absent's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Trackmaster]

Haven't seen this before...

And that's good thing too. Always great to see unique and original flash games coming in! The concept was a simple one, and you kept the game simple too, but that doesn't mean the game is any less good. It's fun to play, and quite interesting. The graphics were for the most part as stylish and pretty as they could get for a game like this, the sound was ok, the music was kinda fun to listen too. No violence unless you count the damage from moving away from the bullseye. Interactivity was following the path as best you could, but not really that much to control afterwords. Some things I would suggest would be diffilculty levels. On easy you have a larger bullseye, on normal it's the current one, and on hard it's a smaller bullseye, but you get more points. Another thing is that you end up zig zaging when you get farther into playing, so it's a little boring. Maybe you could make the path go backwards, and turn around, and curve and such, it could just be more interesting for me. Well, better get that online score board up soon, so I can have more reason to play, and be able to show off my "amazing" score of 20069 to everyone :P Sweet game man, nice original concept you have going!

[Indian Outlaw]

This belongs in an arcade

It truely does, I mean, it fucking rules. The graphics aren't the most amazing things ever, but they still have a great style to them. The game is really fast paced (which is a good thing) and it's non stop action all the way to the end. The controls were easy to use after I got used to them. The sound and music way great, and I love the way the indian guy says "energy" after he gets hp. You might want to make it easier to get hp and powerups because the only way is to is kill that bird carrying some, or grab some fish, and if you miss the ammo/health, it will most likely cost you the game, seeing how you don't go around gaining health so frequently. Another thing youmisght want to add is a pause button, since the level is pretty long, and there is no way you can leave the computer for ANYTHING. Sweet game, seriously, well put together and awesome to the end.

[Starfighter Fury]

Pretty good

It's not a bad game, a bit plain on the graphics side (the enemy ships were basicly just basic shapes, and the explosions weren't so great either. The bullets the enemies shot in the first level were very hard to see and moved quickly, so changing the color to something brighter like a yellow would be much better. After killing all the enemies needed, it goes into minus numbers, so I would suggest that you finish the level when you get through all the distance OR you kill all the enemies. Also add checkpoints so that if you die on the second level, you cqn start there. Not bad game really (very hard), but could use some work.

[Elf Girl Sim Date RPG]

This game is pretty good.

A dating sim game without pornagraphic pictures and lots of sex? Crazy! But you made the game anyway, and it's still quite good. The gameplay was cool, as it focuses on answering questions too, besides gaining stats all the time. The minigames were a good distraction from the main game, and the graphics were well drawn.

After playing a while, I realized that you really didn't need lots of stats. Just get a lot of a single stat that is used in the equation for gaining money (like magic) and that's really all you need. You can easily date any of the girls without having high stats. Dating girls is also fairly simple once you get the hang of it and is about the same for each girl. Talk to the girl a few times and press ask to get her number. Call her for a few days, and then start asking and answering questions non-stop. Once you know most/all of the things about her (19 things in all) stop dating for a while, gain lots of money and buy gold rings, bows, spell books and such. Then go on a date (Location didn't seem to do much other than boost happiness by a little) and answer all her questions, and give her a gift for a full bar and kiss at the end. Then boost relationship exp by getting her lots of gold rings. Do that for every girl.

Some addtions would be to add more features to dating to make it more complex. Such as location effecting certain girls differently, which might mean some girls like some places better than others, and may not be as happy in one place. Or make dating for each girl slightly different. Some girls may like certain gifts better than others. Some may get more angry when you answer a question incorrectly, or some take longer for you to become a good friend.

A bad bug would have to be the one with Fantine. At some points the date button didn't do anything (no responce from the girl, nothing) and when it did start working I can't make it to the lover relationship, despite having 10000 plus exp and going on a date with a full happiness bar. Another quick thing, not really a bug, would be to please disply how much hp it takes to do things, such as work, relax, swim on the button or somewhere near it, because you only did it for a few buttons and it's annoying to find out that I didn't have enough hp, or that the option took away more hp than I thought. I had to find out some of this info through trial and error.

The game was pretty good, and fun to play, so I say it's definitly a top notch datig sim game out there. Although the sound loop really started to piss me off.

P.S. What was the point of the lumbas bread, Elvish medicine, and lothorien leaves? I never found a use or a way to use those items. I couldn't use them in dates.

[Rumble Ball field 3]

Damn, this game just got reloaded.

I remember the first one, simple, easy, and you'd just have fun and collecting the coins and hitting the blocks. Well NOT ANY MORE! This thing has been loaded up with a billion and more features.

Some of the first things I noticed was the way you hit the ball. Now you control how fast it goes. Much more helpful when navigating the pits and giant mines...though it would be cool if you could have the option to turn this feature off for practice mode and have the ball always go at top speed when hitting it, because it would make the levels go faster and, and it got a little annoying always having to hold the mouse down for a second before hitting it. Unlike in normal or hard, when you have to control the speed to just survive, while there are no obstacles in practice, and therefore you end up using top speed most of the time.

The levels also take quite a while longer than the ones in the original game, because of a few little things you've added. Mainly because some of the blocks that have armor of some sort, and can regain it after about five seconds of hitting the block. It got frusturating when you had to quickly hit the block again before it went back to full health so quickly, so maybe increase the time it takes to regenerate by a second or so, or get rid of that regenerating feature altogether. Grr..annoying!! (or atleast to me, because me = not very good at game)

The graphics are still great and look 3D, even though the game is top down. Your style is unique and it's lots of fun to see an original game around. The way everything flows is perfect (Except in high quality, heh, oh well), and the levels are packed with many more things than before. The sound was nice, and the hit sounds along with the collecting coin sound also fit in well. It might be nice to add some background music to this that you can turn on or off (like some kind of techno beat) to get people in to the game.

I guess violence shouldn't really be a factor in a puzzle game, but I'll give you some points for the big explosions and holes and the acid walls or whatever those evil green blocks are. The interactivity is obviously improved because of the way you can control how you hit the ball like I mentioned, and some of the powerups (like 2x). You could always add health boxes (Please! :P) and maybe double power to your hit (dangerous but possibly rewarding). The game isn't that funny, but I found it a bit humorus for some reason so a point there anyway. Overall nine from me. Awesome game, I really love it. By the way, I like the low file size, good for them dial up users out there.

GameBalance responds:

Thanks!
I don't know what to say...
I have no much time for flash cuz I need to prepare my first music album to release. So I decide to make just fields for Rumble Balls. It's easer then make levels for Orbox.
Good idea about always full power. I think it can be button to swich on/off near the power bar. I'll add it to field 4.
I added second already to regenerating blocks. Maybe it realy needs more time, cuz usualy I'm one of the best player in my games :)
But this regenerating blocks intresting feature anyway.
We'll see what my mind will do in the next one...

[The Madness Scene Creator]

Very nice work

This was pretty well made actually. The loading screen was pretty, but why not add some style by putting a madness character head in the tank instead of the usual person? The graphics for the things were very good, and looked like they came right out of the actual flash. The madness music was cool and I liked that you could change the background.

The game felt a little cramped though with a lot of parts to use but not a whole lot of space to put them in. I would suggest making the stage a bit larger so you could make bigger and better scenes. The animated credits button got annoying after a while, and also took up space on the already small stage.

Great work from you, I like it. Hope to see more, but what happened to the giant sword the savior has?

Shomer responds:

there will be version2 and i promise you the sword! =)

[Dad 'n Me]

Lots of fun and very addictive.

Finally it's out, and it lives up to the expectations too. I love the combo system, mainly because all the combos are fun to watch. The rage bar was a nice addition, and the graphics and music were also cool. The controls were simple and easy to use, and although the game was fairly easy to beat, it still took some good time for a fighting game with one level.

The way you actually fight was almost annoying, seeing how you're really just mashing buttons. But you could do that any any fighting game I suppose, but with just two controls, it's easier to abuse. That's why the combo system really helps, because you can do a lot more than just pressing 'a' or 's' really fast. You could have also added weapons to use, not just throwing stuff, like pick up a wood plank or a crowbar, and then hit enemies with that until the weapon goes away. But the simplistic fighting and fun combos still are great.

Most of the enemies didn't fight back except for wilber, the two ninjas and the boss. I think you did this because your intention for this game to make it fun to play, rather than being tough to beat. If you made the enemies attack, or added more obstacles like the cars coming down the road, it would have been harder, and it would make the game longer too. What could have been cool is that while you're walking, some enemies attack you from both sides, rather than always just one side most of the time.

I see that you're updating this quickly, seeing how I played this yesterday, and then today, and the instructions were updated along with the cutscene with wilber added, and other things. So that's why I'm sure you're going to fix little things I saw like the final boss music not looping, or the replay button at the end after winning not working. I hope these things aren't happening just to me!

I like the little touches you've added like some of the names of the enemies like illwill and the background could be interacted with at some points like the swings or the sand castle. All of the little things add up to make this a fun game that's addictive and easy to kill time with which goes in a different direction than alien homidid, which was very hard, while this is more or less, a fun little game where you can simply beat up on helpless people and practice pulling combos. Except for sunchips the boss, he was really hard, and I died quite a few times on him, after being shot up a lot. Heh, oh well, sweet game, it really is awesome.

[rodney dangerfield sound]

A few problems with the presentation

Rather than write out the entire quote on the screen, just add the first few words, write them out, and surround it with a box and make that the button. That way it's easier to click the button, but you have more space and it looks neater too. The picture was kind of annoying, because it was a bit diffilcult to read the text. Either make it fade a little or make it smaller and add a solid color background. I also didn't see a stop all sounds button, or am I blind? The qutoes were good though and very funny, so if the presentation were better, this would be an all around great sound board.

[Flash Mario Bros]

I remember this as a demo.

It sure has come a long way. The system is nice and the gameplay was hard but enjoyable. I also liked ho the music changed on each level, and that the sound was good too. Now for the stuff that you could improve upon:
-Main Mario Physics, what do I mean? Well mario can break through bricks more than one at atime that just one hit and then back to the ground. When you jump on enemies, I think you should get a little more jump power, but it's still good now as well.
-Graphics. Some of the sprites (mainly the castle at the end) had bits of white around them. Plus, some of the blocks weren't lined up right, leaving little spaces in between. I also thought that the regular goombahs were just a tad too big, but that's insignifigant really.
-Final boss and gameplay. Bowser as the boss was quite tough really. When I first jumped on his head, I expected bowser to get hurt. Instead nothing happens and you just bounce off. It seems you have to stay on his head while bowser moves back up for him to die. Unless he does get hurt when you jump on his head, which in that case, it just doesn't play an animation. Other thing, why do you not get an extra life for 100 coins? I didn't get one. There were other small glitches but for the most part no problems.
This is really one of the better clones out there and good job on that. Yay, I had fun.

[Father Ted Clip-Board 2]

Above average sound board.

This is very neat and contained a lot of sounds for a small file size, so that's really good. You didn't try to make it very colorful, which isn't that bad really, but it seems sorta plain to me. Maybe making the buttons look better and have a custom rollover animation would be nice. The subtitles were a very good part of this, so overall you did quite a good job on this, and an ok job on the presentation as well.