Octoraffe's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Kingdom of Liars 2]

After Alice is Dead and Hood, I expected more from you. As an artist (not a game programmer), I understand what it is like to come to dislike a project, or create something uninspired. But I think all of your fanbase would have rather waited for a more challenging game rather than be given...this. The '753 ALIVE' message, the useless statue at the end....even the game title, 'Kingdom of Liars'. It doesn't add up to the final result here. There was no kingdom of liars, there wasn't even a lie. I would have rather had an unended story than this cop-out of a game. A disappointment.

[A small talk]

This is probably the most advanced program for talking to an AI I've ever seen. The range of questions and statements it responds to is amazing. However, this game has zero replayability, since once you go through it once, it's essentially the same all the way through with a different ending. It's a short, but well-made game. I think the two endings were unnecessary, and that you should have focused on a single ending in order to make the game truly great, instead of just good. The text pace is nice and quick, and I like that typing makes the animation skip. I liked the slow reveal of the lie... I didn't make the connection at first, and then it finally dawned on me, which was a rewarding feeling and also made the game very exciting. I think my favorite detail was the fact that the LDAC will keep repeating itself, trying to distract you with games, pictures, and stories. Instead of being annoying, I felt it was an addition that made it seem more "real". Overall, a very nice game.

Review rating: 4/5
NG rating: 4/5
8/10

[Full of Holes]

Unplayable. Left clicking does nothing.

Glebaster responds:

Strange. Never seen such a problem.

[Traumata]

"Nothing interesting there."

Yeah man, you said it. From the repetitive and sleepy music to the fact that the character has almost nothing informative or otherwise to say during his slow and almost comatose trudge through this old abandoned-but-not building, I am beyond bored. This is only a point and click adventure in the respect that I point my cursor and click. Over and over, only to be told there is nothing at all to see anywhere. No comments on the dead plants, no comments on the fact that the "doors" are just empty spaces where doors used to be... this game is about as immersing as it is exciting. Which is to say, not.

The cool, addicting, and frustrating thing about "old school point and click" adventure games ( King's Quest, The Secret of Monkey Island) is the immersion factor and the fact that the game world was as real to the character as my world is to me. From mouse holes to trash cans, those characters had something to say about the world around them, and anything could be important. Adam here, as if he is an underpaid and disgruntled tour guide, simply meanders through this world telling me how uninteresting it is. It would be easy to miss something crucial or informative because after the first 4 floors, I was dying to just stop clicking on things for the rest of my play through. If I saw one more "nothing interesting there"....

Speaking of uninteresting things, Adam is the most visually interesting sprite in a game made of cookie-cutter, copy/paste pixel art. Every wall, picture, sofa, broken window, door frame, and book shelf is the same image over and over and over. Even a palette swap would have been a lovely addition to the world. But I suppose the decor suits the mood and music.. dull and repetitive.

I am not scared, curious, or even interested in the 'trauma' that is advertised in big red letters here. After the third time the monster/shadow/cliche silently appeared then vanished, I sighed and just moved on. Even Adam doesn't bother to react after the second time. "I DID see something.." Yep. That sure was a thing. Oh well. If Adam doesn't care, why should I?

I try to write good and bad about the games I review but this whole game seems largely unfinished. There are a lot of basic rules and good game theory totally ignored here, and while I came in with high hopes, I was disappointed. Immersion, fun, suspense and overall story telling are only barely present... the most basic of these factors for a game that wanted to be advanced. It tries to be an artsy, psychological, thoughtful point and click, but ends up being a mind numbingly straight forward stumble into an idea explored many times before by games much better than this one.

Take or leave it, this is my opinion and honest review of the game, Traumata.

Review rating: .5 Stars
NG rating: 1 Star

[Dr Vile- The Greater Good]

What great fun!

Often in Ludum Dare games I feel... disappointed. Left wanting. The nature of these games is that they are somewhat unfinished. But here, I got everything I wanted.

Let's start with the characters. You managed to take a brief intro of just a few lines of dialogue and establish a clear and amusing relationship between Dr. Vile and Lexe. Their names are important, memorable, and used in such frequency that they become a natural part of the game instead of stiff insertions because a character often needs a title. I enjoyed playing the part of the failing and affable mad scientist, and loved the devotion and cutesy innocence of his computer sidekick. Her attachment made me feel attached to this character I was playing, because he was important. You do very well at grounding your characters in a setting in which they are significant, (even if minorly in Vile's case). This is not only good game making, but good writing too.

Onto the gameplay. Despite being brief (as it to be expected from a Ludum Dare game), I found this game very enjoyable with just the right amount of challenge. It gave me a straightforward goal while giving me plenty of time to reach it and the freedom to create my own fun. I had a grand time seeing how close I could wreck something to a person before they'd come rushing after me in rage! The numbers of items needed was not tediously unobtainable nor too close in reach... it made the game last a perfect amount of time. One issue I did have was the ray gun. I found it's aiming (slightly to the right) to be a waste of time, and I did not find a use for it. I played around with it some, but found myself dying at the hands of the townspeople while trying to use it properly. After a few tries at it, this weapon went completely unused and I successfully completed the game. If you revise this game, you should consider giving the ray gun a specific purpose.

Next, the art. The sprites were very well done, and despite being simple they were cute and effectively translated the game in an appropriate way. I can't think of a more appropriate art style than 8-bitish pixel art for this, and I thought the colors, animations, and overall feel were very good.

Finally, the music. I found it a bit repetitive and boring, but it is not as important as maybe the gameplay or other factors. That being said, it could have been better and perhaps a bit catchier for the cutesy and energetic graphics and playstyle.

Overall, this was a great game and it much deserved the second place spot it was awarded. I can't wait for the extended version!

Review Rating: 4/5
NG Rating: 5/5

GreenPixel responds:

Thank you for such an in-depth review! :D We're taking your feedback - as well as everyone else's - to make the extended version as awesome as we can make it!

[MOON]

Another art game to slowly trudge through.

All of these games are beginning to look the same to me, just with different settings. Minimal interaction from the player, focus on the game mechanics or graphics in of themselves without much to speak of in terms of gameplay. They're raved about as deep or inspiring or whatever but I've stopped buying it.

This game does not wow me, and in fact gets a rather humdrum "meh". I can usually tolerate the cookie cutter programming of flash-based art games because in most of the ones you hear about, there is a story to be eaten up, or some horror I desperately want to seek the origin of. Here, I am left without that. A man goes crazy after 2 years isolated in space... this is neither a totally unusual concept, nor unexpected. Anyone would go mad after 2 years of solitary isolation. What makes the other art games interesting with the concept of the sudden onset of madness is the very mundane situation they are put in that finally makes them snap, or the blocking of some trauma that haunts them without the character knowing why. We get none of that here... this man is alone, and since the moon base did not explode, I can only be led to assume he has simply gone off his rocker. This ends the mystery for me. I get to slowly, painfully slowly, watch a random astronaut (named John, of all things! John Smith anyone?) go crazy, and then help arrives. This did not introduce anything new to this genre of game.

Another big red flag with this particular game is the presence of secret medals and a "secret room" medal for a game with zero replayability. Except for, I suppose, the "secret room", this game will be entirely the same over and over. Slogging back and forth as if weighed down by the moon itself, slowly creeping from monotonous screen to monotonous screen to finish. I almost felt like I was dragging a limp dog out back to shoot it.

The use of flashing lights and jump scares did not do much for my immersion nor my suspense... I could almost predict when the next thing would happen, because there was a pattern to it. New day, scary thing, John panics. New day, scary thing, John panics. But of all the ways to use the eerie vacuum of space and our vast gaps in knowledge about space to your advantage, you chose cliches that could not be more ready to lay down and die. Bloody ghost/hallucination, creepy mirror world, and a haunted payphone. Variations on these exist in tons of horror games, and very few suspense, non-action oriented horror games take place in space! I just feel like a lot of opportunities to embrace the setting you smushed this horror game into were shoved aside for more comfortable cliched horror tricks.

I'm sorry if this review is harsh, or you feel I'm being mean. I am not intending to, these are just my honest opinon of a game which feels to me like a very forgettable, boring, uninteresting and cliche work that could have been so much better, and failed to deliver.

Review rating: .5 stars
NG rating: 1 star

[Escape from the restroom]

The game isn't bad, but I can hardly see where you were inspired by the classics. This game requires almost no thought whatsoever, and certainly no creative thinking. One of the best things about the Lucasarts and Sierra Online games was the out-of-the-box thinking required by the player to progress. However, I understand that this was meant to parody those games, so I can see why you made it so straightforward.

The animation and gameplay interface are both perfect reactive and I found no bugs with the mechanics of the game at all, which did a lot for the game positively.

One of my biggest issues was the dialogue. The speaking sound effects are very grating and irritating. In this case, it might have been better to leave them out entirely. The second issue with the dialogue was the poor English. While you did do a moderate job translating, I would suggest recruiting a native english speaker, or someone who is fluent in the language, to write the dialogue and other text in your games. The mistakes make the game jilted and take away the immersion.

Other than the relatively few flaws of the game, it was fun for what it is: a very short little parody of some of the very long escape games out there. Good work.

Review rating: 3/5

NG rating: 2/5

[VACA]

This game feels half-baked. First of all, there is no English option... If you plan to submit a game to a website where mostly every submission is in English, then your game should at least include an option for English translation. Aside from that clear mistake, there is no sound in this game, and the animation is really jumpy and uneven. Why am I punching this truck, and why did the game immediately end when the screen switched away?

Overall, this game needs some serious work.

Review rating: .5/5
NG rating: 1/5

[Saciedy]

As I write this review, I am in the process of playing and have reached a dead-end. Unable to progress, I will write about what I have seen thus far.

As a point-and-click, the game leaves me wanting. Part of the success of these kinds of games is the story that the player is given to motivate them to keep working to solve the puzzles and find what needs to be found to move on. I do understand that this is a dream of yours, or of someone you know, however presenting the dream as is to players who did not experience it as you have does not make for a compelling game. The effect would have been stronger with a bit of story or something... substance to sink our teeth into. The idea not to label anything is one I understand... where is the mystery in that? However, being thrown into this game with nothing at all, no information except for the description you wrote for it, is jarring in a bad way. The further I got, the less I felt drawn into a mystery and the more frustrated I became pixel-hunting on every screen. A game made entirely of pixel-hunting is a little tiresome after a while, especially when I can only interact with things necessary to drag the game forward on its slow march to completion.

That being said, I like the music and the simple art style of the game. It feels like a construction of the brain, creating things half-way in some places, and other times rendering a lot of detail. I like that mostly everything in the Pre-School is a sticker on the wall.

As for navigation, I think arrows would have been good. There are certain things you must give up when turning something into a game; the feeling of not knowing where you are going is often one of them. As I sit here stuck, I can't help but think I am missing a location or something, and without a mini-map or arrow navigation, I have no way of knowing.

In conclusion, this game tries to capture a big idea in a form that is far too minimalistic. I don't think I will finish it, because I have looked everywhere for a way forward and can find nothing. I think if you refined this game into something polished and truly complete, it would be wildly successful.

Review rating: 3/5
NG Rating: 3/5

Y2k4ever responds:

Thank you for that well thought out review, maybe arrows would had been a good idea, as for the part you became stuck, did you turn on the TV yet?
I will take your review seriously, and either refine this game, or make one with your advice very in mind, because honestly I felt the same way when I was finished with it, ow and yes this was my own dream.

[Gemini]

This game appears to be broken for me. The first time I encountered a shadow and it shook my character awake, when I clicked "Back To Sleep", instead of a new level I was greeted with entries of some kind of diary, which I assume are the note pages I am meant to pick up throughout my adventure in the game along with the candles. I wasn't sure why it was popping up without me having found any (I had only just begun the game) but I read through the first page anyway. I clicked 'Back', and was greeted with the first dreamscape again. I clicked around at the empty pixel places, when suddenly the journal popped up on screen again! This time I had NINE pages of it. I read them, and then exited the screen. The dreamscape was now different, and I got a message saying "The dreamscape changes as I go further into unreality" or something close to that. Before I could click on anything, the journal popped up once again, still with the same 13 pages. Upon exiting, I got the same "changes" message, and then a dreamscape in which there were no candles or notes anywhere. I could not progress, even when I deliberately used a shadow to wake my character and try to re-enter the dream.

I have to give you a lower rating, because the game was not playable. Sorry.

Kwing responds:

That's weird because you are literally the only person experiencing this glitch. Maybe your Flash player is out of date or something? But I made this in Flash 8 so I honestly have n idea what the deal is. Probably some browse issue on your end.