samulis's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Goblins at the Gates]

Pretty good game.

I think the fast enemies are a bit too fast for the size of the screen you are dealing with, although the 'stun' feature is nice. The orcs too have far too much health- an almost boss amount- it's very very hard to try to kill them if you still have a basic weapon. Normally the best rule of thumb for games like this with three stats is to have a unit either great at 1 and okay at the other 2, or great at 2 and very bad at 1, so it always has a weakness- that makes the units into a "class" sort of system where you go "okay, I can use fireball for 2x damage against unit Y because ____."

Also, your rate of fire control can be overridden by simply spam clicking very quickly quite easily.

Frederik77 responds:

Hi Samulis,
Thanks for your review, and of course also for letting us use your great music in the game!

The monsters do have different strengths and weaknesses (speed, health, damage, visibility, spell blocking, etc), but difficulty is also based on the sheer number and the concentration on screen of each type of enemy. Since the Orcs are so strong, there aren't that many of them on the early levels.

I agree about the rate of fire in the game. That has been fixed in the latest update, because we don't want people to destroy their fingers from excessive clicking :)

[Super PSTW Action RPG]

Best game in the portal!

Best and most challenging game in the portal to date! I played it over five times now and I can't seem to kill the boss at the end, he's like impossible! Is there a walk-through? :D

I actually enjoyed this... I laughed aloud upon seeing the hilarious situations and clearly made archetypal elements expressed in such a simplistic yet brilliant manner...

[meteorite smash 2]

Ok, but not a very new game idea!

It's generally a good concept and game in gameplay, although graphics and audio are lacking. My two suggestions are that you 1. Add some background music (there's tons of it to find in the Newgrounds Audio Portal, just make sure you attribute the music to the creator) and 2. look for better graphics (a neat idea would be to have your space background slowly move off to the left; if you have one big enough, then it'll look like you are slowly flying through space). Keep up your work, it looks not half bad. :)

CAN-OF-SPAM responds:

Im working on getting background noise, im having some problems getting it to work so when i do get it to work ill update it.

[[Paper]]

Strangely Addicting...

Although the graphics aren't really that good, I found this game quite addicting and reached 102 hits before I decided to break off and right this review. I think it's the simple gameplay and the cool feel of the physics involved that made it enjoyable.

The one issue is that the paper got stuck a LOT (like every 5 captures) on the top and bottom of the floating rock. Other than that, it was fun and nice.

bistofer responds:

yeah, when I designed the level it was for an earlier physics system that worked significantly different. we didn't get the current physics system finished till 4 days before the deadline, so I didn't have time to re-draw the entire level. Given more time, I would definitely change the shape of the rocks so they were harder to get caught on. I'm glad you enjoyed the game and I appreciate the feedback :)

[Age of Kingdom]

Good graphics, ok gameplay, bad english

It's all in all a pretty solid game to start with. It has pretty neat graphics and gameplay isn't all that bad. The one thing I do recommend is reviewing your 4th Grade English notes... Singular and Plural nouns are something that should not be mixed up! There are a few grammar bits which annoyed me (commas where there should have been semi-colons, incomplete sentences, repeated ideas within the same sentence), and a few various errors with using participles and such. I mean, 'Age of Kingdom' is incorrect... in English you need an article or you need to make it plural ('Age of the Kingdom', 'Age of a Kingdom', or 'Age of Kingdoms')... and 'Age of Kingdom' is your title.

One other thing is that gameplay gets a little boring after a while. It moves by very slowly... one has to be very careful with turn-based games because they can either be extremely addicting (like Sid Meier's Civilization franchise) or boring as can be. Perhaps making it go by faster would make it more appealing to audiences.

Other than that, it's a good game. :)

[Strawberry Clock RPG 5]

Stupidest piece of lol I ever have played...

... but worth every friggin lol I got out of it. Although the art wasn't that good, it was funny.

[The Hard Quiz]

AMAZING!!

This game truly was a great example of modern game making because it exemplified the aspects of quality and intuitive thinking over the aspects of complete anarchy and underestimation of the creator's true comic sense.

Pjorg responds:

GAAAAAAY

[1066]

Incrediby Accurate

When someone makes a game involving historical events, the one thing everyone looks for is accuracy. In every category, from Arms and Armour to the actual tactics and storyline of the time, the accuracy is unwaveringly flawless. Very few people actually bother to take the time to involve the actual historical element of what they are doing- and thus ruin a very good storyline. Not only did you use history, but you used it to your advantage and chose the most tragic year in England's noble history- the year thousands of years of culture were extinguished.

On gameplay, I could not find a single issue or error. The game is challenging and that attracts a good audience of good gamers; for not only is it strategy, it is also puzzle and action and other elements of other genres too...

...and it had Ian Holm (sorry if I spelled it wrong... he's the guy who played Bilbo in Lord of the Rings) as the Narrator, so it gets bonus points. :)

[Newgrounds Radio]

Great!

It's a great way to make a playlist of your favorite newgrounds song without having to go through the hassle of downloading each song. I am very pleased to see someone doing something good with ActionScript.

When Flash CS5 comes out, please promise you will publish this as an iPhone/iPod app. :)

Archawn responds:

1) CS5 is already out
2) iPhone production is now useless because Apple is mean

I am porting it to Adobe AIR though.

[Eukarion Tales-Episode 1]

Great Game!

I loved the game, the graphics were very good and the plotline was well designed. Although the hero became too powerful at the end (as said by C3ear), the hero did go on a journey and became more powerful, thus fulfilling the requirements of a Heroic Epic. :)

I think it would not harm the game if you took some of the diologue and condensed it into less (e.g. put two lines of text in the same box). Many players want shorter game times.

As for bugs, I ran into few. I think as the game progresses, you should make the simple units more dangerous, not just add extremely powerful bosses.