big thumbs up from me. I really like puzzles that don't need any explanation other than just a bit of trial and error until you figure them out.

-Music and art are all really nice. Your character design and backdrops all add to the whole thing.

-Your music choice is also great.

Now for the bad:

-Whilst your puzzles are all logic based, some of them need a "little" more user feedback - ie it helps the player to see when they are heading in the right direction when working the puzzle out, rather than being left in the dark until they finally solve it.
Your generator puzzle was probably the best, because the player could see exactly what each push of the button did, and after a bit of trial and error, they could finally get a solution.
Wiring puzzle at the end had to be the worst, but I will come back to that later.

-Towards the end of the game, it felt a little rushed. Bits of text being cut off on the edge of the screen, graphics a little less tidy etc.

-The wiring puzzle... ok, I'm really not sure what that one is all about. So first you have to figure out that clicking on a wire, then clicking on a socket will connect the two. Then after about 10 minutes of head scratching, by accident I find that I can connect multiple wires to 1 socket by clicking on each colour, then on the socket they are meant to go into. The problem is that there is no indication of which wires you have currently selected.
It each wire that you had selected would glow, that would at least be an indication that something was happening.
However I couldn't work out the solution to the puzzle. Everything goes well until you realise you only have 1 red wire, but 2 sockets seem to want red.
Well, after randomly clicking, suddenly it appeared that I had solved the puzzle (no idea what I did, it didn't look very solved to me).
On pressing the red button, I got a very buggy looking end sequence, where words were half masked rendering them unreadable, the animation kept flicking back to the button inside the train, whilst a missile hovered in mid air.
It didn't feel like a proper end to me, and I am guessing that what I saw was unintentional.

Anyway, giving you 6/10 and 3/5. I enjoyed the game, but it feels a bit untested and buggy, you should really at least get a few friends to playtest it for you through to the end, to iron out these few glitches. Still, looking forwards to seeing more from you, keep up the good work.

tap5y responds:

Thank you very much for taking the time and writing such a detailed review. I'll look into the bugs once I have some spare time.

Thanks anyway!!!

[Maximum ToyBoy]

Are you meant to be a chick or a guy?

This left me confused about my own sexuality...

Standubonnet responds:

Mainly for female audience, but we get a 25% male audience. They are probably there to learn something about the game -- and when I say 'the game' I don't mean Maximum ToyBoy.

[The Cell 2]

Dissapointing

I remembered playing your first game, and whilst it was short, it was at least fairly intuitive and logical. I was hoping that this would build on the strengths of the first game, adding more complex and involved puzzles.

Sorry to say I was really dissapointed.

The first MAJOR issue I had with the game was the pixel clicking. Seriously, there were not one, not two, but THREE items that required near pixel perfect clicks in order to pick up (the apple, the bottle and the knife), not to mention that the graphics for the items were so small that you wouldnt even notice them.

The game logic was also way off. You confuse the player by putting in this massive hole with something shiney at the bottom of it, yet this is not even a part of the game, it is just a distraction. When the items you expect us to pick up that actually start the escape process are so small, confusing the player with the big hole is just stupid. Dont even think that you are "increasing the difficulty", there is a massive difference between something being a n enjoyable challenge, and something being so frustrating that you give up after 5 minutes of random clicking.

I personally have an issue with the control system. Only being able to interract with items you are near to is fine, but the whole "Use/Look" system is poorly implemented because it is lacking the mouseover tooltips that are commonly associated with it (ie Just hovering your mouse over items in the room will bring up the text to let you know it is an item you can intereact with). The system in your previous game was probably much better, as it highlighted the areas in the room that you could interract with (altho the "Would you like to X in the X? Yes / No" option was a little pointless).

Also the button that is meant to take u back to the menu from the game is broken, clicking on it just leaves you on a blank screen. After giving up in frustration, I had to restart the game again in order to check the walkthrough to see if it was even possible.

Sorry if I am sounding overly critical, however I would like to think that as a fellow "point and click adventure" game developer, I am in a position to offer you some constructive advice. Keep up the work, I would like to see a "the Cell 3", just put some more work into keeping it user friendly.

Chaz responds:

Thanks, I have taken your points and will make sure that number 3 improves on all of these.

[Escape the Den]

Nice job for first game

Awesome job for a first submission. I am a big fan of escape games and have made a few myself (you may have heard of cube core/ prism core, currently working on my 4th).
From my personal experience both playing the games and making them, the games are generally more enjoyable when they require less "pixel hunting", ie you dont want to hide something so well that you can only find it by clicking every single pixel.
This wasnt too bad, however the screwdriver and hairdryer were hidden so well that I dont think I would ever have found them if I hadn't peeked at your walkthrough.

I love the way you break away from the "norm" in regards to some of the puzzles/devices in the room, the capsule machine and shaking sphere thing were very nice, keeps the game interesting and stops it being just "another escape game".

Codes can be fun, but you dont want to bog people down with them. Finding ways to have locks and triggers work without codes can be very fun (nice example was the bit with the drawers and blue key".

Anyway keep up the good work, hope to see another game from you soon! :D

Kyjast responds:

You made the Core games!? You're genius; I love those!

Thanks for the comments. I realized getting the screwdriver and hairdryer were a bit challenging, I tried to make the hairdryer more noticeable by showing a message on the inventory when you hover over the area... but it's still not noticed too well.

I kinda rushed into all the codes and puzzles too. If I could make the game again, I definitely would have added another non-numerical puzzle.

Thanks again for the advice!

[Ski Toll Drop]

Bugged and boring

Sorry, dont know if this is your first game or not, but it really isnt very fun.

Plus clicking on any of the signs that say "insert logo here" take you to a blank screen that you can't get out of. Game just seems unfinished, and as if its copied from a generic game template or tutorial or something.

WaveLengthGames responds:

We sent this game to many sponsors first. To prevent fraud, we put it PLACE LOGO HERE so they know where logos can go and won't try to put it on there website. We accidentally submitted the wrong version.

[Heist II - Greed is Hell]

seems a bit bugged...

Started off good (even if that intro did seem to go on forever), I looked around a bit, then suddenly got killed by death traps, but fine it adds some danged to the game (and once i realised I could avoid it using the keyboard instead of clicking the arrow that appears it wasnt too bad).
Anyway, I decided to check out the walkthrough just to see if I was missing anything, as I got a bit stuck wondering what to do. According to the walkthrough the phone is meant to start ringing when you loot the dead guy, well that didnt happen at all. So I am sitting here with 2 pieces of the lock code, all the items, and I can't finish the game properly.
If you have spent a YEAR working on this, would kind of expect these bugs to be ironed out. Oh well, hope you can fix them soon, then this could easily be weekly winner.

OzMafioso responds:

Ya know its funny... I did work on this over a year (on and off of course), And honestly the last minute changes are what caused these bugs...well that and I was up till' 8 in the morning trying to make sure I didn't miss anything... Ironic eh, lol. I worked out most of the bugs thus far. I appreciate the review!

[Roll]

good game

I played this on jayisgames, thought it was a good games, but there ARE a few things about it that annoy me:
When you die/run out of time, the red balls do not all reset to their original positions, so you can just carry on, making some levels trivial providing you have enough lives.
Also the control system whilst simple, is kind of awkward. Spam-clicking the smallest power shot seems to be more effective than being more strategic and trying to make each click count. Not sure if this was your original intent, but it feels a bit wierd.
Finally some of the levels are a bit unforgiving, especially ones which combine the spikes and the ice. I think it was lvl 19 that I stopped playing on, just got way too frustrated with that stupid ice and narrow pathways through spike-lined corners. Oh, and I hate the circle levels too, they were just evil >_<

Overall its a very nice game, graphics and overall polish are top notch, a few bugs and stuff tho, and a gameplay depth that starts to wear a bit thin past lvl 15. Keep up the good work tho, hope your next game is even better.

BinaryMoon responds:

The balls not resetting was intentional. I don't like games that are frustratingly difficult/ uncompletable so i made the game this way on purpose.

The controls are the way they are because the game theme was ball physics and I felt this was the best way to get physics into the game. You fire the ball and the n the physics take over. With keyboard controls you would control the ball so there would be less physics based goodness.

Balancing the levels was quite tough and I've had a few people mention the circle levels - imagine trying to complete them if the balls reset each time :) BTW There are 20 levels, you were 1 away from finishing.

[Music Reading Test]

Add some sound

If you could hear the notes you are pressing it would make it more interesting. Also the visuals are a bit bland, all a rather grim shade of grey. Add some colour and contrast.
Not bad, but not great either.

STi-Striker responds:

I will submit a revised version that plays the note when it comes up, but until then, this is what is available. As for the colour, thats the way I made it, I could care less for frilly pinks and that crap.

[Calculator w/ Mem Storage]

well u get a 10 for interactivity

but i mean honestly, a calculator!?! And you made it for fun???
Sorry, but I dont find calculators very fun to play with, and if i wanted one i would use a real one, not some naff flash calculator. I know this took a lot of effort, but I dont think many people come on this site to work out sums. Sorry.

STi-Striker responds:

I made is so I could learn actionscripting easier because it was my first actionscript prohect. I just wanted a better calculator than the standard windows POS