WCCC's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Plazma Burst 2]

Ah, yes. This brings me back. A classic then, and a classic now. The ragdoll physics and small screen size have certainly jarred me, but not as much as me realizing that I'd beaten the game with both alien and human gear on impossible back in the day. I figured out the Ctrl+Mousewheel trick. I was surprised that it was recommended to a reviewer, as it feels backend, but I guess that proves it's an established lifehack. Getting used the ragdoll physics again. I'm remembering how nice it was to be able to literally dive for cover, or grab onto ledges dynamically... Plus splitting your enemies in two on a sharp corner feels great. I've just gotta get my sea legs again.
You might recall, but I was the guy who emailed about player levels having broken level transfer syntax, some years back. I do hope it brings some new blood back into the game, as it's one I make a pilgrimage to every couple of years. Right on schedule!

EGurt responds:

Oh, my syntax errors could have been a right thing for one more spooktober :D Hopefully it got better :)

There been problems when moving to next levels too, I think I remember those.

[Tattle & Tale]

The spirit of spyro lives on yet. This game struck my nostalgia bone harder and harder the more I played it. If this isn't textbook spyro 2 influence I don't know what is. My nostalgia bone may very well be obliterated with so many things that resonated in this piece. However, onto the bad news.

Tired upon playing and writing this, so maybe I'm biased, but I found the piece itself to be fairly dry. But in the 2 levels I cleaned out before putting this piece down, I did a lot of thinking about what was wrong and what was right.

Primarily, I think it came down to pacing and movement speed. The game itself had a very slow pace in terms of movement and slow, low-risk combat. Combined with the "collectathon" aspect (a pejorative in its own right in the realm of gaming, if only for reasons I may never understand), it really did kill the pacing and make things feel tedious.

I'd also point out that the levels were perhaps overly dependent on verticality. I love me some verticality, and one should use it to properly appreciate gliding, but I think it just doesn't work in a 2d setting as much as a 3d setting. Wherein vertical terrain is not used for mounting a chain of terrain displaced from the rest of the level, but rather strewn on top the ground of a level and made mandatory to re-climb a large chain of 2d terrain upon falling down or missing something at one spot. Dare I say, it just doesn't work outside of a 3d realm for the lack of non-linearity one could imbue into 3d.

Further, most enemies seemed bland, and a couple of the NPC's had somewhat annoying sounds for speaking, and the speaking range was so high you'd hop between L/R platforms and have the effect resound every second or so. Painful, in its own way. About the enemies, I always loved how in spyro, with some exceptions, enemies seemed specialized in their attack style and how each had weaknesses and strengths, as well as more diverse movement patterns on occasion that could keep you on your toes in combat. Meanwhile, most of the foes presented seem to be pretty linear and "idle" in terms of routing, while often just being some kind of critter.

Let's move onto the good news: The game functions without any true bugs I can find. It has a nice setting that is generic while a thing its own at the same time, oddly spinning the old record in a new direction. The game looks great, its soundtrack has some nice and very creatively stitched together jams, and all the core mechanics are there while platforming.

For 2d, I feel that mario and sonic realized or built around some of the potential faults at hand.

Not to be a completionist collectathon or to mandate the player to move in all sorts of areas requiring backtracking and climbing, but leaving them as options with large incentives in terms of rewards. You could blow past tedious 2d terrain in a more reflex oriented manner rather than pure coordination, often times. More unique encounters, be they level or boss, would gradually require more coordination over reflex, or rather along side it. In that sense, it was challenging and skill related, while fast paced and not requiring too much time investment.

I love what is inherited in this game, and how it is unique in many fashions. It has an artistically thrilling world, but a functionally dry one. It pains me to say that I'd rate this somewhere in the vicinity of 7/10, PROBABLY leaning towards 4/5 due to how close it is to being a magical product in its inception. I hope my criticisms can help improve and see things a bit better for you, or at least that I didn't shit all over your day at the least.

A very tough call for a very thin line that barely remains uncrossed. Keep on rocking, because you've clearly got a lot going in terms of elements, and I've seen you produce some fiercer content before.

~WCCC

SinclairStrange responds:

Thanks for a wonderful review! I complete agree in some aspects with the design point of view, however as this was created for a gamejam (and I only had a month) I really didn't have much time to plan out everything as I would of liked. I actually had lots of neat ideas to try and keep things more fresh but just didn't have the time to create and build them. I originally wanted the worlds to be all interconnected and have sub areas but that would of just been too much of a task.

Same with the enemies, to program in 20 plus unique enemies would of just been too much for the time scale I had so I just made 5 different types and re-skinned them with different sprites. A bit lazy approach but at the same time it saved me time to work on other stuff. The music itself was all created on the last day, in under 3 hours I think, so that just shows how pushed for time I was.

The movement and pace is only an issue in the flash version because it wasn't planned to be ported over here, it was originally made for PC's. Flash is a bit of a resource hog and I'm shocked it even runs to be honest!

Hopefully when I get around to making a spiritual successor I'll make sure I plan it using flash and iron out all the bugs and have more time to create more clever world designs :D

[Bullet Heaven 2]

I won't lie, certain levels on higher end difficulties just kind of pass this wall of idiotic difficulty.

Enemies, in my opinion, shouldn't forcibly emit projectiles on death. This creates a huge issue where even if you can kill them all properly, it's sometimes better to just sit there and dodge their puny alive attacks and not have to deal with their dead effects. Maybe that's intentional, I dunno.

Further, I'm at the 2nd to last desert bit trying it on heavenly difficulty, and there are some waves that just seem to cross into unfair. Giant wad of blue line shooters with shield bros is pretty devious. One wrong step and even the most creative tactics make their wall of lead completely undodgeable, and continues to be true even after you rush to wipe out one half.

That same level also exercises that whole shield deal, with intentionally leaving shields hooked up to multiple mage things, meaning you have to wipe out all of them more often than not, and then you proceed to delay bringing said group on screen by several seconds.

I end up just bombing the early rounds because of how stupid that gets in itself, but I guess Anna's bombs can't kill shielded opponents while Lance can? How in the hell does bombs have vastly different abilities make sense in balance I dunno, because all the characters have tradeoffs outside of bombs already.

Great game, but I feel a lot of the attempts to make the game harder just get god damned absurd and randomly seem to gravitate around low blows in short bursts, then not later. Weird shit.

matt-likes-swords responds:

Don't worry, it gets a lot harder later on!

[BUBBLEBOY]

The game gets extreme FPS hangups on later levels for me, which unfortunately just makes it easier since I get "bullet time" effect. Hilariously, the FPS hangups start only once I start moving in the level. Sitting in stasis watching the level lets everything run at top speed. Bad resource allocation over all, but a fun concept. Game even froze shut the first time I booted it up. No idea what's up there, but I have 8GB of ram to expend on such a small piece.

Chaz responds:

Weird, never heard that before. I guess that's AS2 for ya.

[Madness Descent (Demo)]

Wowie where to begin. This is as said a demo and you are open to features... so I can think of quite a few issues I'd like to point out and what really seems lackluster to me.

Actual Issues:
-Bullets only go the screen's length and enemies do not chase or exceed a very primitive path, if any. Combined with auto healing, this is highly exploitable and there is very little danger to the player.
-Almost no animating is present for characters or weapons, and the geometry is extremely bland and flat. The combat suffers from both of these providing less immersion, less thrill, and less depth.
-Five seven is bugged? Picked one up eventually and it held 50 shots to the clip. Holy shit man.
-Lots of recycled and limited sound effects, a single recycled bullet decal, and very apparent self-competition in the weapons pool, which was surprisingly large.
-No story and tutorial intro didn't mention the madness interactive style melee combat.
-Some weapons appear to be made exclusively for use against the player, when judging practicality vs player and vs goons. Sniper rifle, for instance.

Things I enjoyed:
-Melee deflection was a thing.
-Very large weapons pool with a decent amount of variety.
-Ammo was saved between weapons in the form of magazines, and added some planning as to what weapons to use long term based on ammo availability and ability.
-Lengthy enough for how much combat was given. With more refining, this could've really been a bigger thing.

Things I didn't enjoy:
-Lack of character depth or customization. I hate to say being a generic guy vs even something like hank or some preset character is a little painful. But maybe you can produce an original preset later along with a story.
-All the major issues listed, of course.
-Weapons went in and out of use in a manner that seemed built to screw the player out of their ammo supply, which was otherwise pretty abundant with most weapons and calibers. Additionally, this kind of took away from variety and the potential "random" feeling of the weapons pool.

Things I would recommend:
-More depth to the terrain and combat. Maybe setting attack and defense modes for melee using fire button, so it feels a little more personalized and that you're not just waving a stick of death around. Maybe elevators, ladders, obstacles, traps, doors, etc. Lots of things to add depth and character to the environment.
-Animations for when guys gets hit, when weapons reload or fire (a bit of shaking and riding back, you know, recoil?), or maybe a bit of style to how melee interacts with the posing.
-More intelligent AI. AI is a huge talking point most everywhere these days in gaming. This incredibly linear and dumb style of AI is very non competitive and un-thrilling. They either maintain one path and route or stand still altogether and just point at the player trying to fire. Maybe along with adding depth to the terrain you could find good applications for AI to do new and daring things.
-More variety to firing sounds (and I know they can be a bitch to locate) and generally multiple decals for bullet wounds and some randomization for hit sounds as well.
-Reloading sounds coupled with brass and magazine drops, perhaps?
-Single shot loaded shotguns, and some solutions to the magazine size issue. Sadly more magazines capacity = that guy's weapon's clip size = mine, and in some cases it not only doesn't make sense but alters the weapon pecking order in odd ways.

That's all for now. I find this odd this got a mention, honestly, but I guess we'll see what happens with the demo tag comes off.

Elementalys responds:

This was the only Madness game this year, I won by default and that's really sad. Tom was very kind of giving a prize for this cheap demo. The Five Seven clip should actually be 20, I don't know how I missed that. In fact, this review is actually extremly useful with every points you make. Thank you very much for playing and writing this indeep review!

[The Blind Swordsman]

Went to newgrounds today. Saw the banner. Knew it was a game. Thought to myself "It's EvilDog's April fools isn't it?". It was. Played it for shits and grins anyways, died first level of course.

Sorry man, these jokes are getting kinda predictable, even if the trolling remains on par or even better.

Evil-Dog responds:

sorry but It's an actual game bud, 10 levels, 10 battles, 30 cutscenes
Try harder

[Tek Tactical]

Okay. I seriously got a migrane from playing this only a few minutes... And this game is not without value but obviously needs some refining, and say that with a constructive tone in mind, because I think it's best not to switch into "dick mode" when reviewing pieces of work. Things that jump out at me:
-Very high level of starting difficulty. I get the idea this is something you work your way into to prolong your survival time, but even just trying to get the hang of things your first go is a bit much. The starting pistol has insanely small magazines, takes a considerable amount of time to reload (compared to most norms in the industry) and generally doesn't seem to kill targets well. The enemies continue to stack on quickly and down you in almost no time flat, but like I said that seems to just be part of how this piece plays.
-UI is divided, cluttered, and not exactly sensical to begin with. I'm seeing a LOT of people bring this up, and seeing a lot of deflection by "try not to feel overwhelmed" and "take things at your own pace". I feel it's part of the dev's duty to present things at a pace that is comprehensible to its players, seems at least remotely intuitive and user friendly, and generally provides a level of fun to keep the player interesting to further develop the learning curve... and I didn't really get much of that. A 5 page picture book was hardly an appropriate introduction, but some of the lengths to which you explained the mechanics did feel very right, and in that sense the 5 pages provided made a LOT of sense, a definite plus side... but there were also some typos, one I noticed off the bat was "empty your CLICK and press fire once more" or something along those lines, typo for "clip" I think it should be clear. The UI's 3D effect, while thoughtful and unique, adds a lot of extra space to any and every element, which only adds to the already present feeling of clutter and slows down the pace at which human eyes are able to analyze the HUD, which is also incredibly cluttered and is generally something you want to be able to analyze quickly, especially in the heat of combat.
-Possible bugs or unclear cataloging on various items. I'm being told after my first fight I have "a new skill" but I see absolutely no skills unlocked or available... so that kind of only adds to hysteria of the between-rounds screen.
-Really, really divided between rounds screen. I'm looking around for just maybe upgrading my pistol, equipping skills,and etc, but I'm seeing a lot of repetitive, confusing screens and vague abbreviations. W1, W2, T1, T2... and they don't seem to correspond with anything my mind assumes. W1 is my body, W2 is my pistol, T2 is... also my pistol? and T1 is my grenades. I don't even... what am I doing here?
-Intro comic bit, while cute, seemed really poorly transitioned. I could tell it was the panels in focus, some minor clipping via "black bars" across portions of the screen, and then... just looking around with the camera focus in some oddly repetitive motions. I'm no expert at comics, but I can say I know enough that this looks rather odd and doesn't feel as enticing as a wonderful superhero-merc comic ought to... and I'm generally a solid fan of comic book style stuff, having grown up with marvel, DC, the TV show heroes, and being a frequent reader of various fighting mangas... even if those things combined don't make me a pro in western comic norms.
-Music does seem pretty repetitive and overly bare bones at some point, I can say listening to the between-rounds music while writing this review.

I try not to rush into reviewing things, because sometimes you don't get a couple of things here and there and your vision is clouded, but this strikes me as exceptionally confusing and frustrating to new players, which should be one of the foremost concerns with projects like this. I CAN however tell that this is programmed well enough and has enough depth to where this is actually a quality product at some point, but it's just failed to make any sort of pitch that keeps me intrigued as the player and willing to put up with its razor-sharp learning curve and cluttered visual navigation. I'm handing you the benefit of the doubt here, and I'm gonna throw this a full 4 stars because I can tell there is a lot of time, care, and love put into this so far.

I'm blinded, yet perceptive enough to see this thing's core.
4/5, 7/10 ~WCCC

tedgaming responds:

I appreciate your ability to see value in this game despite your negative experience with it. The starting pistol is admittedly pretty nerfed but it powers up quickly and I wanted there to be very visible improvements.

I spent a lot of time balancing the game. If you're getting overwhelmed in early stages, I heard that manually reloading makes a world of difference and maybe you can run towards the sides of the map to hunt down enemies before too many of them spawn.

I understand how confusing the menus may be and I understand that it sounds like I'm making excuses for it. I'm not trying to make excuses though. I'm just hoping to ease people into coping with it. I hope you can understand it from the development side too. By the time I finished coding the menus, tested them out in action and realized that it's a bit overcomplicated, I had to make the decision to just try and make the best of it or redo the whole thing. Although I can see that the confusion far outweighs the deep complex gameplay, the complexity isn't without its merits. I will definitely be making future games a lot simpler and cleaner. Hopefully you can still enjoy the game.

For the skill, maybe you're not looking at the right place. You and I and everyone agrees that the menus are not exactly easy to comprehend, lol. At the skill menu, the left side is your skill slots and the right side is the list of skills. After completing the first stage, the first skill in the list will be unlocked and you can click it to equip it. It's called Hawk Eye. I hope this helps!

[Bosses Forever 2.bro]

A masterpiece, simply put. I'm gonna have to cut this into 2 or 3 sections just to cover all I have to say about this, honestly.

Review:
Bosses forever 2.bro is an arcade style SHMUP/platformer experience. It combines increasingly difficulty, adaptive mechanics, and a wonderfully funny and polished world into one wonderful product. Players can enjoy pushing themselves to new heights, experimenting with tactics, and generally have a blitz-loaded good time. My only complaint is that there is no option to skip the tutorial, which is incredibly disappointing because it does get annoying very fast. For a game that utilizes some cookies, saving whether or not you've done the tutorial is painfully un-thought of, especially because dying makes you restart from the beginning and run into it again.

I've enjoyed playing this for hours on end and now have got to stop because my tendons are thrashed and now aggravated, but that was originally because of airsoft, this is just an addiction fighting my recovery.

Wonderful, and I love the floppy afro physics, casings, and generally interesting design on this.
10/10, 5/5 ~WCCC
----------------------------------------------
Gameplay analysis, strategy, and breakdown:

The player: Although I haven't tested bro-op mode (and probably can't because my keyboard refuses to handle that much input at once), the player is definitely an amusing character. Choosing from either bro, they run around with floppy afros, guns cocked, and lead flying in a humorous manner. Utilizing jumps is very key and definitely combines to very important combinations. I haven't personally gotten into dash too much except for emergency huge jumps over mines/lasers and the occasional outrunning of homing shells. Shoot is very important, but you should remember the boss has an aegis period where, after being hit, he can no longer take damage for a short period. Know this, use it, and try to conserve your shots and finger-stamina accordingly. Only spam shots when you think or know he's firing lots of projectiles or mines, the mines will block shots meant to hit him and projectiles of course block and can hit you to do damage. I highly recommend revamping your controls to a more spaced-out layout and playing in fullscreen. My combat performance went up several fold after going fullscreen and even more after reconfigging my controls. Also make great use of wall jumps and directional shooting to maximize your agility and damage opportunities/output.

Recommended controls:
A - dash, S - shoot, Space - Jump, Arrow keys - Move
Remember to rebind player 2's controls to free up arrow keys, i usually bind them to IJKL setup, but play with what works for you the best, you'll need every ounce of help you can get to throw down at the brobot brodown.

The upgrades:
You are given 3 upgrades: upgrade your max health by 25 units (1 bar), heal your current health 33% of your max health (to stay ahead of the curve it's very important you balance upgrades to boost heal amount and actual healing to stay alive/in good condition) and damage. Damage is VERY important to get early game, while you can dodge the enemy's attacks and not have to worry about health. The round where I take my 2nd hit ever in that playthrough (whether it be 1 hit on round X and the 2nd hit on round Y or simply getting hit 2x the same round, X) I tend to start investing in max health upgrades. You can maximize your leniency to prevent health-based upgrades by practice and playing patiently/smart. After you start taking hits routinely enough, I recommend upgrading max health so your healing can be amplified for relatively early rounds and you can invest in upgrades and waste time healing minimally. Upgrading max health does not heal you, that first health bar you have can be layered upon multiple times, JUST like the boss you fight. Damage is very important later game to shorten the fight, but health is important both for surviving/healing as well as learning new attack patterns and mastering your counter for them for later battles/playthroughs.

The (b)robot:
The robot is an interesting foe. He will visually use the same archetype every time, and although his coloration/art is unrelated to his behaviors, his movements very much are. But first, it's important to note that he gains 50 XP or so every round, but his exact amount is variable. If you take more damage (relative to that rounds start, not your max health across multiple) he will gain less XP because he is "doing his job fine", but finishing with higher amounts of health (relative to max and what you started out that round, so more max HP does not equal more XP) and to some degree healing can up the amount of XP he gains, sometimes reaching a bit over 50. Each 1% of health you take takes of 0.5 XP, but it is always displayed or rounded as whole numbers. More XP installs new attacks, upgrades, and increases damage/health, so keep your eyes peeled on that XP boost to judge what level of fighting he's at. Generally, if you get your ass kicked in a round, he won't change much the next round, sometimes being as low as 8XP or so per next round, so that would usually indicate very little advancement in his routines. For some attacks, he starts looking around, left/right back and forth. This indicates a fistful of moves, including teleportation, firing bombs, shooting laser boomerangs, and sine others. If he has energy flash around his eyes, he's charging up a large laser blast, and if he starts flashing colors he's about to clone himself. Although you can hit and kill the clones, hitting the original does much more damage and is a much better fighting tactic, especially because he sacrifices health multiplier to spawn clones. It makes hammering the original a must faster kill, exploiting his weakness of "offense for defense". If he starts shaking a lot, he's going to start doing dash attacks and moving faster, I dub this "twitchy mode"

The attacks:

Components:
Lasers - They move in various directions and cannot be destroyed except by colliding against geometry. Dodging them is usually easy, as they are small and slow.
Mines - Various types, they can explode in lasers, bomblets, or just plain explosion, they can be shot or collided to release their payload. Shooting releases them from a safe(r) distance and is preferable if they're blocking main areas of movement for you.
Boomerangs - Sticking, ricocheting, and wavering through the air, these things are a tad crazy, but still moderately predictable if you think a bit about it, which can be done quickly. Cannot be shot.
Pipe Bombs/Bomblets - These little guys can be shot to detonate at safe(r) distances, and bounce around a bit before exploding.
Homing shells - These guys lock onto you. They can detonate on contact with geometry, but it has to be either a prolonged collision or the head itself has to hit within about 90 degrees of sensitivity. Additionally, they can be shot out of the air, and are tricky to get the hang of and come in many types. I usually use a tactic where I jump off of a wall and fire backwards into the wall, hitting the shell as it follows my path and "skeet-shooting" it out of its path.
Laser waves - large waves of energy, will destroy bullets as they engulf them and are very hard to dodge, but a good jump or wall jump usually dodges. They can be fired in several patterns later game, and can be devastating.
Charge lasers - Giant walls of laser beam, engulf bullets. If the robot isn't moving he'll fire 2 short pulses during firing, same spot; don't be fooled by it. If he's moving a bit, he'll fire a short burst in the direction of choice, and if he's in "twitchy" mode he'll likely sweep all the way or most of the way across the screen with a continuous laser beam. If you can shoot around the laser, the robot can still take fire in this mode.
Teleportation - Robot teleports to a new location. This is usually followed up with a considerable array of firepower and weaponry, and if you're not careful he can teleport where you're moving and do melee damage. My advice: move where he just teleported out of, since he'll prettymuch never teleport to the same spot he came from. If he's areal afterwards, start firing a barrage of rounds upwards to hit him, stop any incoming fire, and generally keep his movement suppressed with fire.
Shield - the robot maintains a barrier, can change direction later game, and it CAN be shot through but also hurts to get hit by, keep an eye out.
Laser sweep - robot fires an up/down "scan" of lasers in front of himself, very easy to dodge, remember to keep your distance and let the bullets sort him out.

More about colors: Almost all attacks will reskin to indicate a higher level of damage, proectiles, and so forth. This happens as the robot levels up and is to take note of.
More about mines: Mines come in 3 main types.
Pipe bomb mines, which are purple/shiny and explode in mini pipebombs, higher color quality means more pipebombs.
Laser mines, can explode in various numbers, directions, and colors. Higher color means more damage and more spread.
"Tri flux capacitor mines", they look like it, let's face it. Usually a purple-y color or blue and very weird shaped, they just explode, and explode immediately. Although some mines can be bumped into and dodged if their projectiles don't spawn on top of you, these mines will not be so forgiving. However, shooting them is a very easy method to take care of them, no after-debris or anything to clean up.
More about homing shells: Homing shells come in a few varieties, just like mine counterparts. Keep note of a little beep-y tone made as shells are fired. This is a key signal to head off the rounds with some well-placed bullets.
Pipe bomb shells, they're very fat and shiny/purple once again. They explode in a fistful of pipe bomblets and although easy to shoot, are messy to clean up. Deadly en masse, and higher color = more bomblets.
Laser shells, small and agile, these guys will chase you around quite well, and after being broken explode in a small spread of lasers, similar to their mine counterparts. Important to keep your eye on and keep managing the mini lasers spawned on detonation.
Shell shells, very small like their laser counterparts and purple like their fat counterparts, these shells are like the tri-flux mine versions, where they explode on contact. These are both one of the most common homing shell designs and one of the deadliest, if not the. Being fast and agile, they are hard to head off if you're inexperienced, and much like their mine versions are VERY unforgiving if you get hit by one. Remember to combine fast-thinking parkour, great timing, and well placed shots to head these guys off. They turn well and usually follow your exact route, meaning it's hard to rely on geometry-based detonation, your best bet is a good shot. Their turning, however, is also their downfall. Since they pursue you so well, firing backwards to where you just were is a great way to shatter their plan of attack... besides, who knows where you've been better than yourself?

This is my general strategy and breakdown, and I love this damn game... a real masterpiece. You may find things that work better or tricks I missed, so do some thinking for yourself as well. Good luck, have fun, and kill damn brobots with broads of lead with your bro when you bro-down in this Brah-drenaline loaded shoot em up!

...
Bro pun.
Laser shells, usually a pink color and

TooDX responds:

Lawl at that last line. Thanks for so thorough a breakdown WCCC; I couldn't have said it better myself. You should do a Let's Play overview! We're really glad you loved the game - have you found the secret yet?

[Parallel levels]

This seems like something is amiss, but I don't know what. I'm just gonna run through some pros and cons real quick to start things off:
Pros:
-Good soundtrack, albeit a little repetitive after a while.
-Nice, clean art style that seems fun-for-all-ages
-Lots of content and a solid dose of mechanics, as well as running virtually bug free.
-Well programmed physics and mechanics that are key to a well-polished platformer.

Cons:
-Music is insanely loud. I had to set my volume to a fraction of its otherwise lowest settings to get this down to "somewhat noisy" sound level, which is something I don't have to do, even when on newgrounds (which tends to have high volume)
-Concept didn't feel too original. To explain on this, this once was and to some still is a fresh concept, but to the degree of how long it's been around, how frequently it's used, and how its originality is kind of what leads it to be chosen often. You did, however, but a solid spin on the concept. even if it was mostly cosmetic and for how things transitioned. All-in-all it functioned nearly identical to its counterparts when the day is done.
-Absurdly, outrageously difficult at times. As a guy who's decent enough at platformers, I have a solid objection to how it makes the player combine multiple, individually improbable elements and ideas into one marathon of continuously super-human precision. Some levels were moderately challenging, some simply required a new way of thinking out the path, and some simply require employing tricks that borderline on "exploit" or "quirk" to get them to work (for instance, having one character ram their head against a platform to halt their horizontal friction, so the other can make a jump without dooming the first) Additionally, the way momentum affects air control and jump distance seems really abnormal, somewhat unpredictable, and very high in demand for some of these. Would set myself in the thought process for making the first or so jump in some levels, and even after trying to consciously compensate and noting what happened the last time and time before that, would fail to make the same, seemingly simplistic jump a few dozen times alone. Don't think I had the motivation or precision to make it past the 13th or so level.

All in all this is a workable product, and maybe this point of over-difficulty is either too biased or is just something about this game not clicking with my platforming bits of my brain, but either way it seems to provide a product with moderate entertainment that is produced almost exclusively from inhumanely precise challenges. This is hardly saying anything in the world of gaming though, and even proves successful in many cases (demon souls, so forth). To me, these select points of generating interest and fun are prettymuch null, but it seems many others are getting a kick out of it at least.

7/10, 3/5 ~WCCC

komizart responds:

wow! really big comment, thank you man

[DoctorWho: Brilliant Game]

I feel this is a tad overrated due to fandom. Bluntly put, this wasn't necessarily entertaining (to me), or really engaging. I am a doctor who fan, of sorts. Watched a hell of a lot of episodes, but there isn't really any magic here for me. Various minigames that were ill-explained and random, dialogue options that had no effect and the humor was pretty flat, and a graphical style that even battled a solid dose of the function. This isn't worthless. It is a functioning game, a decent tribute, and a consistent and acceptable art style. For the sake of running and looks, it was fine, but it lacked the magic that should be present in a good game, which negates almost everything else it had going for it.

I'm not trying to be a dick, and I'm not going to score it unfairly like a dick, but I feel this could need some looking into as to what pulls the player in. This is, afterall, an alpha, but it'd have to be a pretty serious shift in mechanics after the alpha to become something that draws people in and engages the player.

So-so, not horrible by any means.
6/10, 3/5 ~WCCC

Immudelki responds:

No problem, you're not a dick as soon as you explain your feeling, and you're doing great, so thank you ;).
On the humor side, well, that's the most tricky part since it depends a lot on the players, some like it, some not, we won't be able to change it a lot :/.
On the minigames side, we will improve this, surely. (ill explained, not sure what you meant, too much explained, not enough or in a bad context ?) - by the way the help button will also have some use in the final version ^^.

Dialog options had some effects on the ends of the scenes or next dialogues, but not completely on the course of the game, and it is planned that with more game scenes we might add, the more roads will be available depending on your choices ;)

In the end, of course, engaging the player is the most important part, but feels also the most mysterious for us to achieve, especially for a narrative game. I assume that with more consequences on what dialogs you choose, it will help a lot to engage the player. As well as better sounds and musics, which will provide more sensations. So we're on that ;)

Thanks again :)