Aardwolf's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Doodle God 2]

meh

Too much illogical combinations, too little actual human history, and too much iPhone ads.

[GemCraft Labyrinth]

Good and bad things

There are some good and bad things I experience in this game.

The good:

-The 13x13 labyrinth idea is quite nice!
-I love the walls and mazes you can build, and the boost towers. The building of mazes isn't new of course (see Desktop Tower Defense), but in this game it's interesting because it adds yet another strategy to the already so many strategies. In the first game there were only gem towers, the second added traps, now the walls, and the boost towers were added. Yay :)
-The story is interesting. I also like those demon effects in the epic levels!

-The bad:
-The upgrades are quite bland imho. I found the upgrades in the first game the most interesting, in the second game they were already somewhat less interesting, now even less. You start with only two possible upgrades and then unlock more, and almost every single of the upgrades is to make a certain gem type better. The thing that makes the upgrades bland imho, is that they don't provide a lot of strategy. If there are a few more expensive but more "special" upgrades (special as in, do something more original than just make some gem type better of give more mana), it adds more strategy by letting you decide which one to take for this map. Basically, to me having more different types of upgrades with less possible levels for each, is more fun than having fewer types of upgrades which can each to up to 30 or even infinite levels.
-The fact that monster color order was always the same. I'm not sure if gems of opposite colors are more effective against monsters of the opposite color (I think in earlier versions it was), but if the monsters are going to start at green and end at red in every single level, it's kind of the same color strategy for every level... I kind of ignored this while playing though and just built my favorite gem type the most (the red ones), hoping they wouldn't be getting less effective against the red monsters appearing later.
-Is any of these challenges obtainable at all in the non paying version? I mean, 100 waves if you can unlock only 15 extra?

The Ugly:
-I have nothing against monetization of a game. However my least favorite type of monetization (below ads) is to have it so that a non paying user is greminded that there exists a paying version for the duration of the whole complete game. So this was a downer for me, I don't visit Newgrounds for this.
-The GamerSafe button in the bottom left is a real nuisance that is very annoying and in the way. It makes an annoying popup appear over the glass ball that reveals levels with challenges.

[Everything Start to Fall]

Why are art games always about someone's life?

I think every single art game out there involves someone's life and said person going to work. The game is nicely done but to me it starts to get a bit overdone.

[Super Morse Code RPG]

I love the concept of this

I love the concept of this, it has a lot of potential!

But you should definatly remake this outside of any contests or jams. I think the quality of things from contests and jams is usually pretty low, while the idea can be pretty good, since it's unfinished, rushed, etc.... That's also the case here.

But the idea is superb! What a nice way to learn morse!

Here are some suggestions:

-use letters instead of numbers to select enemies. The numbers are too long to enter.
-make the long tone shorter. In movies, long tones of morse code are shorter than the long tones required in this game. Sometimes I intend a long tone but it interprets it as a short tone.
-as others said, if there's one enemy, don't require selecting it with a number at all.
-have a working store
-allow assigning levels to defense and attack and such yourself
-longer game, more maps, more enemy types, more variation, ...

Grent responds:

Des and I are a bit tired of working on this game (spending 60-something of the past 72 hours will do that to you), so we may or may not do a remake/sequel. As for the tone length, it was a little long as opposed to most actual Morse transmission speeds, but I figured there were enough people who would not be able to use it at the original speeds to justify slowing it down a bit. I will say, I did consider changing the enemy numbers to letters for exactly the reason you mentioned, but when the idea came up, we were too far into the process to change it.

[Upgrade Complete 2]

Cool

I really like these meta-games!

I loved the indie mode because it's a true point. And the sheep audio was superb.

But I really have to say something: There's a spelling upgrade, I fully upgraded it, but there still is at least one other spelling error in the game! Look at this: "Upgrade this upgrade to upgrade it's upgrade level". It should be "its" instead of "it's"! I want my money for the spelling upgrade back :)

[Particle Wars Extreme]

Cool but a few glitches?

It's cool, I like the fights and the music along with it. But I think I encountered a few glitches: first of all, there was constantly a chip in the top left saying "Connecting to newgrounds gateway", as if it couldn't connect. Despite that, I did get the NG medals in my NG account! Second, is it normal (in easy mode, but still....) that the goal is 7,500,000 points, and the amount of points I have is something like 40,000,000 if not 400,000,000 with a multiplier of 140 or so? That seems like a way too easy goal!

ZEGMAN responds:

Yes, the goals are very low, sorry about this!

[Bullet Heaven]

Yeah!

When I read the frontpage description, I was sceptical. I tought "Thousands of bullets to dodge? In one game? I don't believe that!". But then I tried out the game, and you can take my word for it, the summary is no lie, this game has thousands of bullets to dodge and legions of foes to defeat! There's even bullets that shoot bullets! Stamp of approval *pat*.

[Clarence's Big Chance]

Wow, nice!!

Wow this game is great! I haven't finished it yet, but I think it's time for a break and write a review. So much variation in this game! From angry mothers in the kitchen to spreadsheats at work :D

I'm already playing this long, and then there'd be five endings? This game must take forever to fully complete :D

Really nicely done art, audio, humor, levels, etc... Must have taken ages to make.

I'm annoyed by the huge amount of different places there are, I never know what to do next, and probably have skipped a few places accidentially. But fortunally these pink doors will allow me to visit them back, I hope...

[Sushi Cat]

Neat

While I found the level design and special sushi features of the sequel better, I actually like the design of the story and such of this version better than the sequel! It's somewhat more relax and less chaotic :)