daniel-mcl's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Cloud Control]

Great concept, but the execution could use a reboo

This is an interesting game mechanic and the game has a wonderful aesthetic. That said, if the game is supposed to be about clouds, I want to see some clouds -- drift and billow and all -- and not some white beads. Of course it makes the puzzles a little less precise and a little more to do with timing and so forth, but I think it's worth rethinking the dynamic a little. At one extreme, you'd have a pure strategy game where pressing the arrows would move the cloud by exactly one block; since you've rejected this (and rightly so), it would definitely be worthwhile to make the clouds just a little more cloudlike.

[Take a Walk.]

Interesting concept, but not well fleshed out.

A high-concept minimalist game like this depends very heavily on everything fitting together perfectly -- if you do everything right, you get Pacman or Super Mario Brothers or Final Fantasy 6, but if you do anything wrong you get something annoying and unplayable. The idea of accumulating birds for perfect play works well, the art is nice, and the music isn't awful, but the basic platforming mechanic really doesn't do much for me.

Despite my negative rating, I'd really like to see you keep trying. Next time, though, remember to keep working on the gameplay after you've already got the art and music perfected -- or, ideally, build a game that's fun to play without them and then layer the rest of it on afterwards. Otherwise, you're really just making an animated cartoon with an annoying interface for the viewers.

[Bars of Black and White]

Interesting concept, but could use some fleshing o

This game reminds me of Andrew Plotkin's "Shade," and unfortunately compares unfavorably with it, which might bias me somewhat. The first time through I smashed through the wall before getting the barcode reader, and wound up stuck. I did manage to see the ending coming nearly immediately, though. These kinds of games don't take as much technical prowess to execute, so you've got time to spend really writing the story in the same way you'd write a poem or short story. I'd like to see you spend some more time on a project -- I'd be excited to see the results.

[Sugarcore]

Fun, but not so fun with a laptop trackpad

Great game concept. I'm mainly reviewing in order to implore you to post more than the authors of the songs you used, since many of them have hundreds of uploads at that site. I simply must have the music used for the title sequence / angry bitch levels.

[Column Breaker]

Good start.

It's too hard to keep up, and the "hallelujah" block only takes out four or five blocks, making it pretty lame powerup. Work a little more on the balance.

[Bad Birds]

Needs a fast-forward

Straightforward lemmings knockoff, but it's excruciating to have to wait for all the penguins to walk to the goal once it's time. Please, please, please implement a fast-forward button any time you're making the user watch something that could take more than two or three seconds with no interaction.

[XSL Singularity]

Overproduced and not much fun

I expect that when a game talks about black holes it will incorporate some kind of relativistic game mechanics. This just seems to be soccer.

[Epic Battle Fantasy 2]

The slow scrolling text is REALLY annoying

There's a skip button there, but why can't I just read through the story at my own pace?

[Pandemic Boy]

Good game

The infection counter is broken.. it often will say something like 94/80 people infected.