darklinksmaster's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Laser Piguin Spring Break]

Can't get past the "Click anywhere to start" screen using Chrome without addons.

Dezue responds:

Heyho, darklinksmaster!
Sorry for that - your browser probably blocks cookies (which I need to save the game data).
Maybe another browser can help?
Stay funky,
Dez

[Flow Runner]

There's a really solid foundation here, nice!

Some notes:
+ I really like the fisheye effect allowing me to see further ahead while retaining the speed and feel of 2d platforming!
- The shop should perhaps not be completely randomized as getting 2 copies of the same item can feel very unfair.
+ Buying health hurts your progress towards gaining levels and is a great way to force risk-reward type decisions on players.
- Some level pieces lure the player into unavoidable deaths. Although maybe you don't want to remove this from ever happening, it feels a little too frequent now. Perhaps pits can respawn players safely at their end at the cost of 1 life instead of instantly killing.
- The slime's crouch takes a long time making it so that when I run up to it (almost) crouched I can't really tell when it's going to jump.
+ Aesthetically pleasing game! Music and visuals don't stand out too much but communicate clearly and serve the gameplay well.

Amni3D responds:

Yeah, a checkpoint or lives system could've worked pretty well, I feel.
I think a lot of the "unavoidable deaths" are the cause of a camera that needed a little more work, however :v A lot of deaths could've been prevented if the camera jeered after hitting a dash hoop, for example. Would've probably looked cooler too.

But hey, I'd like to think this game helped me be more competent all around. As flawed as I acknowledge it is, I'm glad you peeps found fun from it!

[Crystals]

Not sure if it's a bug or not but it's possible to swap a gem to an empty space in the grid, might have to check that out.

I found it weird in a design sense that it's primarily a very random game but all power-up rewards in the game have a very set circumstance for appearing. Line clear only appears when you match 4, bombs when you match 5 and all the goals of course are all based on matching on specific tiles in the grid. To make the feel of the game more consistent it might be cool to add a chance for power-ups to appear randomly in some form or way. Maybe spawning at the top of the screen, revealing when you break a purple block or having a chance to appear when you match 3.

I just read about the cross-clear in the description now, you have a nice variety in power-ups although they also seem to have the same effect of clearing gems. I remember in an old match-3 game called Collapse that there was a power-up which changed gems on the board to another colour, could be interesting to explore more types of powers.

turtlesf responds:

Not a bug. Moving crystals into blank spaces lets you position them to make matches, destroy the quartz (rock) obstacles, or help move spike ball obstacles downward. Blank spaces should only appear when there is a quartz obstacle blocking crystals from falling.

Matching games have an element of randomness, but this makes the game less fair. A goal for this game was to limit randomness to encourage competition. The color of the gems that fall is not totally random, it is picked from a randomized list, this ensures there is not too many of one color falling down. I like the idea of having powerups fall down if the game was not geared toward competition.

I really like the color switching powerup idea. The color switching one may be overpowered for the size of the board, but I will have to think about it more.

[Astral Crashers]

So far hotkey groups are limited in functionality and buggy. If I hotkey a nexus to 4 and select it using the 4 key the option to build a probe doesn't show and does not respond to its shortcut (E). Functionalities I'd like to see added to hotkeys are the ability to focus the camera on a selected group/unit/building by double tapping the hotkey and I'd like to be able to add units to an existing hotkey group instead of having to create a new group every time.

moligames responds:

Thanks!
I will fix what hotkey bug.
Right-click the squad button, it will focus the camera on a selected units.