KoniWorx's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Until There Was Nothing]

Ay boyo, toodee n topdee lookin' different!

Really funny idea. I love the storytelling in this. Great work. Glad to see you posting LD jams. The only thing I think you could have gone without is backtracking. There's not much of a reason for going backwards.

[Blue Square and the Mystery Cave]

I think the level design is really strange because you can't see what you're doing. When I first started the game I had no idea what was going on.

It's a decent jam, but I get a feeling you had to rush the level design quite a bit at the end.

raulmorenotamayo responds:

Thank you for the feedback!

The idea was to have a limited field of view so you have to rely on the ball to get that extra little bit of information. But I agree, it could have been better executed.

[Deepest Sword]

Lmao I love that you made an entire game just to make this joke.

Very quirky. Easy to understand and to get into. Perfect length for a jam game as well. Great work!

The gameplay gets really frustrating on Length 4. I think the pivot and the fact that the player gets pushed by the swords momentum adds unnecessary complexity to the game. Which otherwise is quite simple and straight forward.

[Underneath]

Simple, to the point and easy to get into.

What really holds this game back is that there are no full-screen. Had this had full screen on web, it would have worked better because it would prevent the player from clicking outside of the window. It's either that or lock the mouse boundaries. I understand this isn't the case in a desktop version. Just a nitpick from my side.

The focus mode was a nice addition as well and really added some extra precision which I appreciate.

[Tooth Toss]

Interesting idea and polished game feel.

I find the concept itself to be interesting but in practice it wasn't too fun to play around with. It really halts the pace of the game and I think the mechanic would have worked better for a puzzle game rather than a platformer.

Maybe the pacing would have worked if the player also was attached to the sword somehow and had to fly along with the sword as you threw it or something. Having to walk and throw a heavy sword that stops you from moving felt unintuitive to me in a platforming setting.

Apart from that it's a well made project overall.

MadNukin responds:

In the beginning I though the same as you, but during development I played around with the sword and I quickly realized it was really fun to toss it around, try to catch it before it lands, preform any other acrobatics and of course fight enemies.
We only had 72 hours to complete it and I wasn't willing to force my vision onto it, but rather follow the fun for a more smooth experience.
But I completely understand your point, it's a point I've been thinking about for the past weeks and maybe you are completely right about it, but it is what it is!

[Sporelunk]

It's a fun little game with nice ideas through-out.

Great concept, good ambiance and intensity. I think the animations were really well made as well and I liked the solution you had to the arms grabbing the character. I had to go back and figure out how it was done and I realized you drew additional arms behind the original sprite. Very clever and effective!

Had this been made into a full game, it would have needed things to break up the gameplay. So that all you do, isn't just digging downwards (perhaps some side rooms for resting periods where you could talk to some characters, or buy things for example). That said though, it's a gamejam and that's a lot to ask from a jam game. So I'm not really letting that critique effect my judgement of the game. I just figured I'd say it for the sake of being constructive.

Great work!

[PICO NIGHT PUNKIN']

This was really well made and I honestly liked it more than the original.
Somehow this reads better and I feel like I can react in time. Not sure if the "levels/songs" are different in design or not but it certainly felt more playable to me.

Then again, I'm getting older so my reaction time is worsening so it's a personal reason. But still, I find myself enjoying this a whole lot more haha.

Great work!

[I want to be popular!]

I think the idea is very charming and has potential. It's just a shame you made it purely into an auto-clicker game. I would have loved seeing this go in a different direction. The clicking is an alright idea on it's own but you would need more side-content.

The VS thing was kinda that, but it needed something different than just hitting the same button. Like for instance, perhaps sometimes you're supposed to avoid replying on certain posts or else you lose more health? Because it's a troll comment or something and you're supposed to ignore trolls.

Stuff like that would have made this more interesting without over complicating the design too much.

One last thing, shouldn't cooldowns count downwards instead of up? I'm referring to the cat button. I think that'd make more sense.

[Neon Rhythm]

I think it's one of those games that could have used some more playtesting before being published. I find the logic of the game mechanics a bit scattered.

Some bullets hurt you no matter if you get hit by them or not, others don't. The swipe of your swing indicates that the hit box is bigger than it actually is. You don't really hurt the enemy, but their HP is a timer.

To me it feels like it would have made more sense deflecting bullets/damage towards the enemy, and the song loops for as long as both are alive. That way you wouldn't have to make different gameplay rules for different bullets.

But, all that aside, I think this game has a lot of promise to it. I love that it's so simple and the graphics and world feels really fun. I'd like to see this idea expanded upon and brought further. Especially now when you've got so many players and so much feedback. Clearly, this game is working out for you, so it might be worth pursuing.

[Fetch Quest]

I think this game had a great setup, and charm to it going into it. It looks great too. But once the "meat" of the game gets going it's mostly climbing the same tower.

This is where the game falls short I think. I would have loved more story segments like there was in the beginning. It was a nice feeling of discovery and story being told. But once you get to the tower, it's just the same thing for too long. The tower was fun for a while but once you sort of "get it", it gets a bit boring doing the same thing.

The gameplay and game-feel is pretty nice for being a smaller scale platformer. Interesting direction going with the back-and-forth wall jump. It made for good puzzle solving. I thought the ball+bark button combo to be a bit tricky to get used to. Perhaps it would have been better to keep the down button being drop/pickup rather than introducing another button (s)?

I found the ball-trench thing to be a bit frustrating. Not because it made me back-track. But because I was eager to see if there was more story to be found in the tower. Once I realized this game was going to be mostly platforming from this point forward, I did start feeling a bit disappointed.

It's a decent game though and I think you guys did a great job. Looks great, plays great. It just needed more variety.