Intrapath's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Entity Creator: Lolita Fashion edition]

This is dope! I saw you explained that you made the assets in grayscale for production reasons, but it came across as a creative decision that worked REALLY well in the final product, it works so well for the mood. The music was so unsettling too, you really nailed the "spooky" aspect of the jam and the season. It was great to see so many different options too, and they all looked good and fit the mood and character. To tie it all up, the floating animation really sold the idea that she was floating in this liquid. Awesome job!

RosieUV responds:

Awww thanks! I think this is the best review I've ever gotten :)

[Moni's Nightmare Party]

This was a decent start! I thought all the artwork was really cute, and the story drew me in. Plus, the story mode seems pretty ambitious for a jam game, considering there are all those places I'm assuming you'll go once the game gets updated. Plus, not only are you making sprites for the dress-up portion, but for all the character movements during the story mode too, I can't imagine it's easy piecing that all together. One thing that frustrated me though was seeing that this isn't playable on mobile; that felt strange considering all the input could be done with a mouse. The movement and jumping during the story mode seems like the exception, but (at least at this point, I don't know if it changes later in the story) it seems like you don't need to be making super precise movements, so on-screen arrows and a jump button seem like they would work.

Hope to see more of the game soon!

Kuchyfloo responds:

Im glad you liked my art :) , i wanted to keep it simple to work on it faster, and yes i draw each frame of each costume part and sync it with the character.

Didn't got enough time to add the first level and atleast 2 more costumes for the story mode as i originaly wanted.

Also decided to leave the mobile compatibility for the last as it wasn't crutial and i needed to figure out how to adapt the controls correctly.

Also something happens if you press E as a ghost.

Thank you for the feedback ;)

[Backstage Fighers]

(I mention a few bugs below, so if it helps: I'm on Windows 11, playing on Chrome!)

I'm pretty conflicted on this one - one on hand, I love the presentation. The color scheme, animation style, character designs, and even UI tapped into that classic Newgrounds style in a way that works really well. Plus, the soundtrack was super catchy and matched the game well.

The game itself, though, is pretty rough. Starting at the menu, the sliders in the Options menu don't work - it doesn't look like there's a way *back* to the main menu from there, though, so it doesn't make much difference anyway. The buttons were hard to press, too. The best solution for this is to use an invisible rectangle to serve as the hitbox on the frame the button art is on. That way, the user isn't struggling to get their cursor right over the letters.

Kwing already summarized the things I'd say about the gameplay and camera, but I'm more optimistic about the bullet moving in the direction the player is facing. That made me smile, and it could genuinely work well as a game mechanic if the levels and enemies are designed around it. Maybe that could be a unique feature going forward! You could probably do some really cool stuff with that.

I saw you mentioned a new engine, I hope you go ahead with that. As rough as this is right now, there are some cool ideas here, and it seems like a lot of love went into it. It just seems like a victim of a deadline, and it'd be a shame if that's all that comes of it. Good luck going forward!

Theindedav responds:

Coder here

Thanks man for all the support!
I take all of the criticism to heart, Sadly yeah we didn't have enough time to make it like the director wanted, So I really had to slap this one together hehe...
To the point i couldn't even add the sound effects or the enemies in the second section

But yeah talking about the new engine, Yeah we are moving it to godot where i'll make it justice!

[Karla's Quest: Spotter Demo]

This was a pretty neat demo! I thought the timer and showing only the silhouettes of the items you're collecting were a good way to add some challenge. Especially on the playground level, there are a few places where the objects you're looking for will blend right in to the environment, so encouraging people to search by shape rather than color worked well - plus, a nice bonus is that it adds some accessibility for folks with color blindness.

I think something that could take the final version to the next level is more interactivity. The closet door in the beginning is a great example, and a lot more of that would be fun. Moving things around, opening/closing curtains, drawers, etc. Just something I noticed though is that you can sometimes click through interactive objects (i.e. you can click on the wallet in the 1st level and collect it without opening the closet door).

It could be cool to see more with Karla, too - if it wasn't for the title and seeing her on the main menu, I'd have just assumed the game is in first-person and we're playing as ourselves.

All in all, this was a good start, hope to see it expanded upon!

Vile523 responds:

Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for the feedback.

[Torture the stickman]

This was dope! This is one of the things I love about the Flash Forward Jam: seeing entries that really tap into Flash nostalgia. More options would've been cool, sure, but what's there is really solid. I felt like the timing and the squash and stretch were really good. I think the UFO might be my favorite, but the brick gave me the best laugh.

Noobliss120 responds:

Lol thanks!

[(jam debut) PLUMO PANIC]

I had some pretty significant issues understanding how the game worked (even though the instructions and video did help a lot), but this was still pretty cool! The art, music and SFX were really charming and... I want to use the word "wacky", but I feel like that's underselling it. The closest comparison I can think of off the top of my head is something like Warioware, but this still has its own distinct flavor. The art and sound went together so well, though, it really felt like you two were 100% on the same wavelength when making this game!

The gameplay was where I never really ended up clicking, though. I started by playing on mobile, but I had to switch over to desktop after a little bit. The characters were really tiny for a game that requires a fairly high level of precision, and my finger got in the way of seeing where I was dragging them. Plus, there's a ton of unused space on the top and bottom, which exacerbated the issues I had on mobile. I did end up having a better experience after switching to desktop, though. I hope to see more of the plumos in the future though, they're pretty neat little guys!

moofs responds:

thanks! i completely understand. im working towards making a revamp of sorts that fixes most of these problems, i really appreciate the criticism :]

[Lotsa Bots]

This game was a great package! I had a lot of fun, and liked the variety in the enemies, level layouts, and the weapons. There were some really smart balancing choices going on with those (i.e. the baseball bat didn't have long range, but it could break blocks, giving a player some extra navigation options). The game's length was just right, too - it ended just as I was starting to feel less engaged.

I ran into some of the usual troubles with dual sticks on mobile, in that your thumbs can take up some precious screen real estate and make enemies hard to see. It can also be a hassle if your thumbs slip out of place; it must have been a balancing act to decide just how big to make the sticks, but I think the team struck it really well.

I also wasn't totally sold on the art and designs at first, but they really grew on me within a few minutes! The cutscene at the end was really cute, too. Plus, I appreciated how closely the art tied into the gameplay. The bat's swing animation very reliably matched up with the hitbox, and I never felt like I was misled by any of the animations . Plus, they synced up well with the music and SFX, both of which were really satisfying.

All in all, the team did a great job!

DJRahimAli responds:

Thank you for the well written review!

[Bondi's Heaps of Air]

First off, I've got to say that's the dopest preloader I've seen in forever.

On to the game itself, though, I dig it! The song fit the atmosphere, and the artwork was great. I felt like a lot of care went into that intro cutscene especially.

Once I was on the water, I clicked with the gameplay pretty quickly. A little part of me wishes there was more to do (i.e. collectibles or upgrades), but I think the real beauty here is in the simplicity. Plus, the waves are spaced apart just far enough that I never felt like there was a lack of engagement. The gameplay is tricky enough that I don't think anyone will survive too long and get bored, anyway.

I do wish there was a full screen button, though. I'm playing on Chrome, and a decent chunk of the top, bottom, and right-hand side of the screen were eaten up by the browser.

All in all, fun little game with cute art!

KittyhawkMontrose responds:

Glad you had fun with our little game! And really happy you like the preloader. :D Thanks for playing!

[Slightly Too Many]

This was pretty cool! MigMoog already called out some of the tech issues that I had, but I also wanted to add that the performance severely degrades at the end of a level, when you see all your little guys go into that container. I'm not sure if there's much you can do about it, especially when the program is handling physics for hundreds of individual characters, but I figured it's worth mentioning (I'm on Chrome on a Pixel 4A, if that helps). As for the game itself, though, it was really ambitious to make three different modes for a game jam! The fact that each one of them could've been their own game is impressive, for sure. On top of that, the art and sound were really charming, and reminded me a little bit of Elebits. All in all, good work!

CmFluffles responds:

Thanks for the review!, i'm glad you enjoyed! :)

Unfortunately there were a lot of devices we simply couldn't test on during the jam phase so some performance issues are to be expected sorry about that.

[Party Trick!]

This was super fun, great job on this! This was really polished, and I agree with 3p0ch, this definitely plays better on mobile, and tied in nicely with the themes of the jam. It was also a nice exercise for me in realizing just how critical an object's color is when it comes to remembering what it looks like, even more than the silhouette or any inner details. I just wish that the high scores automatically submitted without any requirements for input on the user's end, but I'm guessing that's just a quirk of Unity and/or the NG API.

Steventus responds:

Hey I'm glad you loved it a lot!
Actually, the highscore submission was an intended design on my end. I just wanted to give players the choice of submitting their own score. But perhaps I should have made it automatic.