Monkius's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Monster Trucks Rampage]

The volume buttons are a little bit screwy. They seem to have a huge delay to them, and sometimes I hear two slightly-out-of-synch music tracks playing. Which is really important, since the sounds and music aren't exactly a joy to listen to. The music has maybe 5 or 6 notes looped over and over; the truck's engine noise sounds like an outboard motor at idle and doesn't change when the truck accelerates or decelerates. Both of these should have just been left out, as they only get on the player's nerves. There is at least some effort for environmental noises with "smashing" sounds when the truck hits a vehicle shell, at least. I think it could use a few more, though, such as a "thunk" that happens upon landing a jump or something, or suspension squeaking noises or something.

Sounds aside, this game shows some potential. The levels seem well-designed and have a difficulty rate that ramps up at a reasonable pace (and then, curiously, back down again...) The graphics are appropriate to the gameplay; the monster truck is very definitely a monster truck and the obstacles are things you might expect to find in an arena/field/other venue that hosts monster trucks.

How to move the truck is intuitive for anyone that has played this sort of game before, so the sparse instructions are okay, IMO. I have no idea why the finish line is something you ram into rather than something that you /pass by./ As the other guy mentioned, the truck can be vertical--or even upside-down!--when hitting the finish line, and you pass and fail the level at the same time.

I assume this wasn't intended as a serious game, but more of a way to burn a few minutes on your coffee break. As a time-waster, it mostly succeeds at its purpose--aside from the aforementioned gameplay and audio issues. I probably spent fewer minutes on the game than writing this goddamn review, but I had fun doing both.

[Smarty Test]

"How many times is the minute hand faster than the hour hand in a clock?"

... It's always faster!

The question was a little easier, once I figured out that you meant "how many times faster does the minute hand move, relative to the hour hand?"

Still, this game would be a lot better if you had gotten someone to properly translate it from--I am guessing--Spanish.

[Sun Rise]

There is a glitch where I leave the game (close the tab/window) around day 5 or 6 and come back to $120 more money than I used to have. All my crops also moved one square south, for some reason.

It's theoretically impossible to have $180 and 9 potato plants on day 5 or even day 9 (where I am currently...) So I'm fairly sure I'm not just crazy.

JackAstral responds:

Fixed the crops moving thing! Thanks for pointing that out!

[Isteroth Defense]

Lol, I found a fun glitch:
- place a weak tower somewhere along the path
- make sure to have it highlighted when it is fragged by skeleton archers
- click "heal", watch gold turn to "NaN" (infinite)
- have fun creaming everything that comes your way

[LoL Temple Escape]

The puzzles may be simple so far, but they are definitely coherent and intuitive. Well, one of them wasn't, but only because I had a bit of a brain fart. I thought that the "sliding colours" puzzle and the "big globe, small globe" puzzle were just one puzzle, since they were on the same screen. I face-palmed when I looked at the walk-through and discovered that they were separate and I solved the "sliding colours" one incorrectly, lol. Maybe make it more apparent that they are discrete puzzles?

Other than that, great work, d00d!

ainarsa responds:

Thank you Monkius for your valuable feedback!

[LoL Basement Escape]

Lol, not bad!

ainarsa responds:

Thanks!

[Outrun HTML5]

- Infinite levels gets a bit boring

- There are the same scenery doodads in every stage. Since this has infinite levels, I assume that they are "procedurally-generated"; however, there is no stopping you from making several "sets" and randomizing which "set" it uses for a particular stage.

- From what I remember, the gameplay and graphics are faithful to the original Outrun. (Did you download sprites, or make the graphics yourself?)

Brb, finding a SEGA genesis emulator to re-live some of my childhood...

PaulHTML5 responds:

I found the spritesheet online. I believe the graphics are from the Genesis/Megadrive version. I guess I could use different sprites for each level, I'll look into that. I've got the Sega Master System version on my site at http://funhtml5games.com/?play=outrunsms

[Electric Rubber]

- I like that you made the achievements less "time-intensive" on the second game, because GAWD, was "Dedication." Ever hard to get...

- There is a weird glitch with the music (I'm using Chrome) wherein I would turn it off, click the "back" button and it would turn off again. I managed to solve it by turning the music off, then clicking "back," then "settings," then "mute" in rapid succession. This was easy due to the location of the "settings" button. So no big deal, I guess. However, it has gotten harder to get around this glitch in the second game, lol. :/

- I can't seem to get the "Overnight Success" achievement, for some reason. I checked, and other people have definitely gotten it, but I have earned way more than 500 kW. Any idea on what I am doing wrong?

- On a side note, it should be kWh for battery capacity, not kilowatts or kilojoules.
Watts are a measure of power.

Joules are watt-seconds, used to measure the "peak" power of very rapid discharges from something like a capacitor. If a spot weld took 100 watts of power over 0.5s, that would be 200 Joules.

Watt-hours (or more commonly kilowatt-hours) are used to measure "continuous" power coming from something like a power plant or electric car battery, which aren't meant for rapid bursts of power.

[Tainted Olive - Chapter 2]

I greatly enjoyed playing this, same as the last one and "The Grey Rainbow".

That lock-picking puzzle was torturing me; I was about to consult the walkthrough, until I saw a hint in the description... Dammit, it was right in front of my face! Lol :(

I can't wait for the next chapter :D

[Word Play 2 - 5Differences]

I like that the differences aren't excessively subtle like some games (okay, maybe one or two of them were--in the centre of the picture where the "chairs" are playing "SNES," for example...)

It's also fun to guess all the hilarious visual puns before you get the badge. Lol. I didn't get the reference for a couple of them, though :/

The second cursor is a little slow-to-respond for my liking. It sucks having to wait for it to catch up to you, lol.

I hope to see more stuff in the future.

PS, I can't find "Taxi Dermist," either.