CroutonsOfDeath's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lab of the Dead]

Interesting time waster

I ended up enjoying this more than I thought I would. A good example of the first impression not being the best, but leading into something quite a bit more interesting. It's surprising how addicting this game is - even when I was in a rut trying to get points and find new items and was starting to get weary of the pace, I kept playing anyways and found myself addicted and interested in how things would evolve with my specimen. The odd thing is, I actually felt bad when I finally tried out the pistol on my specimen and had to get a new one. Not only because my specimen looked like Bub from "Dawn of the Dead" (Underrated entry in the series! Also, I get the feeling this was inspired by :P) but also because I found myself weirdly attached to my zombie. It's like a really morbid tamagotchi, but with more to do and not a scam to take kids money and drive parents insane.

The artwork was great and the animations weren't bad either. Some were somewhat humorous as well, the passive reaction to the Kebab got a chuckle and tickled my love of dark humour a bit - as did some of the others. I'm far from done with it, but I am taking a break - but I found myself enjoying what I did play and while it certainly fits into "Time Waster" category; it's a damn good time waster with an interesting concept. Plus, even with the glut of zombie media out there right now it actually felt a little fresh (Maybe because it wasn't just another game where you shoot a bajillion zombies) whilst still appealing to my love of horror and the subject matter.

Good job!

Evil-Dog responds:

Thanks man for the detailed review :D
Glad you enjoy it so far!

[Stealing the Diamond]

Awesome!

That was awesome. Coincidentally enough, I played the other two a day or so ago and then saw this pop-up on StumbleUpon this morning. I laughed all the way, and surprisingly I am 110% forgiving of the use of memes - usually I kind of get annoyed when they are packed in, but you actually handled them with care; by genuinely tying (most but not all) of them into the events instead of them just randomly popping up meant they didn't feel forced, which is why I get tired of them. Fast. Plus the way you handled them were funny, and you had plenty of original jokes that were great too.

43 outcomes is a lot for an interactive movie thing like this, and that's pretty damned cool - a lot of effort and time must have gone into it and I respect that. Plus it's always nice to see stick figures compensate "art" with fluid animation, and a little personality to kind of lull the fact they are just sticks. I really enjoyed this and going medal hunting!

Also, to all the people having trouble with the "Joke" medal, I ain't going to spoil it outright but here's a hint: Remember to read the fine print whenever you use a product. I actually found it fairly quickly.

=)

PuffballsUnited responds:

This review was awesome!
I was actually worried that the memes would feel too lame and like I was trying too hard or something. Glad that's not the case. It makes me sad when people only get one ending because they're missing out on a third of the content.
Thanks again for the awesome review!

[Drop Dead 3]

Great!

I loved it, an improvement over #2. #2 was frankly, a little bit of a disappointment. The level unlock requirements in it were frustrating to me, so it was nice to see them a bit more fair here; mainly the fact that you don't ALWAYS have to beat the pain record on a level for your score to count towards the next world. So without that frustration, I was able to enjoy this one a lot more - and all the other additions were fantastic!

ttursas responds:

Cool! :) Yeah, I also felt that DD2 was a tad too difficult, and the levels were too spacey, so I hope I was able to fix those issues in DD3.

[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

[Flash-DooM 2D]

A big review from a big Doom fan

I'm a HUUGGGEEE doom fan, which is why I was so quick to click on this link. The first thing I prayed was that it wasn't as lame as the previous "Doom 2D" dos thingy.

It was actually pretty good. The graphics were ported well, and the backgrounds had a good scroll, so the graphics were good and all the animations were proper.

The controls worked, although I do think you needed a crouch button because it was often hard to dodge bullets and projectiles, in fact it was nigh impossible unless the enemy was on a ledge and you were below, hopping and popping. Even trying to jump over projectiles didn't seem to work.

There were also some collision problems with the platforms, not only could DoomGuy stick his head through a platform and if the game was feeling mean, get stuck like that, there were times that I would land on a platform and go through it. It seems more of a glitch than a programming error, because other than my head going through the platforms, falling through them doesn't always happen.

Otherwise, it was actually an admirable attempt to bring us a sidescrolling Doom game. :)

knarrenheinz responds:

Hi mate,

thanks for the constructive criticism. I experienced some of the "falling-through-issues" only when the game lags. To avoid this you could try and close any other browserwindow that is open.

I'm trying to upgrade the game in the upcoming weeks...

Thanks folks for the feedback so far, it helps to make the game better.

[Drop Dead: Final Cut]

Awesome game, man!

I had hours of fun playing levels and making my own. Even though this is once again another iteration of #1, there is still going to be a part 2, right? (If so I am looking very much forward to it :P)

ttursas responds:

Yep, we've been working on Drop Dead 2 for over a month now. But at the moment it's on hold, for the rest of this week. I just got an overdose of Drop Dead. :) If everything goes well, Drop Dead 2 is out at the end of January.

[PandaPUNCH!]

Bad game

This overall was just a bad game. It's programming is very poor, there were numerous glitches and the animations are stiff and lifeless. There was really no goal, and I know you said that it was meant to be a quick timewaster, but there still should've been a bit more too it than what was there as there was no challenge or anything of the like. You have talent, I've seen some of your other work, but this game isn't very good at all.

biskits responds:

Everything sucks.

[Ghostscape]

Very well done

Great job! Good atmosphere and interesting use of the premise. Great graphics too. Oh, and the thing that ctwnoutlaw mentioned is actually 'Exmortis,' and its an old point and click horror game like this here on NG. If you play it you'll see why he made the comparison.

Psionic3D responds:

OK, I will have a search around and play it if I get time...I VERY rarely play games, too busy making em lol ;-)

[Simple Snake v2.0]

Well... it is definitely a snake game.

Not really much to say beyond that. The name really describes the flash enough as it is. I would've liked to see some backgrounds or animation beyond boxes, but its not imperative for a snake game. I ran into one bug where my snake died while being 3 squares away from the wall or its tail. I've only encountered this glitch once, so I'm not going to really say too much bad about it.

If you like Snake games, this is snake in its purest form and therefore, fun but nothing innovative or much beyond a fun time waster.

MrBobo64 responds:

Yes, thank you.