ChromeShark's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Potion Panic]

Like the idea, could be refined

I was enjoying this until I reached the witch. I had no money after just buying the Explosive upgrade, and all my potions ran out so I couldn't attack. The witch was not fighting back, so nothing was happening and I was forced to restart. Not good..

I think the potion mixing concept itself was a bit flawed too. It was very fun at first to try out all the different potions, but when I found one that worked well I just stuck with it and had no need to change. Would have been much better if there had been a need to change (which it looked like you'd done with the witch, had it worked for me).

Graphically it's good on the whole with a few areas for improvement. The canon reloader for example, circular gradients like that looks horrible, especially as it contrasts with the rest of the graphics.

I'm a bit sick of defense games now, but the original concept of this one gives it enough interest. I think you could have taken the good idea further though. A nice effort, like your work a lot, keep them coming.

[Toast of War]

Without doubt the best toast game ever

Maybe it's just my unexplainable love of cartoon toast, but this is one of the best games I've played. The graphics were brilliant, the toast itself was animated very well, the backgrounds were well made, and the way the enemies splat all over the screen when killed with the chainsaw was a nice touch.

I don't often play games all the way to the end, but this one was so varied throughout it was hard to stop. I was a bit disappointed with the end, not sure why you'd submit the game unfinished. I'll have to do it all again now to try the boss, too bad you didn't include cookie saving. I could play it many times through though just to see him flip around when the toasters pop up.

I'm not sure what the enemies were supposed to be (butter?), I think they're design was a weak point of the game, they were a bit simple and easy to kill. I really liked the puzzles towards the end though, the fire one took me a minute to figure out (as I didn't notice the solution, it was well hidden, in a good way). The raft ride was probably my favourite bit of the game, it was a good original idea that made use of the toaster feature.

Even with the final boss added I think the game is a little on the short side, but I'd sooner take quality over quantity any day, and I'm sure each section takes a long time to draw.

Overall I can't give this game enough credit. I hope everyone else likes it as much as me and it goes on to be very successful.

10/10 ^_^

sinaiman responds:

Wow, thanks very much! The toaster on the boat was actually one of the trickiest things we came across to make it work, we were planning to take it out due to the problems we had, but made it work in the end. I'm really glad to hear it was a real strong point to the game!

We couldn't add the final boss in the submission because we were cutting it close with the deadline, but it will definitely be there soon, along with the ending to the storyline.

Really glad you enjoyed the game, and stick around for the update.

-Reza

[Draw-A-Game]

Original and technically impressive

I think the low score here shows that the users Newgrounds don't appreciate originality - a done-to-death defense game can shoot in at #1 but this gets a modest 3.4something. I'm glad you got Front Page because this deserves some attention.

The line drawing style isn't completely new, I've played a few similar concepts such as Jack Russel. But it's still something that I don't see often, and I haven't seen this idea of drawing to get up as fast as you can.

The difficulty level was just about perfect, it was never impossible to dodge the enemy but very hard to avoid contact at all times to ensure it wouldn't go one forever.

Thing's got a little bit repetitive after a while, there's a lot of things you could add here. Some suggestions:

-Health restores that only appear for a few seconds, for frantic jumping to reach them.

-More things to avoid on screen, maybe randomly placed bombs to avoid.

-The enemy could have a few special attacks to unleash as the game progresses. For example, he could freeze for a second then fire a vertical beam.

-Checkpoints would be good, so that the player can't fall too far without being caught by a fixed barrier. These could also automatically wipe any lines below (the space pressing thing was a bit annoying).

-The background was very simple, I think this could be improved a lot, and also change over time to add some more interest.

I'm working on a similar game at the moment and I know how good the coding is here. Such an engine could spawn a lot of different games, maybe some more bonus games would be good (the drawing game here was a bit pointless, who doesn't have MS Paint?).

This rates in my top ten games for the year so far. I hope you come back with a good follow up. Very good work, 9/10.

[The Last Stand.]

Good, overrated

I always feel kinda harsh reviewing the highly rated games. If this had scored a 3.something and not got a lot of attention, I'd be giving a rave 10/10 review here. But as it's the #1 game currently, I'll be more critical.

I'll start on a positive note by saying that it looks fantastic. Graphics as good as these are rarely seen in movies, let alone games.

The game itself, mildly entertaining, but nothing special. The concept was very unoriginal, can't keep count of how many base defense games I've seen on Newgrounds. The upgrade system of using a given amount of hours to search for weapons and survivors was a nice touch and something I've not seen before, but didn't do much to change the gameplay itself.

The game mostly just involved basic pointing and clicking to shoot. Although the character could be moved, this didn't serve as much purpose as it could have. I'd have liked this much more if the character wasn't refined to one area and movement was more essential.

It also got far too repetitive. The enemies changed slightly over time, getting a bit faster and wielding weapons, but I was always waiting for something really exciting to come running towards me. The background was one of my main problems with this, looked great, but didn't change nearly enough. Would've been better if the team had found better vantage points as the game progressed.

Nice array of weapons, but the system could be better. Why couldn't teammates be equipped with weapons not in use? Also, I'd have loved to see grenades here, but didn't unlock them in the time I was playing (can't say for sure that they weren't one of the late weapons though).

The game lacked story too. The occasional cut scene between rounds would have really brought this to life.

I think this game is proof that a game that impresses players in the first 5 minutes will score well even if it doesn't amount to much more after playing for a while. Definitely has the potential for a sequel, try and veer away from overused ideas and add some more original ones. This shows that you're one of the most talented users on Newgrounds, I hope you manage to realize that talent to its full extent.

[Go Squirrel Go!!!]

Nice idea

Really liked the idea, pretty original. Reminded me of R!SE which is my favourite game on Newgrounds.

I think this would be better if, like R!SE, when you fall you don't die straight away, you just keep falling until you find a cloud that hasn't been popped on the way up, then you can try and use that to bounce back up.

Also not to keen on the clicking thing, didn't have enough of an effect considering the damage it does to the score. If i made this I'd give a squirrel a rocket on his back, and clicking makes him whoosh up a fair bit (but it takes a while to charge up so you can't use it in quick succession).

Graphically this was fantastic. Well drawn with great effects.

Instead of going on forever, you could add multiple levels with an aim in each, like reaching the moon or something. Higher levels would have smaller clouds, but you could also add things like planes and other obstacles to make it harder.

Just playing this is making me feel all creative, it's given me a few ideas for some games of my own.

Nice work, just the kind of game I really like to see on Newgrounds. 9/10.

TheGameHomepage responds:

Wow, thanks for the great review. You've got some really good ideas there, esp. the rocket - that's just awesome!

[Bloons]

Fantastic

Started off thinking it was a simple but fun game. An hour of dart throwing later and I think you may have created my favourite game of the year so far. Painfully addictive, but never too hard. Brilliantly original, and worked almost perfectly. I noticed one bug in that the darts sometimes flew right through the bouncy blocks. Otherwise it ran very smoothly. Looks nice, the graphics are crisp and colourful. Really like it, 10/10.

Warnockworld responds:

Thanks ChromeShark, when I read your review I went all glowy and smiley.

As for that bug - yes, its an annoying one, sorry!

[Tabuto]

Simple but fun

Very simple concept but well made and very fun to play. Addictive too, I got to 317320 after a few tries. Nice work.

[Billy Blue Fish]

10/10

This is so much better than the score would suggest. Far from an average shooter - it's varied, original and great fun. With some of the best graphics around.

I've followed your work over the years and it was nice to play a kind of callback to all the great characters you've created.

Could suggest a few things, the movement was a bit mechanical, some acceleration and deceleration would be nice. And putting comments with a game will always help, surprised that you didn't.

Keep the games coming, you're one of the best.

[Tron Pong]

Good pong

I'm pretty sick of Pong games on Newgrounds, but this one did come across as better made than most. Liked the graphics, had a nice feel to it. I still knock some credit off for unoriginality though, a few more extra features to give it a uniqueness would help a lot.

A more serious problem with this is how there's no reset delay when the ball slips past. I'd often lose a point when my paddle was at the side of the screen, then lose another 1 or 2 because I couldn't get back to the middle fast enough. If the ball just flashed for a couple of seconds before moving off, that would be good.

Kinda liked it, 7/10.

Inisig responds:

lol there is 1 little extra in there if you can find it :P if you want to find it then id say look on the instructions page, and yea i know ivbe been told several times about the ball resetting problem, i am sorry for that, ill look into it more ok.
thanx for the comment :-)

[Doodle Man The Game]

Looks good, plays mediocre

Thought it'd be great when I first opened it, great graphics you've got there. Using a tablet I presume? I really gotta get one of them, this looks much better than most games at Newgrounds.

The game was pretty basic, but quite fun. My main problem with it was how the character would zap back to the start as soon as he got hit. The collision detection wasn't perfect, so it became very annoying after a while. A HP bar would work much better I think. Or at least have some kind of effect when he dies, not just a position reset.

If you make a sequel to this, I think you should add something a bit more original to it too. This walk and jump style platformer has been done to death, people will like the game much more of it offers something new.

I thought it was a pretty good effort though, I'm guessing you're pretty new to making games, if so this is a promising start.

WAR-HEART responds:

thanks
and
yep this is my first game
i gave it a try