Ferstofus's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Homecoming]

Really liked the shapes with a lot of smoothness and straightness and the limited choice of color, both of which I think work together for a simple aesthetic that's pleasing to my eyes by demanding less focus on detail (exception being the intricate pattern on the text box but I think it's fine since it's on a separated area, close to the text. I'd still say it has a different visual appeal but I'm thinking on the whole here).

I also really appreciated the symbolism constructed from many uses of visual effects and a number of sound effects (e.g. the heartbeat or the moment of rage during the reunion with the mother, or the series of camera flashes also on the reunion), that was a nice device of communicating/expressing many different things on different parts (emotions, ideas, events...). There were also sfx with less symbolism and merely realism, like the bell ring at the store or the car drift when the deer appears, they were nice and all but just trying to make clear what are the ones I'm talking about here.

The "photography" was also very nice (as in the angles you portrayed the images, lol), I thought they were in general clear and representative/meaningful, many of them could have worked well if this was a comic, IMO. The smooth and varied/deliberate image transitions also complemented this and in a way befitting of your chosen media.

I also liked how the color limitation, the very subtle image filter and the music often worked together, I'd say. On the first and last parts of the visual novel the slower rhythm and "isolated" notes (as I'd describe it) + the color and filter evoked in me feelings of sadness; the filter + the faster paced song on the scene preceding the reunion evoked something of turmoil/unease/anxiety; and the stretched out notes + filter + color evoked something of relief and sadness on the hotel scene. Speaking of the music, it also evoked in me the notion of something delicate (like feelings, which matter a lot in this story, let's just say) in the title screen in conjunction with the pattern.

I think the introspective 1st person narration was a good fit for this story, including the narrator's personal views and value judgements. Speaking of writing, the different small sounds for when either Clara or her mother was talking was a nice touch.

And finally, let me say why I'm not voting 5/5. On the funeral scene, after the baby starts crying, Clara smiles to herself; considering the funeral context, the whole mood stablished by the song and story so far and everything, it felt really out of place to me, as if she was enjoying the couple's misfortune sadistically for no clear reason (or at least that's what I thought at first); my guess is that it was intended as some brief comic relief, if that's the case any additional clues to stablish contrast or something would've helped IMO, a brief stop in the music as the baby cried louder and then a quick chuckle animation played out, some short remark in addition to "I smiled to myself" in the narration, just anything to prevent a misinterpretation.

A somewhat similar thing happened when Clara smiles during the otherwise heartbreaking phone call when her mother says "Okay then. It'll be nice to see you."; it was kinda subtle and I could understand if that's just showcasing the joy of her mother saying those words, so it didn't bother me as much, but I might as well mention it also as feeling out of place (maybe I'd suggest have it as a quick smiling animation before returning to the frown, idk).

One last thing, I felt like the ending was cut too short, either there could've been some more tension build up before Clara gets to the stand, or maybe the way her relatives react to her speech could've been shown (even if they wouldn't react much, like her brother on a previous scene), or maybe the story could've ended with Clara's lament and reminiscence of her father on the hotel room...it's almost as if it ended on a cliffhanger (specially when her father used to give out good speeches) since so much of the story's conflict lies on the way Clara and her close ones relate and treat each other and we are left without knowing how'd that go after the speech. Would they approve her speech despite everything else? Would their attitudes to Clara's life choices tarnish their views on her contribution? Etc. Think you could either give us that or build up some tension a bit before if her presence there was the thing in itself you wanted us to focus on.

That was basically why the 4.5/5 (I mean, still great, right?), now I just want to mention some things extra. Think you could've made either the visuals have more details or the text box pattern have less and much of what I said would still be achieved (if adding more details maybe a more descriptive writing would also be a good fit, think it'd be possible without sacrificing the introspection). Don't think any of these would've been better or worse than how you made it or than each other, but I just wanted to share these ideas for...options for next time? Reflections on the work process? I don't know, hope it's useful, lol.

Well anyway, thank you for making this and may good tides come about in your life story and this review got so long @_@

Bleak-Creep responds:

Oh wow, this was really in depth. A lot of this is pretty fair. I do agree the buildup to the ending could have been fleshed out a bit more. It’s by far the shortest of the sections which I think is why a lot of folks find it too abrupt.

On the baby thing, it was intended to be this lighter moment on hope for those future generations. A lot of what parenting is is built around stumbling in the dark, trying to figure out why your child is upset, but as long as a parent continues to try and continues to listen, they’ll eventually bridge the gap.

Also, on the intricate designs, I’m a real sucker for that sort of thing, and I liked the way it tied into the harpsichord sounds. Feels elegant and fragile.

Thanks for playing, and all the details in your review too! :)

[Tracie's Pursuit]

Pretty cute and simple aesthetics, pretty reminiscent of old flash games, so I call that a plus for the nostalgia (I surmise that's intentional because of the jam, if somehow not, the perfect color gradients, solid colors and use of perfectly straight lines in contrast randomly with very curvy ones on drawings lack harmony and cohesion IMO; but that's exactly the kind of construction that reminds me of old flash games, so I'm calling it a positive here).

Would have appreciated some animation to transition between places, maybe just Tracie walking, anything to smooth a bit the experience, let's say.

Little details like the idle animations and the effects for when you get an item give the game charm, IMO.

I feel like the idea was for this game to be short and simple, but I can't help but to think about stuff like the girl in the library or Tracie's reactions to things, both of which I thought would have some impact on the ending/game (at least I couldn't notice anything special while paying attention to them on multiple playthroughs); although I suppose maybe it's an intentional subversion, considering how the ending goes, in contrast to what the game suggests will happen...

I'd say maybe the girl was missed potential for, say, more endings while the reactions...if I'm correct on this subversion idea, I'd suggest some added dramatic effect on the ending, maybe a sound or cutscene, anything just to strengthen it and make it look like the reactions tip was "useless" on purpose (again, if I got things right about all this).

And yeah, all in all a fun game. You only had two weeks but I'd say you had many goods ideas for it. Thank you for making this!

Loopykins responds:

I appreciate your review, thank you for pointing out the positives and negatives :)
I had bigger plans for the game, but doing everything myself meant i spent time on , say, making the music instead of the endings. Or fixing up little coding bugs so that it was playable in general.

Im delighted that some liked it and some didnt and I really appreciate when both aspects are pointed out so I know what i did right and what i did wrong and can improve on in the future! Thank you!

[Los Tostadores]

Very cute game!

I think the amount of colors and of details in the shapes, plus limited use of lines and lights/shadow work together for a cohesive and simple aesthetic (which I could guess that was your vision, if that's the case, bonus points).

I'm impressed by the smoothness of animations and camera movements, made for a very pleasant visual experience to me.

I also liked the soft/relaxed mood of the song yet aluding to the western/cowboy theme through the instruments and melody, I believe.

The cereal boxes buildings were also a cute idea, heh.

I thought it was fun to shoot the enemies in slow motion as if conveying the toast shoots with the speed of a gunslinger (I've seen that in other games before but the implementation here was well done and fits well with the game IMO without being cliché or anything).

My beef with this game is that I felt a number of shapes lacked smoothness, specially at the beginning and end cutscenes, which felt purposeless, uncohesive (including with simplicity) and a bit unpleasant to look at, for me.

The stages could have a bit more of variety also IMO, in background, colors, theme, etc, the train one was a good exception.

And I could have appreciated some lore into the bandits, one small cutscene or clue in the stage would be enough, anything to explain why they caged the dude's sweets (I surmise that's the link between them and the initial cutscene?). I guess there was a bunch of pro-cereal propaganda in the buildings, which could mean that was their motivation; when I first played I thought the bandits probably were occupating the place illegally rather than own it so maybe the problem was on my end, but I hope all of this is still helpful feedback, anyway.

By the way, good choice on the words' font, aluding to western movies posters(?) but "Los Tostadores *here* to save..." instead of "are here" felt like a needless typo rather than some casual/relaxed use of language (unlike "went zzz" at one of the ending cutscenes).

Also, small stuff, I believe some small elegant details could add a bit of clarity while maintaining the simple aesthetic (e.g. on the bed on one of the endings, is the white a pillow?).

Well in any case, nice job! It was a really fun game, looked like a lot of care was put into it and I saw it in the things I praised. If you guys enjoyed making it, make more! Thank you for your work!

[Windowz XP 2012 Professional]

Nostalgia machine, hooray! Loved the tones of speech in the readme and the swf files, just perfect for that time/vibe. The sites too, all the references, awesome.

I feel like more of all of it would be nice to add even more immersion, even though what there is is already awesome on many fronts, don't get me wrong, but more content was needed to tip over the edge to me, let's say.

The responsiveness and design of the buttons and windows felt simple and perfect IMO, as it should to mimic Windows and the jokes were funny.

I also specially liked the mistakes and imperfections and overall roughness of the animations, I can almost see what the animator did when making those, lol.

And I guess I'd have the player be able to, say, delete, create and edit files and all that jazz if I was seeing this as 5/5, even if that wouldn't contribute to the jokes too much, but just for the immersion, again. Anything to make you believe you're in Windows XP and not in a parody of it (except when you enjoy the jokes).

But still, overall solid parody and throwback, loved it!

Kolumbo responds:

thank you so much!!

as far as this goes, i am working on an update - as a thank you to everyone for the support - that will introduce more windows stuff. as you can tell, the version here is focused on showcasing the old flash content, and the rest was just me going all out in what little time i had because i really really do love windows xp and was high on nostalgia the entire time i was making it.

other than that, i got some things you might find interesting cooking - keep an eye out

[Dino Time]

This is fun. The speed with which the level goes up I think is just fast enough to keep me on the edge while allowing me mistakes and time to think.

I felt that the dino accelerates really fast in the air and deacceleration goes slower making it hard to control, but I think there's some fun in that (also I believe bumping into walls cuts your max speed or something but still).

Would give me an easier time if I had more control but I dunno if the way it is actually fits a bit better with PukeBomb's style; speaking of which, I'd love if some ice creams randomly popped messages like "virus installed", "that was dumb" or "you're ugly" out of nowhere just to f*ck with the player.

Also again on gameplay, the wait-jump mechanic felt nice and rewarding for not losing my cool to manage to get out of a platform at the last second without jumping too low, but man, does it suck when I jump so high that the platform I wanted to land on slides under the screen (although if that's intentional, again, maybe it fits well with PukeBomb).

Other than that I'd probably suggest stuff to add some variety to the experience, maybe like a jump scare or two somewhere, or the music cuts to a tenor singing something super loud and eloquent, something random just to shake things a bit but still leaving the gameplay repetitive just to rub salt on the wound with the "you're a loser i cant believe you've been playing this long" achievement.

And I've found some bugs: if I die and go back to the main menu, trying to mute or change the music/sfx volume does nothing; also, on the first time I got to 500pts, the dinoholic achievement bugged and the pop-up on the bottom right kept popping in and out constantly and in the end I died and it just didn't count (refreshing the page and trying a second time was ok though); and not sure if that's a bug but pressing esc after game over just leaves me stuck on the screen.

Also, on the visuals, you can't go wrong with PukeBomb's art style, hehe.

So yeah, cool stuff, great job!

thiccastley responds:

Thanks for your review!

We're aware of the audio settings bug and are working on a fix
When putting out the game we decided to implement Newgrounds API stuff pretty last minute, and so things with that being broken will be fixed with time!

Thanks for playing our game, and we hope to see you try out our future updates!

[Drone Head]

Extremely captivating, the art and music is very good. I felt the gameplay could be a bit faster, perhaps it's the matter of a difficulty setting? Or maybe my pc is slow. Well, anyway, the experience is simple and enjoyable.

[Mina Miner: Dig Deep!]

Well, that was nice. Mina is cute, and the game was relatively well designed. Although I'll admit I got softlocked a few times, even with the earthquake mechanic: the drill kept bouncing between two walls/blocks indefinitely. Fix that if you can, will you? Thank you for making this.

larrynachos responds:

Could you provide some more details about the softlock? I've been tweaking and changing in an effort to prevent that, the drill is 75% its original size and has gravity to naturally pull it downwards in the event of a loop. Do you remember what block in which level?

Thanks for the review!

[Quantum Split]

Kinda cool. This type of puzzle game can really turn into something when you have the time to make a lot of levels, I realize you only had 72 hours. If you have a lot of ideas for more complex stages I think a longer version of this game would be pretty neat.

Maybe also work on the story if you want, that ending felt kinda sudden and underwhelming.

Also, not sure about the speed of the character. Felt pretty fast and hard to control for a game more about the puzzles than the platforming. But I could be wrong, didn't prevent me from beating the game at any rate.

Anyway, good job!

RedCocoa responds:

Thanks for the feedback!
Yeah, I had more content planned. In fact, I'm working on an expanded version (that features a story with an ending I didn't have to come up with 20 minutes before the game jam deadline lol) on and off right now. Can't say if/when it comes out but it's in the works.
Also yeah, the character feels too fast. Won't change it in this version but the full version is slower paced and focused more on puzzles.

[Yin and Yang]

The messages between stages were cool. Very fitting for the theme of the game. Not sure the music helped with the mood though. I was expecting something more relaxing, rather than gamey. High quality product though, nonetheless.

[bubbles v2]

Fun

Yeah, not a big deal, just a small addicting game. The same music and sounds make it quite boring. And I found myself exploding the same bubble more than one time. Don't let things like this to happen in future games, ok? It had a nice background, though. Ah well, it's your first submission...