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Released Review Periodical [GMCRR]

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Otyugra

Guest
The GMC Rad Reviewers is a group of forum members who agree to review completed GMC games on a periodic basis as well as give feedback to incomplete games. There are too many great games on this forum that get unseen so we are here to help people find them and are here to give creators feedback. We believes every reviewer is radically different, and through that we all have interesting point of views that can contribute to the conversation on GameMaker videogames. (This group is not run by YoYoGames or the staff officially. It is a community run group.) You can sign up to become a reviewer HERE.

This thread is primarily a Review Archive; a place to find all of our members reviews all in one location whether for ease of access or to better locate an older review. Reviews will be posted by the people who make the reviews, as they are made, normally one review per reply. This review thread is meant to aid the community to play each other's games and think critically about how to improve our own games.

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Here are the reviews that were created before September 4th 2016 by various members in no particular order:

Love is Life
@rui.rosario
Written by @nvrogers
Tension is a fairly fundamental part of the fast-paced, semi-puzzle genre that Love is Life belongs to. It helps to keep what would otherwise be a mundane action interesting by constantly raising the stakes and demanding skilled play. Tetris (one of the first in the genre) is a masterpiece of tension. The actual gameplay is nothing more than stacking blocks, but ever-increasing speed and the fact that even the smallest of mistakes can result in disaster keeps the game engaging. Love is Life is based on the similarly simple task of matching heart shapes, but due to a host of poor design decisions it lacks the tension it desperately needs to be engaging.

Before I get to the design issues, I need to mention that, for all of its failings, Love is Life has style to spare. The intro establishes a clear tone, addresses the theme in an interesting way, and lays out the art style of the rest of the game. The minimalist white and red outlines are visually striking and, intentionally or not, thematically appropriate. However, the font did not fit in with the rest of the artwork. The animations are surprisingly smooth for a jam game, but I would have liked a few more of them to help improve the somewhat lackluster game feel. More sound effects would have been helpful for the same reason. Overall, though, the presentation is very appealing. The major issues are in the design.

As I mentioned earlier, Love is Life suffers from a complete lack of tension. The easy culprit is the game’s speed. More than one pair of potential lovers seldom appear on screen at once, and the actual movement speed increases at a snail’s pace. But lots of games are exceptionally tense and quite slow (Dark Souls, anyone?). The issue is that slow speed combined with several other factors, one of which being the mundanity of the basic gameplay. It’s putting the square peg in the square hole and nothing more. Its an easy enough problem that you can solve it almost as soon as the problem appears on screen, and then you have to wait about 5-10 seconds so you can solve the same problem again. There is so much time between actually having to do anything in game that I had time to push my chair away from my computer, do a few stretches, and then come back in time to wait a couple more seconds. The game feels so slow not only because of the progression and movement speed, but also the fact that the gameplay is so easy that it makes the game feel even slower. This is also the reason why the music doesn’t fit. It’s an upbeat drum rhythm playing over very little action. Both of these issues are amplified by perhaps the most glaring flaw: the score system. Points function both as score and health, meaning that as the player accumulates points (which is all but guaranteed), the player’s health increases. As a result, the game gets easier as it progresses, and mistakes lose all meaning after about the 5% mark. Simply put, the difficulty curve is backwards. All of these issues taken together cause the game to lack the kind of hectic, stressful atmosphere that makes Tetris a classic. Instead, the gameplay lands with a resounding “meh.”

I don’t mean to be harsh, but the gameplay simply doesn’t accomplish its goals in Love is Life (my criticism applies to both human and god modes). The game does have its saving graces, though. The presentation has a solid foundation and the concept is a goldmine for game ideas. I strongly suggest you revisit both of those in the future, but maybe try some new gameplay.
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/love-is-life.3653/#post-35067

Miner Threat
@Paolo Mazzon
Written by: @mazimadu
Playing a Roguelikeis to me like playing the survival mode of flash games of times past. I usually concentrate on two things: seeing how long I can last in the game area and seeing how high things that can increase can increase. With survival games this was the games difficulty and my score respectively. Now with the randomly generated nature of Roguelikes, difficulty is not something that can be easily scaled since some levels may be too easy or too hard thanks to elements randomly assigned to the games algorithms. While Miner Threat offers a challenging Roguelike experience for a platformer, there are a bunch of questionable design decisions that drag down the experience as a whole and make the game less enjoyable than it should.

In the menus the player can select from a set of difficulty points that affect the score the player is able to get as well as select the play style characters have in game. These play styles vary from the scout style which features a double jump to assault which has more damage but less speed. It’s a shame there aren’t more styles or that the interface isn’t very intuitive since it mainly consist of text, but it is good that you can customize the play styles in such away. The game is even playable in coop using a game controller for player 2. As a game Mine Threat is actually s pretty playable platformer. Player movements are pretty tight with the jump and shoot buttons being very responsive. The player has access to a bomb and a rope which recharges with use and while the rope is a very useful feature to have I feel its existence is to solve a problem that soon becomes apparent the moment you start playing the game.

That problem being that the games average ledge height is about 1 or 2 grid heights higher than the player’s average jumping height. This is a serious problem for games of this nature because it means that most jumping related platforms are out of reach form most players. Yes the scout has a double jump feature but is such a requirement that it is a wonder why all the classes don’t have this feature, it is a necessity. This is a problem that is not hard to solve either, just change the template used to design the levels and tweak the jump variables. Another issue is that the bullet projectiles seem to veer off by a couple degrees. I can imagine this was done to add realism but this is a 2D platformer with high difficulty already. The player should focus on precision not realism. Finally enemies that shoot at the player have bullets that move at the same speed as the player and look the same as the player’s bullets. There is a reason why in side scrolling shooters dangerous items moved slowly and was brightly colored.

As a whole Miner Threat would have been a fun game if it was more responsive and fair. But sadly the design issues are bringing the whole experience down. The good news is that all these issues can be easily fixed. Once they are fixed I would be happy to see what a V 0.2 build would look like. Till then Paolo Mazzon should keep working on what he has.



The opinions and points of view offered in this review are not the opinions and points of view of the GMC Rad Reviewers, but from the author of the review. We are all humans; as such, we might have made a mistake or misinterpreted something when playing your game, so please share your thoughts of this review with us.
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/miner-threat-roguelite-platformer.4535/#post-35621

Marigio's Centipede
@Marigio300X
Written by: @Otyugra
___When I purchased Atari's Greatest Hits Volume Two for the DS from a game rental store yesterday, I had no idea it would come in handy with writing a review. Having never played Centipede before (like most people who weren't alive during the first console generation or the golden age of the arcade), I decided to play Millipede on my new game collection and looked up info about the predecessor before playing this "demo." Centipede, for those who don't know, is like the more complex and awkward uncle toSpace Invaders. Question is: is this remake worth your time or is it dwarfed by the game it tries to remake?
___The very second you finish downloading the game, it starts playing, and because there is no menus, the game literally starts. Basically, you are a white thing-a-ma-jig who shoots at giant bugs and mushrooms before they reach you. Centipedes zigzag down to you while spiders bounce around you, and some other bug causes even more mushrooms to spawn through out the field. Like the original, this is an arcade game to it's core; it is hard, addictive, and repetitive. There is enough going on that it is easy to see why this gameplay survives the test of time compared to games of the same era like Qix. Kind of like in Asteroid, this is an arcade game where you need to desperately look everywhere at once and time your shoots absolutely perfectly. Trying to shoot the little buggers in this remake is quite hard which for most will have the game be a little less fun and a little more frustrating. This is intentional by design and it keeps the game tense for when the the centipedes get closer and shooting gets easier. This tension is good, but in an era where there are thousands of freeware games to choose from, I would sooner go to the moon than choose a game that is as constantly frustrating as this. Arcade games sometimes ran opposite to the philosophy of powering up the player; Centipede laughs at the players by showing them that they can't even shoot at a stupid centipede. As a stand-alone game, this is repetitive, frustrating, and overly simple by today's standards.
___The graphics are basically the same as the decades-old arcade game yet worse! I think the creator made the mistake of changing the alias of the graphics, because everything is blurry which looks real bad when dealing with enlarged pixels. It is like what you would see if you got way too close to a texture in a first person Dreamcast game. You can tell what you are looking at, but there isn't much to see. Most of the screen is either blackness, or red and green mushrooms (what a terrible duo to use in a sprite; those are exact opposites and literally bother the eye). On top of that, the score sticks out awkwardly, unlike in the arcade version. The sad thing is, I would have preferred the Atari 2600's demake graphics over the ones actually found in this remake. On a completely different note, the sound effects are spot on and one of the highlights of this game. Marigio's Centipede has no actual music though.
___ @Marigio300X I appreciate you keeping things intact (since this is a remake and that is implied as a rule to the challenge), but I can't help but think about the many little changes you could have made to salvage this game. You could have fixed the colors of the mushrooms, changed aliasing, adding a background (a la Asteroids Deluxe), added a start menu, and so forth. Even if you made all of those little changes in the one week you had to make this, I still would not want to play this game, as it is not even in my top five arcade games from that era.

In summary, I would not recommend this game to anyone unless you are a huge fan of Centipede and also so-happen to wonder what would happen if that game was slightly worse. Despite that, I feel like this is a good remake (aside from the missing content and glitchy centipede movement) that the creator no doubt but a lot of time and effort into trying to get it to be semi-polished. @Marigio300X I sincerely hope you my feedback helped and I hope you continue to work on this game. Don't be afraid to take creative liberties and make improvements where you see fit.
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The opinions and points of view offered in this review are not the opinions and points of view of the GMC Rad Reviewers, but from the author of the review. We are all humans; as such, we might have made a mistake or misinterpreted something when playing your game, so please share your thoughts of this review with us.
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/centipede-recreated-in-a-week.953/#post-13805

Spirits of the Forest
@Divitos
Written by: @nvrogers
Miyazaki’s anime epic Princess Mononoke deserves all the praise it gets. It’s a classic for good reason. The world feels so dense that it’s almost real, despite a relatively simplistic story. The magic is all in the details - the stray roots, scattered rocks, and twisting branches. As it happens, video games are great at this kind of world building. Objects can be precisely arranged to have weight - or to deliberately defy gravity. Blades of grass can sway when stepped on. The background can be packed full of details. All of these subtle touches can allow a game to transcend images on a screen and become something far more visceral. Unfortunately, many developers ignore them outside of 3D epics and slow-paced “art games.” Spirits of the Forest, despite its uncanny narrative similarities with Mononoke, suffers from a very “gamey” aesthetic.

Before I dive into art direction, I must praise the gameplay itself. The different creatures you can shapeshift into are different enough to allow for interesting platforming challenges while not so different as to feel like they belong in different games. The level design is takes full advantage of the different abilities, with later rooms forcing the player to switch between animals, making shape shifting feel more like a fully fleshed out mechanic than a gimmick. However, the gameplay is not entirely perfect. The hitboxes often feel slightly off. This is less likely a result of poor collision code and more likely a result of too precise collision code. The player is biased to think they made jumps that they just barely missed. To make the game feel fair, the hitboxes must be slightly smaller than the sprites themselves. This is exactly what GameMaker’s “mask” feature is meant for. Another minor issue is the death system. Every time the player dies, they are required to press “R” to respawn. However, the shape shifting mechanic incentivizes the player to keep their hand on the space bar. Therefore, every time they die, they must move their hand to the “R” key. Not only does this get confusing when you’re not looking at the keyboard, but it also slows down the gameplay. I died 141 times. All of that time pressing the “R” key piled up. The final glaring gameplay flaw is that the lack of slopes makes vertical movement tedious. Those are two very minor complaints, however, in a game full of otherwise excellent gameplay.

As far as the presentation goes, the individual assets range from acceptable to great. The tiles work well together, the animal animations are visually interesting, and the background has just enough detail to work. The music is atmospheric and the sound effects, unlike most Ludum Dare games, are present and effective. The issue is the way in which all the pieces fit together (or don’t). Why do bee hives just float in mid air? Why are there only trees in the distance behind the forest? How does this giant cave the game seems to take place in hold itself up without any supports? The subtle little details that give game worlds life are almost entirely absent. As an example, here is a screenshot of Spirits of the Forest:

Now, here’s some screenshots of Shovel Knight:


Note how solid the level design looks in Shovel Knight. In the first image, everything is supported and shrubbery is included to help the foreground fit with the background. The second image includes a floating platform. However, because the platform is not connected to anything and is a simple, solid block, it still looks like it belongs. The spiky overhang in the screenshot from Spirits is looks like it is supposed to be connected to the ceiling. However, because of the curvature and the fact that the blocks only touch at the corners, the formation looks artificial and “gamey.” Of course, no game is perfect, but the frequency of such unnatural looking formations in Spirits is genuinely distracting.

I would like to clarify that I very much enjoyed Spirits of the Forest, and I think that has the potential to evolve into something quite impressive. However, the poor level architecture is the game’s largest weakness, and what holds it back from feeling like a professional effort. Just a few more passes through the details of the level design could take this game from good to great.



The opinions and points of view offered in this review are not the opinions and points of view of the GMC Rad Reviewers, but from the author of the review. We are all humans; as such, we might have made a mistake or misinterpreted something when playing your game, so please share your thoughts of this review with us.
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/spirits-of-the-forest.916/#post-13556
 
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mazimadu

Guest
Super Mage World
by @JacPete

Written by: @mazimadu
With android being the number 1 mobile OS in the world, it is a shame that there aren’t that many platform adventure games coming out for it. This is largely because controlling games like these on a touch screen is usually not as intuitive as doing so with a keyboard or game pad. Games like Mario would not work on such devices without serous compromises to its design. I believe that it is possible to make adventure platformers for touch screens that are fun to play and Super Mage World is one such example. With solid graphics and simple gameplay, it a game that anyone can easily pick up and play. The game isn’t perfect, it has several inconsistencies with its design that make it quite flawed but it a game I still recommend be played for the novelty of seeing how a modern platformer made with GameMaker would look on a Smartphone/Tablet.

In Super Mage World you play as Trish, a mage living in a medieval kingdom in some far off land. One day an evil group known as “THE BAD GUYS” steals the Wizard stone from the castle. The heist takes place entirely off-screen and you are given this information by the king at his dining table. Obviously as the only able-bodied person in the castle it is up to you to save the entire kingdom. The story is a throw away and really isn’t needed to enjoy the game. It can also be skipped entirely by selecting the first episode.

First off I must get this out-of-the-way. This game is quite large with a download size of 147 MB. This is simply too big for most smartphones since many people who are limited by how much storage or data they have available. The possible reason for this is most likely the HD graphics the game uses which looks good on a larger screen. If you have a tablet and a WiFi conection you would have an advantage over those who plan to get this over a 4G phone plan. When you do get into the game, you will notice that the graphics are amazing looking. The game uses very detailed sprites and environments that have little details like butterflies, light rays and multi layered backgrounds. The game in some levels seem too detailed, such as the forested areas with backgrounds and foregrounds possessing almost the same amount of green making it hard to focus on some areas. This can be solved by changing the contrast and hue of backgrounds to make them stand out less. Another thing some savvy artist may notice is that many of the enemy designs look quite familiar. The sprites look like they were purchased from Cartoonsmart and Gameart2d.com, two very popular sites that sell art assets used by budding game developers. For your next game, please use original character designs.

The touch controls of Super Mage World are quite unobtrusive. The trick to making good touch controls is to make sure they do not obscure the main character and his immediate environment. This is implemented quite well allowing the player to move easily. The character doesn’t move very fast though, but has a double jump and can wall jump on certain blocks. Unfortunately this is inconsistent since some blocks can be wall jumped but most can’t. The player can also shoot a projectile attack similar to Mario’s fire flower. This is ok, but the game could use more spells and abilities gained from the levels. The default weapon works well but gets boring to use fast. The player can also jump on most enemies, which is surprisingly more effective than shooting them. This doesn’t work on all enemies so be careful. In all, Mage World is has simple but tight gameplay that works well for touch screens.

A major issue I have is the game's length. I don’t mean the game's content, this game sports up to 50 levels spread over 3 episodes. I mean that the levels themselves take a while to finish and go on for far too long. This coupled with the somewhat slow walking speed and unfocused level design makes some areas felt boring to navigate. Most levels do introduce a new enemy or challenge but are not designed around these challenges and lack proper pacing to feel satisfying to finish. I feel the game would have benefited if it had fewer shorter levels that can be finished in 2-3 minutes by new players. Level design is not an easy thing to nail and requires many hours of playtesting to get just right. With a little refinement this game could have had better level design.

As a whole Super Mage World is a competent game that brings solid platformer mechanics to the android platform. The foundation here is strong despite having quite a few rough edges. I would recommend this game to most people with a tablet since the extra screen size will complement the games graphics very well. I would like to see more adventure platformers made for the Android system. I really like these types of games and there should be more of them.



The opinions and points of view offered in this review are not the opinions and points of view of the GMC Rad Reviewers, but from the author of the review. We are all humans; as such, we might have made a mistake or misinterpreted something when playing your game, so please share your thoughts of this review with us.
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/super-mage-world-jump-and-run-for-free.7484/
 
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Otyugra

Guest
Near life expérience
@Adrien Dittrick
Review written by: @Otyugra
___I believe game developers need to play other indie games, the same way writes should read books to improve their skill. To tell the truth, I can't recall the last time I played, much less bought, an indie game, so I'm glad to have played your game. This game calls back to me from a era of indie games left behind. It was made in 2014, but it feels older than that. It has midi music, DIY graphics, a story that feels innocent in a way that's hard to describe, and gameplay that feels radically simple when it's present. It's quite dreadful to witness this brand of indie game die over the years. I can't speak for others, but I've become obsessed with making everything perfect and for large audiences. This is a game that feels like it was made with a vision and for the creator as the audience, and funny enough, that has always worked in a quirky way.
___One thing I wasn't expecting was for this to be a digital gamebook with innovation and minor elements of a regular videogame. It is amazing what you can do with GameMaker if you just think try to do something different. I once made a randomly generated animation, and this guy made digital gamebook. Hey why not! The creator didn't hold back. The story is unlike anything I've experienced in a really long time, and that's not making a comment about the quality of the story itself. It starts off with a beautiful display of what stories look like if written word was displayed on a still 2d plain over a sequence of time. Not only did the intro story entertain me really well, it took full advantage of video game format. The player still read at their own pace, but words appear in different locations and assisted you as you read. The location of the words was able to do things a traditional book couldn't do. The story itself was simple and classic enough, backed by good execution, and contributed to a perfect intro to the "game." I can't say enough how wonderful the intro novel by Mystery is. Unfortunately the "game" goes downhill from here.
___By 2013 standards, this is an ugly game. The graphics are minimal, blurry, sloppily designed, and contain an error. While character design gave me mixed feelings, everything else about the visual art of the game detracted from the story (obviously, I'd take fairly-bad graphic over no graphics whatsoever. What art is present is important due to the specific designs and world presented. This wouldn't work as a modern text adventure game). This is all foreshadowed by the poorly-made title screen; The title is way too low and everything looked stretched too large as though full screen was an after thought. The backgrounds helped set up the bizarre atmosphere, but were distracting. The characters, who you look at throughout the entire game, had next to no animation, were crudely drawn, really lacked consistency (sometimes that was a good thing), and on rare occasions, I didn't know what I was even looking at, like with Mystery's arm/wing/things. If art quality is very important to you, the reader, I cannot recommend this game in it's current state at all.
___The world you are presented with, and it's story are the main elements of the entire game. So did they hold up? Definitely. For such a small place, God's eternal domain has a past and present. It feels realized and complex. Adrien has a lot of guts to write a story about an alternate monotheist creation myth. Most games don't touch religion with a 10 foot pole, so to see one take on the subject so well and so unbiased is a breath of fresh air. It didn't even feel the slightest bit pretentious despite how hardcore it takes itself seriously. The story is more thought provoking than meets the eye and manages to have mostly complex characters with unifying traits that play off of each other. Love stood out to me as the flattest character which was nice for variety, but there is only so much flatness I'm willing to take in a story the raises the bar like this one did. The cast of characters was a highlight, and I loved to see the story go places and their reaction to one another. The story, when trying to be a story, was solid, the driving force for why you might buy this online gamebook. Story occurs during gameplay too, which is a concept most people seem to struggle with. If you have a segment where you need to throw the main character at another character, as a third character, over and over until the second character stops evading you, amidst a larger narrative of trying to talk with a wrongfully convicted prisoner, it will ruin the story. The "hey hey kids! It's time for a wacky gameplay segment!" felt really unfitting, yet needed, but I'll talk about that in a moment. Overall, the story was great, though it didn't feel like it fully earned the right to be so deeply dramatic considering the many silly/ relaxed elements within the same story. Kudos for having a murder mystery story in heaven; that's basically what the story is, for anyone who hasn't played the game.
___The sound effects that play, such as the one during the constant display of new text, did their job well. The one exception was the "shing" sound that managed to be at least twice as loud as everything else. The music is all taken from other games. They sound nice and are swamped out often. The problem with borrowed music is how often it fails to fit the dialogue or scene as a whole, but it would take a lot of music to fix that, in your defense. The thing is, your selling this game. That is absolutely deplorable, to take someone else's copyright music and sell it as part of your game. You can sell games when you own the property to all of the parts; any other situation is illegal and immoral, specially considering you didn't give credit to the composers in the credits.
___*ahem* Anyway...
___The actual gameplay almost couldn't be simpler and random, but I have to admit, Adrien did a good job of keeping in active and challenging at about the right difficulty. The challenge was sometimes unfair (like with the throwing chase scene and contrived-path through the ocean) but were noticeably much more easy at other times, like the three times you needed to cross a path. Speaking of which, I find it really odd that you had "get from point a to point b" gameplay three times in total out of maybe seven total gameplay segments. It got tiresome the second time, and stayed that way the third. The present-the-evidence scene was extremely frustrating, which doesn't help the fact that this was the game's climax. If the climax requires you to present evidence that you'll likely pick wrong because of bad execution, you'll dislike the climax, and if you dislike the climax, a major dent forms in the player's overall opinion of the story. Then there was the worst of it, the quick time event at the end; that event happened so fast that I failed to understand what I needed to do in time and it cause me to go all the way back to before the climax of the game. I literally quit playing the game right there and then. There was no way I was going to redo that nonsense trail-gameplay so that I could do an unfair QTE so that I could see/ read the remaining 1 minute of content. In fact, the game should have ended right there, before you find out the second thing dies. This just seemed like a new story arch, which was bad timing because it made the game feel like it was dragging on too long.
___It all comes together to make for a good story, but a slightly lesser general experience. The elements not found in a book (moving visuals, sound, and interaction) all enhanced the story and fit for what it was, but the execution muddied the end product. It was an experience that I don't regret at all, and one with some very strong highlights. If the music was not taken illegally, I would have no problem paying $4 for this game. However, because the suggest price is $5 (higher than my suggest price), because it is extremely short and flawed considering the asking price, and because the maker of this videogame does not own the rights to the music (and maybe sound effects), I cannot recommend this game, at it's full asking price, to anyone. I can, however, recommend getting this game for free, to anyone who likes a good story, and doesn't mind bad art/ gameplay in a gamebook.
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The opinions and points of view offered in this review are not the opinions and points of view of the GMC Rad Reviewers, but from the author of the review. We are all humans; as such, we might have made a mistake or misinterpreted something when playing your game, so please share your thoughts of this review with us.
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/near-life-expérience.6419/
 
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FruitPunchGuy

Guest
A.C.E: A Chromatic Experience
@347_Jake
Review written by: @FruitPunchGuy
The game itself is solid. The mechanics work, and the concept itself is great. The color-ability system and the hindrances/systems such as the turret and the locked walls were a neat addition. But I was very disappointed by the levels.

The levels are on a single screen, which means only a select amount of systems can make the cut. Besides that, there's hardly any challenge. There's no penalties for poor performance in the game, which grants me no reason to try my quickest. The small level size only harmed the experience for me. Instead of providing a large connected web of systems, there's only a select few to tackle. The game's mechanics and systems are already good, and could easily have been used to make a level full of connecting systems and with a 'flow'. While the levels had systems, they didn't show them off or properly utilize them.

This is probably minor, but the sprites aren't as good as you could have made them. The character's a black box, the background's black, the paints look the same, etc. Design plays a fair role in video-games. Just because the game is simple doesn't mean you have to sacrifice design. If you have the potential to make great sprites, then utilize it.

Overall, the game lost me because of the levels. It's solid, but the lack of level variety is my biggest complaint. I'd suggest improving the levels and providing a challenge, as well as giving me a reason to try my best. This along with changing the sprites would definitely improve the game.

The opinions and points of view offered in this review are not the opinions and points of view of the GMC Rad Reviewers, but from the author of the review. We are all humans; as such, we might have made a mistake or misinterpreted something when playing your game, so please share your thoughts of this review with us.
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/a-c-e-a-chromatic-experience-win.6175/

Lander
@Nez
Review written by: @FruitPunchGuy
At first glance, Lander appears to be a fairly basic space flight game. Upon hitting new game, we're greeted by a text intro as to who we are and what situation we're placed in. This was a nice touch. Although more could have been added to make it more exciting and/or blood pumping e.g pictures, it was still pretty good. The story did not feel forcefully attached, nor did the levels appear to be irrelevant to the introduction.

The gameplay mechanics are similar to other space flight games. You hold a button to thrust, you use two buttons to rotate and then you traverse through a level. This game added it's own twists on the pre-existing gameplay model. You have a meter for fuel, a meter for the hull's condition and a meter for your shield. You need to traverse each stage without wasting fuel and without damaging the ship. The first two levels provide a good idea as to what you'll be doing. The difficulty is satisfactory. Some may consider it too difficult while others may find it a fun challenge. However, something I found annoying was how 'heavy' the input felt. If A or D were held even a single moment longer, the ship's rotation would cause direct impact with the surrounding walls. Conserving fuel was very difficult, because the levels demanded that I move slowly which meant tapping the thrust button in order to slowly reach my objective. This led to me losing lots of fuel. Colliding with walls was also a pain. There's hardly any gap between damage taking. This meant that if you collided with the wall and had just pressed the thrust button, then your hull would be destroyed faster than the thrust could help you escape. In some levels, reaching the fuel pickup was fairly tricky. If you're timing and position is not perfect, you won't get the fuel necessary and are guaranteed to fail.

I liked the tunes that played while I was on the menu or the introduction, but the moment I started a level it all went silent. Sure, it's a space game, and most space games lack music in the background, but even a low volume melody in the background would have been nice to hear. The levels looked the same in terms of objects, with the only difference being the color pallet. With the right amount of time, each level could have been made to look unique. It would've been much more fun to explore varying landscapes than to see the same pipes and walls recolored.

It's short but entertaining. And as a first game, it's actually very good. Lander is a good game on it's own, and I'm very sure that there is room for a superior sequel. If the flaws within Lander can be eliminated and the already working be improved and brought to perfection, then this can be a great game worthy of recommendation.

The opinions and points of view offered in this review are not the opinions and points of view of the GMC Rad Reviewers, but from the author of the review. We are all humans; as such, we might have made a mistake or misinterpreted something when playing your game, so please share your thoughts of thisreview with us.
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/first-game-lander.8796/
 
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SyntheticStorm9

Guest
Purgatory
game made by By @MeSako
review written by @SyntheticStorm9
member of the rad reveiwers
http://henric.melin.co/games/games.html
The game was really polished and had some solid mechanics, and looked like a real game instead of a demo, but the advertising was scant, with only two scrrenshots of gameplay and had a religious title wich will decrease players because they don't want to sit through a religouse lecture. The only reason I tried it is because I needed to get a review in. Now, with the problems or improvements that could be made in the game the wind was confusing at first, I could not figure out what it was until I heard the wind sound, witch in itself was late and, non, wind, sounding.
The lettering or the "words?" that appeared to help you out in the storyline at the top of the screen were bland and, well, not very polished and could use some pizazz or "rounding of the edges".
The soundtrack was pretty good but it was so short that having it loop was just ear damaging it was so repetitive.
When I was in the maze, thing, it was difficult to jump from one area to the next because it was like finding your way through a plumbing pipe, there were no footholds or platforms whatsoever, it was so difficult that I gave up, also it took me about three minutes to find the controls, it would be so much easier if it had a reference chart or had them be the default keys that everyone knows, "WASD". Last of all, I liked the way that it would not let you move on to the next level till you got the first part finished, the way he did it was really smart.


The opinions and points of view offered in this review are not the opinions and points of view of the GMC Rad Reviewers, but from the author of the review. We are all humans; as such, we might have made a mistake or misinterpreted something when playing your game, so please share your thoughts of this review with us.
Burger Defense
game made By Buterscotch Shenanigans
review written by @SyntheticStorm9
member of the rad reveiwers
https://www.bscotch.net/
after ten minutes of playing the game to get ideas for my review, I have decided that I will make it short, the game was polished, shiny, solid, good graphicasized, a simple game with simple rules made impossible to survive more than sixty seconds. That is what my review would look like if I didn't have to write a long review,(not that I disrespect anyone that likes to write long reviews, if you like that then good.) the game was fairly simple, protect the burger in the center of the room from maniac wolves that try to carry it to their den by placing different upgradable turrets all over the place. It progressively gets harder because there are more wolves every second AND they drop such a little amount of money to build turrets with, AND they spawn at different corners of the room so as to avoid the turrets I placed over were they first spawned, AND you cannot place the different turrets on the trees that are all over the map. A simple tutorial, or even guideline would have saved me the nine out of ten minutes of trying to figure out how to play. If they were to put a price on the game I would say, around 0.99c, but knowing people, Butterscotch Shenanigans would get more downloads if it were free.(witch it was free by the way.) But with all that said I really did enjoy the game, even if it was for a couple minutes.

The opinions and points of view offered in this review are not the opinions and points of view of the GMC Rad Reviewers, but from the author of the review. We are all humans; as such, we might have made a mistake or misinterpreted something when playing your game, so please share your thoughts of this review with us.
freeway-mutant
game made by butterscotch shenanigans
review written by @SyntheticStorm9
member of the rad reveiwers
https://www.bscotch.net/
This is my review for freeway-mutant by butterscotch shenanigans, first, I liked the game and how the producers make something so simple, and yet with just the right amount of boundary’s that it makes it impossible and fun at the same time. You have to move the character with the mouse automatically shooting bad guys in front of you, while collecting the bolts and pieces of flesh the spit out of them when they explode, while avoiding mines and holes. The game could really use an in-game moniter, showing how many resources you have collected, how many more you need and how far you've ran, like, that would be super useful. Second, when they show how much resources you have when you die, instead of showing 53/88, 4/0, 0/0 and 15/21, they could just darken the ones you don't need to collect(the middle two), to avoid confusion.

Third, when you step on the edge of the holes you just fall into it, like seriously, I look at the hole and next thing I know, I am falling under a street in the sky. Fourth a pause button would have saved my alien-mutant running and shooting aliens while avoiding holes record, would be a lot longer than it is now. Fifth, the little things that I liked, that added a little bit more to the game were: the graphics, they had a rounded bright polished style. The mechanics, the way that the enemy exploded and threw a piece of his body that you had to collect to upgrade your gun made the game less boring and added risk. The upgradeable style, they took a simple running game and made it were you could improve the game and you skills.

The opinions and points of view offered in this review are not the opinions and points of view of the GMC Rad Reviewers, but from the author of the review. We are all humans; as such, we might have made a mistake or misinterpreted something when playing your game, so please share your thoughts of this review with us.
 
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FruitPunchGuy

Guest
Blaster Cop
@Arkhidexx
Review written by: @FruitPunchGuy
Blaster Cop is a first person shooter. The game starts off with text describing the game's context, and throws us in the shoes of a police officer hunting people using a drug-like substance.

The game plays out like the more classical shooters such as Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, but the character's movement feels fairly slow. Maneuvering is quite difficult as a result. You possess a number of mini-healthbars, and health regenerates for as many bars that still contain health. There's an array of weapons at your disposal, including but not limited to: pistols, shotguns, SMGs, assault rifles and explosives.

The game's art style is nice. The pallet, sprites and art assets all complement each other. However, there were a few things missed. For starters, the weapon animations aren't really fulfilling. When I shoot, it feels more like a slight nudge then a full on shot. Enemies don't appear to show any visible sign of damage, so you need to hope your shots connect.

The voiced lines sound robotic, almost as if a text-to-speech system was used. There were a few grammatical mistakes popping in here and there.

Most games either weigh gameplay or story, some being able to manage both quite well. Blaster Cop fits into the first category, but the issue with this is that it is unable to execute either. Blaster Cop isn't able to produce that adrenaline you'd expect from a classic shooter, and the story lacks depth. The game offers you the ability to slay or spare various in-game bosses, but you don't ever get to see your actions taking a toll on your game. The only difference this makes is a few lines of dialogue.

And one major complaint I hold is the lack of saving. Upon exiting to the menu, I realized I had to start all over again to get back to where I was. Having to go through levels I've already seen just to pick up where I left off is absolutely annoying.

The first level is something I feel was a let down. You need to make your project shine in it's first few minutes, as that's what most players will judge the rest of the game on.

Overall, it's a decent shooter. The idea behind it holds a lot of potential for a proper game, but the game itself is average at best. I am, however, definitely interested in seeing what the creator does next with the title, and sincerely hope he picks it up again.

The opinions and points of view offered in this review are not the opinions and points of view of the GMC Rad Reviewers, but from the author of the review. We are all humans; as such, we might have made a mistake or misinterpreted something when playing your game, so please share your thoughts of this review with us.
 
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Otyugra

Guest
no screenshots?
If you want screenshots of the game being reviewed, in a second tab, click the link to the game being reviewed and check if the creator uploaded any screenshots. If the reviewer forgets to link to the game thread, use the name of the game to search for the game thread.

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Weave: The Weave of Heroes
@Perceval
Written by: @Otyugra
__I, among many gamers, tend to pay little attention to mobile phone games, but reflecting on it now, I think that isn’t fair. Even if mobile phones have their inputs on the screen rather than on buttons, that doesn’t stop developers from making several great games that work around this inconvenience. Weave was no doubt made with mobile controls in mind, but being well built as a game for a touchscreen mobile device ends there. Weave is a one trick pony when you look at it from afar. Once you know what you’re getting into, there is nothing more to experience.

__To clarify, at the moment I imagine “Capt’n Crunch” cereal as a textbook definition of a turn-based JRPG. Weave would therefore be the “Oops! All Berries” variation if that cereal came with significantly less content inside the box and was no cost to you. If that’s your thing, then that’s great and you’ll get you’re fix here, but if not, I advise you move along. In one of the two game modes, the player has the addition of a story to experience with upgrades, but what both game modes boils down to is just an endless stream of simplistic turn-based RPG battling.

__The first thing you’ll notice is the art within the game. The artist, I’m told, has made comics before. Given the nice, consistent style of the art, it should come as no surprise that your eyes are in good hands. Some of the facial expressions and poses of the main character are a big highlight of the entire experience and that goes a long way. Likewise, there are many designs spread through that were a joy to discover and later see again. By contrast, there were two times when the size of an icon seemed very inconsistent with the rest, and some designs are noticeably lacking, such as the stinking zombies’ shared idol pose. In my experience, it’s these bad apple designs that matter most, as they can be coarse enough to make a player reconsider finishing the game, even the players with lower standards and who subscribe to the core gameplay. I mentioned the zombie idol pose specifically because that drawing is made even worse by two things. One, the stink clouds are coming from the rear end (whether intentionally or not) while the zombies look proud of themselves for what I infer to be crapping each of their pants, and two, because the stink gas that dissipates looks wildly unlike the rest the art in the game. Look, I'm no prune, and I think its possible to do a poop joke properly, but this was not a good time for one, and I think that's an understatement.

__The fact those gas effects weren’t replaced with little gas clouds drawn by the actual artist seems like an uncharacteristically lazy decision, a decision that reminds me there is only one song in the game, not counting the title theme that plays only with the intro screens. Weave is a 2-1/2 hour game in total (assuming the player fails a small handful of times), and at most 4 hours if the player gets invested into the Legend mode (in which you fight for as long as you can in an arcade way). The song that plays during gameplay is shorter than your average videogame track, so for it to repeat nonstop for even fifteen minutes is unthinkable! The main song does not loop well, but it doesn’t get obscenely annoying quickly and I think that’s the bottom line.

__Aside from the motion comic intro, which I adored, the entire story in the middle of the game is the most tact-on I’ve seen in years! Sure, there are some NES and Master System games that have worse stories, but at least those games have a story that relates even a little with the gameplay that follows it. Check this: in one part of the game, you’re asked to clear away the monsters (where is never specified) so that the mercenary character can escort the daughter of the richest person in town (and why she needs to be escorted is never explained). You then find yourself fighting a random collection of monsters in a random incoherent group of settings and then once the monsters are all killed, they say thanks and leave. There is no sense of escapism to be found in a scenario like that, and certainly no pay-off. It further goes to prove that if battling is not a means to itself for you, you have no incentive to play this game (aside from the unanimated art).

__It’s a shame that the experience is bogged down with so many hard-to-forgive flaws, because many people will likely miss out on some fairly novel battle gameplay ideas. Battling has a flow to it. Image rock, paper, scissors combined with a simple card game, with the addition of a fighting game special move to add a little more strategy and depth. I would say this a great bend on the typical streamlined RPG system, but there are two fundamental flaws with this system.

__Most importantly, the gameplay is reliant entirely on the luck of what the enemy will do. Having a system centered around luck is a hindrance on the player’s overall experience. You can still succeed in this game by clicking random options as fast as you can, as long as the overall luck isn’t completely against you, and as long as you pick a balanced deck, which is really easy to do. The game is no longer too easy by the first third, but by the time the game is truly challenging enough to require thinking, it’s too late and the player is unquestionably bored enough to find the next shiny game to catch their eye. Secondly, the special attack you are building up strategically, works against the main strategy of trying to pick the right attack in the moment. The player cannot see far enough ahead to know if focusing on the special weave attack would be a deadly mistake in the later game, so it becomes a dead weight rather than added depth.

__When seen from afar, I can also say with confidence that the repetition is almost unbearable, even if, to the game’s credit, this is a finished product in that it has all the parts required in anyone’s expectations (which I mention because of how much rarer that is these days). The only people that I could highly recommend this game to, is the type of people who want exactly what's offered in this game: lots of simple, family-friendly, turn-based fantasy battles in a format that can be experienced in short, but multiple, experiences. These same people would have to be looking for an experience that isn’t too long, and they would need to have mildly low standards. If you, reader, don’t see yourself as one of those few people, I suggest you look for a better free-to-play game, of which there must be hundreds by now; your time on this Earth is short, so choose your videogames wisely.

The opinions and point of view offered in this review are not the opinions and points of view of the GMC Rad Reviewers. We are all humans; as such, we might have made a mistake or misinterpreted something when playing your game, so please share your thoughts of this review with us.
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/android-html5-the-weave-of-heroes-rpg.18493/
 
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