Lintire's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[D-Pression]

Took me bloody ages to figure out that fucking square room, tell you what.

It was a clever mechanic, using friction, but honestly since absolutely everything you're taught up until then tells you that the two balls will always travel at the same speed, it was a little confusing. I'd recommend at least a hint in that level.

"Sometimes letting go can get you farther than holding on"

Though that might be too obtuse.

All the same, nice little game and a nice contribution to the Jam, dude. My score might be inflated, but who's going to argue reviewing harshly here of all places?

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

"...everything you're taught up until then tells you that the two balls will always travel at the same speed, it was a little confusing. I'd recommend at least a hint in that level."

=> Know what? You're probably right. I will make a semi-large update this game sometime during the summer, and I will to begin with, add more levels, to more slowly introduce the player to physics. But also, I will try to come up with some kind of a hint.

Good job on beating the game though ;)

"All the same, nice little game and a nice contribution to the Jam, dude. My score might be inflated, but who's going to argue reviewing harshly here of all places?"

=> Thanks, Lintire! You're right; I've been very easy on many of the contributions too, and I think they deserve that. This year was full of amazing games :p I can barely wait for the coming jams!

[Zelda the Welder]

Playing this with a shitty mouse that glitched right the fuck out every two and a half seconds left me with a raging ego-boner by the time I beat this motherfucker.

Uh, hopefully someone will have already said this, but the saw is the third weapon down and you need to click on the grey area under the lit bulb to begin the first segment. This game will probably be buttfucked into oblivion because that ain't nearly clear enough, and that's a shame.

Anyway, the game was funny and quick, and that's the best kind of flash game. A few graphical glitches, but nothing but minor stuff. Great work, guys.

MonoFlauta responds:

Hi! First of all let me say "DAT MOUSE" lol

We added some arrows to make it more obvious, hope that makes it clear enough now :)

Thanks for the review and glad you liked the game!

[Story of the Blanks]

missed your beats

My Little Pony happens to be one of the oddest trends today on the Internet, but something like that isn't going to stop me from reviewing this fairly. Besides, I do think it kind of cute.

It's a nice throwback to the old NES era, with everything from the checkerboard aesthetics to the lack of animation holding it together. As a fan-made piece, it isn't too bad either.

However, it is nowhere near "creepypasta" status, and it really lacks on the gameplay side, too. It basically consists of minor dialogue, a fetch quest, and a short "good" gameplay piece where you're figuring out the patterns to dodge the revivified ponies.

I'm really only talking about the beginning segment, too. The further dodging kind of sucked.

Now, while the throwback is all good in the aesthetics and audio department, the actual difficulty of the gameplay is lacking. The old NES games had serious game in them, and this, well, it plays on like a fan-piece.

It has potential, but missed potential at that.

You do realise that you could have made a full game out of this? We're talking puzzles, actual chase sequences, and a good load of fun escaping from the pony town. It is a real shame that you decided to keep it to a bare minimum.

It certainly isn't bad, not at all, you just could have done a whole lot more with it. I would have liked to have seen a lot more from it; a true tribute to the NES saga. Perhaps next time, ey?

And just because I can, I may as well address Mr. Ivan, although I know he'll never look at this; to say that you're generalizing is an understatement. Every "fandom" has its absolute freaks, but it also tend to have tonnes of actual, genuine, decent fans.

You may as well say that every COD player is a 12 year old, or that every black person is a bike-stealing nob. But you don't, because its a fucking lie. Saying that every MLP fan is a freak is lying. There you go.

Eh, peace out.

[Crossroads:2D]

Bit of Column A... Bit of Column B....

It's not a bad game, not by any means, but there's just too many aspects of the game that's wrong for it to be enjoyable.

What this game is, really, is just a glorified fetch quest right throughout, where player involvement actually only chimes in at the last second, anyhow. This means that for getting each ending, you have to walk through the exact same sequence of events, time and time again.

Now, I'm a fan of retro graphics as much as the next guy, but making the player walk through the exact same environment at minimal speed 4 times in a row is nothing short of absolute torture.

Not to mention that when it comes down to it, there's no real gameplay, either. You seem to have left the "game" part out of this flash for the most part; you walk (really slowly), you talk (really shallowly), rinse and repeat.

However, there's quite a few aspects of the Flash that make up for that;

- It's a trip down Nostalgia lane
- Cliches in these kinds of games do mean that inane tasks are at least somewhat amusing
- The music loop, while annoying after the third runthrough, is actually quite good.

I'd advise, if you ever did return to doing a game like this, to:

- Speed up the player character
- Vary the environments a bit more
- Add more dialogue
- Add more incentive and choice into the different endings

Otherwise, you didn't do a bad job at all. You just didn't do a particularly good one. All the same, solid work, and congratulations on making such a popular game.

kcnh responds:

Thank you for your review.

[Me and My Dinosaur]

Brilliant and hilarious

Yeah, yeah, yeah, emotionally moving and whatever.

A lot of people are naming the dinosaur "Penisaur" or whatever. By the same lines, just bear with me here, name the "my dick" and see the hilarious results. Just TRY to keep a straight face XD

[CatGame]

Enough room to swing a dead cat.

Somehow the idea of using an enemies dead to beat an enemy to death is just appealing to me, don't know why.

Anyway, loved the game, a brilliant job all around. Everything from the subtle humour to the classic tower defense style (with the tower, in this case, being yours truly) really blended to make an overall great game. Even the squeaky cat main menu music went into making this game a memorable nostalgic trip to laughter,

You've put a lot of thought into this, that much is clear. The subtle tactical decisions such as when and where to use the "cat ammo" and what kind of cat foods to use (the crowd clearing exploding ammo a great one), even to that the lowered range of the slingshot at peripheral angles meaning that it's easier to kill the cats as they approach rather then waiting for them to cluster up near your barricade, all fun attributes that I had fun micromanaging mid-game.

It really is a shame that the simple fact that people didn't figure out that you didn't have to manually drag the power line back (which would have been a severe hindrance to gameplay anyway) really lowered this game's score - and that would have been enough to do it. You might want to alter the tutorial to say that so people don't get stuck into that ignorant trap again and take out their aggressions by 0-bombing you.

Glad to see that Tom loved you enough to sponsor this game, was worth the wait, and overall great work, you two, it really was fun to play this. Even

[Madness Day Art Collab 10]

Snoogans :3

Awesome selection of pictures, guys, you've really done the art forum proud - and I had particular fun just flicking through them. Checking back on last years, you guys have improved fuckloads, and really was a total pleasure to see you guys put this together.

A shame I couldn't pull my act together in time to submit a picture or two of my own, but the world has it's plans to screw you up one way or another, so it's still pretty damn rad to see this, done. Not to mention that each and every picture suited the music perfectly.

Great work, a total 10 and 5, and a fav to boot.

ScelesticFish responds:

Thanks a lot! Yaay fav! :D Yeah I think it was at least 6 times better then last years in all ways :)

[Wayfinder: Episode One]

Mass Effect with a Personal Touch

First and foremost, love the art. Then again, you're a great artist - it's to be expected. You've designed each and every aspect of this game with brilliant style, original views and never-ceasing commitment (except that one enemy, last frog-dude, who looks like he was half-arsedly sketched, but who cares about that guy). The music was great, voice-acting top-notch (despite the phoned-in sounds) and the universe screamed of a gritty Mass-Effect (closest I can get to). It's an overall great game, but, of course, it does have a dope-load of flaws. For a first game, not nearly enough, but still - alot of them, enough to sell on Ebay.

The most pressing, annoying aspect of this game was the GUI. The thing which you stare at for 99% of the game, has to be the worst part of it. Graphics wise, it's a complete eyesore, subtracting greatly from the otherwise brilliant art and putting a nice big splotch on that game's record. You'll need to learn how to go ahead and create a proper GUI, graphics and placement wise - it wasn't only horrendous, it was way too big, too plain, and the lines used too damn big. I'll give this tutorial - it's a head start, not much and actually created with web design in mind, but it has the basics for producing a "pretty" GUI.
http://animation.about.com/od/flashan imationtutorials/ss/flashlesson22.htm

While we're on the subject of graphics, the second most horrible artistic decision in this game - the artifacting. Given that Jpegs are usually the cause of this, I'm going to give you this hint - use pngs. Disfargeg file size, because half the time I felt like yelling at the screen "What the hell is wrong with you? Never, ever, ever use Jpegs for professional quality, ever!" The risk of artifacting (that is, the file type screwing with the colours, mostly around the lines, and it's not pretty, it's not artistic, it's horrible quality and simply isn't cool. So use pngs (Gifs work too, long as you don't attempt to resize them outside of Photoshop or the like) because that just wasn't cool.

On a side note, just starting up the game again (I already played through it once) all the characters disappear on a second run-through after beating the game. Little bug/glitch, you might want to consider finding out the cause for, but not exactly pressing -game has fairly low replay value unless you're just going through for the pretty art (eh, heheh, yeah...).

Now, the universe is great. I'm seeing hints of galaxy-wide corruption, gritty tales of woe and a multitude of racism and cultural issues, all in a sci-fi tale full of toys and wonder for the geeks around here. There's no real problem here, but you might want to consider placing objects, things that have no real use in the game itself, that speak of the characters and people in this game having lives outside of the narrative while giving information on the universe that you have created. Comic books, newspapers, television broadcasts and advertising, all tidbits of the world.

On the above subject, the animation in this game needs work. Everything from movie clips (the best animation in the game was the smoke trail that the Riptide left docking the planet - yeah, not cool) to battles, all were lacking that component of flash animations and games. Seeing as you're new to this, and this is - I couldn't really be more surprised - your first game, but not your first flash, you're going to have to work on this. You may want to consider sacrificing quality for the animations, sorry. The few animations you did having stood out liek a sore thumb - as with most of the stuff that you did in flash itself.

Also, easy-peasy grinding to the point that I managed to one-shot the boss. Yeah... Took about half an hour.

Anyway, none of the above is a deal breaker. Just pointing out some issues that need addressing, and I really love this game to the point where it's all vote 5 and favourite from here. You're a great artist, author too, the plot is great and frankly I want to see more. Got some real material here, and I can't wait for Episode 2.

[NGBBS MidYear Awards 2010]

Lulz, laffs, and laughter.

I love you guys.

I agree with the entirety of this flash's results, so I guess that makes me an utter totalitarian. Still, had to laugh and can't wait for hilarity to ensue something in the near future - let's say, next year's mid-year awards? It's a date.
Commenting on the flash itself, though, I can certainly appreciate how hard you tried to make it seamless with the Newgrounds them (that is, the orange and gray of varying shades) - and for the most part, you definitely succeeded. The focal points were certainly reminiscent of Newground's portal, but some extra touches would have been much noted - for example, adding in Newground's relatively new grunge and line theme into the background. Just a suggestion, don't see anything like happening anytime soon, but it helps to state.

It's a shame that this flash received such a low score - one where my own voting power actually counts for something. But to be fair, the majority of it is inside jokes with the BBS - ones I'm certainly glad to have actually have gotten. This flash has reinvigorated my faith in that one day I'll become some sort of hideous creature that resembles my status as not being a noob. Thanks for that =D. But either way, I suppose I'll congratulate the winners while I'm here, reviewing a flash for no other reason then that I feel like it.
Also, congratulations on you for manually updating the profiles themselves - just as an idea, why not leave them as they are, to sort of "mark" what stage of their lives the members were at, at the time of printing (because "at the time of flashing" has ominous associations).

I've heard of most of the users on this flash, at least in passing, and it's kind of funny how most of the votes won by a landslide - it appears that while you can't separate the internet into various cliches manually, you can set apart some cliches and let individual users fill the spots themselves. Nice ideologies, great concepts, and I learned a little more about human nature.So another good thing about this flash, somewhat, you can easily interpret it to find out multiple levels of meaning and derisive concepts - yet another reason to give this simple flash a great big sloppy 10.

So ending off, liked the flash itself, loved the lulz, and looking forward to seeing anything else.
I usually have trouble keeping my reviews under the character limit, but let's face it - 200kb doesn't leave much to praise about.

[Sonny]

You've got my attention.

Let me lay this out right now: This is possibly the best game I have ever played. Sincerely. The combat system is a masterpiece - balancing damage, suppression and healing in a fast-paced turn-based combat system - not to mention done in a incredibly simple but challenging design layout. This paces the game out, tactics-wise, while plenty of satisfying sound effects make up the brunt of combat mentality.
The rest screens inbetween battles are just that - perfectly restful. Zen music, although it does tend to get on your nerves when frustrated in a battle (or should I say last two battles?) is calming when satisfying fights have played out well - as in, in your favour. On good breaks I could probably fool myself into thinking I could listen to that tune and stare out at that scenic view (mostly just the second screen) all day, while regrettably when I did get frustrated it was a case of GTFO.
That is, however, one bad point about this game. I got frustrated. And frustration is a fail. I suggest (if you ever read this) in trying to streamline your future RPGs into a game where grinding in the training battles is a option, a recommendation even, but definitely, definitely not a must. Despite my best combos and plans, my ass was still pummeled by the good ol' Baron, and then the Paladin. Although I would have been willing to turn it into a grindfest, despite my short-attention span, it simply wasn't possible with the unscaled training fights (I'm not sitting there for half an hour trying to level to level 15, thank you very much).
I suppose most people here blamed the frustration on the AI - which I personally, didn't have a single problem with. Even Blind man Louis addressed this right at the beginning - your best weapon is your brain. Everyone else is going to make stupid mistakes where you succeed. Take advantage of this. Use it. Crush your opponents in a never-ending flow of their own blood. Something like that =D.
One of the best things about this game, to be honest, is the fact that it sounds like a British game - and that's pretty much a first. Hearing Sonny call the ZPCI unit a twat actually made me giggle, although I felt like a complete fag afterwards. Still, British soul-crushing sentient, and benevolent zombies are a new one, so I suppose I can excuse myself. After a hearty cup of tea and a warm beer.
The graphics, I admit, look as if while love has been put into it, it's mostly a case of shoving as much love into it then moving on. That is to say, while the game is aesthetic and the fact that you managed to get this much done in two months awesome, I simply felt as if I couldn't see enough of them - and that the final screen did look kind of half-arsed. Still, it's an incredibly consistent layout, and I'm sure your skill and style improved tenfold throughout it's making. A noble effort, good sir. =3
Finally, the cutscene...s. I'm liking the method that you executed this storytelling, frame shot after frame shot. However, it is kinda... I mean incredibly... small, and while I'm sure it saved plenty of time it definitly didn't execute the beginning with as much power as it could of. Sonny, dead and gone, right in front of your eyes, would have been quite an epic sight. I'm also going to state that the first conversation between Louis and Sonny did sort of stand out to me, as a critic, with it's flicking back and forth from one frame to the other. The mentioning of the pipe, specifically pointing it out like there isn't a damn shop (probably all omnipotently run by the same guy) did sort of come off as a bit desperate and needy. Maybe just to me. Otherwise, loved the storytelling. Again, unique. And pleasantly (not to mention surprisingly) doesn't eat up file size.
I'm now running out of remaining characters (about 300 left) so I'm going to end this off now.
My one regret is that you're gunning for ArmourGames instead of Newgrounds. Shame.
Lint out.
You've got a critic as a fan =D