gnome42's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lab of the Dead]

There goes my sleep time

Just played this game for about 5 hours straight.. I'll admit it's super addictive, but it was also super tedious at times--for each 'day' that passed, I'd have to do another 15-25 actions on a zombie, which would be random grinding since I'd already unlocked everything earlier. I also had several thousand unused RP throughout the latter portion of the game, which was meh: earlier in the game I'd grind for RP, and now I just had too much of it. Oh wells.

Away from the repetitiveness of some parts, the game was pretty great, from art to music to gameplay. I really liked the rushed scene where Woods busted in and asked me to show him what I had--the character's voice was like an echo of my own, especially since I had just started fresh with a new zombie. I just wish that with character interactions (like the part where I murdered everyone?!), there'd be options on what to do/say in that situation. And maybe it'd be nice if there were a few more character interactions.

The game got a little lonely, but what pulled me through (despite the repetitive RP grinding I was forced to do by the objectives list) was the story--I'm a sucker for a story, especially when narrated like this. I mean, the story was predictable halfway through, and the way it was expressed was slightly reminiscent of the awful memory web in Prototype (but combined with the brilliant side-stories in Iji).

As for the ending, well, gee, there really was no ending at all, was there. I thought there'd be different endings depending on what research you did (thorough training vs passive RP grinding) or how you dealt with Woods etc, but nope, I killed everyone, stayed with my zombies (still grinding through the days) for an indefinite amount of time, and then exited once the narrator resigned.

Blahblahwalloftl;dr
+limited but immersive gameplay
+art and music
+highly addictive (could also be a negative)
+I've always wanted a zombie pet I could train--but not really

-dreary, repetitive grinding at some points
-abrupt and unexpected ending, sorta underwhelming
-predictable storyline with muddled narration
-it took away 5 hours of my sleep that I'll never get back

Apologies in advance if parts of this review don't make sense or are overly critical and cruel and stuff. It's 5:30am and I should have been asleep right now.

Evil-Dog responds:

Nah it's a great review, I agree with most of what you said. We make games, we learn, we hone our design skills :D we'll get there!

[Colour My Dreams]

I liked the first two...

In the beginning, you're in a black and white dream, where you can click to activate various forms of colour. A grim, foreboding door opens, and of course, you enter. Inside the 'nightmare', there are 3 pointless 'horror' scenes upon entering certain areas for the first time. These make no other entry anywhere in the game, and don't alter the plot at all.
Next, you wander around the rooftops and sewer system finding things to click. I liked the gruesome twist, how instead of a reward you were given a nightmare, symbolizing the troubled weakness the character is going through.
I also liked the -idea- of the chamber of nightmares, but it was so very tame; you merely scrolled through an endless tunnel, while it communicated the nature of nightmares to you. Furthermore, there were some barely coherent ideas randomly scrawled in (She is gone), what? And you could simply walk out of the tunnel at any time.
Nothing else in the game makes sense to me, either. One room features a little object, whose sole purpose is to tell you in which direction some arrows are pointing. It's a completely obsolete status indicator.
Upon entering the sewers, out of nowhere, you shoot beams of colour through the air and into a light box, causing a small rock to hover over your head. And then you click the moon, and the game is over when you enter the tunnel of nightmares once more, which was defeated by the paint blobs inside the moon.
The part that annoys me, is that the game is all over the place. I already described it, and I'm not sure if you understand how I feel. You crammed what could have been an amazing plot into a few small areas, and each frame communicated several conflicting and uncalled ideas.

There are multiple ways you could have made this game, but this is just one way you should not have chosen. The happy colours are mixed in with the gruesome ones, and the extreme scenes are obsolete. (the floating rock, the nightmarish intro scenes). I still don't understand why the breaking of the moon brought around colour, either...

All in all, I preferred the other two.

SilverStitch responds:

Do you honestly expect your dreams to make sense?
Yes, I too prefer the other two, but such a theme in this world is something I wanted to touch upon. I know it is outside what is normally the B&W world, but it shows somethign further into our protagonist's mind. The 'little object' is a puzzle, a side-puzzle not needed to complete the game, but one none the less. Maybe you should try and work it out?
The world is supposed to be all over the place, a mess, because nothing does make sense in your mind. If I confused you with it, my job has been completed.

[Sonny 2]

Eh..

This game wasn't that great. It's EXTREMELY repetitive, and I wonder why almost nobody else has acknowledged that.

I mean, the original Sonny was good, it had an interesting story: you wake up as a zombie, you're in extreme danger, a blind old guy helps you, he dies, you go out and seek revenge, you meet another zombie ally, and you fight together to destroy the ZHCP and find out the secret of the tape.

In this one: your story picks up where you last left off. You and the other zombie are fighting, you get weak, 2 zones later you kill the zombie king, everyone's happy.

Sure I'm not going fully into the story (if it can be called one), but the game was awfully repetitive and boring, and I couldn't bear to play any farther.

3 classes, great. They're all similar, except that they have different skill descriptions and different status effects. It was a weak attempt at making the game interesting, sorry.

As for the gameplay, it was exactly like Sonny 1. You click one circle to shop, one circle to train, and one circle to do real battle. In the battle, you choose different circles to attack: place 5 of your strongest move in your skill menu, and a couple status effects. Repeatedly click available circles. Move onto the next zone.

The "story", if it can be called one, was mainly "Oh, no! An enemy official! Kill him!" It didn't really go far beyond that. Some cutscenes (unrelated to the main "story") would have been nice, to make it more like a movie than a repetitive mouse-clicking game.

The most annoying part, for me, was that I trained for 10 rounds before each battle just so I could get on par level-wise and equipment-wise. It was all unnecessary anyway, since I couldn't even force myself to finish the game.

The "Improved AI!" and "Fully voiced dialogues and cutscenes." really don't add to the game. It's like decorating a garbage can with glitter and paper streamers and presenting it to some company (sorry for the awful analogy, but it's the least offensive one that comes to mind). I mean, in this case, the "company" is mostly 8-12 year olds whose small minds can't understand the concept of a decent story or gameplay, but only see the amazing graphics and the fast-paced action and killing.

Of course, I don't mean to completely bash your game, it's really great, and I couldn't hope to make something like this, but the low score and long essay of the faults were just to get another point of view in here, I guess. Most other reviews are just blindly complimenting your game making skills, saying how much they love this game, how it's the greatest game ever, etc.

If you decide to make a Sonny 3, please consider this review. It probably wouldn't be worth your time, since 95% of people who played this game enjoyed it, and it's no use spending months extra to satisfy that other 5%, you wouldn't earn much more money or self-accomplishment, really.

Anyway, thanks for reading this, and I'm sorry if it was just a waste of your time.

Krinn responds:

It's not really possible to please 100%, but I'd be damned not to try :) A lot of people are asking for Sonny 3 now, and at first I thought I should do Sonny 3 the way I've done Sonny 1 and Sonny 2.

But then it occurred to me that what people THINK they want might be different to what they actually want...

[Venezuelan Flag]

damn...

nice.
you should make a variety of flags that people can choose from
maybe... do something more with it? i dunno
the only problem was how the flag would keep folding but still an amazing use of code. great job
how long did the actionscripting take ?

NIckFoo responds:

Well, remember that Flash is limited so you can't put too many triangles, or else it will start to chug along. The folding is natural because of the wind.

The code took a looong time to perfect, given the limitations of Flash. There are actually some invisible spheres keeping the flag from colliding with itself, so that means you have rigid body simulation in addition to fluids. It's quite complex :)

[The irRegularGame of Life]

awesome game.

i cant believe ive never heard of this game before
it was really good but alot of the levels are extremely hard
i got to 22 without the level codes
and now im stuck on 24 but i dont want to cheat with a level code
oh well. maybe ill figure it out

here are some nice ones i found in the sandbox. they dont draw anythng but their reproducing patterns are really cool.
really long codes too. eeeeh.

eNqd1VEKgDAMBNErzd7/cqKIaJu0g/0THpbET STqENRxMqfbw1zv28JwuzUMj1vB8HI9DB/XwT C4GobJVTAUboahdCMMjWPxkPYmFo6u/NHR9D1 1kWHrKJMWn+e/Tt4r65B9kX2W303mQOZK5lTm Xs6RnEs553JvyD0k95rck3rvqjwj/wscMG0tH A==

eNozMDA0IAgM4cSoulF1o+pG1Y2qG1UHUQIAe f0skA==

eNrt1bsNACAMA9GV7P2XIwr0PlE7onzi0xwyG s0CsxKw3c6Z3WMd2bueE4PPqKurq/t1sEOwa7 CTsLuw44L/gg6aFizs

eNqd1VEKgDAMBNErzd7/cqKIaJu0g/0THpbET STqENRxMqfbw1zv28JwuzUMj1vB8HI9DB/XwT C4GobJVTAUboahdCMMjWPxkPYmFo6u/NHR9D1 1kWHrKJMWn+e/Tt4r65B9kX2W303mQOZK5lTm Xs6RnEs553JvyD0k95rck3rvqjwj/wscMG0tH A==

squidsquid responds:

Thanks! Some of the levels are quite challenging which is why I included the level codes, but I salute you for not wanting to use it straight away ;) Those are some nice looking patterns.

[Bright in the screenCHAOS]

this is pissing me off.

i cant jump onto the floating platform in level 2.
i jumped on it earlier (because of a glitch)
but then i got mauled by a freak and now i cant get back on.

honestly, this game would have been awesome but the glitches are pissing me off now .
when are you fixing it?

HapPie responds:

By this weekend.

[Dress-up Blobby]

er...

credit for blobby. he was cool
but there was only 1 shirt, 1 hat, 1 pair of shoes, and 1 pair of glasses
in 10 different colors.
you dont have ton include every color in the visible spectrum
try making different clothes for him later.
a pair of pants would be nice too.

sonidd1 responds:

I'll try to do those things you wrote.
Thanks!

[Flash Techniques Tutorial]

oh snap..

hell i didnt help that much but thanks for the mention [=
great job though
cheers ^_^

RulerofallDonkeys responds:

No problem!

Bonus Points!