Monkius's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Katti]

Glorious minimalism, intuitive or briefly explained game mechanics and steadily-increasing difficulty (B-side was especially taxing...) Your games are always fun :D

Also, the achievements don't work for me

[Logica Emotica]

The funky music perfectly fits the trippy visual style. Well done, as always!

Edit: I finally passed level 19 and am on to the mobile version :D

[Tiny Escape- Forest]

Yiss, a webgame that's worth playing! It's been awhile, especially on Newgrounds... The combination of movement puzzles and crafting is a neat idea; I think the "movement" part would benefit from a grid-based system, though. On level 4, it looks like there is enough vertical space between the stump near where the character starts and some tall grass, but actually it's a weird half-space and the player ends up screwing themselves over and having to restart. Small bit of needless frustration.

It's also not very apparent that the "?" menu scrolls, at first. I clued in when I realised that "gathering" was slightly cut off, but it would still be worth it to add in a scroll bar.

I'm currently stuck on level 4; I somehow ended up with just one single shovel-strike too few to complete the level. Argh! I'll come back to it. Probably.

But yeah! In spite of the minor flaws here and there, great job on this game, d00ds!

DarkryCZ responds:

Thank you very much! :)
I'm working on a mobile release and I am still fixing up some of the bugs and flaws, so I hope I will repair as many as them. In some levels the "mid-space" is intentional, but I fixed many of these spaces after the release.
I am still comming up with changes, so your review is very helpful :)

[SPACE HUSBAND]

Achieving sustenance for a manatee, navigating a maze of pain and when it's all done, having your cooking skills judged.

Sounds like a metaphor for life...

I wish there were a bangin' donk in the background, but I guess (copyrighted) music was against jam rules?

[Sulka]

Wow, how did you make something innovative in such a short time frame? I tried making games with Haxeflixel a couple of years ago and every idea I came up with got hit by this horrifying scope creep. Lol :(

[Spooky Music Machine]

Haha, cool! When I was playing around with this, I inadvertently discovered that sound effects people (very probably) achieved that classic "whoop-whoop-whoop-wheeep" sound of a cartoon character fleeing the scene with an "unduloid" pattern on a theremin.

KittyhawkMontrose responds:

Yup, they most definitely did. It's quite an interesting instrument, esp the real one. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[Elemental Tiles]

Sweet puzzle game. It seems vaguely familiar; perhaps I've played this game on another site, or another one of your games here on NG...

I've been swearing my way through "Stephen's Sausage Roll," lately and was pleasantly surprised when in this game, I habitually hit "Z" to undo, and the controls carried over, lol.

My only gripe is that the difficulty curve was a bit "hockey stick." I got thru every level up to (and including) 23 with relative ease, and then spent a good few minutes trying to figure out level 24. It would have been cool if the difficulty ramped up a bit more gradually, but kudos on having created the duesie that is level 24, all the same.

[Dead Estate CLASSIC]

"Dead Estate" is an appropriate name, since my character ended up dying on the first several attempts, lol. It's kind of strange that they are surrounded by ghouls and zombies and what not, run to a mansion, then *split up* instead of acting as a party. But it probably doesn't matter.

It would have been nice to be able to switch between the limited-ammo weapons and the main gun, because I found it a bit tricky to not commit suicide with the grenade launcher in such small rooms that are often filled with pots and/or spikes; it would also be nice to conserve rapid-fire shotgun ammo for that really tough "gym rat monster" that comes around on at least the first two floors. That thing takes forever to kill, with either character. On my second play-through, I tried making it run over spikes in the middle of the room, which seemed to do nothing, for some reason. Then it dropped a heart right on the spikes and I lost a bunch of health trying to get it, lol. Maybe give hearts the same "magnetic" quality as the coins? I like how hearts seem to be more common at lower health levels, though. I couldn't figure out the use for the jump ability, and found myself never using it in combat.

It would also be nice to be able to switch characters when you restart the game, to see if a slightly different strategy works. Not a huge deal though, I copied my review to the clipboard and hit refresh. I think that I died from running into those "blood sperms"--for lack of a better term--the first time around, simply because they were so hard to see/detect. Perhaps that was the point, though.

But constructive criticism aside, this was a sick game. Challenging, but not overly frustrating. Happy Hallowe'en to you all, as well.

[RRGGBB]

The "dissolving" blocks are a bit annoying in that you can hit them from the side on the way up, leading to a few restarts while I figured that one out. Maybe just have the "dissolve" effect trigger when the player lands on the top face of the block?

I made it through the game just fine though. :D

[Space Tower Defense 2]

Leaving aside the absurdity of a maze in space, this game is amazing. There is a strategic element to the turrets and the enemy wave difficulty ramps up nicely. There is also a good "winging it" element, once you figure out your strategy. As someone who enjoys planning a little bit, but gets burnt out with too much of it, this scheme is perfect for me. The "wave health" bar is a nice, subtle touch (as is hovering over towers to see info on them, instead of having to click.)

I like that the game pauses when you place a tower. This way, you can leave the enemies on "warp speed" when you have just barely not enough defense. Then, place a tower in just the right spot and get rid of the rest of them.

There was a weird problem with lag when I had it set to the highest speed, from wave 40-something. It had nothing to do with my hardware, either, since CPU and GPU utilisation were at 10% and 5%, respectively. Enemies were also showing up where they shouldn't be (on top of towers and outside of the maze.) The game got sort of boring after that, but I played through to wave 75 before deciding to quit.

Still, this makes me want to try making a tower defense game for programming practice, even if it takes me hundreds of hours... Probably won't be anywhere near as good as this game, either, since you seem to have been at it for 3 years.

Wombart responds:

Thank you for the feedback, really appreciate it, help me a lot !

I also was bored around the wave 50 since the player supposedly have all the upgrades, so I cut the total wave number from 100 to 50, better keep the game shorter than leaving the player with a feeling of being bored with the game

I am aware about the highest speed issues where the enemies start to "teleport", I think it's because of the low frame rate after the wave 40.
I didn't find a good solution so I just reduced the highest speed from x4 to x3

I worked on this project "only" for the past two month but yeah this is the first game I have published in 3 years :p