O
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
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/love-is-life.3653/#post-35067
Miner Threat
@Paolo Mazzon
Written by: @mazimadu
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/miner-threat-roguelite-platformer.4535/#post-35621
Marigio's Centipede
@Marigio300X
Written by: @Otyugra
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/centipede-recreated-in-a-week.953/#post-13805
Spirits of the Forest
@Divitos
Written by: @nvrogers
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/spirits-of-the-forest.916/#post-13556
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.
~ ~ ~
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
___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.
~ ~ ~
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.
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.
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.
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