VaguelyCreepy's Reviews

[I've Learned Too Much]

Haven't been keeping up with dA as of late, so it's been a while since I've seen these girls. They're just as bursting with personality and individuality as ever. You did an almost unnervingly good job of capturing the depths of despair and going completely nuts because of it. Loved it!

[A Thug in Time Intro]

The art is interesting, the voice acting is good, the concept is cool. These are all sincere statements, and you should build upon these strengths.

But I'm sorry, the ENTIRE thing was nothing but RIDICULOUSLY condensed exposition. There wasn't any real feeling or buildup to any of it - Click start, then voices saying "Thishappenedthenthishappenedthenthis happenedthenthishappenedthenthishappe ned
thenthishappenedthenthishappenedthent hishappenedthenthishappenedthenthisha ppened..."

I'll say it again, you've got the makings of something good here, but you need put some pacing in there. By the time I was able to understand that he used to be a real badass, the Mayan (Aztec? Incan?) was already forty seconds into the explanation of why he was suddenly a time-wizard. Give us some time to get into things, otherwise there's no way for us to build up an emotional investment in the story or its characters.

And I suspect it was also done to accommodate as much information as possible, but just in case it's unrelated, you should slow down the rate at which your characters talk, too. Again though, if you were just doing that to get info out there, then pacing is all you need.

Anyway, I *do* hope to see more from you and this series - give us something to cheer about!

[Little Bunny Foo Foo: No Evil 008]

Okay, I'm sorry, but I *need* to know: is how Calamity speaks your normal manner of talking? Because it is FANTASTIC. This entire animation is *mind-blowingly* good, and I could listen to the twelve seconds of your song-spell on a loop FOREVER. I am a complete sucker for a woman who can sing with real force, and if we were to ever meet, I would likely give you my heart. But sadly, all I can offer a favorite.

The favorite icon looks like a heart, though!

Now yes, I do have to admit that, as others have said before, at least Wrip's voice was a little inconsistent in terms of accent and, yes, maybe Calamity was hard to understand at the start, but I honestly didn't care by the end, for reasons I've already explained. If I had to offer some (different) advice, I'd say you need to focus on putting that final bit of polish on, well, everything. Now, don't think for a second that means what you have here isn't good, or great even. You know how you might see in a TV show or movie a chef slave over an extravagant meal, and everything looks so delicious you want to take a bite out of your screen? But before he or she lets it go out to the customer, they hold up a hand to stop the waiter, then carefully, SO gingerly, grab a tiny piece of parsley and place it on top of the steak with *micron* precision, and somehow that makes the entire thing completely perfect? That's what I mean - that one tiny bit of extra perfection that makes you go from "great" to "bathed in a heavenly light while an angelic chorus sings Hallelujah." Just that final bit of finish on the art, the animation, the voices, and your work will shine like the sun.

If I sound overly flattering in this, it's because I want to stress that this *is* fantastic, because I can see that you are entirely capable of raising the bar as high as it will go, and because I want to encourage you to do so. (And maybe a little because of that voice-crush I mentioned.)

[Wibby's Adventure]

You definitely get all the points for style and creep factor, and overall it was fun enough for me to finish it, but the controls and level design could use some fine-tuning. Normally when a game has a fixed jump like this one, it's entirely fixed, i.e., the direction is set as soon as you hit jump *and* the height is consistent. Think Super Ghouls and Ghosts, if you've ever played that. The consistency makes it a lot easier to plan out and control your jumps, which is important when the character also doesn't maintain forward momentum if they hit a wall. This hybrid style where the arc is fixed but the height isn't is kind of awkward and unintuitive. It wasn't a deal-breaker, but it sapped a little of the fun out of it.

Additionally, randomizing the enemies that spawned in places when you die made the castle more frustrating. I'm thinking specifically of the section where you had to wall jump back and forth three or four times to climb a vertical shaft. If the enemy that spawned at the top had a ranged attack, like the drill or penguin, getting past it was almost impossible because you couldn't see it until the screen scrolled up and you were already in its line of fire.

Speaking of, the wall jump worked fine, and was fun even, but telling the player they can do it directly would be a big help. The only reason I figured it out was because I knew this was a Kirby "clone" so when I was at the spot where you have to do the first wall jump in the castle, I tried jumping again in midair to float and I happened to be next to the wall. I actually managed to get "stuck" at the first boss because if you enter a door, any powerups on the ground disappear. I died to her, lost my last powerup, accidentally entered the door causing it to disappear, and then didn't realize I could wall jump back up and get a new ability, so I didn't have any way to damage her. That one's partially my fault obviously, but knowing I could wall jump sooner would have saved me the restart.

Finally, I don't know if this was intentional or not, but if you have a ranged attack, you can just snipe all the bosses from the doorways to their rooms before you're on their screen, and even leave their screens entirely to cheese them from a distance or avoid attacks. Depending on what you're going for, locking the player in to the boss's screen once the fight starts might be a good fix for that.

All that being said, I did have fun, and I know this was a game jam game, so you could only do so much with the time you had. What you did do was very impressive in terms of everything, art, music, and gameplay. If you ever decided to make a refined or expanded version of this, I'd absolutely play it.

[Cube Escape: Seasons]

Do you know how good this game is? I'll tell you. I got to the very last part of the game, and it crashed on me. And then, I got back to the last room. And it crashed on me again.

And I *still* played through again to see the end.

Just so we're clear, I'm pretty sure the problem was on my end with the crashing. This computer I'm using isn't super-powerful. But this was so intriguing that I played through the game three consecutive times in order to see how it turned out. *That,* my friend, is some quality work. Excellent job.

[Doris and the Dragon: Ep1]

Well, on the positive side, it's a fun and creative game with likable characters, a unique art style, and puzzle logic that actually makes some degree of sense, unlike a lot of adventure games you see.

SPOILERS

Unfortunately, I found a glitch that stopped me cold. Once you're in the Daemon's stomach, if you climb to the very top of the path and hover your mouse in the upper left part of the screen, you'll see the word "Daemon" pop up. If you choose Examine, you'll get the same text as when you first saw him sleeping on the cliff. If you choose Interact, the game seems to freeze. And since I usually browse with Private Mode on, this means I didn't have a save file available when I had to refresh the page. I'm reviewing this now and giving it four stars because what I was able to play was really good and made me confident the rest of the game will match up quality-wise. I just don't want to ruin the luster by having to play through it twice in a row. I'll come back some other time and finish it up properly. And finally, I think it might be good to pick up Doris' walking pace just a little. It wasn't super draggy, and I know she's old, but it might help keep the pace up. All the same, this game was really good, and I look forward to the next parts!

ArrogantPixel responds:

Thank you for the very detailed feedback! We were discussing last night how we should have put a disclaimer in warning people that we use temporary files on the browser to save - we aim to do this in the next update. Also, your bugs have been noted! If you want to experience the game in full screen and not worry about the save function, you can download a DRM free version without ads on our website. Thanks for playing!

[When you get sent to purgatory but you have a treat]

Loooooootta sin to be cleansed before this one is ready for heaven.

[Sparkle Dragon Shaney and Serious Suzy]

They're both precious, and the expressions are great!

[Shark Dating Simulator -XS Shane Edition-]

You, my friend, make a good-looking shark.

Also, the age rating really got me.