Anonymous-Frog's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[CLOCK BABY PAINT ADVENTURE]

== There was an attempt ==
Score: 6 | Clock Review

The objective of the game. Drag StrawberryClock (red), OrangeClock (orange) or PineappleClock (purple) onto their matching coloured lines to reveal a pixel art image. It's OK, but there's no real challenge (I understand if this is for younger users, but I don't think 'Dickey mouse' is setting a good example for them). Graphics and music are still good though.

Still voting 5 for tradition.

Graphics: 8 | Concept: 4 | Design: 6 | Music: 9 | Appropriate for Kids: 6

migmoog responds:

Anonymous frog I’m sorry i fucked up please don’t be mad and im so sorry please please don’t be mad

[Dead Fish Clicker]

== Vote 5 and comment 'Awesome'? Don't mind if I do! ==
Score: 5

As the audio commentary explains, you can click the fish to get maggots, every 10 maggots gets a dollar, maggot fester increases maggots per click, and flies let you gain maggots automatically.

I don't want to delve into the entire concept of 'cookie clicker' games here. Clicker games are a lot quicker and easier to make than other game genres, even for this jam where all you need is clicking/tapping, but even then you made a few mistakes, which may or may not be intentional. I'm still lowering my review score because of them.

1. There are only two upgrades to spend your money on, but nothing to dump your maggots on.
2. A sound effect from 'Super Mario' is used when you buy an upgrade rather than an original or royalty-free sound
3. Clicking the fish feels slow. and the money counter appears to only seems to go up in increments of one regardless of how many upgrades, regardless of how many upgrades I buy. The maggot counter works fine though.
4. The more flies you buy, the more overpowered it becomes compared to the fester.
5. When trying to aim for 100k maggots, the increase of clicking noises caused by 15+ flies can get annoying.
6. The "Walkthrough" is actually a Wheel of Fortune clip accidentally getting "Wish List" wrong as "Fish Love". Not that a clicker game as simple as this would need one. It's just a joke. A not so good joke, but a joke nonetheless. Your mileage may vary.

The very compressed bitmap graphics appear to be an aesthetic choice, and the music, though uncredited, is good.
I believe you had 14 days to make a game for the Mobile Jam, not 2.

PS: I also want to ask how you got the 'flaming red text' title.

Graphics: 6 | Sound: 8 | Controls: 7 | Concept: 6 | Presentation: 4 | Humor: "AWESOME"

LeviRamirez responds:

fish love

[Times Newer Roman]

I don't think the 'Share' function works (Edge + Chrome), but otherwise, a cool little tool

SUGGESTION:
Click on each letter to full-screen shared letters.

crow-seeds responds:

Added the full-screening feature for shared letters! Sharing may not work for certain browsers (It works on my Firefox and Android Chrome, but not on my Windows Chrome), due to some Newgrounds browser security features (which don't let games access the clipboard?). Sharing works on all browsers on the website version at https://crowseeds.com/font/ currently trying to fix this though!

Edit: Fixed sharing!!!!!!

[Alien Hominid Art Collab [20th Birthday]]

== LOL INSTANT FRONTPAGE LOOOOLL!!! ==
Score: 7 | Critic Review

This art collab was made to celebrate Alien Hominid's 20th anniversary. However, you shouldn't "all your 5s" right away this early, it still feels like an amateur's attempt at an anniversary.

The art on show here isn't exactly professional. There is some good art here, and I believe everyone here did their best to paint the titular alien in a good light (no pun intended), although there's a few stinkers, but those would probably need their own reviews.
I think they're being displayed at a lower resolution (it doesn't look like they're in crispy clean full HD, but it's not too bad, just a minor nitpick)

As for presentation outside of the art submissions themselves, it's ok. It uses a pixelated background ripped from the actual Alien Hominid, which scrolls slightly to the right, only to stop after some time. I would've used something a little higher in resolution and quality.
(I don't think Tom or Dan will take action, they love when people celebrate their work)

The music is also good, but not so much the sound effects. You also could've used some better fonts and UI. Not just because the ones used look very default-ish, but also because the collab's logo looks very rough (ie. thick rounded outlines that bleed into each other, not a good look).

EDIT: Just asking, how the hell did you get links working in Scratch/TurboWarp?

Graphics: 6 | Sound: 7 | Participants: 18 | Style: 8 | Presentation: 5

s-zenmode responds:

Yeah, it was pretty barebones back when I made the engine in January of February. I'm much more capable of making things in scratch and also I'm not that big and i got some talented artists to join in but only some of them submitted. Scratch also kinda bozo when importing PNGs, i just learned importing HD pngs to it. Yeh

[TBH Physics 2.0]

== Big screen, little game ==
Overall Score: 0

If you tell people to play at 50% zoom, you know you set the resolution too high. 720p should be good enough, maybe lower to accomodate for smaller screens, and if possible, the option to fullscreen.

Aside from that, it's just a basic ragdoll simulation with barebones graphics and the ability (TBH's House) looks nothing like a house) and no sound effects

Graphics: 2 | Sound: 0 | Gameplay: 3 | Stability: 4 | Style: 2 | Entertainment: 2

fraglord123 responds:

The big screen will be fixed. Thanks for the feedback tho!

[All Right on the Knight]

= Just run RIGHT! =
Score: 7
Updated July 19th 2022

For all intents and purposes, this is a very basic, albeit difficult platformer. You jump on dragons, those are your springs, there's another one that presses down when you walk in their line of sight like a Thwomp, and switch blocks. Oh and there's signs.

To interact with signs you press the jump key, which I find inconvenient. This is especially a problem in the first level since there are signs on top of one-tile thick pillars that are difficult to jump off. You have to be at the very edge of those pillars in order to reach a checkpoint and some chandeliers.

Later on I figured out most of the later levels can be solved just by holding right and letting the environment control you, which this game dubs 'The Path of Right'.
Turns out the whole game is designed around just holding right, even though there's nothing stopping me from walking left or jumping to access different parts of each level and find more signs written in Old English (or at least an imitation of it). On one hand, it's a very neat idea, on the other hand, "don't move" or "move right" levels aren't too hard to find in Super Mario Maker.

Speaking of Mario Maker, you used a similar tool to create this, notably a tool called Pocket Platformer. I looked into this and I found that it was extremely limited in what you can do, not unlike Mario Maker. You can change your player's speed, jump height, and slipperiness, but there's only 12 ground tiles (previously 9), 15 background tiles, tiles can't animate more than 2 frames, no 'actual' enemies you can kill and no power-ups. Although it's a decent tool for beginners, I personally wouldn't use it to make a game on Newgrounds, it's not really in the same league as Unity, Godot, Construct 2 or even Scratch, which is also designed for beginners in mind.

Anyways. One cool thing you did with this is a fast-clip, which you can perform by getting stuck in a switch block and moving in the opposite direction. And the music is good, but there's only 3 tracks. And the 'box art' looks good too.

~frog~
Graphics: 7 | Sound: 8 | Entertainment: 7 | Style: 8 | Creativity: 6

TmsT responds:

One good thing about Pocket Platformer that must be said is that complete casuals like me who can't handle the learning curve of Unity, or the price tag of Construct 2, can pick up Pocket Platformer and make a game without much trouble. When making a platformer there are many great options out there, but fewer options if you're a casual or a beginner, so it's nice to see someone make something like Pocket Platformer as a gateway to game design.

Another thing to note is that between when I released this game and when you reviewed it, the developer added more tiles, so it was even more limited (to only 9 ground tiles) when I made it. lol. But it is still being developed all the time, and many of the things you found it lacking in are things that I do too, and I've suggested such things to the dev. I might have to make another game in it later with all the new features that are currently in the pipeline, if I haven't got good at Unity by then!

[GreenWood Defense]

It still has this one bug.
You can still fight on the win/lose screen even after you have won/lost the battle and even after both kings are dead. Hit the fast forward button and rack up infinite cash!
ie. Enemies still spawn

Wombart responds:

It's now fixed :)

[Tomato Clicker]

This was advertised on NG Direct.

This is a really basic clicker game. For a first try, not too shabby.
Every time you click the tomato, cartoon noises play and it changes to a different skin, each one drawn by several people, with some containing references you might or might not get, such as Veggietales, Pico vs Uberkids, South Park, Dead Estate, and many more! Even a comic spoofing the famous Ctrl Alt Delete comic 'Loss'. Most are drawn using very basic brush tools, although the pixel art one with the eyepatch actually looks very decent, and so does that one slightly more smoother shaded tomato that looks like a closeup scene in Spongebob.

I'm not gonna make a full list of every single tomato ingame, someone on YouTube might've already done that.

NOTES:
- The main menu doesn't work with clicking, even though this IS a clicker game.

- There are two upgrades, +1 tomatoes, which adds 1 tomato per click, and x2, which multiplies by 2.

- Some of the tomatoes aren't even tomatoes! For example, the Stepford 'tomato', is just Stepford. Also Shovel Knight, but that could be fixed by giving him a stalk.

- It is possible to get the same tomato again on two clicks. This could be fixed with a slightly better randomiser.

- When the multiplier goes over 6 digits or more, it can go offscreen.

- This game is unbalanced the more you play it. It requires very few clicks in order to afford a new upgrade.

- UI is extremely large. Fine enough if you have a shitty low-res 240p resolution, but it could be smaller for us HD users in 2022.

- Pressing down on the mouse automatically changes the tomato and gives you points, but releasing makes the sound. Moving the mouse away before releasing won't play the sound.

Could use some minor fixes and I'm sure it'll be even better!
~frog~

Graphics: 7 | Style: 8 | Sound: 8 | Violence: 2 | Interactivity: 5 | Humor: 10
Overall Score: 8

Fish125 responds:

Thanks for the feedback, this is definitely one of the most helpful reviews we've gotten and we'll be taking all of this into consideration for the next update

[Rabbit's Ascent]

These aren't comments. These are reviews. I'd recommend setting up an official scoreboard system in the Newgrounds API. Otherwise you'd get a ton of reviews spamming completely fabricated scores, which could violate the Review Guidelines and get removed. It's a mess.

Also this is very difficult and there's no checkpoints, nor do the controls work as well as Celeste. The campfire mechanic is a decent idea, but it's being put in a very barebones presentation.

FizzyLemon responds:

Ah ok, thanks for letting me know about the review thing, I'd definitely like to work on that scoreboard system. I feel like I could do with just having another go with this concept, maybe make it into a larger game in the future. If I do I'll definitely include a proper scoreboard system, thanks for the feedback!