DavidMarchand's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Sanguine]

I'll agree that the jumping and running is fairly awkward compared to the ambitious and smooth grappling, sucking and slaying that happens in this game. I understand your speed is SUPPOSED to be slow when you're running out of blood, but quite frankly having a full bar of the red stuff doesn't seem to improve my agility THAT much. However, there's just too much good stuff going on to say this is a bad game.

The gameplay is incredibly varied, which is always welcome, and more so when it all happens with so few buttons. The enemies are very good, and strategy rapidly becomes top priority when facing them. You learn that you better not let 'em see you coming. You learn how to sneak up on them and eventually how to dodge most of their bullets and get them while they reload. You learn that you can not possibly beat two of them if they see you, but one you can handle. You learn where to hide, when to suck, when to cut, and when not to do those things.

Some things could be improved, of course. I found there's too many things you can do that aren't useful enough to learn to master them. Once you grab someone, for example, killing them with your blade is useless most of the times, since the only thing it achieves is avoiding being detected by other humans, and you can already do that by dragging your victim somewhere safe. Things like crouching mid-air or staying suspended between two walls happen too rarely, and only when the map is too obviously forcing you to do them. And, well, just to repeat myself, having a strong running speed when full of blood would've definitely resulted in a better experience.

Punishing the player with boring repetitive death levels, I don't know how I feel about it, but it sure as hell is original. In the world of casual flash games, infinite lives is a deep-rooted tradition, and we've seem many games that present basically no punishment for poor performance, except maybe going back a few tiles in the map. Now I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, and believe me, restarting a screen in this game feels already like enough punishment, but the death levels are a curious feature that I'll deem good just because of its originality. Just make sure next time the punishment is less boring.

The story, for what little there is, is pretty good. I would only complain about the fact that some key facts get stated during the introduction and are too easily forgotten when you don't repeat them. By the ending, for example, I had forgotten about Elly's gender, about her ally's fire-like nature, and also about her promise to him. So when the end sequence began, I didn't understand which lines belonged to my enemy and which to my ally. Maybe some indication would've been better, like the name of the character speaking before every line? And also, some reiteration of the main plot throughout the levels? I don't know, really.

The bosses were HARD, but fun and very rewarding. The first one, at least, seems hard enough to make a lot of new players rage-quit, so making the difficulty a little more gradual would've surely been welcome. The ending (SPOILER) I didn't quite get. It was a nice turn of events when Elly's enemy chooses to spend his last words giving her, his murderer, advice, and it is very climatic when her ally appears in the form of the rising sun, and when she actually follows her dying enemy's advice and breaks her promise with just a few seconds left, but there's not enough explanation as to why does she do that. What does she gain by not letting her enemy die in his old rival's fire? And what does the last image represent? Is that a Christian cross, like in a tomb? Whose is it? Well, I guess it's not really all that crucial.

Anyway, a truck full of congratulations to you for such a nice, engaging game.

[MOON]

So, to access the SECRET ROOM you're supposed to click something when you first enter that corridor on DAY 3. And, as TrollMoon said (fitting name), the passwords are 12cly90pov2, 274091, 0, 8, and 12 99 70 51 59 12 77 0a. I needed to get all medals to truly see if I was missing something and this was actually a good game. It wasn't.

I won't deny the sound is awesome. The art is pretty good too. But these things do not redeem this game from being what it is. I know why I don't like it, I don't really know why it bothers me this much, so I'll stick to what I do know.

The walking is too slow. Saying it's realistic won't do no good here. There is no realistic game in the whole universe. There's only designer choices as to where to be realistic and how much. You chose to have unrealistic sounds: noise that doesn't exist in the fictional world but the player can hear. You chose to make an unrealistic visual representation: you made it 2D, you made it pixelated. You chose to make you character take unrealistic choices: things that help you tell your story but don't make no sense from the point of view of how a guy on the moon would behave. You chose to make him walk at a realistic speed.

The sounds and graphics are GOOD unrealistic elements. The weird choices John makes are BAD unrealistic elements. And the super slow walking speed is a BAD realistic element. This should be a gold rule: if having a realistic walking speed is detrimental to the experience you're trying to convey, why not have an UNrealistic walking speed? How could that be bad, if it makes the whole thing better, more enjoyable, less infuriating?

The plot. It's not that good. You took the basic premise of a lot of excellent movies and you took away everything those films ADDED to that premise to have an actually interesting story. So you have a guy on the moon who's alone and starts to question his sanity. OK. What else? All those movies you quote aren't good because they have a mad dude on the moon, they're good because of the things that happen AFTER the audience meets the guy on the moon. Your game basically presents its cliché premise and leaves it at that. Doesn't add anything.

A previous review got it pretty right: the game's message is "John sees things", and I would add "and then he freaks out". Nothing more. On Day 1 I learn John sees things and freaks out. On Day 2 the game informs me that John sees things that freak him out. On Day 3 John sees some serious things and totally freaks out. On Day 4 John is totally freaked out. Why have four different instances to say over and over the exact same thing, that the player will understand perfectly right at Day 1's end? Wouldn't've been better to have John seeing things on Day 1 (and freaking out) and then giving us a little more information about the nature of this visions? Oh, but it would've, it totally would've.

Then there's the secret room. Everything that could make this game original and separated from the film sources, disappears when the secret room is basically an image from the film Moon and a short text simply repeating the game's "Author Comments".

This game has no story, it's just a premise. If you know the story of what's happening and why John sees a weird version of himself who talks funny, then by all means don't keep it to yourself, share it with us. I'm sure it would be an awesome story. I'm not even asking for a definitive answer, just some indications that there's more to it than just a guy who hallucinates with himself.

It's not great as a game and it's not great as a movie, so being a movie/game won't save it, it's just bad twice. I genuinely LOVE art games, most of 'em anyway, so I can take a lot of mystery and press-spacebar-to-win and anti-fun stuff, but this is too much. Even the most artsy games should have EITHER gameplay OR a story OR player choices OR AT THE SUPER LEAST a change of scenery, like AwkwardSilence's "The Body", which lacks everything but this last thing, and still manages to be pretty cool. Your MOON on the other hand, lacks just about everything.

[Evil Goat]

Dude, you're on fire! So many games in the last weeks, and very fun ones too. I also was surprised to beat the last level in 21 moves (got 'em memorized now). Even if it wasn't intended, it's a nice anomaly for the last challenge. I thought the Marvellous Villain medal was gonna be madness, but a little concentration did the trick. Keep it up, keep it all up!

[FIVE/5]

Now I need more of you

Really, your Robots Can't Think was amazing, and this one's pretty rad too. Continuity is a great inspiration, strange how so few games played with that organize-your-own-playground concept once Ragtime Games showed the basics of it. I applaud you ability for making this fine stuff with this freaky atmosphere, even if it's just for the feel of it and not to sustain any real story. Get your page up already, I looked everywhere without finding anything about you back when I played Robots Can't Think, like a week ago of something.

[Dr. Bones' Adventure]

Nice!

I mean, some bugs here and there, but student project and all, this is amazing! Was really frustrating the time it takes to scroll the screen, mostly in the lava part. So it was so nice to see the monster actually waited for the game to scroll before continuing its thing.

The symbol puzzle was awesome. I still can't make anything of the crazy snake-iraf psychedelic display. Congrats again on the symbol puzzle!

[Bullet Maze]

Incredible

Just a simple concept that's been taken to its fullest. Expert mode's 27 was the hardest to me, mostly because I found it impossible to calculate (so many variables!). Actually, it was the only one where (at least at the end) I had to trust some kind of instinct and move the mouse clicking along with the music hoping to maintain the correct pacing.

I like it that after the hardest levels there are some relatively easy ones to keep player's interest. And the game does a wonderful job in training the player. That's what I call effectively teaching the game's world's rules. By the end of the last level I felt like I had developed a new ability, and that's an awesome feeling. Even tough, you know, it's not a particularly useful ability anywhere else.

[Journey Is Destination]

Too many things to actually summarize

I don't think this is really retro. But then again, I'm too young to be nostalgic so I don't specially like retro.

This was actually made with Flixel, default images and already recorded music, so I can only guess neither controls nor graphics nor sounds were that hard to take and put together. On the other hand, the (presumably) little effort put in a work shouldn't matter if the work is actually good.

I like, however, the idea it presents. I'm not crazy about the fact that the idea appears in the description below and not in the actual game (which without the title and description would be somewhat regular). But the description certainly makes me play the game with another mood, watching it in a new angle.

The difficulty of it makes you impatient. I myself couldn't leave it alone until I finished it, felt I was somehow incomplete if I didn't get to see the end, which goes against the notion that the journey is the destination. But, for little moments, I think I felt it. I think I actually thought it wasn't that important to win, when I was enjoying the playing.

So there goes my positive review, because I don't know if you accomplished it, but you sure tried to question the oh so established rule that all games without exception are defined by having an ultimate goal the player has to reach.

[Intruded]

Fascinating

I can't but give this thing the tens. It's creepy and fantastic, it makes you love it and hate it.

Sometimes you start a level with the girl in front of a wall, so the girl always hits it the first time one plays it. Players'll start all levels just keeping the up arrow key pressed, so my only recommendation would be to leave a clear corridor in front of the girl in every level starting point, so we can have her walking straight a few seconds while we analyse how to get her through the challenge alive.

I'm guessing the graphics would be pretty simple and empty if it wasn't for the distorting effect, so this is what I call a smart visual choice. The feel of the game is absolutely awesome. Maybe the first boss fight (with the small moving platform and the flying spikes that is, let's call it a boss fight) felt a little out of the main atmosphere, but that's just me.

The final boss is terrific. With this quality of 3D art, most monsters just look silly. But you, you actually pulled it off, it is great and exciting and, most of all, really frightening. I wouldn't dare to try ghost mode past level four.

[Alight (in dreams)]

Great game

Speechless, really, such an awesome writing and a great story with this impossible-not-to-cry-at music. Maybe levels were bigger than they should be, I don't know, but if you just keep playing you can't regret it, 'cause it's nothing but a rewarding experience.

The flying, the smoke, everything in here counts, every single detail seems to have its place. I don't know if I'll replay it (it took me so long the first time) but I surely want to complete all challenges and endings, if there are more than the one I got.

[Dire Haven]

Jolly fun!

Really nice platformer. Pretty conventional except for that one single touch, the naked people, that gave the game a unique feel. Quite hard but not as much as I thought it would be.

Now that I think of it, naked platformers are not that rare. I'm thinking of Sonic and many more, if the boots don't count. Maybe naked adventure games or shooters would be stranger, but anyway, this is the first platformer I know of that says its characters are naked, so congratulations.

Oh, and the story is messed up, 'cause why would anyone try to escape from a naked world? The best combination for me is a world like theirs in some things, like in being full of naked people, and like ours in other stuff, like in not being full of killer spikes and flying razors.