CroutonsOfDeath's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Alice is Dead - Ep 3]

Not bad, but not what I had expected or hoped for.

This was a good conclusion, but not as fantastic as I had hoped. As many others have pointed out it is just far too short and the story doesn't feel complete.

There is no denying that you were going for a retroactive story (For the non-writers: This means a story that is less about what is happening now and more about learning what happened prior and up to the current events.) and you had some clever ways of telling it but even after watching all the tapes, reading the journal, going back through parts 1 & 2 and scouring every secret nook and cranny there are certain things that just don't gel. I don't like giving out spoilers.. so I won't; but let's just say I didn't feel like the story regarding the Cat, OYSTERCLOUD and the young girl were explained well and as good as ambiguity can be, there simply isn't enough even to simply mull over in your mind.

Regardless; the puzzles were good and what substance was there was still very cool, and I loved the idea of the Queen being.. well, a different kind of "queen." =3 Also Hania's song was great, which says something because I'm honestly not a big fan of Hania.

[The Room Tribute]

This was hilariously epic!

I was introduced to the film by the Nostalgia Critic's sadly now absent review (I hope [e-mail] doesn't strike on this...) and I watched the movie shortly after out of morbid curiosity. This game was an awesome tribute and parody of Mr. Wiseau's ingeniously silly flick.

The game was very funny and very fun to play, in a very strange and hard to explain way. I loved the art design and all the secrets. The 6th and final thing that Johnny wished he could unsee had me in stitches and so did the ending, and yes, I did get all the spoons. That. Was. EPIC.

You guys did a wonderful job and it has that trademark stamp of NewGrounds style humour that is impossible to describe or replicate. If I had any complaint, which is the only reason that there is no 10 rating (Though my 5 still are belong to you) is that there was no Belly Button sex minigame or cutscene. If it were done as a cutscene she totally should've had an actual vagina there, that could've also been used for a VideoDrome reference. Haha. Seriously; that is the only thing missing from this. Belly button sex.

Besides that this was absolutely hilarious and it is even funnier if you've seen the film. Let's hope that Wiseau's "The house that dripped blood on Alex" is just as epic as The Room. Great tribute, great spoof, great game.

[Purgatory: Escape Fate]

Say I don't know why but I found that funny.

Something about that was undeniably funny. It was bad and the music and is sucked but whenever it was funny. It was hard but that only made it funnier. I don't know why it was just really funny.

[Soundscape Blast]

Somewhat decent AudioSurf clone.

This was an alright AudioSurf clone. I doubt I'll really play it since I have... well, AudioSurf but I'm sure not everyone does. I think the biggest problem is that it was rather glitchy. I played through the second song, and two times it refused to pick up any blocks at all. Third time was the charm though.

The "No block worky" thing happened when I decided to try and import a song. Except no third time is the charm. It picked up a block once or twice but otherwise it refused to pick up any at all.

The songs you included though were good. The game can be improved though by fixing some glitches, better song import (Maybe it would be better to import radio songs? This seems to be the way the songs you added work, since the engine still imports and analyzes the track.) and maybe adding a little more features. Like AudioSurf, it would be nice to have some powers of some sort to make it feel like a more complete puzzle/rhythm game.

[Lupin the 3rd - TSoMI]

So far, so good..

So far this is good. Very good. I would love to play the final version. There are some problems I had though, and they are as follows.

Firstly, there was the music. Not that the music was bad by any means but it wears on the ears seeing as it often loops and plays through every room only really changing during a couple scenes. I admire you using a jazzy soundtrack let alone one from the show but you should pick something that either fits a loop better, or you should have the music differ from each room and scene. Preferably something that fits a scene better in context to the events happening on screen.

Secondly, there's the way the speech runs. Pressing space bar to keep the text moving was a bit awkward. I suppose you added this so that slower readers could keep up with the text boxes, however it got a little annoying to have to keep pressing space bar. I'm so used to the fact that the text continues automatically that I would click around and nothing would work because I forgot to finish a conversation with space bar. In old SCUMM based games they gave the player the ability to choose how fast the text goes by, you should add in a function like that. If that's complex just add the option for people to actually press space or to have it flow automatically for those who don't want to hit space like myself.

This last one is arguably the pettiest of my gripes, but seeing as I am an English majour I should mention it. The grammar was at times poor. Things like "In the meanwhile, in the deep carribbeans" is horrendously improper. First of all Caribbean should only have one R, and it should never be plural. Also it should be "Deep in the" not "In the deep." Also remove "In The" from "Meanwhile" as well. You used "Carribeans" again later.

Under the files you also say that Inspector Zenigata is an "Investigator of Interpol." So he investigates Interpol? It should state that he is "An investigator for Interpol" or "An investigator working with Interpol." He also says he is an "Investigator of the Interpol" in the intro, which makes the same verbal mistake as saying he is an investigator of Interpol.

I hope I'm not sounding rude on the last part but when writing a story based game you should have better form with whatever language it is you are writing the story in. If you wish, I would be willing to help you revise and edit the script so it is a bit more proper before the final game comes out.

I enjoyed it though! It was funny and as a fan of both Lupin the Third and Monkey Island I am glad to see that you are doing both series a bit of justice whilst still setting up some of your own ideas. The puzzles weren't bad, not too easy but not too hard either and they had logic behind them.

Would love to see the final project. :)

Muja responds:

You've not been rude, on the contrary, reviews like yours are the most useful for people who want to improve their skills in flash. So, thank you!

Everything you say about the music and speechs is true. For the first problem, the solution might be adding longer loop clips, so that they won't sound too repetitive.

And about the grammar... I'm sorry, but I'm Italian. Making flash games like this in my language won't be of any help, so I'm trying my best with english. Doing the best I can.
But the text you find under the files comes mainly from wikipedia: I just copied and pasted. I didn't expect there were grammatical mistakes in there, too. ^_^"

Well, to conclude, thank you for your kind review - I really liked reading it! Still, I think I'm not going to end this project. I'm probably getting back to work to my One Piece Sprite Movie saga instead (another project I left suspended).
But maybe I'll come back to this, one day. Hope to see you around then! ^_^

[Manhattan Project]

Pretty damn fun!

This was a fun little game. I'm working on Teachers Pet, but you are right it's REALLY hard. I was like FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUU- when I got the nuke on Day 20. It was like the game was laughing at me.

I did run into a couple glitches though. One is a weird one where a level will lock up. It seems to happen if I use any of the non-bomb items whilst starting a level the second the crosshair pops up, or if I am still shooting towards the very last bit of a level. It would lock up and I could shoot but the level wouldn't end and I had to restart.

I also ran into a money glitch. I was going to buy something, and clicked on the wrong item which was too expensive. It bought it anyways, my money reset to 0, then the game crashed my browser. This actually happened twice, the second time was when I clicked on a bomb upgrade to find I had 2 dollars in difference, at least until it bought it anyway and took away all my money.

If those bugs can be caught that'd be nice. Otherwise fun and challenging!

FrozenFire responds:

PM me with what browser you are using because I cannot recreate these glitches

[Creeping]

Very good game, but with some flaws

The game was a little glitchy, which was my main problem. The AI sometimes flicked from Seeing and shooting before you spawn to you jumping in front of them doing the cancan and them reacting with a "?" then walking away.

As for the game itself, I loved the challenge. Games are so soft that playing a game that's fairly unforgiving was nice. Sure there was the tutorial, but once it plopped you into the fray it didn't fuck around. It was just you, the computer, and goaling to see who can kick each others ass first. The computer needs to stop interfering with games and helping the player, remember that IT is the challenge, this game seems to remember this. I like that.

The controls could use some tightening though. I didn't like having to hold to shoot, and you'd find yourself often hugging cover when you didn't need to. Implement a cover button or a more complex control scheme to separate the two. Teleporting was also a bit finicky. This along with some other issues bogged the game down, but on the whole it was quite challenging and fun. A good game that will piss you off but reward you with ever so sweet rewards once you finally beat the computers ass black and blue.

[FlashBricks]

A decent Arkanoid clone

Not too bad, not too good. Wish there was some sound. The biggest problem is that the physics are kinda wonky. For one it seems that the ball has a little bit too much freedom, and often goes where it wants rather than bouncing back, and numerous times it would get stuck in my paddle and when I moved the paddle it'd fall through and I'd lose a life. Also, you should always have a second or two when the ball respawns or let the player click to launch rather than having it drop and start bouncing the second the last one dies, it makes it unnecessarily harder.

Not a bad start though, I suppose.

[Alice is Dead - Ep 2]

Good

I liked it, but I don't really feel it improved on the flaws of the first. The first one was a little too easy, this one was a little too easy as well although the challenge was upped a notch, but not by much.

Also, although it did introduce new story elements (I found the secret message, foreshadowing?) and of course a new character at the end it didn't really answer any questions that we were left with in the original.

All the same questions we had the first time around are here, floating about unanswered, and there are obviously new questions that need answering. That's fine in regards to the fact that mystery is something that will keep players compelled to play, but when you have a bunch of unanswered questions you should leave the player with a handful of answers as well as a handful of questions, it makes things feel balanced; however instead you left us with two big handfuls of questions and not a single answer, which also drags down the plot a little.

Still, it was good and there were some very interesting concepts at play here. Never thought I'd see Mafia in Wonderland. Will there be a Mafia through the Looking Glass as well? :P

[REPLAYING :the game:]

Awesome!

Just like the first one, hilarious. The new level edity thing was cool too, here are three levels I made :D.

Gay Rights: http://pasteb in.ca/1735137
Red Shirts: http://paste bin.ca/1735147