Score: 10

"The level editor that goes with this is beautiful"

submission: SeppuKuties

date: November 10, 2008

Excellent game. I've managed to whittle the lives I've used down to only 6, and I think I know which level I need to keep from dying on, but getting that last one is really rough.
right now I have 0, 0, 2, 1 ; 0, 1, 0, 0 ; 0, 0, 1, 0 ; 0, 0, 0, 0 ; 0, 1, 0, 0
I'm fairly certain I can get 5-2 down to 0 lives lost, which'll put me at 5 exactly.

What really struck me the most about this game is the divergent goals that it has. It's necessary to kill some of the animals to get through the game, but the overall goal is to kill as few as possible. This means that people who want to save the animals and the ones who want to kill the animals both have something to do.

However, where this game really shines is on the level editor. I've created this little piece in about 2 hours:

31B2AB28AB2AB28AB2AB28AB2AB8A2B18AB2A B28AB2AB3A2B23AB2AB11A3M14AB2AB11A3M1 0A2M2AB2AB7ABAE5BC8A2M2AB2AB7ABC6AEC7 A2M2AB2AB7AE6B2ABC6A2M2AB2AB15AF2B6A2 M2AB2AB8A7B3K2AFB2A2M2AB2AB19AFD7AB2A B18AFD8AB2AB17AFD9AB2A11B5I14BAXEJGHA DGABJBCB10ACDBDHADFA2B2A2B9A2CEHEACEA 2E2ABC9ACBEFBADCA2E2ABD9ACD2E2AEDACB2 ABE9ACEJGDAD2ACGBFBF9ACEJE2ACEADGAHBG 9ACDECIACJADB2ABH9ACDEDCACJADB2ABJ9AC EJHFAFHAEF2AC10ACDBCJACJAEB2ACB9ACBCD JADHA2B2ABI9ACBCEBADJA2B2ACD9ACBCEDAD JA2B2ACE9ACBCEFADJA2B2ACF9ACBCDJADFA2 B2ACH9ACDBGBAFBAEB2A2C9ACEJEHA2FABFAF CG9ACX13034053034031XGauntlet#@Grey#A cumen#

It is completely possible to get every acorn and beat the level without dying at all, but it's not walk in the park. I'd put it about 5 to 10 times the difficulty of what you came up with the in game levels. There are roughly 5 different points at which the level can become unbeatable and require restarting.
I still have trouble beating it at all myself, but I have done it about 3 to 5 times and I've beaten it with 0 lives lost and all 18 acorns once. I hope other people will like the challenge this level presents.

Score: 10

"don't rush them"

submission: Valhalla Knights 2

date: February 7, 2008

Make sure that whatever happens, you're putting out good quality, both in terms of artwork, as well as in terms of timing and pacing. I'd rather see 1 or 2 well paced stories than 4 really rushed pieces.
Even this episode came off just the slightest bit rushed through the story, but the storyline you seem to have going here is downright epic, so I'd say that's forgivable.

Score: 10

"THIS IS GREAT"

submission: SHIFT

date: February 7, 2008

OOPS SORRY I was holding my shift key down :P

This concept is REALLY good. The monolog was a good homage to portal, but the concept actually made me think more of crush. I f it was fleshed out, it could easily stand up along with.

Things i'd like to see added:

More levels, but this obviously takes time to figure out

Gray space in order to create obstacles no matter which side you're on, but this could pose the problem of making it too obvious how to get through, so implement this carefully if at all.

Perhaps moving white and dark spaces, such as having a box that moves between two sets of spikes. If you tried to stand on the box, you'd get caught be the spikes, so after getting on the box you then have to shift inside of it, and then shift back out once you get past the spikes.

Along with this, have specifically white and black spikes that travel through the level that can be avoided by shifting to the proper color. So if you have white spikes traveling around, they can't hurt you if you're in a white zone

3D version would be awesome, but I'm sure it would make level design easily 10 - 100x more difficult, and that's just simply figuring out how it would look period. If done properly though, it could easily be as popular as Portal. Might not be worth it though, as the style of the black and white lends itself more to a 2d game.

It might also be interesting to have some sort of box or platform that can be moved, but only by pushing from the bottom of it.

That's all I've got off the top of my head, but if you lie those or want to hear more, let me know.

Score: 10

"You got shafted.."

submission: The Shebeats Detective X

date: September 3, 2007

Seriously, this should have made at least a second place and possibly in the top 50 or 100 overall. From what I can see from some of the reviews, you've been getting picked apart on really trivial stuff too.
I think you also got crowded out by some of the flashes that were part of a series, which seems to get an unnatural boost simply because people are voting for the series as a whole and not just the episode alone.

Your animation in general was excellent. I loved how naturally the girls moved as they were playing their instruments. The other things you nailed so completely were facial expressions and lip movement. As someone already pointed out, you can practically turn off the music and read lips to tell what they're saying, but on top of this, everyone was incredibly expressive, the girls really felt like they were playing and grooving to the music.

I can almost understand people complaining about the blank background during the Shebeats stuff, but I honestly can't think of any background that wouldn't have simply distracted you from the girls.
As far as knocking your rating down for not liking the sound, or not being able to understand what they said? I think that's totally out of line. You didn't compose the dang thing, and quite frankly, I really enjoyed the music. It was bouncy, and had good harmonies.

The only thing I was disappointed with was that I feel a more consistent story could have been told. I was left wondering if he had dumped her without telling her, making him the jerk, or if she was harassing him out of spite from being dumped.
Still, if you had put more effort towards that story, we wouldn't have gotten as much of the lovely work you did with animating the girls. It's some of the best animated instrument playing I've seen since the stuff that I've seen for Gorillaz. I think the animation you've shown here is just as good, but I actually find your art direction even more appealing.

If you can come out with more of this quality, I'll be looking forward to it eagerly.

Score: 5

"Okay as far as Ren & Stimpy style goes..."

submission: Gecko & Sticky

date: July 26, 2007

It's cool that you got commissioned for it, but I guess I never saw much in this particular style. I don't know if it was deliberate, but it felt like the timing just wasn't right in a few places.
It also really felt like it just ended right in the middle of things without really having a reason for ending other than "We've hit the 50 second mark, lets wrap it up so we have time for credits"
It looks technically professional, but I just generally wasn't impressed.

Score: 10

"Perfect Scores through manual turbo button"

submission: Ongaku

date: July 11, 2007

Basically, I managed the to make Master Painter and Ongaku Master within about 3 hours of playing, got 100% on everything, and S++ on every level except for 5, which I got an S+ in.

How'd i do it? rapid key pressing. Anytime the I had an arrow approaching, I would rapidly press it as it approached. this is especially effective where you have the same arrow coming up multiple times. however this is not particularly effective when you have a rapid string of all different arrows (which is why i only got an S+ on level 5)

I think what a lot of people are having trouble with is realizing this isn't DDR or Guitar Hero. It's actually NOT a good idea to wait for the arrow to line up with ongaku. You always want to hit it a little earlier, as the tutorial says, just as it turns black.

I like the hold feature though. You won't get a perfect score just holding it down, but it at least gives the rookie players a bit of a support so they can survive until they get a better feel for the game.

Score: 10

"NaN?"

submission: Orb Avoidance

date: July 2, 2007

what type of score is NaN? is it good?

Otherwise it's kinda fun. It could use a pause button.

Does it work on the Wii browser?

Score: 10

"Great Strategy"

submission: Tomb Chess

date: June 30, 2007

The only flaw I find in this game is that it only takes 25 moves to enter a stalemate. I personally think that you should make it so after 25 moves, you can propose a stalemate, but continue up to 50 moves before an official stalemate is declared. I've had a number of times where I was well on my way to creaming the computer, but it took me a while to position all my pieces to lock him in. Things like that really piss me off.

Anyway, I'm noticing that some people think there isn't any strategy to this, but there actually is. I wanted to run through a bit of it:

1.) Keep in mind the number that each level piece has. There are eight 1s, four 2s, two 3s, two 4s and one 5 & 6. While the King is the strongest piece, he can be killed by another king and any of the 8 pawns, making him nearly as weak as a level 2 in terms of how easily he can be killed.

2.) The Queen is essentially the strongest piece with the least weaknesses, as there are only two pieces capable of killing her. She can kill everything else except the King

3.) It is always better if you can arrange for the computer to be the one to have to expose the graves. If the computer does the exposing, you get a full turn to react to whatever new creature has appeared. This means that if the new creature is yours, you can attack or move it to an unthreatened position, OR, if it's not yours, you can attack or run from it before it has a chance to do anything

4.) Basically, whoever manages to destroy all the threats to their own highest level piece will be the eventual victor. If your highest level piece is the King, then all other pieces should be devoted to tracking down and killing the pawns, even if it means sacrificing a level 2 or 3 piece to do it.

5.) Guard 1 - 3 lower level pieces with a single higher level piece. By positioning your pieces this way, it allows you to defend all of those pieces, since as soon as they take one of the smaller ones, you can take their obviously higher level piece.

6.) Use higher level pieces to herd enemy pieces to lower level pieces. Be efficient. If you have a level 3 and a level 2 and you're trying to go after a level 2, use your level 3 to pressure and eventually box in the enemy level 2 against your own level 2. Any piece can take out its own level, but only if it made the move that put it into an attackable position.

7.) Don't worry about defending a piece that can have another piece do its job. If you've got a choice between losing a pawn and losing a level 2, but you've got a level 4 and the enemy has their king already, save the pawn.

8.) Know when NOT to kill. Early on, the graves can be a hinrance to movement. Sometimes, the enemy may have a level 4, 5 or 6 out, while you only have a level 2. However, between you and the level 4+ is a pawn. Instead of killing this pawn, merely box him in so teh higher level enemy piece can't move around.

9.) Pay attention to the number of pieces. This allows you to weigh the chances of what any unopened grave will be.

10.) If you need to open up a grave, don't do it right next to your own piece or the enemy, unless absolutely necessary or you've weighed the chances as stated by the previous tip. If you open it up next to an enemy and it's one of your pieces of a lower level, they get a free shot on you. If you open it next to your piece and its an enemy, they still get a free shot on you.

11.) In terms of overall score, stalemates can actually be used to your benefit. Rather than lose pieces trying to completely destroy the enemy, just run down the timer while keeping as many of yoru pieces as possible, raking up a higher score.

12.) Stalemates can also be used to get points even when you lose. On top of this, if you win every round, you'll be declared the victor halfway through. It is actually better to only win every odd level and on the even levels, get as may of your monsters out and run the timer down to raise your score while losing, even if this means sacrificing monsters to get your score down enough to lose.

This is what I've learned from playing just for a few days^^

Score: 9

"Fun"

submission: Boxhead :The Rooms

date: January 2, 2007

I agree that the barrels are a huge exploit. Someone suggested that you make it so the player can't walk through them, but I don't think that would honestly fix the exploit. Once you get the grenades it becomes a moot point as you can throw the grenades over and behind. Even if you don't use the grenades, you can still use the barrels to create a bottleneck and use unlimited uzi in order to just blast anyone that tries to get through. As for the suggestion of limiting them, you'd have to limit them to only 5 or 6 at any time, but even then, provided you placed them properly, it could still be exploited.

Actually, a good way to deal with the barrels might be to make it so you can only carry one barrel at a time. That way it would take you a couple trips to get a wall of barrels set up properly, by which time those labcoat things would have time to get through.

Aside from that, I did notice one bug: that being that if you die, but hit replay, you end up with all the labcoat robot things swarming your ass as if you were right where you left off, but without the good weapons. However, this was kinda fun, since it meant you had to survive a few fast-paced rounds while you tried to kill enough of them to earn the barrels again.
I did find out that you could bypass this simply by going back to the main menu and hitting play, instead of reply and that would reset things. However I noticed that some of the unlimited ammo upgrades stayed with me from game to game. The Uzi now has unlimited ammo, though I can't recall if it was always that way or not.

Other than that, it's quite fun. I do wish there was a way to walk in a different direction than you aim, but since you can move faster than they can, it's not really an issue.

Score: 10

"Excellent"

submission: Bullet Bill 2

date: November 15, 2006

I especially liked the last unlockable character. It felt really good to smash all of those levels after having gone through all of that crap. Very good choice for that.

One thing I will point out is that I had one point in which the space alien boss somehow mange dot fall through the floor while he was still alive. I had to kill myself to start over again.

The other thing I notice is that the water, desert and airship levels are tremendously faster that any of the other levels, though I'm not sure if that was intentional or not.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Good job.