This is really a great idea; a super simple interface for a reasonable complex system. However, there is something that bugs me--elixirs. The way they work is perfectly fine, but when we buy one while we already have one in our possession, shouldn't one of them be automatically used? I mean, that just makes too much sense to me. Instead of just wasting money, why aren't we allowed to use the old one and buy the new one? it's the only time you can actually lose money without getting ANYTHING back, so I think it's important that you get something for buying an elixir when you already have one.
It was a pretty great game. The music was good, the combo idea worked well, and you've perfected the aesthetic in this series.
You could have had more minibosses though. Just one near the end didn't feel like enough.
Also, versus the final boss on normal mode, you don't tell us that we control Vandheer Lorde. The thing is, if the bad guy is to the right, your first instinct is to go right. So for the first few tries, I assumed that he was just running away from me. I didn't realize he was being controlled by me.
Whenever I paused the game with "P", when I unpaused the game, nothing that was supposed to move moved. Not the bots, not the engineer. Using WASD moved the terminal instead for some reason. I thought it was a one time thing, but it was a recreatable error.
The lag and lack of a quality option didn't help either.
The idea seems great, but the game's pretty clunky. I don't know if it's because Flash 11 is new or not, but it still makes the game a bit unplayable.
Okay, so others have complained about the controls, but I'm going to talk about them anyway. There's a reason old school platformers didn't give the protagonist much momentum: the point of platforming is control, and by giving him or her momentum, you make controlling the character more difficult than necessary. To clarify, adding momentum doesn't make the game more challenging or deep, just more frustrating. It's not a good thing, and that's why all the classic platformers eschewed it. This is the core issue in the game, and it really wrecks everything else. MOVING AROUND itself is frustrating, and I could tell in the first few seconds that the game wasn't going to be enjoyable as a result.
Next is the scale. The game is way too large in scale, and the characters and enemies are too tiny. There's no need for everything to be so tall, or so wide, or whatever. Look at the great platformers of the NES, and you'll see that compared to this protagonist, Mario and Mega Man are gigantic. This goes back to the whole "control" thing. Having characters be that tiny and the environment that large serves no purpose other than to make the game less manageable. And because everything is so massive, it's hard to see what's ahead of you. I couldn't see a lot of enemies before I was in their line of fire, and since you only have a single hit point, mistakes like that are unnecessarily harsh. The sharp controls and better scale of games like Mario mean that a single hitpoint is perfectly acceptable, but here it gives the player no room for error. Unlimited lives don't excuse or legitimize it, they just make it playable.
The worst part of that is that it then requires the protag to be able to jump great distances. While in the air, you have less control, and that coupled with the momentum... Well, basically everything could have been smaller and the game would have been the same but better.
Also, there's a lack of direction. It was clever how you gave us some gameplay elements like the doors, then added keys after we were already familiar with them, but overall, I was confused. The trial and error method of gameplay is frustrating instead of fun, mainly because of the sloppy controls and exhausting area I needed to cover to reach the next section.
The game was very pretty for it's old school graphics, but couldn't you put in some more color other than red? Complicating the scale issue, the lack of color made things hard to see. It was great the the keys were bright red to make them stand out, but really? Nothing but grey, black, and red? You couldn't throw in some green for contrast? Or maybe blue? Even some brown would have been nice, but there wasn't even that.
I like the way you tried to tell a story through a mood, but honestly, the mood I got from the setting was desperately overwhelmed by the frustration I felt from the gameplay. I stopped caring about the story once I died and dropped the key in a terrible place that took multiple tries to get out.
As harsh as I've been in this review, I do really think this had a lot of potential. You clearly have a knack for design, at least in how you deliver information to the player. Your methods are subtle but effective, both in the storytelling and the gameplay elements, and that's the best way to do it. It's just that the things that let it down are problems that were solved twenty years ago. Why does the protag have momentum? Why is everything so big? What am I supposed to be doing? These little things pile up and become horrible together.
In short, your attempt at telling a story through the game's feel is great, but ultimately undermined by the poorly designed gameplay. Two out of five.
I couldn't even fit my whole review in the text bo
I wrote a 1400 word review, but it didn't fit, so I'll give the highlights.
Gameplay- Solid shoot 'em up action. I like how the levels are basically a bunch of templates with their own quirks, while the levels that use the same template are still different from each other. That said, it should have been clearer which objects were just the background and which ones were obstacles. More contrasting colors would have helped.
I like the mod system, it really opens up the possibility for experimentation. However, why couldn't we get them all earlier? Same with weapons? It would be easier to make the build we want if we could have that.
Story- You showed a great deal of intent here, a very impressive amount. The way it went form a sci-fi story to a fantasy one, the fact that each character was important, and the overall scale and feel all showed great attention to detail. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed.
Your story actually made me shed a tear. That has only happened once before in my entire life. :)
Audio- Sound effects were adequate, and the music was neither over-repetitive nor intruding.
Visual- I like the aesthetic, but couldn't the resolution have been larger?
I have been very impressed by this game. I hope you continue onto another project. If it's half as inspired as this one, then I'm sure it'll be great.
When I first started, I was convinced that I was going to read for five minutes and close the browser in boredom. Despite this feeling, I decided to try it anyway, just in case it was actually good. And man, it was good.
Piecing together the truth by looking through all the endings was very engaging. It capitalized on what makes choose-your-adventure stories good while at the same time exploring the medium in a way that hasn't been done before (at least to my knowledge): the idea that it's possible for several of the branches of the story to coexist. That was clever and unique.
Also, it's great that you took the "it was a dream" cliche and turned it into something meaningful. That alone would have been pretty impressive.
Wow, just...wow. My first playthrough, I ended up with the hospital scene. It totally blindsided me, which made me really want to try again and again until I figured it out.
Apparently the personification of narcotics is a really cute blond girl. :| It was a really clever way to get us to view the situation through the eyes of the addict. And all the little subtleties that didn't make sense at first (the fact that the narrator's life was better before the drugs, for example) showed their complexity once I understood.
I feel that most people are missing the point. The creator is not saying that video games are evil or anything, but rather than they should be treated with caution, as abusing them is easy and many of us are susceptible. He even made a large caveat that gaming communities are evidence that video games are not particularly bad. What he was generally saying was that video games are not particularly good and we should also spend our time in other, more meaningful ways.
I like games a lot, and I've spent a fair amount of money and time on them. Sometimes I'll play ten hours a day, sometimes I won't touch a game for an entire week. With that said, this animation has brought to my attention that I should put more effort into non-gaming activities. I will always love and play video games, but I hope that I always keep in my mind that moderation is important.
...it's a solid animation. The character design is good; the cast so far seems varied and interesting (even the two who died were unique and had their own personalities). Although it was far for perfect, the voice acting was natural sounding and the voices fit well for each of the characters. The animation was a bit rough, and some actions could have used more frames, but that's a small complaint. More importantly, in some scenes there were anatomy issues that should have been addressed.
Some have said that the story is thin, but since this is the very first episode, that is a weak complaint. I mean, you can't expect a fully fleshed out universe and characters in the first episode. It's possible, but a story needs to be judged as a whole, and frankly, only the surface has been scratched thus far. If anything, I think that this is a good start to the story, as it gives us a taste of the universe and the type of people that the story is going to be about.
I don't know if the music was original or not, but it fit very well, and you worked with it in some scenes that made it more than just background noise. Kudos for that, especially since most action works just have the characters fight to heavy metal and hard rock.
The only strong complaint I have is that the animation was somewhat blurry during practically all of it. Being an action piece, this is a problem, and drags away from the otherwise good animation.
Those who complain about use of cliches and borrowing ideas from action anime are being silly. Just because the characters are in an Asian style fantasy universe doesn't mean that it's an Inuyasha or Naruto ripoff any more than an action movie with explosions and terrorists is ripping off the Die Hard series. One of the characters is (quite clearly) strong and dark, but that doesn't make him a Sasuke clone; we don't know enough about him to make that judgment. I hope that he is more unique than that, but we'll have to wait before we can say anything.
That said, there is obvious inspiration from some action anime, but that's certainly not what I'd call a bad thing. Besides, there is a fair amount of originality among the bits that are inspired. The Chinese setting is relatively unique (too often it is that things just happen to occur in a Japan-esque universes). I feel that the idea of a trap master, while not uncommon, is underused. Also, the "featherweight" skill as an express specialty is, to my knowledge, unique, especially as it is often a secondary skill that many people have in fantasy action anime (the ones that come to mind are Bleach and Naruto, although there are others).
I eagerly await the next episode to see how this develops!
Since it was six different animations, I guess to properly review it, I'd have to list them separately, huh?
Hyun (Bo staff)- Awesome fight, great match up. The part when the staff wielder used his beard was great. I think it should have been longer after the Spartan pulled out his sword, but that's just me. 9/10
Supranova (Bow)- Great beginning, with the spearmen. I loved the first person view! It would have been more interesting if the Spartan had put up a little more of a fight when he tried to charge the archers. 8/10
Endo-K (Shovel)- Well, it was original that's for certain. Magic shovel caught me by surprise. A little short, but well animated and had a great intro and outro. 7/10
Miccool (Cardiac arrest)- AWESOME. Now that's the way a Spartan dies: from killing too many people. 10/10
CrazyJay (CrazyJay)- Just because the Spartan has to loose doesn't mean he has to suck at it! 3/10
Drifts (Mutliple weapon massacre)- Too one-sided for my tastes, but well animated, so I can't really complain. Some of the weapons were pretty cool. 6/10
macfluffers
All 102 flash Reviews
Rated 4.5 / 5 stars January 7, 2012
Great idea, but needs tuning up
This is really a great idea; a super simple interface for a reasonable complex system. However, there is something that bugs me--elixirs. The way they work is perfectly fine, but when we buy one while we already have one in our possession, shouldn't one of them be automatically used? I mean, that just makes too much sense to me. Instead of just wasting money, why aren't we allowed to use the old one and buy the new one? it's the only time you can actually lose money without getting ANYTHING back, so I think it's important that you get something for buying an elixir when you already have one.
Rated 4.5 / 5 stars December 5, 2011
Great!
It was a pretty great game. The music was good, the combo idea worked well, and you've perfected the aesthetic in this series.
You could have had more minibosses though. Just one near the end didn't feel like enough.
Also, versus the final boss on normal mode, you don't tell us that we control Vandheer Lorde. The thing is, if the bad guy is to the right, your first instinct is to go right. So for the first few tries, I assumed that he was just running away from me. I didn't realize he was being controlled by me.
Rated 3 / 5 stars November 11, 2011
Made unplayable by a bug
Whenever I paused the game with "P", when I unpaused the game, nothing that was supposed to move moved. Not the bots, not the engineer. Using WASD moved the terminal instead for some reason. I thought it was a one time thing, but it was a recreatable error.
The lag and lack of a quality option didn't help either.
The idea seems great, but the game's pretty clunky. I don't know if it's because Flash 11 is new or not, but it still makes the game a bit unplayable.
Rated 2 / 5 stars November 3, 2011
Great try, but...
Okay, so others have complained about the controls, but I'm going to talk about them anyway. There's a reason old school platformers didn't give the protagonist much momentum: the point of platforming is control, and by giving him or her momentum, you make controlling the character more difficult than necessary. To clarify, adding momentum doesn't make the game more challenging or deep, just more frustrating. It's not a good thing, and that's why all the classic platformers eschewed it. This is the core issue in the game, and it really wrecks everything else. MOVING AROUND itself is frustrating, and I could tell in the first few seconds that the game wasn't going to be enjoyable as a result.
Next is the scale. The game is way too large in scale, and the characters and enemies are too tiny. There's no need for everything to be so tall, or so wide, or whatever. Look at the great platformers of the NES, and you'll see that compared to this protagonist, Mario and Mega Man are gigantic. This goes back to the whole "control" thing. Having characters be that tiny and the environment that large serves no purpose other than to make the game less manageable. And because everything is so massive, it's hard to see what's ahead of you. I couldn't see a lot of enemies before I was in their line of fire, and since you only have a single hit point, mistakes like that are unnecessarily harsh. The sharp controls and better scale of games like Mario mean that a single hitpoint is perfectly acceptable, but here it gives the player no room for error. Unlimited lives don't excuse or legitimize it, they just make it playable.
The worst part of that is that it then requires the protag to be able to jump great distances. While in the air, you have less control, and that coupled with the momentum... Well, basically everything could have been smaller and the game would have been the same but better.
Also, there's a lack of direction. It was clever how you gave us some gameplay elements like the doors, then added keys after we were already familiar with them, but overall, I was confused. The trial and error method of gameplay is frustrating instead of fun, mainly because of the sloppy controls and exhausting area I needed to cover to reach the next section.
The game was very pretty for it's old school graphics, but couldn't you put in some more color other than red? Complicating the scale issue, the lack of color made things hard to see. It was great the the keys were bright red to make them stand out, but really? Nothing but grey, black, and red? You couldn't throw in some green for contrast? Or maybe blue? Even some brown would have been nice, but there wasn't even that.
I like the way you tried to tell a story through a mood, but honestly, the mood I got from the setting was desperately overwhelmed by the frustration I felt from the gameplay. I stopped caring about the story once I died and dropped the key in a terrible place that took multiple tries to get out.
As harsh as I've been in this review, I do really think this had a lot of potential. You clearly have a knack for design, at least in how you deliver information to the player. Your methods are subtle but effective, both in the storytelling and the gameplay elements, and that's the best way to do it. It's just that the things that let it down are problems that were solved twenty years ago. Why does the protag have momentum? Why is everything so big? What am I supposed to be doing? These little things pile up and become horrible together.
In short, your attempt at telling a story through the game's feel is great, but ultimately undermined by the poorly designed gameplay. Two out of five.
Rated 5 / 5 stars June 26, 2011
I couldn't even fit my whole review in the text bo
I wrote a 1400 word review, but it didn't fit, so I'll give the highlights.
Gameplay- Solid shoot 'em up action. I like how the levels are basically a bunch of templates with their own quirks, while the levels that use the same template are still different from each other. That said, it should have been clearer which objects were just the background and which ones were obstacles. More contrasting colors would have helped.
I like the mod system, it really opens up the possibility for experimentation. However, why couldn't we get them all earlier? Same with weapons? It would be easier to make the build we want if we could have that.
Story- You showed a great deal of intent here, a very impressive amount. The way it went form a sci-fi story to a fantasy one, the fact that each character was important, and the overall scale and feel all showed great attention to detail. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed.
Your story actually made me shed a tear. That has only happened once before in my entire life. :)
Audio- Sound effects were adequate, and the music was neither over-repetitive nor intruding.
Visual- I like the aesthetic, but couldn't the resolution have been larger?
I have been very impressed by this game. I hope you continue onto another project. If it's half as inspired as this one, then I'm sure it'll be great.
Rated 4.5 / 5 stars January 8, 2011
Better than I could have thought it would be
When I first started, I was convinced that I was going to read for five minutes and close the browser in boredom. Despite this feeling, I decided to try it anyway, just in case it was actually good. And man, it was good.
Piecing together the truth by looking through all the endings was very engaging. It capitalized on what makes choose-your-adventure stories good while at the same time exploring the medium in a way that hasn't been done before (at least to my knowledge): the idea that it's possible for several of the branches of the story to coexist. That was clever and unique.
Also, it's great that you took the "it was a dream" cliche and turned it into something meaningful. That alone would have been pretty impressive.
Rated 5 / 5 stars August 26, 2010
...Drugs are...cute...?
Wow, just...wow. My first playthrough, I ended up with the hospital scene. It totally blindsided me, which made me really want to try again and again until I figured it out.
Apparently the personification of narcotics is a really cute blond girl. :| It was a really clever way to get us to view the situation through the eyes of the addict. And all the little subtleties that didn't make sense at first (the fact that the narrator's life was better before the drugs, for example) showed their complexity once I understood.
Great job, man. Great job.
Rated 4.5 / 5 stars February 11, 2010
A strong message told well
I feel that most people are missing the point. The creator is not saying that video games are evil or anything, but rather than they should be treated with caution, as abusing them is easy and many of us are susceptible. He even made a large caveat that gaming communities are evidence that video games are not particularly bad. What he was generally saying was that video games are not particularly good and we should also spend our time in other, more meaningful ways.
I like games a lot, and I've spent a fair amount of money and time on them. Sometimes I'll play ten hours a day, sometimes I won't touch a game for an entire week. With that said, this animation has brought to my attention that I should put more effort into non-gaming activities. I will always love and play video games, but I hope that I always keep in my mind that moderation is important.
Rated 4 / 5 stars February 11, 2010
It needs some polishing, but...
...it's a solid animation. The character design is good; the cast so far seems varied and interesting (even the two who died were unique and had their own personalities). Although it was far for perfect, the voice acting was natural sounding and the voices fit well for each of the characters. The animation was a bit rough, and some actions could have used more frames, but that's a small complaint. More importantly, in some scenes there were anatomy issues that should have been addressed.
Some have said that the story is thin, but since this is the very first episode, that is a weak complaint. I mean, you can't expect a fully fleshed out universe and characters in the first episode. It's possible, but a story needs to be judged as a whole, and frankly, only the surface has been scratched thus far. If anything, I think that this is a good start to the story, as it gives us a taste of the universe and the type of people that the story is going to be about.
I don't know if the music was original or not, but it fit very well, and you worked with it in some scenes that made it more than just background noise. Kudos for that, especially since most action works just have the characters fight to heavy metal and hard rock.
The only strong complaint I have is that the animation was somewhat blurry during practically all of it. Being an action piece, this is a problem, and drags away from the otherwise good animation.
Those who complain about use of cliches and borrowing ideas from action anime are being silly. Just because the characters are in an Asian style fantasy universe doesn't mean that it's an Inuyasha or Naruto ripoff any more than an action movie with explosions and terrorists is ripping off the Die Hard series. One of the characters is (quite clearly) strong and dark, but that doesn't make him a Sasuke clone; we don't know enough about him to make that judgment. I hope that he is more unique than that, but we'll have to wait before we can say anything.
That said, there is obvious inspiration from some action anime, but that's certainly not what I'd call a bad thing. Besides, there is a fair amount of originality among the bits that are inspired. The Chinese setting is relatively unique (too often it is that things just happen to occur in a Japan-esque universes). I feel that the idea of a trap master, while not uncommon, is underused. Also, the "featherweight" skill as an express specialty is, to my knowledge, unique, especially as it is often a secondary skill that many people have in fantasy action anime (the ones that come to mind are Bleach and Naruto, although there are others).
I eagerly await the next episode to see how this develops!
Rated 4 / 5 stars September 20, 2009
Mixed feelings
Since it was six different animations, I guess to properly review it, I'd have to list them separately, huh?
Hyun (Bo staff)- Awesome fight, great match up. The part when the staff wielder used his beard was great. I think it should have been longer after the Spartan pulled out his sword, but that's just me. 9/10
Supranova (Bow)- Great beginning, with the spearmen. I loved the first person view! It would have been more interesting if the Spartan had put up a little more of a fight when he tried to charge the archers. 8/10
Endo-K (Shovel)- Well, it was original that's for certain. Magic shovel caught me by surprise. A little short, but well animated and had a great intro and outro. 7/10
Miccool (Cardiac arrest)- AWESOME. Now that's the way a Spartan dies: from killing too many people. 10/10
CrazyJay (CrazyJay)- Just because the Spartan has to loose doesn't mean he has to suck at it! 3/10
Drifts (Mutliple weapon massacre)- Too one-sided for my tastes, but well animated, so I can't really complain. Some of the weapons were pretty cool. 6/10