TLOSpyrogirl's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pandemic II]

The news reporter from Infectonator must be living in Madagascar... xD

[My Pet Protector 2]

I like the game. It kind of reminds me of a game called Project Princess, but on the other end of the spectrum. xD I had to play it on Kongregate to finish it completely though. I'm not sure if rank 5 is good or bad but that's what my last game score ended up at. The game is fine but there are a few problems, so here they are, plus some ideas.

-Someone mentioned unique animations for he jobs and training, why would you take that out?
-There's way too much missing in combat.
-There needs to be a way to tell the "level" of the dungeon, so you don't waltz right in to a super hard one that requires max stats and kill yourself.
-Speaking of that, even with max magic/strength I had a frustratingly hard time beating enemies in the demon and second titan dungeon. I was literally doing 11 damage to one of the 600-health 50-damage enemies. With a weapon that supposedly does 56 damage. Enemies that aren't wearing armour shouldn't have armour points.
-No bosses? It got very samey since there are only like 5-7 enemies. Sometimes the blue chest was out in the open, other times just guarded by a normal enemy.
-The environment never changes. It doesn't matter if you're in a volcano, a cave, or the tundra. Same wood floor, same cave background texture, same enemies. I'd like to see it as a sidescroller/platformer, and maybe rely more on skill than just stats.
-The music got boring, maybe add different music for the dungeon sequences, shop, etc. Or even different music for each level environment.
-Many stats aren't explained well... I still have no idea what a lot of them do even when I have them maxed out.
-It is WAY too hard to find the resting areas. Just make him find it immediately.
-Female characters? More customization, maybe?
-In-game quests to earn money (required amount of compassion, charisma, etc)?

That's really all I got.. Just a few ideas if you have a sequel in the works. I like this type of game so it'd be interesting to see how you can change it up next time. :P

[Draw My Thing]

Well not much to say, it's an insanely addictive game and I love it. :D There are a few problems and glitches I've found though.

For one, you can only kick players after the game has ended and only if they are players, and you can only mute players who are a part of the game. So guests can come in and spam the chat to the point where the game freezes and no one can even mute them. This can be fixed by letting you kick out/mute spectators or not allowing them to type in the chat. And a kick option while the game is playing.

The second major issue is that most of the profile functions don't work, since the original site is down. I don't know if they work if you have a Facebook profile and log in to Zynga, but I don't have a Facebook, so I can't get an avatar or adjust my account settings. Also you can no longer invite players to play because the link leads to the defunct site that redirects to Zynga. Not sure if friends can see your private matches, if they can't that means you'd have to make a public server and kick out anyone who isn't your friend and join, which is annoying. Make an option to invite people by typing in their username to fix it, and make all profile options appear in the game and not offsite.

Also if you click on the hyperlink to join your game before you're level 5, the match will reload as a public match. So you can make public matches before level 5.

[Monster Tap Proto]

Well... it's a good game to play when you want to get pissed off at everything around you. For something with such cute relaxing graphics you have really created and eye twitcher here. o.o That's not necessarily a bad thing, and the challenge. I'm addicted to it, and yes, I like it, and I'd like to see the idea expanded. But sometimes it can be really frustrating.

Being a prototype I found issues and bugs aplenty, so here they are. There are a lot of logic fails. For instance, you need to make it so you attacking has priority over being attacked after you're revived. It works that way with the NPCs. A lot of the time, the enemies will hop away from you instead of attacking. Sometimes 10 turns will pass with no enemies spawning. Revives should take one spell but the counter goes below 0 so it can take 2 or 3. And finally the boars later in the game do a tiny amount of damage and have 4 health (I'm guessing you either meant 40 or wanted to spawn something else?)

And then the bad things. Why do ENEMIES have the ability to pass their turn and you don't?! Half the time the only reason I died was because I was cornered and didn't have the option to wait it out. If I'm forced to hop right into an enemy's attack range because my stupid allies cornered me then they should too!

And I encountered a pretty serious glitch which halted my 500+ run right in its tracks. If your ally takes too much damage, they'll get two negative signs in front of their health and you won't be able to revive them anymore. Make it so health stops going down at 0.

And seriously. Please make a way to punch your allies to move them aside so they can't steal your XP. I mean hot diggity damn.

Current high score (speaking of high scores, maybe add a leaderboard?) is 513 but despite how glitchy this game is I'm addicted and going to be here for a while, so I might see how high the counter goes.

[Dark Cut 3]

I like Dark Cut, but in my opinion, there's way too much hand holding. I think it'd be better if it was more like Surgeon Simulator. Yes in that game you do have to do it a certain way of course, but you can achieve your goal with multiple tools, and it doesn't tell you precisely how to do it. Plus if you just want to screw around with the tools you can. :P As a side note, I hate it when games are like "GO TO THIS WEBSITE TO PLAY THE REST OF THE GAME." ...No. I don't want to. If you get paid to do that then I can understand I guess, but if you're not, then please just put the full game on every site...

[Bunni: How we first met]

Will you PLEASE make it so this game runs on its own and not on a defunct server? I loved this game when I was a kid, but I never had the chance to beat it. Even revisiting it years later I never made it far. Now I want to try to finally beat it and it's gone... I never even played on other maps or used the website, so even if that's not a feature, I'm sure that plenty of people will be happy to see it back up.

[Ymotana]

...Well, uh... I... mmm... This was... hm. o_o I didn't see that coming... Not really sure how the anatomy goes. So it starts on his head as he's taking a shower, then goes into his head, then... neck...? heart, stomach, then comes out... You know on second thought I don't want to know... xD But if they're lice how do they burrow into his body?

As someone else said this reminds me of Patapon too... however there's really no strategy. There is a buffer so you can't go as fast as you want, but you can go as slowly as you want with no penalty. It's a nice little game though, even if it's a little weird... xD I like how the rain at the beginning actually sounds like a shower, nice foreshadowing. xD

[The Bells of Atlantis]

Well, despite being extremely annoyed right now, I still thought this game was cute. The art and animation is fluid, and the controls are irritating, but they're intentionally slippery and it gives the game some challenge. Plus the brake is actually helpful, so brownie points. The only thing I don't like about the actual game mechanics was how boring it got after awhile. I wish more things happened, but it was made in 48 hours, so it's understandable.

I encountered a few glitches. To start, bumping a wall causes your character to sharply turn and plaster themselves to the wall, and takes away your ability to move the flashlight, as if you'd been hit by a fish. It's also hard to right yourself if you're really wedged against the wall or in a corner, because his feet won't go offscreen.

Second, after a while of gameplay, the music completely glitched out. You know how it sounds when a program that's playing music freezes and rapidly plays one note over and over? That's what it sounded like. I had paused the game every few seconds as I was doing things on another tab, don't know if that's why, or if it just happens after the song's been playing for awhile. In my second game I muted the music, but after I died I turned the sound on to see if it happened again, and it did. Might want to check that out, especially since it carries over if you click play again (going to the main menu fixes it though). Pausing the game either makes the music glitch out with a different tone, or mutes it.

Finally the leaderboard says I got my high score like 12 hours ago, even though I just got it. Dunno if this is an NG problem, but everything else about the leaderboard works fine.

I'm curious if there's a cap to how many lights you can grab, but I don't think anyone will ever find out, because it took me 90 minutes and a loop of Caramelldansen to get me to 500. xD

[The Night in The Light]

Eh... 2.5 for a good idea with bad execution.

To start, the map is a bunch of nothingness with only a few trees and random patches of ground scattered around. That's boring. This would be much better if it was designed well. This can't even by called a "forest", there are literally like five trees. Second, the presence of fireflies implies that this should be taking place at night, but it's full daylight. Third, you walk over everything, add some collision. And finally... this is just a minor detail, but the fireflies all flash in sync. Just the little effort of desyncing them all would make it look a bit better, and less like you just click spammed them all over the map, even if that's actually what you did.

Now the story... well where is it? I expected a little girl or boy running through a dark forest. This might be a kid but I can't tell. And why is he here collecting fireflies and getting rid of darkness? Is he lost? Is he some sort of fairy forest guardian? How exactly is picking up stones and clearing darkness helpful? Where even is he?

And finally... what's the point? You can't win. You're just stuck here forever. Even once you get everything you're done. Oh, and the music is about 30 seconds long, you need to extend it to make it longer and less repetitive. Or add in more tracks. And there needs to be enemies, there's absolutely no challenge or fear factor. And when you click the screen or press space the flashlight's hitbox shows up.

There are a lot of problems with this, but I think you should release this game with a different style. Honestly I think this would do well as a sidescroller (I'm thinking an art/level design style similar to Level Up). Like the forest is withering away and being consumed by darkness which is spawning all these evil enemies, and you're some kid who got lost and you need to collect fireflies to help light your path (or heck, make them wisps or fairies that you're rescuing), and find these magical stones to restore the forest. I would play it.

Oh yeah, a few typo fixes for you. The proper format for the title is "The Night in the (lowercase t) Light. In the description, find shouldn't be capitalized. And in the tags, it's spelled "unknown" and "darkness". Having a properly formatted title and correct grammar makes it look a lot more professional, and people will be more likely to play your game. And no one is going to search "darnkess" unless they make a typo, but if they search up "darkness" your game isn't even going to be there, which is why spelling the tags right is important.

So yeah. Tl;dr version: More appropriate graphics, fill up map with a variety of objects, add a storyline and point, better music, enemies, and fix typos.

[Cycle; Fourth Moon]

It's definitely a cute little timewaster. It's a little short though... There are a few things I think you could do to add to it. First, maybe make it so interiors only are in top-down mode? Then add more furniture and posters so you can decorate your house. And maybe even interact with your objects, usefully or not, like show your character hopping around and play music if they hit space by the stereo, or relax on the couch to pass an hour or two.

Second, you should make everything but the inventory keyboard only... Maybe it's just me but I don't like having to switch to my mouse to click one button every time I talk to someone.

Thirdly, animals. Add in a pet shop that sells little dogs, cats, foxes, birds that'll fly around, etc etc. Press space to make them follow you and space to resume wandering, and put them inside your house if you want, or take them out again. If I see a puppy running around in a space helmet I will die of a cuteness overdose. xD

Maybe the option to visit other planets? A farming planet would be cool. Or maybe make that your own little world that you can decorate with flowers, outside objects (maybe have the scientist sell you these after you give him a certain amount of ore? including useful things like barns and house upgrades, or aesthetic upgrades like gazebos and waterfalls), animals, etc. You can have a bunch of farm animals, which you have to buy food for in the winter (and yes, add seasons and holidays!) or let out to graze, and you have to put them back in the barn at night or else intergalactic space foxes will eat them. xD

Idea for fishing and farming: You have your own pond which you can breed fish in, and check the population. Give an option to throw the fish back if you catch one you don't want. Then, you can either buy fish from the fisherman or catch some of the rarer ones in the town lake. And make trees take a few days or a whole season to grow, and include all the fruits.

More villager interactions? It's been said. But I'd like you be able to talk to the villagers and make friends with or even marry them, and have little armless babies. xD And maybe each villager could have their own planet too, with their own decorations and little animals running around. You could do quests for them to increase their friendship level and get prizes like animals, seeds, saplings, objects, etc.

And the mortgage... well yeah, it's useless. Except for the badge (and I didn't get any token o.o). Maybe add interest if you don't pay off at least 5 dollars each day? And if it reaches a certain amount, scary tax collectors will come and take some of your furniture, animals, etc.

A lot of these make it sound like Harvest Moon, but I think your idea is pretty unique, with the perspective and all. And they're just suggestions. This is just what I personally would like to see, but you should make your game for you. xD

Oh yeah, finally a few glitches: Ores will appear twice a day (once at 12 AM and once at 5 AM) only if I sleep. Otherwise I'll just get the 12 AM ore. And not sure if this is available from the start or after you buy flowers, but once your flower counter hits zero, you can still plant one more flower and have -1 flowers. Finally pause menu doesn't pause? Right now there's not much point to making it pause, but if there's a point in the future where you might need to pay attention to the time of day (like what I mentioned before with putting farm animals back inside before night) then you should fix it. :P

Anyway sorry for the overly long review, I just have a lot of ideas. xD I hope to see an update or maybe a more detailed sequel or something. Whatever you do with it I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun. xD

JackAstral responds:

Wow- thank you so much for the detailed review. Those are some really great ideas + suggestions! Especially fish breeding- I can't believe I didn't think of that! Thanks again!