johnsoma's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Codeine Cowboys [v2]]

Having never played Hotline Miami, it took a minute to get used to how the camera/aiming worked, but once I got it, I had a lot of fun!

MoeAnguish responds:

Great!
You should definitely try Hotline Miami if you enjoyed this then.

[Countdown Royale]

Simple enough, with an interesting twist. No single thing majorly wrong, but it could be a little more refined all around. Not bad!

adriendittrick responds:

thanks for the honest review!

[The Titan's grave]

Interesting concept, and you do actually need to dodge instead of damage racing, so it's well balanced there. 1st phase is annoying because you don't get much time to react to the fist actually dropping, but it gets much better after that. Not bad overall.

badpiggy responds:

Thanks for playing :)

[Winter Falling: Price of Life]

I...don't think my brain is big enough to handle this game. It's so easy for me to spend too many resources early and be stuck in an unwinnable position lategame.

(Although, looking at the review from @blurrymadness tells me I was spending too much time trying to play the game legitimately and that spamming AOEs is the way to go)

Rarykos responds:

Oh yeah it's all about saving! The hint is in the name! There are, I think, 3 viable playstyles. Spamming AOE is more of a cheesy fun and high risk. But it's a fun way to play!
Thanks for playing! Glad you tried!

[Frantic Fighter]

(Updated 11/14 due to significant updates)

Let's get the good out of the way first. The main menu UI has been updated and is now much cleaner. The art and music are also still solid. The new pattern maps are also significantly better and do a better job at giving each monster a unique feel.

Now for the bad. The controls are not intuitive at all. Instead of using a set of buttons that are set up in a row or using the arrow keys, this seems to have just used random buttons on the keyboard. This wasn't a problem in the last version, because of how simple everything was, but now it's a big problem when put alongside the increased difficulty.

Some lesser problems
- Losing to a monster will move you on to the next monster in the list, as if you won. There doesn't seem to be any penalty for losing, or incentive to win, as money doesn't have any purpose
- By contrast, making a single mistake in battle will send you all the way back to the beginning of the monster's pattern, which is extremely punishing.
- You can use the mouse to click buttons, and the tutorial even tells you to do this, but later monsters require multiple buttons pressed at the same time, which isn't possible with a mouse, so why bother having mouse controls in the game?
- Help screen still describes the old UI, and is useless as a result.

Basically, this game needs serious help, but at the same time, I'm starting to see some potential to be more than a simple time waster.

Icekiller33 responds:

I just updated the game so you get to see all the monsters quicker and also updated the patterns to make them more fun! I also did a reside for the main menu, I hope it's clearer now. Thanks for playing and leaving feedback :)

[The Legend of RPGenia v0.3 (alpha)]

Alright, as agreed, I'm back to review the new build. Now that you actually start in the right place, I can say that I'm intrigued by the story here. Lot more potential for shenanigans between our world and the fantasy world than most isekai stories. Not bad for a self-advertised meme game.

That said, I still had some issues:
- There still aren't any exit triggers back to the world map from the beach house, so you still get softlocked if you go there when you're not supposed to
- There still isn't a visible marker for the desert from the world map. I knew where it was this time, but still.
- I'm perhaps a bit more forgiving than most about using RPGMaker default assets, being a lousy artist myself. But heed me when I say that people will complain about that.
- Generic NPCs blocking areas on the world map. I'm pretty sure those are just placeholders for the alpha build, but I bet you could come up with more creative blockades if you thought about it
- I'm not sure whether to complain about the constant going back and forth to talk to people that this game is built around. On the one hand, that's the joke, and it helps introduce story bits. On the other, I still feel like there could be a way to make it more convenient.

So my complaints are less harsh than before, but I'm also aware the game has a ways to go. Keep up the good work!

Saeko-Chan responds:

Thank you very much! All noted!

[THE ONLY ONE]

The game itself is pretty, but basic, and easy to cheat by circling around the arena. The problem is that this game took my laptop from roughly 25% battery to nothing in less than a minute. I can only guess that is being caused by some sort of physics calculation error that eats all the processing power of the computer. Needless to say, this game is not fit to go online until whatever is causing that problem gets fixed.

Minecrafter441 responds:

I apologize for the problem I have caused, It was my first game and I have not taken things like that into consideration. I made it calculate the rotation of the sun and stuff. Please play my other game, it is way better. I hope I can meet your expectations. - GS-Games

[The Legend of RPGenia v0.3 (beta)]

This reminds me of my experiments with RPG Maker MV a few years ago. Using default characters, tilesets, and music, and just having fun and seeing what I could do with it. I can respect that.

Ahem...anyway, this game is definitely not ready for release yet. Here's my list of issues:

- Certain NPCs changing appearance entirely when the player talks to them. That's due to them changing which way they face when they're not supposed to. There is a way to lock their facing so they don't do that, though.
- The classic 'open doors closing during screen transitions' mistake. Just swap the animations around to fix that.
- Leaving the starting town before completing the investigation breaks the game and doesn't let you back in.
- The beach house area doesn't have any triggers to go back to the world map, so you get stuck if you go there early.
- No reason for the poison swamp to exist if you can't die. This might change if there is more conventional RPG combat later.
- The desert has no visible tile on the world map to locate it. I just had to blindly stumble around until I found the place.
- If there is traditional RPG combat in this game, and it seems to me like there might be, keep in mind there is currently half an hour of no combat at all before you get to it.
- Speaking of, the part of the game where you go back and forth relaying messages between the principal and the witch. Clearly, you're aware of how obnoxious this is, but you did it anyway.
- Just a personal gripe. A beta build of a game is playable from start to finish, with the main task being to balance the experience and remove errors. This game, which is actively being built, is an alpha build.

There is potential for this game, in spite of all those problems. There is some intrigue in the story and the dialogue is witty and meme-y enough. That is why I gave such a detailed list of every problem and error I could find; because I want this game to be good. Keep up the good work!

Saeko-Chan responds:

Hell yeah, thanks for playing the game and all the feedback. This is in fact my first game I've ever done, so I'm still learning how stuff works, just recently found out how to do custom characters which will help me immensely moving forward. I'm aware I still gotta figure out some stuff so thank you for playing the game with open eyes. Still, 1.5 stars is a bummer.

[Manorvania]

(Edited my review because I didn't know about how the mouse was used in this game)

The sound, art, and writing are the standout things about this game. There isn't anything telling you this, but moving the mouse guides the camera and lets you control the direction of your scythe and dash powers. Once I figured it out, controls felt really good. Only thing is that moving the camera that way can be kinda disorienting if you move it too fast. And also, yeah, there really should have been something telling you about how the mouse is used.

(Seriously, your art is amazing. Feels right at home in a cartoon, which fits this game perfectly)

Stopsignal responds:

Thanks a lot man!! Glad you liked them, specially the writing, hahaha
I'm not quite tuned to platformers nowadays, so i was surprised when i was told *you don't usually use the mouse*, so i should have absolutely done a better job explaining it in the game, hahahaha.
You use the mouse to aim the scythe! And also, if you are idle, you'll dash where you are pointing with it, as well.
It's kinda fiddly for most people (not for myself but i made it so i can't talk, hahahah)

[No More Gods]

This is a very imaginative setting that asks a lot of hard questions about what it means to exist. It does what it sets out to do, I just feel like it could have done more. Perhaps exploring the worlds to learn of their fates instead of having to told to you when you visit. (To be fair, that narration is really good)

RainyG responds:

Thanks for the review and feedback!

I totally agree - I would have loved to have pushed the ideas and gameplay further. In future, I hope to come back and build on the ideas here.

This is my 2nd game made with GBStudio (and I've only made a few games before). As I built it out, some of my ambitions were beyond my skills. I was glad I got it finished though and that some of the ideas connected with you!

Thanks for playing :)