Siruss's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Hair Studio.]

It was entertaining, but it would have been better if the hairstyles had been created in such a way that they did not require so much adjustment between them, at least just keeping the image centered in the cutout region. It would also be nice if it were able to load images directly from my computer.

Other than that, had a good time with this little tool.

riki1eu responds:

Thanks.

[Royal Offense (Game)]

I gave a better review the first time this game came out... but apart from that, I seem to remember the game being more difficult previously, but that might be from remembering 'majesty.' gameplay was too easy, even on hard. I got all the achievements without having leveled up all my upgrades, and the game is already at the point where I can win any level in any fashion...it looks like it's supposed to keep going.

[Night Lights: After Dark]

Bug: I got stuck on level 3 because it wouldn't let me walk left with the lamp on.

[Tinysasters 2]

The scenarios were much more fun than the endless mode. I played the endless mode for a while, but major shifts/earthquakes every 15 seconds got tiresome...

[The Blind Swordsman]

I liked what was going on, but I found it impossible to get past the first encounter. My headphones aren't the best, but I couldn't even tell whether or not pressing the 'turn' buttons had any effect whatsoever, or how I was actually supposed to do what I'm supposed to do.

[Return to Tolagal]

The update is a big improvement, the extra health and starting shield make a big difference in being able to get past the first level. I found the tutorial to be unhelpful (seriously, this is the first tutorial I've died on!), and ended up having to learn everything by trial and error. I died many, many times. Before the update, I never even made it to the fifth floor, and only rarely made it to level 2. I think the victory screen was weak, because while I am happy to see that the game was not infinite, it did not really do justice to how much effort I actually put into getting to the end screen.

The easiest way to win this game is to corner the enemy AI, which accounted for all the deaths of multiple wizard rooms and the archers that plague early levels. I found that the easiest way to level up was to mess up a summoner AI and then farm their weak skeletons. It would be nice if the player could get ranged weapons as well, maybe make their attack have a higher AP cost or something. I liked the basic mechanic, I would like to see it applied to more complex tactics (party based, perhaps?) and applied to a well-crafted story.

One very simple thing that would make the game feel more immersive would be to have a lore blurb when you selected 'what's this?' on a throne or arcane symbol.

A character creator would be a nice addition, if nothing other than to let us play palette swaps of the nameless protagonist.

All in all, a good game, but it seems too bare-bones to really shine, and ends up feeling more like a demo of a larger game.

mattahj responds:

Hi! I totally agree with you about the tutorial - I'm planning to completely re-write it the next time I get some free time. I would like it to be similar to the tutorial from Hoplite (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.magmafortress.hoplite&hl=en_GB).

The lack of story & ending is the next thing I'm going to work on after the tutorial. Then after that I will add some more levels to the dungeon & more item types. The game isn't really 100% finished - I've been working on it alone for a while and just needed to get some other people to look at it :)

Thanks for the comments (you & everyone else who has commented here at newgrounds). Everything is really useful and helps shape the game going forward.

p.s. the lore blurb when inspecting thrones/etc is a great idea! I'm 'aving that!

[You Are Disabled]

I liked it alright, though there was not much to the crippled storyline. somehow I have found it impossible to modulate my jumps low enough to be able to make it through the first spike level, though, the merest tap still sends me too high to jump through them.

[Pact]

Okay so I still really like the redhead but have no interest in the other characters. There was a whole lot of pointless combat (I found out a simple solution to winning all combats on the first round forever) with very little story. And while I probably would have killed the boss in one hit, it was a little disappointing to not even have a boss fight. There's no penalty for death and no real break in the forest path tedium. The equipment expensive and useless, if they function the same way as ability points and don't change anything, why bother having them? Just give me an extra xp or something. I still hate the witch-discrimination side-story. There wasn't even any discrimination in this game, just complaining about the discrimination. Doesn't the witch have anything more to her than 'hated by others for no reason?'

The combat was alright except for the tedium. One thing that would have improved it would be an ability to switch character turn order, though once I realized the unstoppable combination, it would have been unnecessary. More variety in enemies would have been nice. I don't think I ever saw what several of the enemies did because they died so quickly.

The main thing that this game lacks is reward. It does not provide tangible, relevant rewards for playing. Fights are just a distraction, the forest maze is just a monotonous path. There's no compelling reason to play, no sense of real improvement, and no challenge. Between storyline, gameplay, and art/animation, the game does not shine strongly enough on any particular to make it better than average.

[Dress up with Jill]

Big points for originality. Not many Dress-up games do 3D renders for bases (and rendered backgrounds with the character shadow!). More color options would be nice. I didn't like the hidden cash system, and I don't think buying 'faces' did anything. The menu also did not feel good, either, which is important to dress up games, since they are basically a big fancy menu. I like that she blinked, but if she's going to blink, it would be nice if she would breathe and move around slightly, as well. It might be a challenge with rendered imaged like this, but you could probably find an easy way to fake it.

[Sparck Air Hockey]

Good, challenging AI. except for the bug that gets the puck stuck in the ring and also that the AI can cross the center of the rink but the player can't. Difficult to play with a touch pad. It is easier to get the AI to score on itself than it is to score properly, though.