Adilord's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Outta Juice!]

An unpretentious little puzzle game with good mechanics and great music!

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The game consists of crossing a series of levels filled with obstacles with a limited number of movements on a grid, requiring you to think about your actions beforehand.
The concept is basic, but still very good, especially since as the puzzles are completed, the game becomes more and more mechanical.

Mechanics that are very interesting and work very well with each other: they all require you to review your way of seeing and solving the puzzles.
Also, they are always well introduced and little by little: which gives time to understand them well.
And, it's worth pointing it out, without the need of a tutorial/text to explain how it works (except at the beginning, to show how to move the character). For me, this is the sign of a successful level design: communicating information to the player without writing a word.

By the way, the puzzles are very interesting with a level of difficulty that evolves in a very fluid way! Towards the end I sometimes took several minutes to understand the solution.
However, I found towards the end some level much easier than the previous one, which should theoretically be the opposite.

Some complained about the camera, but I found it rather good: it's close enough to avoid us being distracted by other obstacles at the farthest to stay focused on the one we have to pass... However, I understand how it bothered more than one: it's the cause of stupid traps.
Often, it's when there are two paths: one of which is just a dead end or impossible to pass, and the camera prevents you from seeing which one is the right one! In a game where the slightest mistake leads to starting the level over, this kind of trap that relies more on luck than reflection doesn't really have a place in a puzzle, but more in a die & retry like Another World.

The controls work very well !... If I omit the diagonals.
It's terribly bad, if you don't press exactly both direction keys at the same time, the game won't do the diagonal.
Besides, it's so bad and it has simplified the game so much for me (Without the diagonals, I'm often at the limit of the number of moves I can do, whereas with the diagonals, I always have a lot of them left) that I wonder if this move was planned.

The music is excellent, even if it may not be to everyone's taste, and annoy some because of repeat a lot (it would have been nice to put more than two music to avoid that), but I like them a lot! I think it fits well with the atmosphere of the game, just a bit mysterious, a type of atmosphere that I like very much!

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To sum up, it's a very honest and enjoyable puzzle game with good mechanics and a mastered difficulty without pretending to be revolutionary.

[Light Wanderer]

A very good simple but terribly effective and inventive puzzle platform game that I loved to play!

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The controls are fluid and pleasant, the artistic direction and the music of the game are very good and really gives a dark atmosphere (Not creppy) in order to highlight the important elements that they are bright and colorful.

But this is nothing compared to his greatest quality: his Game Desing and the inventiveness he shows.

This puzzle platform has a simple but terribly effective concept: you embody a small cube of light immersed in darkness accompanied by a flashlight capable of being projected on blue balls that will transform its light into a platform.

And around this concept, Kiddow (The author) will create a set of mechanics that will all be exploited together and mixed intelligently during the many obstacles of the game, creating a very organic set.
And thanks to this, no obstacle looks like another, and even if it easy, she will ask you every time to adapt and apprehend a different approach to an obstacle yet already known in a certain way, and it is very pleasant to go through!

I would like to be able to say more about this point, which is really the heart of the game, but in addition to not good enough to write about it well, I wouldn't say much more than what I already have, as best as I can, summarized. But it alone justifies the 10/10.

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However, this game is not without (Minor) flaws, two to be exact :

1. SFX are too noisy compared to music : when I increased the sound of the game to enjoy the musical atmosphere (Who is very good), the SFX hurt my ear.

2. Light Mode : I find it very bad. Of course, it's just a bonus that you get when the game is over, so it's okay, but it doesn't change anything about the game except to remove the darkness, which breaks the interest of the flashlight and the surprise effect when you suddenly come across a new obstacle.

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To sum up, it's typically the kind of puzzle platform game I like to play, with a dark atmosphere (which is also a type of atmosphere that speaks to me), that I highly recommend, despite a lifetime too short for my taste !

KanartStudio responds:

Thanks for the awesome review man :D Really appreciate

[Escape Lies]

The music quickly gets on your nerves, in addition to not sticking to the rather dark artistic direction and you can easily get inside the walls (I could totally cheat at the last level)....

But I really enjoyed the rest!
This "Escape Room" is really relaxing, I suppose that's why the riddles are simple but, nevertheless, nice to realize.
This kind of story with the "Strange voice" and "Good Guy" is simple, but entertaining, rhythms the enigmas properly and brings a nice idea that is to find the real solution, not the one that "Strange voice" gives.

Too bad it's so short, but if I trust the answer of the author of one of the comments of this game, there will be a longer and finer version of the game, which I wait with pleasure !

T-StudioGames responds:

Thank you :)

[Adventures With Anxiety!]

A subject that I thought was not very relevant to me when I started the game, but with which I found surprisingly many more similar points (including the fear that no one really loves us/being alone, or being a bad person) with the many depressions I experienced in my past than I thought: It is therefore normal that I was quite touched and immersed in the narrative of the game, which I sometimes found simple, but always good, fair and impactful, because Nutcasenightmare (The Author) really knows his subject.
Indeed, some of Beebee's sentences (The Orange Wolf) seemed so disturbing to me that she was word for word things that I could tell myself when I was depressed.

At the beginning of the game, we worry a lot about the "human", because we are in Beebee's place, and our goal is to "protect" him by making him totally anxious. This hurts us and makes us say that we are in the place of the "bad guy". Except that as we go along, we realize that Beebee is full of good intentions, it's just his execution that is really bad and that he sometimes acts for nothing. This is all the more destabilizing when, as soon as the game begins, like me, some of Beebee's sentences find an echo with the player.
And what is, I find, bridging, is that to immerse the player in the skin of a person suffering from anxiety, the concept of the game is a "fight" of dialogue between his anxiety and himself, in which [Spoiler, so I put it the end of my sentence at the bottom of my comment, annotated "1."]

I found the music great and appropriate to the theme of the game, especially the track "The Wolf who cried wolf"! Nothing to complain about.
The drawing is super cute, especially the expressions of "Beebee" (the orange wolf), which not only makes the subject more bearable, but also shows well the feelings felt by the different characters in the game.
Animation, is most of the time a kind of "animatic", and it works well, but sometimes the animation, especially the ending credits, is very fluid and really cute!

I only did the game once, finding that doing this kind of narrative game a second time would break my experience more than anything else, and personally, I have them the end [Spoiler, so I put it at the end of my sentence at the bottom of my comment, marked "2."]

To sum up, I found the game excellent, it approaches its subject well with a concept that supports the message enormously, and in such a short time of game it is incredible. The characters are quickly endearing and as long as we recognize ourselves in some of Beebee's sentences, we are immersed and really concerned by the story.
A game that I would definitely recommend to many people.

--- /!\ SPOILER /!\ \---
1. [A "fight" of dialogue between anxiety and oneself, in which] It doesn't matter who wins, it always ends badly, because it always goes to the wrong extreme.

2. [I only played the game once, and I have them the end] in which the "human" ends up beating Beebee and kicking his ass down the 6 floors after his failed jump. I don't know if it's the good or the very very bad end announced by the game (I suppose the very very bad one), but I find it excellent, for the reason I mentioned above [In 1.].
Then the game ends with a discussion between the "human" and Beebee, who discusses anxiety, its extreme and solutions. I found this part, already a very good thing that it is there, but also quite fair and really helpful for all the people who are in these cases.

[Home *BLEEP* Home]

A simple and short point and click, but that I particularly appreciate!

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I'm going to spoil, so for everything that haven't started and finished the game yet, don't continue reading, it would be stupid to waste a cool little experience, and it's short too, there's no reason not to do it.
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The fact of being left to ourselves, and finding by chance an interaction with the environment, for me it was the sweaters, and seeing the reaction right next to the radiator is particularly satisfying, because we have the impression of discovering the goal of the game by experimenting on our own without having to be taken by the hand! I don't know if this was intentional or not, but it's just a very satisfying feeling!

Also, this sickly and sad blue characters, this music that sets the mood quickly enough plunges us into this futuristic universe rather depressing but nevertheless captivating (The music really plays there, congratulations to Phil! The music in the ending credits is really anxious and scary.... And I like anxious and anxious music) and makes us empathic with the "hero".
Moreover, the limited interactivity that some people show as a defect is for me just as great, it supports even more through the gameplay the monotonous and dirigiste life that the "hero", who is not free, even to have activities other than watching TV, eating and sleeping.

The puzzles are quite simple and logical, since the interactions are limited, we find the interactive elements quite quickly... Even if it took me a while to find the riddle in the fridge, I would have appreciated a little more chalenge... But I'm fidgeting, and I think it would even hurt the game experience if I did that.

Even its short duration is not a problem, because it's really well dosed, I really feel like the game is over when it's needed.

In short, I really enjoyed the game a lot, and hope to see more like this one !

jacklehamster responds:

I'm glad you enjoyed the radiator puzzle. We were debating to make it simpler because it was a big pain to implement, but pushed through at the end.

Phil just started a Newgrounds account: https://cheesymoo.newgrounds.com/. Hopefully more things to come!

[Kill Baby Hitler]

A game I understand the ambition of, but I think it's a failure.

The two main ends are as predictable as they are very average.
You don't feel any sense of satisfaction, or of having accomplished something, just to read the main lines of a very exploitative concept that fits on a Post-it.
You don't feel active, but passive, and even so it can work with some game... It's compensated by something else, like history.... And here, it's just sluggish, since as said above, we're just reading a concept idea through rather generic sentences.
If there weren't secret medals that told me there were other things to find, I would have stopped the game pretty quickly.
I want to see the moral side of the thing, which by the way and the reason for this game... But since the characters' sentences are insipid, the characters become so ! And since we don't feel like actors, since our actions, which are often limited to pushing a button to move the dialogues forward, we don't even ask ourselves this moral question that is never mentioned !
Ok, I'm in bad faith, it's just almost evoking upstream with the "Hero" who supports the fact that he's a baby, and that when we're in front of the future dictator of the Third Reich, we can see this question if we click on the baby without a moustache (Still we have to find him, I had to try 3 times to find him this text)... But it's too short and volatile for it to really touch and make you think about it.... Or I have no heart and it goes over my head, it's a valid answer too!
Fortunately, it's short, because we don't have time to get bored... At least that's an advantage.

However, be careful I will spoiler, the best end on both hiding gives interest to the game!..... But it's limited.
Indeed, the "third" is just.... Like the other ends, we feel no emotion, no involvement, no pleasure, no involvement, just that it's uninteresting.
But the fourth is all that the game should have been, and not just an end to be found. Because in addition to giving a feeling to the "Hero", which makes us, the word is strong but I have not better, alive and involved in the events (And I have a little more involved in the events), make clearly posed the moral question at the center of interest, and its implications for the future, etc....
And all this in a dialogue, even if it goes straight to the point without too much subtlety (But given the size of the writing on the game screen, I'm willing to accept that), it really gives this living and "real" side of the situation, and the implication that is missing in the rest of the game!
And then, this ending made me laugh, it was unpredictable, in addition to the music of "La Soupe aux Chou" in the background, it's just perfect X3 (And makes me want to see it again)
... Too bad we have to play 5 times the 2nd end to have it, especially since this end seems to be the "real" end since we can't start the game again after getting it and a moral was clearly exposed.

I want to understand the moral sense of the game, and that flat characters are there not to influence the player's choice... But in my opinion, I don't think it should apply to the whole game. We should feel after a decision that our choice is not insignificant... Even if I feel that the effort was made, since there are consequences... But for it to work, you need the player's involvement, which is a failure here for me.

I would summarize the game like this:
A potential, but too badly executed.

I am nevertheless curious to see your other creations, because despite this failed game in its objectives for me, I appreciated the 4th end that shows your potential.

jacklehamster responds:

Thanks for this long rant. I read the whole thing!
Yep, some tough decisions had to be made about the game. I do stand by my choice to make the 4th ending an easter egg rather than the goal of the game.

Even though I really want people to get to the 4th ending, I wanted them to make their decision on the basic question, without passing judgement on them. That’s why none of the first three ending really shows a clear victory over the other one.

This 4th ending was... well it really was just for fun ;-P

But thanks for your feedback. While you might not have completely enjoyed the game, it seems to have triggers lots of thoughts, so that's not so bad from my point of view ;-)

[Secret Santa]

Well, this game was really good!

The idea of Santa Claus avoiding traps to deliver gifts, although basic, is well exploited.
Finally, I say "avoiding" traps, but most of the time, we have to thwart them to be able to deposit our gifts quietly, and that adds this "little something" very nice, because we take a malicious pleasure to thwart them with our gadgets (Besides the idea that Santa Claus walks around with "Tech Gloggles" to see the traps is as much a great idea that she made me smile if I didn't laugh about it). It's simple to use, although it took me some time to understand their use.
Talking about their use, let's talk about the use of "Snow Spray"... That it's one of the most satisfying, but also the worst !
Be careful, I say "the worst", not "bad". It's especially in comparison with the "Snow Globe" that annoys me. Because as much as the Snow Globe has a good range, the Snow Spray has a ridiculous range. You have to stick to the Motion-Sensitive Cameras for it to work, and it's even more frustrating when you see the "snow particles" that go further than that Hitbox !
And above all, in the "Nakatomi plaza", I noticed that, once again, unlike the "Snow Globe", you can only spray the Notion-Sensitive Cameras at the front.... And somehow it's frustrating when you don't have the front is more risky than the back.
Come on, as long as I'm talking about "Nakatomi plaza", that's where I noticed the biggest gaps in the game : Santa Claus slips.
And it's very annoying when you try to make very tight jumps and slide on the platform and fall on a trap that costs you a return at the beginning of the level. How many times have I done it again because I slipped... It's a nice feeling at the first level (The slips), but at the last level, it's really our worst nightmare.

Well, I think I've said enough bad things about this game, because it's really minor :
I had a real pleasure to go through all the levels, even when I started again. The music is great (Too bad it's almost the only one with the Game Over and the Success Niveau, even if it didn't really bother me at all), and the graphics are, a very pretty Pixel Art (Too bad we don't have to be in "Tech Googgles" mode anymore, which spoils the colors a little bit) and a well balanced difficulty (Even if I feel that the last level passes a little more than one level the difficulty, which also doesn't pose any problem to me) and the controls answer very well !

In short, a great little game for Christmas and a very pleasant time for me. :3

PS: I realize that I've noticed a lot of defects, and I apologize a little bit, but I loved the game so much that I can't help but have to deal with all the defects, which are like a black spot on a white board, I just want it to clear.

Liquidream responds:

Wow, thanks for the in-depth feedback - very useful.
Don't worry - it's all been taken positively (and also already been echoed by others here - so def something to look at in future)
Thanks again!

[Twerking Santa]

I don't have the words....
But now, I only see Santa Claus Twerking... With ridiculous music...
... help me.

PS: This Twerk almost - almost, since I'm too bad to go to the- end.... Oh my.

[Revenge of The Kid]

The game is quite simple, but solid.

Its gameplay is intuitive enough for me to have taken it in hand directly, inventive at certain times. It's very fun to control, the physics is well managed (Even if it requires a little time to adapt for a while) the drawings are very nice, the atmosphere is great, the voice acting is magnificent (I enjoy hearing the characters spoken for my part) !
The music is also very good (Okay, a little repetitive sometimes, which can become annoying), and goes well with the general atmosphere.

The only shadow on the board I would see would be the difficulty curve, which is, for me, mismanaging. Indeed, I beat all levels without much difficulty, but like other people, I find myself blocked at 4-4, facing a difficulty suddenly too high for me. I would probably come back later to try to beat him, and I'm not complaining about a game that gives me resistance... But it happens so suddenly that it takes me by surprise... And not especially a good one. (Or it's just that I'm REALLY bad... I think it's more that.)

But it's still a great game, very pleasant, which has an atmosphere that gives it all its charm ^^