Monkius's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Electric Racing]

I love you so much, turbonuke...

The "induction charging" is a really neat take on the "close call" concept that is popular in arcade racers nowadays. It would get even more interesting if you added drafting or 2p capability, so you could get into an "induction-charging pair" and boost each-others' speed, for example.

Winning is kind of sporadic, since it depends largely on how much the AI car bunch up behind traffic/for how long/how slowly you pass them (induction). The first two you can pass off as "that's how street racing do", but I think the induction charging should be based off of proximity (with a penalty for hitting) rather than time spent near a car/cars.

[Farmer Puzzle Battle]

I know there are instructions that tell you 3x=y, 3y=z and so forth, but it would be nice to be able to either click a button for a legend or hover over the tile itself to see what three of it will make.

Also, this is bullshit hard. I've played probably a half-dozen games and have yet to win, lol. Kudos for making a puzzle game that is actually stimulating, but it's in dire need of a "beginner" level set or something to acclimatise the player to the game a little more slowly.

[Goblin Treasure Hunt]

Traditionally I hate "idle" games, but this one seems like a lot of effort has been put into every aspect of it (visuals, music, gameplay...) Therefore, you are going to get a bit of honest, constructive criticism out of me, lol.

- It would be nice if you could disable sound and music separately.
- It's annoying when you click on main menu button and all of your collected coins disappear when you come back, especially since it's possible to click it accidentally (the button overlaps the golden chest.)
- Sometimes I wish the coin magnet would hoover those things up a little faster (and it's on level 4/6...)
- There is a possible glitch: when I click the centre of the "regular" chest, the coins come out faster than if I were clicking closer to the bottom...
- Please don't take this last one personally, because I say it about all idle games: I hope this gets further refinement and the gameplay gets a little more complex than "click, click, click..."

[Super Robot Virus Attack]

The camera is wayyyyy too slow and that really holds the game back. Sometimes the robot goes partially off-screen and hits a virus before I even know it's there. It also makes getting away from a virus a little bit sketchy, since you can't see where the end of the platform is...

Sometimes I hit the jump button and it doesn't work, like when I am "sticking" to an edge of a platform and am still moving towards it to continue "sticking". You have to really quickly switch directions, then jump, which is pretty tricky. Also, I sometimes can't jump when I am on an inclined surface, as in level 2, especially while I'm moving along it.

It would be nice for you to explain--in the level itself, rather than the comments--how to shoot "!"s and what you're supposed to do with them in level 2. I just noticed that it was in the comments /after/ I finished the level. It also doesn't make any sense that the robot is fired backwards instead of the projectile being fired forwards. It's like he's made of paper-thin carbon fibre and is trying to fire 40mm cannon rounds at the viri...

I can easily walk clear off the right-hand edge of the level in level 2. I recommend extending the wall upwards or something to further constrain player movement. That or place an easter egg there. Hehe.

It's also a bit annoying that the levels re-lock after you finish the game. I really wanted to go back and see what is to the left on level 3... :( Lol.

[The Comet's Calling]

Although the gameplay per se was pretty simple, the game as a whole kept me hooked because of the whimsical, eccentric and entertaining story-line/cut-scenes.

The virtual boy reference made me giggle. Same with a few of the other 80s/90s references. Ah, nostalgia.

Glitches:
- The dog chased me down /before/ I choked on anything, once (near the beginning of a level, too.) I'm fairly certain it was right after a level where I had actually choked once or twice, allowing the dog to catch up; I haven't been able to repeat the glitch, though.

- Do you need to do every mission in a single day for the "perfect run" achievement? If so, there are instances where the random-generation makes that utterly impossible due to an insufficient amount amount of items in a level.

I love how giant spiked balls just bounce off the little green fella's bean like nothing... Lol. Also, he can swallow missiles, tires, shards of glass, boards with all kind of nails sticking out of them, gasoline, cats, uranium 235 and 55-gallon drums of god-knows what, but some non-toxic paste made for school children? OH HELL NO! Deal-breaker! Game over, man! Game over! I don't remember what the other "level-enders" were, since I never actually hit any of them--I did get chased down by the dog, though--but I assume they are equally-ridiculous, lol. But hey, the whole "nonsensical" aspect is part of what makes the game fun, like "Just Cause 2"...

Sometimes the achievements are over top of the "next level" arrow. No big deal, just a little annoying, so I figured it was worth a mention.

[Big Dig:Treasure Clickers]

I really like the "digging game" aspect of this. I don't know why, but I love digging/mining games like Motherload/Steamworld Dig/Glean/Minecraft/etc...

On the other hand, idle games are just about the most annoying thing ever. I blame "Harvest Moon" for starting this god-awful trend. Mindless clicking is just straight-up NOT FUN. As a result, I rate idle games the opposite way I rate any other game; the more of my time it sucks up, the lower the rating. As you can see, I got stuck on this one for quite a while.

It's not all bad, though; the "museum" and multiple areas in town add a bit of background information that gives the game more depth. I really hope that this gets refined into something with a bit more storyline and gameplay that involves more than "click, click, click..."

[Moto Drive 2]

For the purposes of this review, I'll put aside the facts that this particular genre is getting really played-out and that he's using what appears to be a Honda CBR 125--which goes 0-100km/h in 11 seconds and isn't meant for dirt--in a "trials" setting.

The ramp-up in difficulty between levels 2 and 3 was nuts! Level 2 went perfectly smoothly--aside from my shouting "TILT FORWARD, YOU PRICK!"-- and level 3 was like 3 seconds, BAM! Crash. Swearing continued for several minutes. Adding fewer obstacles at a time would have been nice. The difficulty on level 7 swung back the other way. It was preposterously easy and I did it in one shot. Switching levels 3 and 7 would probably be appropriate.

A countdown at the start would have been nice, instead of the game just catching you off guard and you losing 2 or 3 seconds (alternatively, you could ditch the timer...)

The music got really repetitive, but the (minimal) sounds were okay. It would have been nice to have separate mute buttons in the pause menu.

The jump on level 6 is cutting it a little close... I kept catching my rear tire upon landing and going headfirst into the grass. Lowering the landing ramp a little would be nice, so that players don't have to hit the landing perfectly straight with nearly zero margin of error.

Pushing the "R" button to restart didn't work for me.

[How To Cook Everything]

I like that this is weird and new and can be as "time-managementy" or as relaxed as the player wishes. Run-on sentence.

I found a glitch that only seemed to start happening after I filled 15 orders... The objects would change from one station to another. I figured "Steve Jobs" badge would be glasses and an iPhone, but I never got the badge at the next station, since it always changed to a clock and an iPhone or something...

[Waddle Antarctic]

Ironic that a game which desultorily levels me up twice in a row (I went from 8, straight to 10) or changes my shield to one I haven't bought yet--and cannot form proper sentences, to boot--is calling me an "idiot"...

It would be nice if the player's HP were shown somewhere in every menu. I went into battle more than a few times with barely any HP, only to get pwned by my opponent. I soon learned to keep better track of my penguin's health, but it would still be nice if it were shown in the main and battle arena menus. Heck, while you're at it, may as well make it show how much money you have, as well.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for making a "mute" button. The music got really repetitive after a while. It actually says "unmute" when I go to mute the sound, and "mute" when I go to turn it back on, though...

Other than the glitchiness and few minor issues--which hopefully will be fixed with the patches/updates--it was pretty fun. I got all the medals except the one where you had to hunt for the rocketship. :D

Oh, and try to be a little less hard on people (yourself included.)

JackAstral responds:

It was just a little joke :b I'll work on fixing up the issues you mentioned in the next patch- thanks for the detailed review!

[Racing planet 2]

It would be nice it said which button did what, somewhere in-game or in the comments. I spent a few minutes fiddling around seeing if "space" was the hand-brake or if there was a way to get back to the damn menus without refreshing the page; it wasn't, and there wasn't.

I don't know what you mean about the "glitch" where the player can't access the "hundreds of other levels"... I scrolled through about five levels, then the scroll arrow greyed out.

It would be nice if there were some kind of penalty for going onto the grass (or /too far/ onto the grass, anyway...) As it stands, I can just cut across to the next checkpoint.

It would be nice if I were able to choose between the pontoon-car and the police car in the menus.

I hated the airplane level; I got through maybe one of every ten rings I tried for. I really suck at flying. Oh and the controls are probably a bit twitchy, too. Might want to make them a bit less responsive, at least for keyboards.

netherboss123 responds:

I'm thinking of removing the airplane levels and I am making the other 95 levels right now
Also there is a back to menu button. It it just really glitch and doesn't show up sometimes. I'm working on that