qwerty741's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Gappy]

i prefer the second game but this one's fairly solid too considering there's no wall jumping mechanic.

my only real gripe is that side A is unnecessarily "difficult" due to the boss having a random pattern.
clearing side A is somewhat difficult already because there's two near pixel perfect jumps on 3-3 and 3-7 that are necessary to avoid fireballs;
all things considered that's still fine because the game rewards learning each level to make it through with zero deaths.
however when you get to the boss second's phase and suddenly you're stuck between having to jump to dodge a coin you couldn't delete due to being too high, and not being able to jump because you'd face-plant into a spike ball arch, it kind of feels unfair after putting up with all the previous levels.

i'm probably just mad cause i lost twice to that lol. but yeah glad the next iteration didn't feature any rng, game's great otherwise

[DEAD PETALS]

reading reviews i feel like i'm alone in this, but i absolutely hate the controls.

dashing and especially hyper, which seem to be very much needed, feel extremely out of the way compared to the keys meant for movement.
every time i need to quickly get to them, i get hit a whole bunch and have trouble getting back to moving because of it;
it's vexing enough where i gave up on using either of them altogether, making the whole game significantly more difficult imo.

i don't consider myself that great at bullet hells, but i do enjoy them and i think i'm decent enough to clear a game that's supposedly expected to be beaten 10 times in a row.
i may have simply missed the menu to rebind keys somehow, but if it's not there i'd recommend adding one because it's absolutely needed.

on an unrelated note, while the controls are explained in-game, there's no mention of how "chain multipliers" work.
i'd expect it to increase when killing enemies quickly, but i only managed to get a x10 combo accidentally while i was in hyper mode.
i didn't quite pay attention on how it works because getting into hyper mode in the first place took all my focus, but i'm guessing chains only work while in hyper mode?

edit: i didn't realize i had dodge on right click. still gotta make due with shift for hyper but at least i have movement options now.
turns out it's not the controls and i'm just that bad at the game lol. even with dodge i can't seem to be able to dodge for shit.
skill issue; my bad

sorry i missed the first edit.
yeah i'm moving my hands off WASD to use shift and space.
it's not that i can't physically reach them, i just find it unintuitive to move my other fingers while handling WASD at the same time. it may have something to do with wasd being somewhat higher than shift and space on my keyboard, so they feel like they're "out of the way" and not that easy to reach.

that's why i mentioned keybindings. i'm assuming a controller would definitely be much easier to handle

bandaloo responds:

thanks for playing. yeah, there's no explanation of the scoring in the game; it was a late addition and i wasn't sure how many people would be interested in playing for score. i wrote a bit about the scoring system here if you're interested: https://bandaloo.newgrounds.com/news/post/1332342

i chose shift+space because you can reach them while your fingers are on wasd, but if i didn't hack this together during a jam there would be real keybinding options; sorry if this is preventing you from enjoying the game. if playing with a mouse for aim, you can use the mouse buttons to activate hyper and dash. you might be more comfortable with a controller? that's how i prefer to play.

the 10-streak achievement is just there as a fun thing for people who want to go for it; i was anxious about adding it because i didn't want it to seem like it's necessary to prove you are "good" or anything so i might make it a secret achievement

edit: just to clarify, when you say "every time i need to quickly get to them i get hit a whole bunch and have trouble getting back to to moving because of it" are you moving your fingers off of WASD to hit shift and space?

edit 2: i read your edit; thanks for clarifying! again, apologies there aren't more control settings

[Harvestigator: An IRS Tax Auditing Game]

is the reaction of each farmer to the audit random?
i'm trying to figure out what makes them "pass the audit" but i get a positive or negative response to the audit seemingly at random, regardless of what i'm doing.

for example, i've tried both working properly and purposely failing at my job, but i keep getting different answers even when i do the same thing.
honestly i'm not sure what determines the outcome

edit: i tried simply ignoring everything and it seems to have worked, though i had already done that before while trying to get fired, so i'm not sure what changed.
i must have accidentally clicked something before without noticing.

crow-seeds responds:

Highlighting anything (meaning that there was something wrong with their tax return) fails their audit

[Trivial Trivia: Impossible]

100% is currently impossible to get due to a bug with question 5.
if you answer A or C, it counts as both correct and incorrect, and it skips question 6.
if you answer B or D, it counts as incorrect, and it lets you answer question 6.

basically it forces you to either get question 5 wrong to answer question 6, or it counts question 6 automatically wrong if you answer question 5 correctly.

answer sheet for future reference in case this gets fixed:
0. D
1. B
2. C
3. D
4. C
5. A or C (either count as both correct and incorrect)
6. B (is skipped if the previous question answer was A or C)
7. D
8. A
9. B
10. B
11. B
12. A
13. B
14. B
15. D
16. D
17. A
18. C
19. C
20. B

[Idle Game Maker]

soft-fix for anyone having trouble with medals:
there seems to be a bug related to the turnover timer, which stops the game from awarding medals to your profile even if unlocked in-game. once this bug has been triggered, the only fix is to close the game and start over, as the current game is permanently locked from unlocking medals to your profile.

this bug seems to happen when the turnover time is too short, or gets "past" the saving point (which seems to happen around the 1 second mark). this could be triggered by either squashing bugs when you're close to getting paid, or if your timer is too short in the first place.

the easy way to prevent this from happening is to increase your timer and prevent it from getting it close to 0 in an unnatural way. this is necessary especially when trying to get the 1000 bug squashed medal. the only upgrades that do this are the android and ios ones (mac and windows also decrease your timer, unlike what's written in-game).

basic tips to unlock all medals:
- when starting out, make sure to get to the upgrades screen without squashing any bugs accidentally, just in case.
- upgrade actionscript whenever you're just waiting and not doing anything else, as it's free and it increases the money you get after each cycle.
- avoid upgrading unity, python, mac or windows unless you're going for their respective medals. when doing so, make sure you have enough money to get to level 50 in one go, or have a long enough timer as buffer to stay above the 10/20 second turnover time.
- to get the medals for squashing bugs, the "safest" way is to get javascript to 50, then put all the money you get into ios levels to increase your timer as much as possible, then use that time to squash bugs without going under the "saving point" trigger.
it's recommended to stop squashing bugs around the 30 second mark and go back to the upgrades screen to wait it out.

[Kate's Date]

having trouble figuring out hidden values.
it seems if you pick the 3rd option during the scene with the patient (regardless of your other choices), you completely skip the last scene where you're asked to go home, and get locked into the drunk ending.

leaving this here for future reference:
it seems to get the "secret ending", you need to ignore the patient (second option) and try to go for the good ending.
if done correctly, an extra scene comes up that branches into the secret ending path right before the good ending epilogue.

again, i'm not sure how each choice actually affects the final values, but i managed to get it by picking choices 2-2-1, then all 1 on the date.

also kinda funny, but if you trigger the secret path, pick it, but on the last choice don't commit to it, the dialogue says 0_drunk_ending.json, and then the game freezes on that last scene instead of booting you back to the main menu

BobbertOC responds:

Hey!

The way the choices work in the game isn't very obvious. Although you might be on the same scene you were on for a previous run, because you made different decisions earlier, you might have something different happen to you. E.g. You will never get the phone call during the date if you listened to the patient explain their dream earlier in the day.

Thanks a lot for playing (and finding a bug)! I'm glad you explored it to such a great extent! :)

[Touch Peter]

for anyone having trouble with the 250 medal:
for some reason, no matter how much you try, you can't seem to get it using the newgrounds flash player; however, i got it pretty much immediately using ruffle.

to switch to ruffle, go to your account settings and under flash option, you can choose to enable Ruffle flash emulation, if possible.
you can check that and see if it works, then disable it back afterwards

[HEADSHOT TYPECAST]

good game. a little too hectic when it starts to get into it but otherwise works great.

in regards to suggestions on improving the game, i've found myself losing pretty frequently due to accidentally "mispelling" a word;
more specifically, i accidentally input any extra letter after firing, so it won't accept any other commands since i have to first manually clear the textbox.
would be nice if there was some failsafe measure that prevents you from "mispelling" by only accepting valid commands. if nothing else, at least for the first letter (only accepting C,F,L,R,S as the first letter) to avoid being forced to backspace while you're getting swarmed by multiple entities in a row on the same lane.

tips for players:
- i've found myself having a lot of trouble going right since it's the one that requires the most button presses of all. i bypassed this by copypasting the "right" command while in the menu, then using ctrl+V in-game to make going right easier. that way you only have to worry about going left, and handling the gun. it also helps when you have to quickly dodge something (specifically boulders) if there's space on the right, since it actually becomes the quickest command to input.

- while counter-intuitive, the right mindset isn't to cock your gun before you have to fire, but cocking your gun every time right after firing. that way if you need to fire the gun in a pinch, you won't have to worry about having forgotten to cock your gun. worst case scenario, you might be out of ammo but that can be quickly fixed since the command is way shorter and easier to input.
my general advice is to ready your gun, and every time you need to shoot you FIRE, then COCK, and REload whenever there's spare time. you can also not worry about reloading when multiple enemies in a row are approaching, since you can mash reload afterwards when there's more breathing room to work with. also FIRE is easier to input than SHOOT, but i guess that's just down to personal preference.

[Cookie Match]

really like this one when comparing it with the previous games, because it addresses pretty much all the issues that came with those:

- it's not entirely reliant on luck to clear (see fruits match, especially levels 124 onward);
- it's challenging enough where you can't just mindlessly move around until you clear it, but there's also not so many levels that it overstays its welcome (see pipe match and its 1000+ levels);
- it's not exactly the same as other types of puzzles that already exist (see pill escape, and stuff like rush hour. there's even an online solver if you look for it);

all in all it's a good puzzle game, mechanics work as intended, it can be cleared with some effort if you're going for a regular clear, and even if going for all perfect there's not that many levels where it's more trouble than it's worth;
though some of the levels are pure evil if you're going for perfect, so i'm glad the requirements for the 3-star medal got lowered lol.

EDIT: full guide here; sorry for the text format:
https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/da7aeff41b807be1fed94a325c639473
thanks to the creator for filling me in on the solution for the last level i was missing (level 28 was a real problem).

sublevelgames responds:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts that made me more forward to create better games. I really appreciate it. I was just amazed by your hard work as well as your enthusiasm. I got lucky having a player like you. Very inspiring!

[Aurora]

having some starting instructions makes this so much better already.
i could never have imagined that you can only move one side at a time, but somehow when moving to the output it colors the entire thing.

though if i have to say, the best change that was made was adding a description of the current active command/number/modifier by hovering over an instruction.

i can't remember if that was there already, because if it was all my criticism on the instruction manual being hard to read goes completely out of the window and i'm actually the dumbest person alive.
it's such a good idea since you also don't need to constantly go back to the manual just to check if you've mispelled a command or not. definitely can't blame the mechanics for not being clear at this point.

edit: a couple of other things that are still confusing:
- levels aren't unlocked in order;
i figured you'd have to clear them in order, because they would get increasingly more difficult. meanwhile i had to clear most of the other ones just to get to level 3, and i'm not sure why.

- what does adding a breakpoint do? i guess it probably stops the code's execution and sends you back to the first instruction, but i don't remember seeing it mentioned anywhere in the manual, so i never used it.
i just made up for it by adding a "jump to instruction 0" command when i needed something like that, which would do the same thing and thus doesn't explain why it would be a thing (assuming it works like that)

- the descriptions for level 9 and 10 are confusing. i think the problem with level 9 is simply that i didn't read it properly so i might have to give it another couple reads, but for 10 i honestly have no idea what it wants me to do when it says i have to "shift the hue of the input".

bug reports:
- the prompt, variable names and level set-up for level 3 give discordant information (although it works as intended):
prompt says to move greens to 7 and blues to 8, expected values are greens to 7 and blues in 8, but the output variables' names are reversed (blue.7 , green.8).
for inputs, prompt mentions input.6, variable name is input.6, but the actual input on the board is hexagon 5.

- something weird with the "jump if color" commands:
let's say you execute instruction 5, and you "jump if color, by skipping 3 instructions". you would expect it to skip 6,7 and 8, and then execute instruction 9.
what it actually does is jump to instruction 8 and execute it.
basically it's adding 3 to the current instruction number (the one you're using to jump ahead) so if you want it to actually "skip N instructions" as advertised, you need to add 1 more to the amount of instructions skipped.
honestly it's easier this way since you can exactly tell which line you're going to execute after a jump by simply adding the number of "lines skipped" to the one with the jump instruction, but if the idea was for it to "skip a specific number of instructions", then it's not working as intended

-------
decided to add a much needed walkthrough for the medal levels.
the solutions are in no way optimized, just the first working solutions i managed to put together
(had to pick up pen and paper to plan ahead for level 9. pain):

level 1: https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/114f3e396ea80014061c40198dad5373
level 2: https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/abfe2d6684860e49d57ef933b171cd9c
level 3: https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/5a088fec7a76fe592f1eb9b385ad0d1c
level 4: https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/af22a4d2c190f88ae222606559991bd8
level 5: https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/fd41718c3ecf293bf5c744c4a3f89a7f
level 6: https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/f98592b4613b4f3e1afe10a892b79006
level 7: https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/d47b0d364127ae2d85709a143e1654c6
level 8: https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/c09c1523a99e9363934ebff161cc4c38
level 9: https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/98a7ba1f0a19c550ec10f53cdbf3cdd3
level 10: https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/a087f77a29510ecedd3416bb24ad6b49

crow-seeds responds:

Just updated the game to fix all of your problems! Glad you came back and gave it another go!

Jump if color works as you would think now. It was originally <current instruction> + <amount> because that's what I wrote in the drawn manual, and I couldn't find a better word than "skip" for the tooltip and translation. Seems a bit silly to have them different haha, should now be <current instruction> + <amount> + 1. There's not really a point of going <current instruction> + 0 instructions (infinite loop), so might as well add the plus 1.

Levels unlocked downward, so if you beat a level all the hexagons below it on the level select screen would be unlocked. Levels futher down are "harder" and generally dependent on mechanics introduced in the levels above it in the level select. The reason for the randomish numbering of them was because they were numbered in the order I made the levels and I reordered them based on difficulty on the level select. Realize it's a bit silly, so I renumberd all the levels by difficulty, so they should "unlocked in order".

Breakpoint is a computer science term, I shouldn't have assumed everyone knew the term haha. It doesn't really do anything for the program, it just pauses the program on that instruction for debugging purposes (If you know one part of the program works but another doesn't, you would put a breakpoint right before the part that doesn't work and step through it).

On confusing descriptions of level 9 and 10, I've added a button to see a longer more detailed description. Variable names for level 3 are changed, that was a typo!

Also working on a post-game that includes user-made levels, you got any ideas for future levels?

Edit: Oh man, I didn't read your comment about how jump if color was easier before, might revert the change back.