KublaiKhann's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Sunless Land]

I really like this game, the simplistic artstyle works well, all of the enemies are incredibly interesting and stand out from each other with unique characteristics, and the combat, all though simple and limiting, works well enough to be passable. Sound effects are also alright.

First thing I want to say is that I felt the healing system was punishing. The amount of effort it takes to fill up the entire bar does not feel properly rewarded in the amount of health you get from it. The difficulty of the game isn't completely impossible, I died quite a few times but eventually made to the end, where I had a pretty thrilling boss fight with little health left. So I guess the higher difficulty was rewarding as a whole in the end, but in the early and middle of the game it can be a little frustrating and stagnating when you can barely recover any health when you get hit.

While the enemies are all fantastic, I feel like they could have been spaced out and more slowly introduced instead of throwing them all out at once. The problem with throwing the entire cast of enemies at the player in the first 2 or so rooms is that the novelty of them quickly where's off. You waste the opportunity to surprise the player later on with a new enemy, and keep them hooked by rewarding them by pushing further in. I know that it's a roguelike so it's harder to implement something like that, but there are probably still ways to delay certain rooms from popping up until later.

One thing I noticed is that whenever you died pressing esc just pushed me out of full screen and didn't actually return me to the main menu, so I instead had to just reload the page every time I died.

There was one room where I had to restart because I saw some of the eye tentacle enemies stuck in the wall. In that same room there was a jump that was impossible to make, basically you start at the lowest level and then need to jump further up to defeat the other enemies, but the two platforms going up to the second level had a floor on top of them, so when you jumped you would bump your head and be shot back down to the first level. Other than that level I didn't have any other level based technical problems.

I really respect what you've tried to do here, and I think it's a great shot to start with. Fantastic job with it!

Legostyle03 responds:

Thank you so much for the feedback! Pressing r when you die will open a menu that will let you return to the main menu. I know r is a weird button for it, but esc would go out of fullscreen when used, so i mapped it to a different button despite it being unintuitive. The itch.io version uses esc to open the menu though, so you can play that version if you prefer that.

I will look into the issue with the room you are talking about. Was this an issue of rooms spawning inside each other? Or a singular room with a problem?

Is this the room in question? https://imgur.com/a/93XW4YI

[Dwarvania]

I swear, the first two minutes of this game I was compelled to give it five stars, the art is amazing, the movement feels good, and the world building is top-notch! All of the art and animations look so insanely good, it's amazing.

But once the real game with freeing the slaves begins it all falls apart, it all just becomes so frustrating! First off, the first obstacle on the respawn point is just absurd, you need to go through a slippery ladder to try and get past a huge guard that for the most part just sits on the exact location you need to get past. The solution is obviously to use the hidden box, but even that is a little unresponsive and has a bit of a delay before it activates. But even through this the incredible art and world building continues, every life lost is a stamp of failure burned on your back which you clearly get to see progress, and eventually means execution, it fits PERFECTLY with the story and setting.

This game could have been so incredible with the story, art, and world building, but the gameplay really is just frustrating and poorly put together.

xinelu responds:

This game suffered a lot with the lack of my programming skills haha but I'm glad u like the rest of it. Back when I did this game I really put heart and soul on the art :)

Thank so much for this huge review, I'm glad u took some time to write it, with this I can improve the future projects!

[Mina Miner: Dig Deep!]

I very much liked this game! It's unique, has very nice effects, art, animation, and sound, and it's obvious a lot of great effort was put into it. However, it may be just me, but I felt that this was very challenging and everything was introduced too fast. I understand that difficulty can be a very good thing, but as a completely new player to this sort of genre I was struggling all throughout with very little to try and slowly introduce difficulty and new concepts.

By the second level I was constantly being thrown blinds, erratic drills, and earthquakes, all while I was still learning how to even play the game and trying to comprehend how all of the positive and negative effects boxes work. Some of the level design for the earlier levels could have been a little more merciful if you asked me, on the second level I failed twice when there was only the bottom left purple ore left, which was very frustrating for me. Levels don't move quickly either, they tend to take a little while for the unskilled player

The reason I was failing so hard was unquestionably my skill level, but I felt as if the difficulty curve was very high starting from the second level. Again, this is because I'm terrible at the game, but it should be assumed that most newcomers will be terrible when they first start. I'm not saying water down the entire experience to appeal to a more casual audience, I just feel like the harder levels should be saved for later, and much easier levels introduced at the start to smoothly push the player into skillful play. More experienced players would theoretically be able to breeze through those early levels and get to the more difficult stuff, while newer players would be presented with something equal to their skill level at the start.

Maybe I'm in the minority on the difficulty, and that's perfectly possible and valid, I'm just speaking from my personal experience.

I'm certain this game is probably a blast with some more practice and experience, but in my opinion there could have been a little bit more room at the start to foster that skill, instead of having beginners bash their heads at some really hard levels to start, because I don't find that to be all that fun.

From the other reviews I read I'm probably in the minority about the difficulty like I said before, but overall it seems like there's sooo much content for such a little game. 10 levels which seem to be on the longer side, multiplayer, AND a frickin level creator, all available here on Newgrounds for free. Amazing effort and incredible work, you guys deserve plenty of praise, great job!!!

larrynachos responds:

I think levels 2 and 3 should probably be switched around, because there are 2 hazards in level 2 and only 1 in level 3. The drill is somewhat difficult to control with the paddle, and the hazards are pretty unforgiving, and that's my fault. But without that difficulty, I don't think anyone would be interested in playing. I'm pushing an update today that will hopefully fix some of these problems.

I'm glad that you enjoyed it! Thanks for leaving such a detailed review :)

[[BTNverse] There is nothing here.]

Absolutely fantastic twist of the basic mechanics half way through, and it's satisfying from start to finish making progress in every way imaginable, all with a suitable and interesting core narrative. Incredible job!

adriendittrick responds:

Thanks for reaching the end :) if you're interested I've got 2 more games in the same series:
- There was something here
- Prep School horrors

more will be coming!