ForgottenDawn's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[They Took My Beloved]

Hey, just wanted to say thanks for properly crediting my music~ I'm not too big on visual novels, but I can tell the art must have taken a lot of effort to make. I encourage you to keep pursuing this line of work and aim for quality experiences.

Marckel responds:

Thanks for the compliments, and thank you as well for providing free-to-use music! Ever since I stumbled across your work I just really like your style! I'll probably be making use of some of your other tracks for future works still.

[GRAV]

To be fair, this isn't what I'd consider bad by a long shot. You already claimed it was a "cute and short" platformer, but apparently that doesn't stop people from disgraceful drama queens. Surely, the abrupt end was rather anticlimactic, and I think the game as it stands right now is more of a prototype than a finished product.

The gameplay seems to be slow. I'd suggest tweaking the movement speed and make sure the jumping feels more fluid and less "moon gravity". It's a start, I mean, you can definitely do more about it and it seems like it's in your bucket list. Just keep it up and turn this into a full, polished experience. I'd play it.

tinyworlds responds:

The "moon gravity" was embed in the story for the one part. Experimented a bit with it, but decided to make it quite a bit extreme to show the lack of gravity. But you're right, it might not be the best level of gravity for fast platforming. Thank you.

[A Sweet Typing Thrill]

Played both games, I'm honestly impressed.

Where to even start. The wordplay is phenomenal on both games, especially in the first one *cough*Reverse*cough* and the amount of detail is crazy. In the first game it's actually kind of funny how that puzzle felt incredibly hard compared to the ones that followed and took me... quite some time to beat, lol

Fortunately, the somewhat uneven difficulty curve was addressed in this sequel. It's kinda tough to address the puzzles without spoiling anything to any potential player here, so I'm just gonna stick to the feedback and my overall experience with the game.

The only real criticism I can give is towards the typography. I think it's a bit of a pain at first, since I had to get used to a font that is all-caps and slanted, plus stylized in a way that makes reading more challenging at smaller sizes. I'd call it a typography crime, since while it might add to the game atmosphere (quite opinable at this point), it sacrifices some readability and honestly I don't feel like getting a new pair of glasses to read a few passages from a screen. A more readable font would have been nice, since some of the glyphs are fairly ambiguous too, as noted down below. I understand that I can't pretend everyone to have studied graphic design and therefore know the importance of visual communication, but I'm only pointing out a detail that could be useful for any future endeavor you'd want to embark on.

The audio is, that goes without saying, very fitting to the kind of setting you've established. There's the mystery, uneasiness, with a hint of tragedy too. I like puzzle games that include sound as a game mechanic, and I think that as "civilized" and "modern" as we are, we rely too much on our sight compared to our other senses. Well done on the secret ending, as well.

Honestly, if there's a word that can well sum up both games is "clever".
Very good puzzle design and flow, great audio and nice writing.

PS: Looking forward to talk about some other nitpicks in better detail on Skype. :)

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Hello, friend!

Thank you for playing both of the games, and on such a short notice too! Means a lot that you enjoyed both of them ^ ^

I think I just turned my habit of making really bad puns into these stories and puzzles haha :D I guess after all these years, it's good to get some substantial use out of them >:D

Jokes aside, I did indeed put a lot of detail into the writing. Because of the format, I had to think about pretty much every sentence, and how they all connect together.
As for the 'reverse' level in the first game, I kinda threw it in there to show that not all puzzles could be expecet to be entirely similar, or color out the hints :)
In the second game, I was less vague (to the most part), as the theme wasn't as revolved around wordgames per se.

Thank you for avoiding spoilers! At least I can be proud that the walthrough for this game, that someone recorded and uploaded, is that person's most viewed video for 4 weeks, by far >:)

Yah, I totally get what you're saying about the typography. I am honestly not happy about it, but for complicated reasons I was in a rush when making the game, and kinda had to settle for something which wasn't entirely finished. On the accidental plus side (based on studies I've read because of my studies [more horrible wordplay; a bonus just for you]), the extra concentration probably helps a few people solve some puzzles they might not otherwise, or at least do it quicker. Not intentional though, nor an excuse.
The font for the first game is something I spent slightly more time on, and also something which looks more like I intended it to (thought the Z and a few other letters probably should've been clearer). But that font wouldn't make much sense in this game, and I didn't want to use a standard one, and ended up with something in between, haha. Sorry about that!

As for the audio, I think both of use realize how important this aspect of games can be :)
What you said about our senses, is actually something I had in mind when making the level. I definitely wanted to make sure to break the user's habit of relying on the text alone :p
The secret ending is the first thing I came up with for the game. It's a shame that it too was included in the walkthrough, but I suppose that is just how things go!

Clever is a good a word as any compliment for the games, so thank you once more. For that, and for leaving a long and helpful review :3

P.S. I guess the Skype chat kinda happened already... But that's fine, innit? ;)

[Vatican Quest]

Meh, I failed. Speaking of the game itself and its mechanics, it's all very simplistic and minimalist. One task only, a couple of obstacles to avoid, that's it. I expected a bit more of depth, maybe by adding more goals to the formula or simply making the game a bit more varied in content. It was probably intended as a satire (as I like to think it was), but the product itself leaves much to desire in mediocrity. On the good side, graphics are enjoyable and the sound design is quite fitting, though repetitive in the long term.

Kenney responds:

True, but due to time constraints I couldn't add more features. Glad you still liked it though!

[From Nothing]

I love how the medals can translate to "Fighting for nothing". This is one of those games that seem to "talk" to the player directly while breaking any notions of fourth wall, mocking its very existence as a "game" - in a word: post-modernism. I personally view it as one of those "passing thoughts", as you say, where you think of yourself as the egocentric woobie character: you're alone, you're bullied in some ways, you feel enormous social pressure, you feel like you're manipulated by somebody/thing, etc. You always try something new, to break the loop, but you fail and instead, complicate your own life while digging your own hole further down below. I think this game is about acceptance, in the end. We can't escape Nature's ways of existing, the very framework from which we are born, but that doesn't mean we can't do nothing to solve the problems we created in the first place. Negative or positive message, that's up to you. The only cons I can spot here are the somewhat sloppy, imprecise controls (making the game a lot more challenging than what it should be), the relatively overall short length of the experience, and repetitive uninspiring music. It is however, a good experiment whose foundations lie on ideas that need to be shared more often in the video game panorama.
Well done.

lagemanngui responds:

You totally got this. No words to describe . Thank you for this awesome review!