GnomeZome's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lunatic Lane]

Classic!
Enjoyable chaos, with fun art and sound design that have a touch of a small team, and amusingly janky controls reminding me of the fun of early flash games.
I enjoyed being able run between buildings and knocking boulders asunder, and the quest direction arrow was well tuned to keep track of in the corner of my eye.
Thank you for making this.

[Bigger Than Me [DEMO]]

I really like the concept your going for so far, and the design is very apt too.
The lanky "adventure time"-ish style certainly fits the style of a stressed out young person, and the animation was simple but conveyed everything it needed to.
I felt the navigation puzzles where nicely intuitive and just really asked me to carefully look around and think, and it felt good when I got there.
Also on the point and click, I really appreciated the contextual tidbits about the characters past when you interacted with them, it felt quite diegetic.
The delivery game challenge was a little stressful, but I felt that suited the tone very nicely, and the mechanics where handled well, not too much button mashing, and the prompts where reasonably clear but still had a challenging increase in skill.
I did have take M8 occur 3 times in a row, which is a little immersion breaking, but I think quite fixable.
The last set of comments I have is that I think you used music and sound design quite well in this to give the emotions the weight you wanted to express them with, because I think without them it might have been harder to relate, but with them I felt a close understanding.
Finally, I enjoyed the nice simple riff of Space Oddity, well done on that.
Thank you for making this.

DeadPixelTales responds:

Thank you for taking the time to play our game and tell us your opinion!! We are so happy you liked it. We'll fix that little immersion-breaking possibility in the minigame for next versions. See you on full game release! :)

[A Cannoneer's Curse]

Hey Thoof, nice work!
I had seen the post on itch.io and was gonna leave my comments there, but it is always nice to see you on NGs.
I think you did some really interesting things in such a limited pallete, or compacted design space.
It reminded me of my days dragging around the huge grey brick that was my og game boy in a way that filled me with alot of fondness.
I thought it was pretty clever how you used the cannon as not only as the players main form of defense and offensive action, but also as limiting factor by making it unwieldy.
It reminded me slightly of bio shock infinite's take on an escort mission game, where the escort is also a huge asset.
Also back to comparison to game boy, the limited frame made every thing a lot more tense as manipulating the unwieldy cannon was hard enough with out a fog of war limited perception aspect.
It might be pushing too far of a comparison, but as you probably know silent hill's famous smog was a solution to the limited render distance of the hardware, so it makes sense that for a lowrez game you limited player perception to make things more tense.
also your pixel art has been coming along nicely, i highly recommend checking out this great game called Crawl by for references for dramatic pixelated gore.
trailer;
https://youtu.be/2xOib7VKhYY
I liked your choice to have the proximity arrows, especially for the cannon as it allowed moments of panicked running to be non fatal due to lost cannon.
I did have the cannon get semi stuck once of twice, but taking the gunning position was a simple way to get the angles to work.
The problem being you can only gunner position with something other than your self in the cannon so I had to kite a zombie from the east to west at one point to unlodge my cannon.
I appreciate the progression of challenge with the difference in enemy types, and it was clever to use a stationary beater enemy to make a swarm scenario on the east side harder to handle, and kept the following zombie types more dynamic for a bit.
I also like the little touches like the swaying trees, and pink shells, but I do wish I could load more thing in the cannon, like if I shot my self into a coconut tree and it dropped coconuts which stunned the enemies or if the various crates had random different effects if loaded like slowing the foes with ropes, exploding from black powder (friendly fire possible), or just created a dust cloud the enemy would walk around/ not aggro through.
In any case I had a great time playing your game as always.
Thank you for making this.

Thoof responds:

Thanks for playing as always Putney :)
I like the suggestions, I certainly was planning on adding more types of projectiles to the game but ran out of time for the jam.
I've seen crawl before, definitely a good reference for that stuff but I didn't want to make this game too overly bloody.

[Roller Riot]

Hey y'all nice work!
I really did the interesting take on the side scrolling beat um up.
The two button system seems very phone savy, and I really think you hit home with a batman beyond meets vapor wave ascetic.
The details are very cool too, like the MC's cute little cyber toe bean wheels, and the great enemy designs.
In terms of feed back, I might suggest making this power up system a little more clear, especially the wheel of fortune, though I got the swing of it because of the nice on screen pickup prompts.
Also I did hit a fail state at the end of the 10th wave, i had one of each power up equipped, and had finished the round in combo mode when the enemy counter switched to an F. I tried pause, resuming, pausing changing sound setting and resuming, but was stuck with the character falling over, and the previous mentioned "F."
As this is an older project I am just noting that for reference not criticism.
Also fade into night was a great way to make a simple back ground seem dynamic.
Thank you for making this.

[MOLE]

I dig it!
Every time I died, I knew it was my fault, everything about how the system and mechanics of this this game where perfectly laid out like a well loved tool bench.
It's games like this where there is so little explained, but the ability to understand what I did wrong, or could try differently was amazingly innate, and I know that's because of the skill of the team laying out the cues.
Like first level i had to do a belly flop bump, it was clear it was too far to skid, that distance had been previously established, so i figured, "OK I can bounce, but maybe only with enough built up force?", and it worked!
That felt great!
There has been interesting talk of the innate language of games of things like carried momentum, and the dangers of different colored hazards and stuff, and that meta really helps this bloom in a cool way.
Thank you for making this.

[Dont Miander]

Hmmm nice work.
I think you nailed a consistent visual tone of "spooky mansion", and kept with in a consistent color pallet.
I do feel the jumps are a little too high, like there is no visual narritve cue that makes the high jump feel natural, but a single screen of exposition explaining some kind of ability or training would help.
Also the jumps are too forgiving at times, like the first long hall puzzle where you can hop back up mid track is kind, but if your going to test player's skill, commit to making the struggle real.
I liked the mid aid jump if you fall off a platform, and I honestly think that make for a very interesting mechanic in the right setting.
I know this is from a jam but the lack sound or music was a detractor, so I recommend checking out this music resource:
https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/creator-resources/music-and-audio-resources/royalty-free-music
Overall, I like the design, the name is clever, and I hope to see more from you.
Thank you for making this.
Edit:Follow up PMed

flop21 responds:

Thanks for the feedback, I need to do more thinking on the high jump issue but id like to ask if you quit after reaching the end once or continued when the main menu became glitchy. I ask this because the game is very forgiving in the first run but becomes VERY difficult in the last of three runs.

[DONG]

Hmmmm.
To be honest, I didn't think I would like this, but honestly the openly hostile game design makes the challenge oddly rewarding.
I think there is something to be said about challenging expactations, and pushing the audience to adapt past that kind of thing.
Maybe your next project could be Fuckman, and just be an unwieldy packman with a weird tight rope balance mechanic.
It would also double as a scott pilgrim reference, if that floats your boat.
Thank you for making this.

[The Flower Arrangement]

I liked this a lot, more than I would have suspected.
It's simple but I think you nailed down the narrative and visual pacing quite well.
Those are also complimented by how intuitive the save and reload features are.
I think it's particularly clever to put extra effort into rendering the detail of the big moments, and leaving transitional moments less detailed because it literally highlight parts of the story, but it is similar to how many people recount memories in that some moments are given the most detail in a story of an entire day in their retelling.
The music is also clever and haunting, so a "nicely done" to the BF.
Thank you for making this.

waffrus responds:

I'm glad you were pleasantly surprised by my little story. It's great to hear that my scenery was conveyed successfully. I went through quite a bit of storyboarding and re-storyboarding while making this. The BF was also pleased to know that you enjoyed the music! Thank you for playing and for your thoughtful review!

[Big Tall Small]

It's good to see "Thomas" is not so lonely these days.
I really liked this and not just because I am a soft touch for a good puzzle platformer.
I noticed an interesting possible narrative between each level where if one the Adjectives had less of a role in a puzzle they usually had a much more important part in the next, which created a nice Ludo narrative of none of the Adjectives where more or less useful, and had to collaborate.
The game while appropriately challenging was also very intuitive and I am very impressed with how well that flowed.
For example Big was able to block the red projectiles, and that made sense but it felt rewarding to see the theory work.
Also red becoming a an awning for yellow in a few puzzles was very cute.
While it would be finicky I think a puzzle featuring red's ability to span gaps (room 1) but also create cover create a very technical level in the ruleset.
I noted no bugs, and had a great time.
Thank you for making this.

[FRIDAY NIGHT FUNKIN']

"That's how you do it"
I write this you all that worked on this for two reasons, to thank you for your efforts, and to make a point to some of the other commenters.
Thank you for developing this game.
Thank you for making so cute and funny.
Thank you for making all the catchy songs that I adore; (especially the one in week 1 that sound like true survivor {https://youtu.be/ZTidn2dBYbY})
Thank you for the play testing, and the collaborations, and your efforts.
Oh, and thank you for speaker girls endearing encouragements in the tutorial.
Thank you for making this.