Aardwolf's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Inari]

I think I got soft-locked by the game?

In the second level, I went to the bottom ghost part, went all the way to the right, and then went back up to the non-ghost part there. Then I followed the top path towards the left, and now I'm stuck in a section of cave where I can't jump high enough to exit it from the right part, nor high enough to exit it from the left side. There are no lanterns in here. If it's unclear what part I mean, all I can tell is what I still have on the screen, which is when I'm on the left part of the cave I'm stuck in, 4 ghosts are visible below me, when I'm on the right part 3 of those 4 are visible below me and a lantern and its mirror on the far right of the screen.

I also think the game doesn't explain its mechanics very well:

It showed how to wall-jump, but I was wondering why wall jump sometimes works sometimes not. Only later it was clear that that's because there was a lantern. The point in level 1 that shows the wall jump does not make clear this is only possible with the lantern.

Then there are those ghosts which have a lantern that pops up when you try to walk to them to press F that don't work unlike the other ghosts. So apparently those only work after you activated all lanterns, which was also unexplained and unclear since now it seemed as if the lantern's function was just to help you jump.

The atmosphere and graphics are nice though!

jaekit responds:

I appreciate you writing up your experience. I fixed the soft-lock in level 2. The "intended" path was to grab all lanterns on the left side before going through the cave, and then never having to go back left after making to the other side.

There was never supposed to be a wall-jump, the fox is just jumping on top of the lanterns, sorry if that wasn't clear. I made the lanterns further away in level 1 so there should be less confusion.

I should really make the 'final' spirits look a bit different than the optional ones..

[FleshWorks]

Nice!

A few bugs:

The audio settings reset each time you look at the ascend preview tree

They also reset upon page refresh

The times on the upgrades on the left all shows as '0' after looking at the ascend preview tree, the only way to fix it is to save and refresh

You can press 'yes' on the ascend button even if you can't ascend but it does nothing, and it's unclear when you _actually_ can ascend

EDIT: Thanks for the response! Ascend works when long-pressing the button. That was not clear at all (normal instinct of how to click a button is to short-click it), and the fact that the ascend dialog already works when not even having started the game added to the buggy feel

EDIT2: well it could also have a confirmation yes/no dialog after clicking yes :) but idk, maybe others find long presses intuitive

DeludeAndConquer responds:

Hey! Thank you for the generous rating. And for the useful feedback! I'm glad you enjoy my game.
About the sound issue, I think I know what’s causing it, and I’ll likely patch it tomorrow along with the next quality-of-life update.
As for the Ascension issue, could you help me out with a bit more detail?
– Do you press and hold "Yes", and the purple bar fills up but nothing happens?
– Or does the purple bar not appear at all when you try to ascend?

EDIT: Thank you for clarifying. I'm trying to avoid the case of misclicks. Currently, players can choose when to Ascend, and there are no requirements. They can even preview the Ascension tree without having to commit. I've considered requiring a certain number of Abominations before allowing Ascension, but I'll need to discuss that with the playerbase. Tell me what you think about it.

[Windowz 98 NetTowns Edition]

The winamp music is great, where can I find it?

Kolumbo responds:

as of right now, only in the game - it'll be up on its own eventually

[360 Degrees]

Where is that 10th trashcan...

Stepford responds:

You will have to look for it. It might be at the very end of the power line?

[Michaelsoft Binbows '97]

Neat! What's the name of the screensaver vaporwave song?

Ant responds:

I credited it on the game, its called Can you feel by Torchkas
Also thx!

[Bullet Heaven 3 [Prototype]]

Nice, a good old shooter with upgrades!

Would be nice to have a way to pause. And some way to turn off menu music but still have in-game music so that you can leave it open when doing something else (or just have pause mute the music once there is pause)

Showing total money in the game over screen would be nice so you know whether to press Try Again, or go to the shop in the level select menu

One question: given that this game is written in flash, how comes that this one works with ruffle on newgrounds, but older newgrounds flash games do not work that way (say, e.g., bullet heaven 1)? (supposedly there is a newgrounds player but not for the platform I use)

EDIT: would also be neat if hard mode would have an extra tier of upgrades!

matt-likes-swords responds:

Flash has two programming languages, ActionScript 2 and 3. Only ActionScript 2 works in browsers through Ruffle emulation at the moment. The other one is a work in progress.

[POOM]

The implementation is awesome, but the controls make no sense to me:

I found three shoot keys: x, v and m. Those aren't even mentioned in the description. But what key opens doors? Why not one of them to open doors instead? Space makes the browser scroll down a page.

For opening the nearest door I tried about all letters I believe, and as said, space doesn't work

And strafing is with esdf? why not wasd like everything else does? Nothing against it if for a reason but since it's not standard, the description really could clearly list all the keyboard keys for all the actions, rather than screenshots of console controllers with "P1" and "P2" stuff and no weapon/door keyboard keys in the description at all.

Doom on PC, as it was released for DOS, is supposed to be played with a keyboard, I don't want it to capture the mouse, that's why I try to use the keyboard controls. I guess I won't fault it for not using ctrl to shoot since PICO-8 games never seem to support ctrl/alt/shift keys :) Another weird PICO-8 control-ism that all PICO-8 games seem to have is that enter doesn't activate menu items...

EDIT: Thanks! Updated documentation makes it clear! c opens doors. And of course the door I tried was not actually a real door but the starting door. But of course knowing the correct key made that more clear. Upgraded the score to appropriate level for doom-in-pico8

freds72 responds:

Thanks.

I uploaded a new version, trying to fix some of the control aspects + updated controls documentation to be slightly clearer.

When using keyboard+mouse, space is indeed supposed to open doors.
What browser are you using?

[Laser Piguin Spring Break]

It's a laser shooting at spacerocks, but the laser is very squirty

Dezue responds:

Heyho, Aardwolf!
Hahaha that's true! XD Thanks for playing and stay funky!
Dez

[Epic Battle Fantasy 5]

Played and loved the beta. Would play again for the NG medals :)

Is there any chance for an HTML5 based version?

matt-likes-swords responds:

Nope!

[Inherit]

I love the atmosphere and story! I also love how the font used in the story at beginning and end looks like that of DOS games.

I would like to give some constructive feedback about the controls: while the graphics and atmosphere are great, the controls are a bit annoying.

Why do you need to switch to "move" mode at all to click an arrow? Imho no matter what "mode" you're in, clicking the arrow is pretty obvious that you want to move.

There is inconsistency with the controls too, making it even worse! Some books put you in "move" mode and require move to exit, other books instead don't require a mode and have a simple exit button. Then, some doors show they're locked with "d", others show they're locked with "s". And then some things like the fireplace do "move" but still require the "d" action. It's so confusing sometimes ;p

I think the controls can be improved as follows:
-eliminate the "move" mode entirely. Instead, clicking any arrow/door/... moves you no matter what "mode"
-have an "automatic" mode, the one that is now the cursor without symbol that does nothing I suppose, in automatic mode, it "action" if it has action, "see" if it has no action, or force "see" if you hold shift for example.
-or alternatively, have no modes at all, just make regular click to move/see, and shift+click/right click (or long click on mobile devices but please not on pc) to do action, or vice versa. Or something like that. Anything that prevents unnecessary mode switching.

Maybe look at how Monkey Island did the controls :)

Nirag responds:

Thank you for the review and the feedback!
Yes, I've looked for a font that would be like the one used in old DOS games!
I'm sending you a PM to ask some details!