The 2015 In Review Contest [Reviews: 74]

Make games! Discuss those games here.

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Feenicks
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Post by Feenicks »

Fridge Racer by Giz

The concept here is really simple; drive down a sinusoidal winter road and get to the finish line before time runs out. There's some really neat scripting here involving heavy slice abuse, something I can definitely get behind; it acts and looks like a simpler version of games like Outrun. I'm not 100% sure it controls the same as them, seeing as there's this funky steering system going on (basically, the longer you turn in one direction, the longer it takes to start going in the other direction), but it certainly works well enough. It took me a few tries to actually get to the end - I didn't get the rhythm down on my first play of the game, but on a second pass through I was victorious.

Then I discovered that there was a new version, which may or may not have introduced 3 extra levels.

Out of the four levels, I have to say my favorite was the third, for obvious reasons. The second was fun, what with all its hilliness, and I'm going to say here that I was probably the annoying kid saying you're going way too fast. The fourth... well, let's say I didn't bother going along with the joke after 5 seconds, since I looked at the high score menu first.

Few closing comments:
- The mirrored hair going on with the first car makes me think it's just one wide clownish kid? Was this your intention? On a similar note, the fridge also feels awfully short for where the kids are sitting in it.
- In the first version at least, you can have things mess up by completely ignoring the road and driving way over to the right.
- Man, the snow's really cool. Like, seriously, it's great.

Rankings:

1. The War on XMas
2. Fridge Racer
3. Phlan
4. Linear Quest II
Attachments
My eventual high scores.
My eventual high scores.
fridgeracerv12hard0000.png (5.25 KiB) Viewed 8401 times
If you go way off to the side, this happens.
If you go way off to the side, this happens.
fridgeracerv110001.png (5.03 KiB) Viewed 8402 times
Victory!
Victory!
fridgeracerv110002.png (4.67 KiB) Viewed 8402 times
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Post by SDHawk »

Pepsi Ranger: After watching it.. there's definitely a review worth of content in your Ghost's Towns video, but I'm disinclined to accept it as a review by itself since there's so much stuff sandwitched around it that it doesn't really function very well as a review. I've probably accepted numerous reviews with less substance so I feel weird about it. I will probably end up adding some kind of Let's Play side category where LP video series will be linked to, but not necessarily count towards the review total (possibly having a separate leaderboard for them).
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Post by Feenicks »

witch.rpg by myself

Can't really be bothered to properly structure this self-review/postmortem, so:
  • Favorite part of the game probably has to be the outfits; more specifically, that they pop up on the menu screen. Was going to have that happen for Wyrd as well, but due to time constraints and general exhaustion that got cut.
    Verdi and Wyrd are, in the words of Fenrir, "...the sassiest lesbian couple I have ever seen in a game", and as such I'm pretty happy about how their interactions ended up.
    I like how I had Norn's implied relationship with Verdi be... semi-antagonistic, but also friendly enough to justify the shopping trip the two of them have in Festivus; if that has a proper name, let me know.
    I do like the vague nonlinearity of the game; The mummy's intended as the first boss and the devil's intended as the second-to-last, but even those two aren't set in stone.
    The game's difficulty does go to nothing once you get Hi-Fire/Hi-Ice, though whatever boss you go through before that point is a bit rough. That wasn't really intentional on my part, honest.
    The costume shop's a bit pointless, seeing as you get all but one of the ones offered there from bosses; the item shop's a good bit more useful, and I'm glad I put a shopkeeper out by the reservoir/lake (since getting to the item shop in town before you have any Hi- spells is a pain).
    Going through the game a second time, I'm realizing I probably should have made the devil outfit raise attack a good bit more. Gungir's alright on its own, but being half as powerful against the final boss as Wyrd's main attack is awfully lame.
    On that note, I'm really glad I had annoying the final boss to the point that she just leaves as a totally viable option.
    In terms of outfits... the devil's suit on Verdi and the fancy dress on Wyrd is probably the best way to go; although you do get 'nothing' in the final dungeon, it's more of a joke than anything else doubly so because the censoring covers more up than the bikini does.
All in all... man, I'm pretty impressed with myself for getting this together in half a week, even if a few of the things I had planned (the events involving the vampires, for one) completely fell through.
Attachments
...although in retrospect I like the dumb replacements better than what I planned, hm
...although in retrospect I like the dumb replacements better than what I planned, hm
witch0011.png (20.03 KiB) Viewed 8337 times
If there was something more revealing, I probably couldn't put it on this site.
If there was something more revealing, I probably couldn't put it on this site.
witch0013.png (19.04 KiB) Viewed 8337 times
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

SDHawk wrote:Pepsi Ranger: After watching it.. there's definitely a review worth of content in your Ghost's Towns video, but I'm disinclined to accept it as a review by itself since there's so much stuff sandwitched around it that it doesn't really function very well as a review. I've probably accepted numerous reviews with less substance so I feel weird about it. I will probably end up adding some kind of Let's Play side category where LP video series will be linked to, but not necessarily count towards the review total (possibly having a separate leaderboard for them).
That's cool. I wasn't really planning to participate in the review contest this year, but I didn't necessarily want to deprive it, either, if these LP's were valid. But don't feel weird about it. You know the rules of your contest, and if this doesn't qualify, then it doesn't qualify. I really don't care about racking up points for this. You all probably know by now that my interest is in helping the author, and these LP's have already done that a long time ago, so this is just archival bonus.
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Gizmog
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Post by Gizmog »

I'm not feeling the review picker this year, so I'm going in bareback. If anyone really wanted a picker, I'll hook you up. Expect a review shortly.
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Post by Gizmog »

Pheonix wrote:Fridge Racer by Giz

The concept here is really simple; drive down a sinusoidal winter road and get to the finish line before time runs out. There's some really neat scripting here involving heavy slice abuse, something I can definitely get behind; it acts and looks like a simpler version of games like Outrun. I'm not 100% sure it controls the same as them, seeing as there's this funky steering system going on (basically, the longer you turn in one direction, the longer it takes to start going in the other direction), but it certainly works well enough. It took me a few tries to actually get to the end - I didn't get the rhythm down on my first play of the game, but on a second pass through I was victorious.

Then I discovered that there was a new version, which may or may not have introduced 3 extra levels.

Out of the four levels, I have to say my favorite was the third, for obvious reasons. The second was fun, what with all its hilliness, and I'm going to say here that I was probably the annoying kid saying you're going way too fast. The fourth... well, let's say I didn't bother going along with the joke after 5 seconds, since I looked at the high score menu first.

Few closing comments:
- The mirrored hair going on with the first car makes me think it's just one wide clownish kid? Was this your intention? On a similar note, the fridge also feels awfully short for where the kids are sitting in it.
- In the first version at least, you can have things mess up by completely ignoring the road and driving way over to the right.
- Man, the snow's really cool. Like, seriously, it's great.

Rankings:

1. The War on XMas
2. Fridge Racer
3. Phlan
4. Linear Quest II
Oh! This is a great review! Sorry I haven't gotten around to addressing it earlier. The intention for the one car is that it's two smokin hot blonde girls driving.. and that they're the slowest because women are terrible drivers. There's a major major major problem with the game (beyond the ones I've already groaned about in IRC) and I'll get to it more when I do my post-mortem, but basically the reason you felt the game was impossible was because it probably was.

I was using If (KeyVal >> 1) for my key presses, which has served me well in every game I've made so far... except at 60 FPS, that's waaaaaay more time for something to go weird. KeyVal >> 1 counts typematic repeats.. and I always have my keyboard repeat rate at the fastest possible setting and balanced the game around that setting. Anyone who has their keyboard set to a lower repeat rate won't be able to go fast enough to win. I had to watch my brother playing it on his laptop to figure it out. Next time I'll know better what to do.

Thanks for playing, and sorry that you were right, the game WAS unwinnable... even if this time it wasn't intentional.
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Post by Gizmog »

http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6811
Allu in the Demon's Cave is done! I was gonna do Drydocks next, but I feel like I alread reviewed it somewhere and am pokin around trying to find it. So instead, here's what I think about other games in the "Merchants selling stuff genre"

Pirates!: In my opinion, this is where the genre started. Being pirates, you were free from a lot of the drudgery of a life at sea. However, your crew would get rowdy if you were sitting on piles of gold and sitll risking their lives needlessly. But everytime you stop to divvy the plunder, you lose all your ships but one, and lose months of time refitting that vessel. And old age was more than just a number.. it slowed you down in sword fights, etc, till you met a bloody end or were forced to an early retirement.

Trading was always weird. I could never get a handle on how the pricing worked.

Uncharted Horizons: I never remember if I played the original game or its sequel. At any rate, I liked the focus of this game being more on exploration and trading than combat.. even though the combat was fun. Starting with a little ship, finding a decent trade route and building into a huge fleet was fun, though I admit openly that I funded a lot of my voyages at the blackjack tables.

The RPG focus was interesting, and I liked how you were more or less free to ignore the story if you wanted, but how the story could convince you to risk going to places you might not otherwise.

And unlike pirates, being able to just pay your crew was GREAT. Not having to start over with one ship every so often was great. The game had its own weird little quirks, but it was a good game and the ideal combination of RPG and sailing.

Wing Commander Privateer: If Uncharted Horizons was the ideal combination of RPG and sailing, this was the perfect combination of sailing and flight sim. The different kind of planets were so intuitive... factory worlds were always looking for more resources and far-flung mining colonies were always looking for entertainment. Smuggling or not smuggling, fighting or not fighting.. I made so much money tacking missiles onto my dinky little freighter and then letting them loose on the various bad guy bounties in that starting sector.

I don't remember a whole lot about the story, but there was enough there to be immersive and I wonder what a remake of this game with the modern Mass Effect kind of moral choices and customization would be like.

Drydocks: I was so disappointed! I'm not sure I remember there even being a boat. What I do remember is there not being a limit to how much you could carry, and that there was no supply/demand mechanics, so I could sell a billion bales of wool to the smallest town in the world, buy a zillion bales of hay and sell them to the second smallest town in the world at a huge profit, buy a gajillion bales of wool and march back to that smallest town. There was some kind of GUI elements, but I don't remember if they were good or got in the way.. I'll either find my original review or play the game again to refresh my memory.
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Post by kylekrack »

Gizmog wrote:Drydocks: I was so disappointed! I'm not sure I remember there even being a boat. What I do remember is there not being a limit to how much you could carry, and that there was no supply/demand mechanics, so I could sell a billion bales of wool to the smallest town in the world, buy a zillion bales of hay and sell them to the second smallest town in the world at a huge profit, buy a gajillion bales of wool and march back to that smallest town. There was some kind of GUI elements, but I don't remember if they were good or got in the way.. I'll either find my original review or play the game again to refresh my memory.
The dev for this game actually designed it as a board game initially. It was really fun. The problem came in porting it into a video game. He never finished it, and I still haven't been able to coax him to do so. The frustrating thing is that the board game was complete, it's just the ohr game that's lacking. Someday it will be playable, I'm sure. Someday...
My pronouns are they/them
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Post by Feenicks »

Paladin Traducer by Bob the Hamster

The premise of this game is rather simple: paladins have invaded hell, and it's up to a [s]sexy[/s] legion of demons to stop them. Each type has their own way of attacking (warriors are powerful but only attack adjacent tiles, mages chain-lightning through same-color tiles, assassins use ranged attacks, and succubi change the paladin's color, letting you move them and also making it easier to get matches done), and using all of them effectively is key to completing the game in a reasonable amount of time. Getting combos, and I think also just attacking the paladin multiple times in a row raises your damage bonus, which is vital when the paladins start getting serious amounts of HP; failing to get an attack in halves your attack bonus.

The game plays pretty well; selecting stuff with the mouse and dragging the tiles around works really nicely. There's explanations for what each demon type does once you click on them, which is neat. Maybe I wasn't paying attention to it very well, but I had to have how to direct the tile movement (once you clear out tiles) explained to me - maybe putting an explanation for that somewhere would be useful.
It took me a while - certainly more than one pass through the game - to figure out how to look out and keep boards that didn't let up on attacking. That's certainly not a slight on the game, but it does also feel that when you end up with a board you can't really attack with you're almost bound to go back down to the base attack bonus; maybe some way of refreshing the board (for some cost) could work?
I've seen it mentioned elsewhere, but the last two paladins have way too much HP. Sure, it's fine if you're able to keep things running and grab a gigantic attack bonus, but if you run out of steam at the end it's a bit of slog. It's also a bit strange that the paladin's kinda passive regarding being shuffled around the board/being beat up by demons thing - some sort of attack mode could be interesting, but I'm not sure how that would really work.

The music is... alright. It's not really what I'd call puzzle-y music, nor does it really fit the setting, but it's fine. The graphics are nice - all the demon types are easily distinguishable from another, [s]and if nothing else I'm always fine with scantily-dressed demon women.[/s]

Anyway, I actually played through this [s]twice[/s] three times - once on my phone and twice on my computer - which isn't really something I'd be willing to do for a lot of games, so good job on that.
Attachments
warning: fanart
warning: fanart
paladinshades.png (948.04 KiB) Viewed 2725 times
So is it just those four, or are there like a million demons about the paladin?
So is it just those four, or are there like a million demons about the paladin?
traducer0000.bmp (63.55 KiB) Viewed 8249 times
About my highest damage bonus.
About my highest damage bonus.
traducer0003.bmp (63.55 KiB) Viewed 8249 times
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Post by Gizmog »

http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtop ... 583#120583

Drydocks reviewed! Huge bummer that this game isn't playable yet. Keep coaxing the developer, Kylekrack!
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

Thanks Pheonix for both the review and the fan-art

You have got me thinking about possible ways to deal with those frustrating no-move-available situations that sometimes kill your attack bonus so brutally. If I can pull the ideas together, there might be a possibility of a future update
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Post by Gizmog »

http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtop ... 623#120623

Finihed Macabre. I feel bad that Meatballsub was nice enough to let me play his game and I repaid him by talking bad about it. My main problems are with the story, the game part is a lot of fun and tries plenty of new and exciting things.

To be fair, I might review one of my games next.. if you think I'm hard on you, wait till you see how I feel about myself!
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Post by Meatballsub »

I think your review was very fair, Giz. You were actually pretty positive for the most part. Couldn't ask for a better, in-depth review. Thanks again.
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Post by Feenicks »

Allu in the Demon's Cave by Mammothstuds

You're some demon ball thing trapped in a cave full of monsters, and you're tasked with defeating four bosses. I didn't get anywhere near that goal.

The main Thing Of Interest in this game is its roguelike-ish map system. Upon reaching each floor, a room layout is randomly laid out. You can go down 5 floors - 6, actually, but you're booted back up a floor right after you enter - and what you get in chests is influenced by what floor you're on, with better items on deeper floors. Still, even the items on the bottom floors don't feel as strong as they could be; I never felt like I'd be ready to fight the one dragon thing down there without copious grinding, and the game's structure doesn't really feel like it goes that route very easily.

I found all 4 crypts - the flower one (with random warp flowers and spikes that take off way too much HP, and yet probably had the easiest enemies), the head injury one (which launched you up if you stepped on certain invisible tiles - not a fan of this one), a mechanical one (where whether or not you could actually progress was influenced by visible and invisible NPCs) and another mechanical-looking one (with some shadows that I have to assume was bad news). Of the 4, I got to the boss of the flower area once, upon which I was instantly killed. Not a fan of that last bit.

As it stands, I can't really say the roguelike part of this really works. There's random chests and layouts, the latter of which influences what crypts you can enter. As-is, though, it feels way too big. Shuffling across a giant empty room in the hope that there's a stair down or some treasure along your path isn't fun when it's deliberately designed that way and isn't much better when it's randomly generated as such. The cave maps could really stand to be a lot smaller than they are now, and/or have more than just the most basic of elements within them.

The battles have some issues, although I feel they're largely due to the hero having no real options than those of the enemies. There's certainly variety in there - out of them, the dragons that have a chance of blowing up are probably my favorite - but as Giz mentioned, there's a strange gap in between enemies at the very start which are fairly harmless . My main problem comes from the non-attack skills you get feeling completely useless, unless you specifically equip up for them and completely ruin your physical attack in the process; seeing as one's free and the other costs a ton for what it actually does, I can't really see the point in going for magic beyond wanting to defeat high-defense enemies faster. That's honestly my main gripe (beyond the act of grinding feeling completely useless, seeing as your stats rise incredibly slowly).
Well, that and there being a few enemies that you seemingly have no chance of hitting.

As-is, its work-in-progress nature is readily apparent. Still, I feel that there's something here worth developing, or at the very least basing something else marginally less experimental on this. The crypt ideas are neat, even if half of them need a good bit of work to not be obnoxious, and I really like your enemy graphics.


PS: bugs worth mentioning:

- You can pick up both initial items once you get some money, which makes the choice there feel pointless. Not sure if this is intentional or not.
- There's a few land tiles on the right-hand side of the dungeon that are most likely out of place.
- I never landed a hit on those green enemies in the head injury area - is that intentional?
- Getting booted out of the head injury dungeon (and maybe also whenever you game over?) keeps the dungeon level you were on; probably not intentional
- I went into some place where a sphere told me about hint sages or something, and upon coming out I warped well away from the rest of the dungeon.
Attachments
This flower just displays this message, not actually warping anywhere.
This flower just displays this message, not actually warping anywhere.
allu0007.png (7.04 KiB) Viewed 8178 times
This happened (unshown: treasure chests popping up in the walls)
This happened (unshown: treasure chests popping up in the walls)
allu0006.png (5.1 KiB) Viewed 8178 times
Got one-shot by the only boss I actually made it to.
Got one-shot by the only boss I actually made it to.
allu0009.png (4.45 KiB) Viewed 8178 times
Bit easy to miss this guy.
Bit easy to miss this guy.
allu0000.png (5.23 KiB) Viewed 8178 times
Don't want to say that the enemy graphics are my favorite part about this, but...
Don't want to say that the enemy graphics are my favorite part about this, but...
allu0001.png (10.93 KiB) Viewed 8178 times
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Post by Feenicks »

Painted Space by eaagvark

Back when I still bothered with the SMW romhacking scene, every so often a level popped up in which various colored-blocks stood in for the usual graphics for whatever those blocks did. I never liked them, as the colors chosen always ended up being stretches at best and completely arbitrary at most, and even when the colors did seem appropriate there was always the question of why the regular graphics weren't actually used.

This feels like that idea applied to an RPG.

In the beginning of the game, you're given a choice of 7 primary stats and 7 weapons. I went with speed/sword as my choice, but honestly I have no idea if going with something else would have made things harder or easier. And that's the issue: right at the start of the game, I have no idea what the best choice is. Would putting off that choice until some point after the demo been a better idea? Maybe? I can't be bothered to play through the game a second time to see how much a different choice would have affected things.

The main character starts out in the forest on their own, hemmed in by monsters, and decides that they might as well try and leave and see what's outside the woods, but not before mucking about in a nearby cave. It feels awfully arbitrary as to why they're doing that now, but more importantly it's a pretty lackluster way go about starting something. Final Fantasy III starts off similarly, what with the protagonist(s) having to go through a cave, but they have to make their way out to the surface - the guy here really has no pressing need to go spelunking. Xenoblade's first dungeon is also a cave, and is similar to this in that the reason you're going in isn't all that pressing, but at least at the end of that cave things go to all hell. Here, were it not for the rocks in your way (that seem out of place given the guy's talk at the start) there's really no reason you should be beating up that [s]nazi[/s] robot thing that's the boss of the cave.

Enemies in the dungeon can be seen on the field; they disappear once you fight them, but reappear whenever you go up or down a level. This is a bit obnoxious in a dungeon where the gimmick involves falling down levels, since you're going to end up fighting the exact same battles multiple times. Some you can avoid, but a few are in the way enough that multiple fights are necessary. The dungeon itself is compact, which is nice, I guess, but given that the majority of my time spent in it was dealt with retreading the exact same path through it several times it felt awfully inflated in terms of its length.
The actual combat is slightly better than spacebar holding, but not by that much; really, the only thing you need to do, at least in the first dungeon, is to make sure you get rid of the healing enemies and you're set. There's some stuff with different colored versions of two of the enemies, but I have no idea as to what the changes are between them.
I don't feel that the boss's gimmick really needed to be done three times; all that does is show that you're good at repeating things. For a first boss it would have been fine if you just went through the rigmarole once.

My main gripe is that outside the battles, this game - its graphics, its premise, the reason the main character decides to beat up some bead chains in a cave - are all rather dull. A game about color should be more interesting than this.

e: Why is the font in the intro decent, as opposed to the sorta cut-up, annoying to read font in the actual game? Seems a bit odd to choose one over the other.

1. Paladin Traducer
2. The War on XMas
3. Fridge Racer
4. Allu in the Demon's Cave
5. Painted Space
6. Phlan
7. Linear Quest II
Attachments
Creator gods out of ideas isn't the best of signs.
Creator gods out of ideas isn't the best of signs.
PAINT0.png (1.34 KiB) Viewed 8167 times
Can't remember what this thing's main stat was, but it's not like it actually mattered.
Can't remember what this thing's main stat was, but it's not like it actually mattered.
PAINT2.png (4.17 KiB) Viewed 8167 times
Neat Thing: the roof disappears when you go under it.
Neat Thing: the roof disappears when you go under it.
PAINT5.png (5.57 KiB) Viewed 8167 times
For a game about color, it isn't that visually interesting.
For a game about color, it isn't that visually interesting.
PAINT6.png (4.44 KiB) Viewed 8167 times
Last edited by Feenicks on Sun Jan 31, 2016 3:28 am, edited 2 times in total.
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