Amereep's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Mineral Rush]

I hate this game. Out of all the time I've encountered it over the past decade, this game is... prude, to put it lightly.

For starters, this is a time waster game. It expects you to gather material, leave to smelt and your materials and sell/restock/power-up before going back in. It's simple, however, the demands are high and the consequences are dire should you fail. For example, in order to progress, one must strengthen their weapon, and again, and again, and again, to levels that are so high that you'd be considered a master after wasting about 6-8 hours on this, but that's only for weapons, and Paulous will be needing a combined effort of offence and defense to take down, and IF YOU EVER DIE, YOU'RE BACK TO SQUARE ONE.

This game expect that you can rack up points easily, I dare even say that it can be conceited of itself, but I shouldn't lash my frustration out at the game (even though the 'user creator' is a sore thumb of this). I should judge by its functions, which saves (regrettably to those that fail) and it will self check to distribute medals upon startup (when it decides to), so it does have some concern for the player in mind. Paulous, that gingered lummox that has a special place in Hell for him, does add a bit of complexity to the whole thing. But God damn, do I hate this game for not being forgiving on players. If it has some experience points to help push the player along or maybe more chances of getting those dragonstones, then maybe I would've been more generous on giving stars, but hey, you get what you give.

[GLORIOUS TIME]

You know, I love idle games. They're the easiest to handle amongst games when getting medals, but I often find my share of issues with each of them. Most of the time they just make my sleepy, but every so often I encounter a counting issue, especially when things get fast.

First off... thank you for acknowledging me like that in the game. As I said, I enjoy these games, but it doesn't mean that I make attempts on speeding things up. I believe I was jumping between 2 tabs and refreshing the game so I stay connected to Newgrounds when the medal goes off. I noticed that a little boost to the clock when I did, it didn't boost the speed from what I could tell, but this is the first sign of what's to come.

When I discovered that you added more medals, I continued and had the most difficult time with the 'Fast Full Circle' medal as I was about 3:30 at best. I know it had something to do with toggling on and off the autobuys, but I couldn't figure it out. I did discover the auto EON, making it less punishable for nodding off, and when I awoken, I see that the fastest cycle I went through was 2:30. It gets more wild as the cycle kept getting shorter and shorter to the point where it finishes a cycle in under half the target time and the EON stop autocycling all together.

I maxed out qwerty's theorem, but the medal didn't go off. The first medal says 'Not Achieved' all the time even after I already obtain it and it tends to fix itself after a refresh of the page, so I refreshed the page, but it didn't acknowledge it no matter how many times I refreshed it.

https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/draw/a7722341c8bc89471a20a3c81f3927d9

You likely saw the ridiculous amount of Eons I would've gotten upon freezing in the proof I provided. Not sure if that was the intention, but this is something I encounter all the time whenever numbers begin to accelerate with no end in sight. Oh the surprises I find after taking a nap to these games.

WaspVentMan responds:

Thanks for letting me know about that issue, I’ll try get it patched ASAP :)

Also, feel free to DM me if you have any more details to give me :)

[ART GALLERY COLLAB]

Well, I feel like I should pay tribute to this collab for what it had given me.

Huge collabs can be very messy and limited for just about everyone. The one that's heading it is usually the first that comes to mind, the player might be considered the second depending on how cluttered and overwhelming the choices can be when picking at least one of them, but I think the often overlooked ones are the contributors themselves. We never stop and give each of them a moment of our time and focus only on the ones that interest the individual's taste. We're spoiled, often abusing the scroll function to skip past this person's opportunity of getting recognized like they might've wanted going into these collabs. But this time, there's a catch... that... that actually catches.

The narrating is the best part of this. From the humorous depictions to the unexpecting quips, it puts a unique spin on things that actually makes the player want to stop and take a moment with each entry as they listen to what the narrator has to say. This addition is so infectious that I used this feature as the base for a flashfic that I wrote, trying to pull off the same flipped perspective for an AI generated image I made for the occasion. ...and my entry actually won.

So I'm here to acknowledge my gratitude, speak my thoughts on this collab, and to shamelessly promote the story.

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/399186/78/amereeps-anthology-of-flashfics/in-the-garden

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all.

[Leaving the Cell]

I don't do this very often. In fact, the last time I recall doing it was when someone stole a remix of Saria's song and claiming it to be their own, but I'm giving this zero stars.

This remake (if you can even call it that) is symbolic to what I suspect from many remakes nowadays, a get rich quick scheme with little to no heart on what made the original so great, but this exceeds farther on the downgrades that companies tend to give. Comprised of single frames of poor quality, this game is literally just the same original material, but with no real originality or attempt to live up or even surpass that source content. The legal ending is the best example of this as the entire case was presented with only one frame after you picked a choice, listening to the original audio like it's depending on the player's memory of the original to understand what's going on.

I have no idea how it made it pass judgement or even how it made pass 2 stars, but it would be a lot more enjoyable just to play the original game (and I swear there's even another remake of this game out there that was worse than the original, but better than the attempt being made with this). This game falls hard as it fails to realize the real thing that makes the Henry Stickmin games so memorable and enjoyed. It's not the wacky choices, it's not the simple characters, it's the ANIMATION.

[Laser Summer Day]

This game is torture.

The game is set up in an arching system where the players are either angling up or down and need to regularly move back and forth to make sure not to go too far and off the screen. To top it off, lasers are being shot at you everywhere and your points are based on how many you avoided.

It doesn't ease you in like most game. In fact, it also doesn't give you medals like most games too. For example, I kept getting around 200 points with no luck of getting 250 for that medal. But with dumb luck, I eventually got 925 in an attempt. Logically, I got the 750 medal for my efforts, but the 250 and 500 medals... nope. The game is set up where you receive medals after you hit a milestone, but before reaching the next one, else it gets replaced with the new milestone upon getting a game over. No matter how good you are, you'll need to play 13 times if you want to get every medal this game has to offer, making this a lot more harder for a game that's already coming at ya with everything its got.

I've seen games like this before with the constant wavering, it's very basic with little effort needed in the coding, but it goes a step further on the laziness by straight up placing you in Very Hard mode with minimum effort on satisfying the player for their effort they're making for the medals, let alone their enjoyment.

[Dwarf Planet One]

This game is quite... well, a matter of perspective. Constructive orientations or straightforward drops. Relaxing atmosphere or nauseating ride. It can adjust to our preference or we can master its challenges. There's effort placed into this and many consideration were made for this to be a chill-mood game, but I think it's just a little bit short on being perfect, and that too is likely another form of perspective.

I've tried the Newgrounds' Player, Ruffle on Chrome, but both cases have failed at giving me the any medals, or even autosaved for that matter. When starting the game, I always find myself in the tutorial and have to reobtain the glowing orb in order for me to skip the section. I'm assuming that I might have the option to start a new game or continue, but this has not happened to me once in the game.

I haven't gotten far since I don't want to go through the effort of doing it a second time when I'm able to get them, but I shouldn't let that fact be the only deciding factor of the number of stares I should give (especially since I assume that you're making an effort on fixing the issue). The fact that I'm not tide to a platform's gravity when I jump help speed thing up when I want to get to a distant location, the glowing lights in the swirls was an amusing take on warping, and I would say that the pathway is too narrow and difficult to navigate through, but those slow regenerating hearts not being a one-hit-per-symbol really helps at making this game chillaxing.

EDIT: Okay, so after a few tries of reloading, the medals are working on Chrome (got the first two upon reload and continuing). Still absent on the Newgrounds' Player for both save and medals though, but one issue at a time. I don't want to sound like I'm pressing that matter, but between NP and Chrome, Chrome is playing very sluggishly.

Emrox responds:

I am planning on taking a good long look at the medal & saving stuff this weekend, though as of now I really have no idea what the issue might be, so I'm not super confident about my ability to fix things, sadly. I will update this reply if I can figure anything out!

Actually, if you have a minute, can you start up the game, right click > open save manager, and see if there's a file in the list called "dwarfPlanetLocalSave"?

Update: Medals and saving *might* be fixed now. If you want to test it real quick, you can pause from the intro and select "return to home planet," which will drop you into the main game without having to play the intro level again.

[Newspaper puzzle]

Well, after discovering your method and exploiting it by messing with time as my laptop knows it to be, I feel that it's fair that I give some kind of review on the game.

Much like the section found in the newspaper, this game lives up to its name as it's a 'one day at a time' kind of game, It may be a bit of a puzzle at first, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes a minor issue to tackle and loses its thrill unless there's a lengthy time between this and the next set of puzzles. Everyday will present new puzzles, so it's best not to do what I did to acquire the medals.

One thing to note is your method to achieve the ultimate objective of opening the safe, because it actually hinders those like me who try to race through this. In order to open the safe, one must complete both wordsearch and sudoku of that given session. It's a good way to make us work for it, but I encountered an issue on one occasion. After completing the sudoku and heading to the calendar, I needed to double check the zodiac and element. Upon returning to the newspaper, the sudoku was reverted back like it was never attempted on. I ignored it, continued to opening the safe, but it didn't open when I put in the code. It worked fine after completing the sudoku again, so that's something to consider looking into.

There's nothing really more to say as this game live up to what it's attempting to replicate, a puzzle section of a newspaper that changes daily. It adds a bit a more dimension with cracking a safe open, which is something every content creator needs to keep in mind when translating one media into another; the limitations and the new possibilities.

EDIT: Not needed, huh? Well I can't deny your word, but I swear I did it without completing either of them. I mean, yesterday, I couldn't find that last word, but I had a good idea of the safe's answer, yet I couldn't get through. I did try to back track using the numerology and the circled day, but it wasn't getting me anywhere. Numerology is new to me, so I considered that I was in the fault. So today, I decided to just hardball it and use every day that falls within the respected horoscope of the appropriate zodiac year.

DasSG responds:

Thank you for a kind review.

Actually neither the word maze nor sudoku is required to open the safe.
Finishing word maze adds caption to button groups, finishing sudoku show the numbers on the buttons.
It's harder to push correct buttons without marks - but fully possible. Early prototype had no marks on buttons at all - but it was hard to get that these start from zero (due the keyboard with 1234567890 - safe button layout confuses people)
As for the messing with system clock - it was intended as a continuation of meta-puzzle. (Also very easy to verify since a medal has an unlock date)
Sudoku is easy to solve (maybe too easy) and does not save state because I haven't thought about people returning to it, sorry.

P.S. So far nobody noted that numerology calculation section in the newspaper is interactive...

[Dr. Ruby]

I never understand why people reskin things. Comics, stories, animation, games, the payoff plays about the same, although a bit shunned upon for wither it's ripping off the source material or failing to live up to the original. This game is more of the latter, but in little positive and negative interpretations about it.

Adding the 2x2 virus seems like an original choice that makes this game unique from its inspiration in a good way, but there's issues with that giant germ that falters gameplay. For starters, it seems that it only takes pills that fall on top of it and not from the side or bottom. A small virus of the same color may be next to it, and if I screw up and have to get rid of this little guy first, the game doesn't take the little guy as its own and combines it with the bigger one, meaning that I'm going to have to get rid of both of them at the same time, And I don't think the game likes that.

I was able to beat level 10 (didn't get the medal, of course), but on 2 occasions during that level upon ridding the big virus (both times with a smaller virus if I recall), the screen just goes black. Refreshing the page makes it better again, but I also have to start all over again.

On a minor creative choice, the checker pattern on the board/bottle really messes with the eyes. The pills line up almost too perfectly with the grid altering colors, making it difficult to tell if the pill color is facing the intended direction of the player's attempt. That might've been the intention, or it might just be my eyes beginning to sync up with my body's age of 34.

It's a personalized Dr. Mario with a new concept to the traditional gameplay that can test one's skills, but the viruses have mutated and given the game a few bugs that falter its playthrough. It's much like the doctor's method of chucking pills unto a bottle in some ways. With any luck, the issue might be contained within the game's coding if you approach it with caution in mind.

TCzombie responds:

I appreciate you taking the time to play our little game and writing such a thorough review! I pretty much agree with everything you said, I'm not sure what I was thinking with the big viruses needing so much headspace to clear LOL. I assume the intent with the grid was to help, not to hinder, (Woodman did the rough graphic pass before I came in) but I can see how it might. I realize now that Dr. Mario doesn't have a grid on the play field. I do wish we could have quashed more of the bugs when we made this but it's a learning experience. The medal one is a bummer of course but I sent the confirm for it your way!

[PenisMan Adventures (FULL/JOKE GAME) (FIXED MEDALS UPDATE)]

Willy: I'll stand guard and watch the house.
PM: Okay, but if anything happens to me, it's your fault.

Heh, f-funny, cause I was moving when he started talking and found myself sliding to the end of the boarder and then got stuck... yes... quite humorous...

*sigh* So you're new here, and the first game you give us is about dicks, and it appears that it will be a trend with you, judging by your name. ...you'll fit right in around here, and I'm not saying that because I'm about to sound like a pussy.

As you might see, these jokes are too easy for me. Bathroom humor is like a sea of clams, only a few will present a pearl. Practically anything can be an inuendo to something dirty that the Id in our minds would find relevant despite it being induced by primal instincts. I'll admit that this world is imaginative, and I'm taking into account that this is all but a joke, but this will be engaging with only teens, immature adults, and Newgrounds.

However, this is a game, so it stands that there's more to talk about besides story. Despite it being the limpest part, everything about this dick-theme game is very stiff. The jumping, for example, has a delay of at least a second, making those time jumps difficult. The layout buttons for the PC can be very awkward as I needed to use my left hand to use the arrows, spacebar, and an additional button thankfully not too far away as I use my right hand to work the mouse (how much more easier it would've been if I was able to use WASD as an alternative). Adding some additional frames to show the movement of these 'spasming organ characters' might've helped at selling the joke of this crazy world and avoid any confusion for the players (attacking the final penises, for example, didn't seem like it was doing anything. Sound was indicating something, yes, but I thought I was striking a shield or something as their heart didn't seem to respond until multiple strikes later. ...that's strikes, not strokes).

This game is a lot more extensive than what many represent as their first game around here, but it needs to work on its 'foreplay' before I'd erect this as a decent game.

Peniverse-Studios responds:

That was probably the best review I've had, this had the humor, the advice and my balls. I will improve the game, thanks. And the final boss health bar heals, that's why.

-Peniverse Studios