P-Arc's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[MOUSE SOULS]

This... sure was one of the games that exists. I don't really know how to comment on or review this...

I'll start by saying that cheese duck is busted since it IGNORES ALL WALLS. You can skip the entire level through the power of cheese duck (unless there's water in the way), and there's really no reason to play the levels and fight the enemies since they don't drop anything. Other glitches (?) include being able to move during the dialogue before some (but not all) bosses, and keys... seemingly not doing anything, and the frog suit's magnetism not actually being able to be used. But all that can be ignored because basically every level is ignorable with the cheese duck.

There are other, non-glitch gameplay problems. First and foremost, the movement is WAY to stiff; only four directions of movement and forced pausing when attacking are quite annoying, especially considering how hard it can be to judge the hitbox of your sword and the enemies. I've died from walking into enemies that I tried to get close enough to attack. It would be much better if there was multidirectional movement and any sort of movement during the sword attack, which should probably have a larger sprite and hitbox.

I wish that you could move faster in the overworld.

Speaking of fast movement, the dash was rather disappointing. When I see a game with the word "SOULS" in the title, and see that there's a dash, I'm primed to expect that it will have I-frames, like dodge rolls in the Soulsborne games. And I'm assuming that those games were inspiration for this one, judging from the description talking about a dying world and all that classic Dark Souls stuff. But the dash in this game... doesn't have I-frames, as far as I can tell, and its utility for fast movement is made redundant very quickly by the cheese duck.

The dialogue when talking to NPCs is oddly small and often hard to see, and the cutscene dialogue, while larger and easier to see in that regard, is quite blurry.

Still, I did give this game at least two stars, and that's largely due to the writing. While not super complex, it did get genuine chuckles out of me. From inexplicably racist frogs to chess pieces with hair to sudden whale, it's quite absurdist, but I quite liked that (though again, I would have liked it more if the text was easier to read).

Seriously though those frogs were dropping slurs.

HolemoleGames responds:

Hey dude, thanks for the review

so for one this build of mouse souls will be replaced for a bit cause funny story i ( for some reason) had a patched cheese duck and non cheese duck both with the same name and i got the one with the non-patched cheese duck published. this may be the sonic 06 of my currently short game dev career

as for the SOULS in Mouse Souls thats just a parody title besides some cues visually and plot wise its more zelda than soulsborne

thanks for liking the writing though lmao this is my first game with an actual plot!

on top of patching the cheese duck i'll fix the text and attacking issues too

this message will probably be up for like 10 minutes or so , so i dont know if you'll see this

sincerly

Mr Hole Mole

[Phantom Debris]

Defeated the second boss and was trapped in the void of space with nothing but spooky noises for company for the rest of time. I'm going to assume that there's nothing past this? Nothing that I can find, at least.

A short but fun experience! I do wish that the asteroids had a bit less health, since it takes ~10-12 shots (I think) to destroy a single one before you get any power-ups, and the fire rate is pretty slow. My only other criticism is that I wished the bosses did more than just slowly chase you, but there are other threats during the fights to spice things up, so it's not that big of a deal.

Also as far as I can tell the acceleration has no cap, and you can theoretically build up to infinite speed (though this can really only be done after the final stage is completed), and I find that really funny.

To reply to your reply (since you can't do comment chains): I personally suggest keeping the infinite speed, personally. It won't really come up in normal gameplay, since it seems like a fast track to smashing your face into an asteroid, but it's quite fun to mess around with once the game is over. If anything, maybe just reduce how fast you accelerate?

null256 responds:

Update 1: There should be an ending now, reworked the levels and some other minor things

First of all, my friend, thanks for the awesome feedback.

- Yes I still don't implement a end screen
- Yes I too suspected those asteroids where a bit of a hassle to destroy
- Yes the bosses need more "spice"
- Yes, I'm still thinking of how to cap the velocity, I'm starting programming

Thanks and thanks again.

[Monkey DU DU – Pre-Alpha Tech Test]

Some notes/feedback:

1. The attack control scheme is... odd, to say the least, and would probably work better if all the attack buttons were next to each other. Perhaps the control scheme could be something like a for basic bunch, s for kick, w for uppercut, d for flurry of punches? I know that d is currently dodge, but since the dodge seems to basically just be a duck, it could be moved to the down arrow.

2. The gorilla statues health bar is rather confusing; it seems like each node represents 3 health? It would be nice if the nodes went from green to yellow to red to empty as you took damage. Also, you currently don't seem to die upon losing all your health.

3. The up and down arrow keys currently scroll the Newgrounds page when you press them; I think that you might need a main menu screen where the player clicks on a play button to fix that?

I feel bad giving this game only two stars, and I quite like the pixel art (though the monkey's resolution doesn't match that of the background), but I can't rate the game much higher in its current state. I look forward to seeing the future builds of this game, though!

Luka-Art responds:

Thank you for the honest and constructive feedback!
We published Monkey DU DU at this early stage on purpose, hoping for fresh perspectives and concrete suggestions from players like you to help us improve the project.

Your comment hits the mark on several things we're already working on (like the health bar and controls), and others – such as the unintuitive key layout and the resolution mismatch between the character and the background – are now being added to our priority list thanks to you.

We truly appreciate that, despite the rough edges, you see potential in the game. Feedback like yours gives Monkey DU DU a real chance to level up.
Thanks again – and feel free to check back with us here on Newgrounds, because DU DU keeps evolving and growing!

Kristof
Luka Art. Studio

P.S. If you know anyone who enjoys pixel-art games or testing early builds, feel free to share Monkey DU DU with them. We'd love to hear more feedback – every comment helps us make the game better!

[Nilvreth Sagas]

"And then you left and never looked back. -The End."

To do my best to avoid spoilers (besides starting this review with the end line, but then again, what context could you even derive from that on its own?), this was a short but charming game with a couple frustrating flaws. Those flaws are:

A) A fairly slow movement speed in a game with quite a bit of backtracking. None of the areas are super long, thankfully (except the corridor before the final pyre; that could have been probably half the length it ended up being), so it isn't THAT big of a problem.

B) The encounter rate. There was one point where I got into a battle one step after I had just finished a previous fight. The fact that potions only heal health, not mana, and your character is primarily a magic user means that you generally want to avoid fights (unless you're directly outside a rest area, in which case healing between fights to grind is easy), which means that you hope to successfully run away, which means that the random encounters are just annoyances that you'll want to run away from instead of actually confronting.

For all the space the above criticisms take up, though, there was still a lot to appreciate, and I was driven the whole game to see it through to the end. The story, though fairly simple, was really cool, and the sprite art was amazing. The music got a bit repetitive (primarily the battle theme), but it definitely helped set the tone, especially the theme for the penultimate scene. Plus, games where you play as bugs are always great.

7/10 I wish I could figure out how to open the password chest in the penultimate area.

Kiloru responds:

Thank you for playing and for your feedback!

You know, this is kinda funny that you have brought the Unnecesarily Long Corridor™ being twice long as it needed to be
Because during development I initially thought that it is too short and then doubled the length by copypasting the map twice xD

And yeah, all criticizm about random encounters is valid, they work kinda wokny in general. Though I intended flee option to be regularly used, I guess I went a bit overboard with it.

(SPOILER one of the corpses have password on it)

[Update! Lost Signal]

This is definitely an interesting game, with some really catchy music and an interesting story hook to invest the player, but I do have some critiques. The screen is zoomed in much too far, making traps super hard to see coming, and the control scheme is vague, considering how you have to left click to jump. There is a frustrating amount of both invisible walls and fake walls, making it frustrating at times figuring out where to go. Some of the background tiles are sometimes solid as well, making it even more confusing. There is no way to reset if you fall in a hole as far as I can tell, and seemingly no checkpoints if you do die. Lastly, the music, though really catchy, doesn't loop unless you die.

Anyway 2.5/5 I enjoyed it

Clashnewbme responds:

Sorry, however there are reasons for the screen, the game file was originaly too big for NewGround so we heavily messed with the game and got it down for you so it could be put on NewGrounds if you want too play the origanal game https://clashnewbme.itch.io/lost-signal

OH YEA ALSO JUMP IS SPACE... AND MOUSE.

[Spinny Dungeon]

A very fun, very difficult demo that makes me excited to see the full game! The gameplay is as addictive as any of these kinds of random-result based roguelikes, and there's certainly a lot of depth to be found. The pixel art compliments the gameplay well, and the music is really catchy! (Though it could definitely do with more than two song tracks.)

There are a couple of critiques I have. For one, the option to throw away your equipment/artifacts/whatever you call the stuff that appears on the left of the screen under your stats should probably give the players some coins in exchange. Maybe it's for if you get too many artifacts and need to make some space to buy some more? But artifacts are so expensive in the shop, I was never able to get enough to see if there was an inventory limit. As it stands, the ability to throw away artifacts needs something more to entice players to make the choice.

Also, saving and exiting and reloading a game led to all spells being reset to their original status, meaning that only Charge 1 and Sharpening 1 remain upon reloading. I'm assuming that's just a bug, but it's a pretty nasty one.

Still, this was overall a really fun game. one I could easily find myself playing for hours on end.

TLDR:

Pros: Addictive gameplay, great spritework, lots of mechanical depth under the surface,
some subtle humor within the enemies

Cons: Only two songs, not much point in throwing away artifacts, bug makes saving and
exiting harmful to the player

ADDENDUM: My first victory came down to a combination of the Feather and Reforge, which turns reforge from a once per turn exchange of a weapon for mana into an unlimited exchange of weapons for mana, essentially making your weapons an infinite source of charge. Very useful for dicey situations!

TypingMonkeyStudio responds:

Thank you for the great review and the bug report! I fixed the save system and updated the game. I didn't expect Newgrounds would be better than itch.io for the deep feedback. Thank you once more!

The inventory limit is 12 artifacts (trinkets). It was made this way because of the limited screen space. I don't want to add a slider. Dropping of trinkets is possible mostly due to this hard limit. In future I plan to add a couple of trinkets which will heal, deal damage or smth. on drop.

[Werm]

This is... erm. Is... Werm.

I'd find the utter boredom of it funnier if the Tags weren't outright lies. I don't think I've ever seen a game less "fast-paced."

That is all I have to say.

goober12312343 responds:

Yeah your right I changed it to be more acurrate. I understand why you left a poor review I thought it was funny at first.

[Swordius]

A really fun and fast-paced game! The semi on-rails nature of the game was really interesting, and the gameplay was quite enjoyable; in particular, the dodge strike and its ability to massively raise the boss's stagger bar added a cool risk-reward element of trying to get as close to attacks as possible, with the payoff of a successful dodge strike being very satisfying to pull off. The graphics were flashy but not overwhelming, with a very clean art style, and I liked how each boss had a different soundtrack that tried to fit the theme (calmer for the Water Swordian, Rhythmic for the Earth Swordian...).

The criticisms I have with the game (besides its length, but to complain of such an adrenaline-filled game being short seems like mere nitpicking) are few. Some attacks, such as the Wind Swordian's giant spinning tornado blade, ARE hard to see spawn if you are in the middle of attacking the boss, which can be somewhat frustrating when attempting to get the best time. The timing for dodging some attacks, such as the Water Swordian's spinning laser-barrier combo, have some odd timings, as it seems like only the first half of your dash has I-Frames, but it's not clear when they go away. Lastly, some boss attacks seem to actually be more difficult when used during the first phase; the Earth Swordian's outer ring prism spikes attack is quite annoying to dodge, as the arena during the first phase is so small that attempting to dodge through the attack usually leads into you getting hit by more spikes.

Still, all of these issues are minor, and the fast respawn means that dying wasn't a real upset. I look forward to hopefully seeing more soon!

Yword responds:

Thanks a lot for your feedback! :D

[FAIR AND FACTUAL FREE PRESS AGENCY]

Short but sweet! I don't know if the flipped controls work properly, though. There was no visual change in the buttons for me when it happened, and I didn't notice any gameplay changes.

crow-seeds responds:

Ah, they only work for keyboard controls, will fix when I get home!

EDIT: Fixed!

[Game: The Game]

This is certainly a game.

shinies704 responds:

gamest game ever in the gameverse