johnsoma's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Dymcat -A Rocket Adventure-]

I can tell a lot of effort was put into this game, which is why I finished it, and it does indeed have some neat ideas and designs. However, the controls bring everything down. I'm fighting the controls more often than any enemy here.

[The Banishing]

Can I just say, you have a gift for writing horror, depicting unknown nightmares and hammering home a hopeless situation. True to form, this game is incredibly hard to beat. Though part of that is that it's not entirely clear what skills are useful in what events.

Fun fact: When I beat this, it was in the same event that killed all of my remaining crew. Since the victory cutscene starts the same as the game over cutscene, I was genuinely tense and unsure if I won or not until the game said 'well done'. Probably not an intended experience, but a very memorable one none the less.

[Project Hydra]

Round 3 (ghost) is the hardest by far. It takes some doing to figure out how to effectively deal damage, but I figured it out. Pretty basic, but still solid.

[Raissa The Immortal [2]]

This one is quite fun to play! Simple on the surface, but the artifacts, skills, and light bullet hell to dodge adds just enough complexity to keep things interesting. The story's also surprisingly good.

I'm not sure what being a roguelite does for this game, though. It might be because I beat it without dying, but the difficulty isn't high enough to call for those gradual upgrades. I actually approve of that, though. The game is just long enough as is, and having to repeat it when dying might have made it repetitive, considering the simple combat. A design 'flaw' that happens to work in the game's favor, in my eyes.

All in all, I actually like this one perhaps more than most. Nice work!

Awennor responds:

Hi! Thanks for playing!

I have been developing this "engine" over the course of months and the game I want to make has evolved with it, so that is why it became like that, half-rogue. I'm currently moving away from the temporary upgrades into permanent upgrades for the next release.

[Aztorim Crown 1: G0ld F4rm3r]

I'm not sure how to rate this. It's incredibly tedious and unfair, but that's clearly the point.

(Best strategy is to rush to the back of the map and work with that huge cache at the back on the first day, and get the 20k right away. Inflation on later days makes it impossible to keep up before long)

[Reaction Time]

EDITED 12/8:
I previously complained about this game not showing what key goes to what color during actual gameplay. That has been fixed, and it makes a huge difference for enjoyment. I still made lots of mistakes before getting a good run, but that's on me this time, trying to anticipate the next color and failing. Results can still end up varying, though, depending on how many times the same color turns up repeatedly.

(to give an idea of how much that change helped, my best score is now 42, up from 37)

niffirgGames responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I was going for hard, but not frustrating. But 37 is a great score!

Edit: I added the keys and colors to the top of the screen to help the player remember which keys match with witch colors, I'd love to hear if this helps fix the problem!

[Don't Eat My Mind You Stupid Monsters!]

Solid! Love the concept. Very addicting, just kinda finicky. Feels like you start too slow. Dash is pretty unreliable, but I'm not sure what's causing it. Overall, good work.