Tyler's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Burning Down (DEMO)]

Visually its perfect. The art is gorgeous, the music is fun and the characters are quite expressive. The mechanics are fun and intuitive. I've never played a firefighting game before so I think this is very unique.

Its really hard. I died 5 times on the first level in the second room with the baby and its discouraging at this point. I had no idea what to do with the furniture after the door either.

If I may use the iceberg consciousness metaphor, the conscious or "presentation" aspect is perfect but the unconscious or "under the hood" aspect of this game needs some restructuring:

If I may suggest it: A first tutorial level that walks players through learning controls at fire academy would be perfect. You can put out a contained fire (left/right click prompts), then you learn to reload (Press R button prompt) then you learn to axe a door (F button prompt), etc, etc. That method is more kinesthetic, I find. Few people can remember a control layout from the menu and scroll and most nobody will read the game description to find out but.

I hope to see how development continues, good luck!

Stopsignal responds:

Hi Tyler, thanks a lot!!! o:

Hmmm, i might need to rush out a new, introductory level, and maybe ease down the first few just so it doesn't feel like jumping in at the deep end. Will try it!
It's all test levels, that are supposed to go in after the player already knows a few things, but of course this makes it really hard if you start without knowing how to play, hahahahha. Oops!

Also i might need to make easy difficulty the default, just in case! I hope it doesn't sound condescending i just know it's kind of complicated at the start, hahahahah

Keep being awesome, thanks for the demo feedback!!! (:

[Toe II Toe]

I dont want to punch cute girls

plazatin responds:

I'll consider adding an ugly opponent to fix the situation!

[Pizza Kidd: Beat 'Em Up Demo (prototype)]

Very strong prototype. Looks very promising!

Here's what I loved:

+ The visuals. There's really nothing that looks quite like this game. While the level layouts are the classic formula, they visually are a treat to look at: the game is simultaneously well-designed but also looks "rough" - that is to say it doesn't look overly produced. The art feels very authentic is what i'm trying to say. The animation is phenomenal.

+ Complexity of combat options. Its absolutely insane and inspiring just how many moves the protagonist has at his disposal. Some serious thought and effort when into how this kid plays. The effort is rewarded- the kid is a charm to control.

+ The intro. Really high quality stuff here. Your team should be proud. I wish it had subtitles though; I genuinely have no idea what's being said.

+ Controls. These feel really smooth. As recommended, the controller feels best but its actually pretty playable on keyboard too.

Here's what bothered me:

- Monsters. There are too few monsters currently to engage with. It got boring fast fighting the same one over and over. It also isn't intuitively obvious what the different colored variants do.

- Flow. I wish monsters entered the arena a bit more interestingly. Instead of left and right, perhaps have them climb out of windows, walk in from the player's camera view, drop down from the sky, etc. This is critique is nit-pick though so take it with a grain of salt.

You guys have something special here. Hope to see more from this team. Good luck!

PizzaKiddo responds:

Thank you so much for your insightful feedback. We are only 4 months in on prototype... so all of your great suggestions are being recorded along with the feedback we are gathering from Itch.io. The polished demo will feature several new creatures and more balanced objectives / evolving play mechanics.

*Join our discord to see how our production is developing week to week.

🙏🍕

[TROUBLE JUICE Demo]

Very cool little demo.

Here are some positive things that stood out to me:

+ Falling off the bottom of the screen brings you down from above. Initially I was annoyed at how much screen real estate in the air was "wasted" when the player was confined to the ground. Screen loop is a really nice touch.

+ Character abilities. Though its only one action, each character ability dramatically changes how the game plays. At first I thought Slo-Mo was the choice for me but fell in love with the Dash girl.

+Art/SFX. Its very satisfying to see and hear. Nuff' said.

Things that bothered me:

- Enemy spawns. Sometimes enemies would spawn where the player is. For example, if I jumped into a new battle area there was a chance the enemy would spawn where I stood and I took damage and it was beyond my control. That felt unfair.

- MnK vs controller. The game plays wonderfully on controller but is very challenging on mouse and keyboard. Aiming and shooting would be more natural and intuitive if bound to the mouse. Left click shoot, mouse aim, right click (or space) for special and WASD for movement. I think this would eliminate the need for C Lock.

Overall awesome game so far. Good luck with future builds!

dietzribi responds:

Thanks Tyler!
Both of the things that bothered you will be fixed in the future :)

[Towerland]

I'm going to be critical to help you:

This is a very uninspired rip-off of Issac. You vaguely copied the game's structure but none of its charm.

Why is there only one door to travel through? Different paths would be interesting other than just going forward.

It's roguelike but none of the randomized elements are interesting. Random monster placements with a severely limited amount of enemy types is tedious.

Upgrades are handled in a boring way. I have to grind to get better? Whats the point of playing after you unlock all shop rewards? Enemies and bosses should drop upgrades instead of lame grinding.

The art is kind of charming. The style is cool but feels very uncanny- its almost too smooth.

The Zekka boss is way too easy. If I stand diagonally (top right) from him, he can't hit me at all.

If you take the criticisms above into consideration, perhaps you'll have a nice game on your hands. Good luck

[Zoe's Puzzle Solver]

This was surprisingly trippy lol

[Bustina and the Search for Booty (Demo)]

This review will be critical, but respectful:

PROS

+ The game is kind of cute and vaguely nostalgic

CONS

- Dialogue crashes game immediately

- Controls are not intuitive

Your inspirations are obvious. But they're more mimicry than inspiration; you do nothing new with Zelda and Pac-man tropes making this design approach boring and frankly lazy. I won't even comment on the perverted marketing angle but what little sex appeal there is here is too lacking to tantalize horny players into forgiving the glaring flaws.

[PRODUCER (2021) - DEMO]

I'm usually not a fan of these kinds of games, but the writing is great and the atmosphere elicits both a sense of wonder and dread. Curious to see where it goes. Good luck!

[Errevale Fall]

The art is good. The gameplay has got potential but its still rough around the edges.

Things to work on:

1. Pacing: The game starts SO slow. There is so much dialogue and none of it is compelling. Midway through the bridge scene I just started mashing skip. The conversation is forgettable and not important. If dialogue does not advance the plot or show emotional depth... drop it. It will bore players to death. If players aren't hooked in the first 2 minutes, you can kiss their attention span goodbye.

2. Combat: It took quite some time until I encountered any combat at all. Considering its such a big part of the game, its odd that combat is completely missing until around 10 minutes into the game. I also didnt understand how to distinguish guns/martial arts/magic/and assists from each other. A tutorial would be nice. Or at least slowly introduce one mechanic at a time. Theres too much going on here and its overwhelming to be thrown into the deep end.

3. Presentation: I quite like the handdrawn characters and scenes. Its jarring to merge painterly art with pixel art. The music is actually pretty great as well!

Good luck with future updates.

Marckel responds:

Thank you for the review, we will consider it for future work.

[Castle Crashing the Beard HD]

Beautiful art and game feel. But i just can't bring myself to harm Tom any further :'(

BoMToons responds:

You and your vegan peace-loving ways... SMH... ;-)