qwerty741's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[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.

[Escape From Monster Tower]

this is actually very good for what it is, and not overly long either.

just wanted to leave a review to explain that monsters' patterns aren't random; each one of them moves in a fixed direction when you move in a specific direction.
so some of them move the same as you, some of them go down when you move right etc..
it's only a matter of figuring out where they move when you move in which direction.

blit-blat responds:

Thank you! And yeah, maybe I should have explained the mechanics in the description a bit more, but I though it would be obvious after a few turns playing! It's hard to see the wood for the trees sometimes when you're developing stuff!

[Pumpkin WIng]

i could really use an health indicator so i know how much hp i can actually work with.
also for some reason the parry doesn't work half the time.

anyway, how come the first two bosses are unironically the hardest ones?
especially the last phases of the two:
for the first one, i can never figure out the actual trajectory of the axes so i end up bashing into them way more often than i would like to.
for the second one, the lasers are unforgiving. on top of having to dodge everything else, you have to figure out which direction they're gonna turn towards cause it's random, and multiple badly placed lasers in a row can trap you against the sides of the screen.

EDIT: for the parry, i should have been more specific.
basically, since the parry hitbox is only the red slash in front of you, sometimes you fail to parry projectiles that are too close because outside of the parry range, especially from the sides.
it's obviously working as intended because the hitbox is the slash and it's clearly shown, so i'm just venting because i've lost a few of my nightmare attempts due to not parrying projectiles coming from the right side specifically. my bad lol

also i'm glad the parry has an actual damaging hitbox. i hate the 3rd phase of the last boss (the one with the spinning stars) so spamming parry to deal extra damage has proved very useful in that instance

Frosty responds:

1. hp indicator is the orbs around your character, i probably should have displayed them on the ui too

2. not sure about the parry but it only works on certain purple projectiles

3. probably because i got very burnt out when designing the last 2 haha

Edit: ahh ic, regardless ty for the review!

[Psycho Spoon]

dunno if it's a bug, but i can't find any sponges on level 3-6. the one with the large spike pit in the middle. stuck on 57/60.
tried resetting data and encountered the same situation a couple more times so it's likely not a glitch on my part i guess?

ShackoCheese responds:

Yeah, we were thinking about what could have happened, since with our build there is no such issue. We do think of one thing that may cause this. Maybe we'll find the solution, but if not, then we will implement something else that works around the bug. Like a button that resets all sponges and the counter or something like that.
Thanks for the bug report!

[Otherwise]

there's a glitch, probably due to an update:

map fragment 9 is currently impossible to get:
- you can't access the mine path in backstage mode;
- in discover mode, you need all three characters to access the mine path;
- after accessing the mine path, only one character can die in the hole before the sequence that gives access to fragment 9;
- if penny is alive, you're forced to follow penny who fell off the bridge, missing the path with the fragment.
- if penny dies in the hole, steve prevents you from taking the path with the fragment.
you can't have steve die in the hole because you'll then be forced to follow the penny route, skipping the path to the fragment entirely

also it seems like there's some weird problem with the medals for "character X survived" registering. i cleared the game multiple times but only managed to get them to unlock them in specific instances. could be an issue on my side

btw thank you for changing the arcade game, the original one was painful with the one pixel perfect impossible switch taunting you

edit: i guess i need to figure out how to get steve caught in segment 3. so far every option i picked got him shot in the head where he stands.

edit 2: nvm i just needed not to stab him so he could actually catch up to me

Tanooki81 responds:

Actually the fragment 9 can be only get in Backstage Mode. To access the mines way in BM, Steve needs to be caught in the segment III. Then keep them alive until seg IV. Done! Now you can take the mine route. To get the fragment 9, Steve need to die in the hole so he won't stop Rafe to go down the stairs later (and, as you are in Backstage Mode, the game will never force you to follow Penny's POV). Try it again and if you still can't, please report it to me then I'll check it

[Gelli Got Jumps]

ok so, update on hard mode.

i managed to clear hard mode, but game crashed on the third boss, so i had to do it again because it didn't save the medal.
it would have been absolute pain, if i didn't accidentally discover a bug: as long as you don't refresh the page, you can press esc on the main world to return to menu, then play game to resume without losing progress; long story short, you can clear the first two bosses on normal mode, then switch to hard mode only for the last boss. might want to get that fixed somehow.

in regards to bosses, the first boss is considerably harder, between the disleveled floor, increased speed and density of the attacks, which makes them harder to dodge.
though none of these compare to the difficulty that the white orb alone poses by simply existing. it's much faster, you have to constantly dodge it and it lingers for an insane amount of time. honestly that one change alone is what makes the first hard mode boss difficult, everything else simply locks you out of movement options while you're trying to avoid the white orb.

the second boss is probably the hardest of the 3 by a large margin. the missing floor is pretty annoying because you have to watch out your movement just to not get damaged, but the boss itself seems to have 3 different jump speeds and frequency of jumps that sporadically change between attempts, which make its movements wildly unpredictable.
however, phase 2 and 3 are simply unfair. you're already limited in your movement options by the missing floor, so you don't have many opportunities to deal damage, but then when the small window to attack shows up, you still can't do anything because you get damaged by the spawning bullets.
even if you just end up running away, you still get hit because you either jump and get hit by oncoming bullets, or don't move and get hit by the boss. and if you move and don't jump you fall and still take damage.
in the end i was forced to get the double jump upgrade and get to the 3rd phase on full health just to damage boost and get enough hits in, otherwise it's nigh impossible.

i can't really comment on the third boss, since i always cheese it by not moving from the spawn point and just timing my jumps. having double jump due to the previous boss also made it insanely easy, so there is virtually no difference between the easy and hard mode of the third boss, which makes the glitch to clear hard mode that much more appalling.

if i were to grade the difficulty of each boss (relative to each other), it would be:
1st boss (easy) - 3
2nd boss (easy) - 7
3rd boss (easy) - unranked
1st boss (hard) - 12
2nd boss (hard) - 20
3rd boss (hard) - unranked
for real, the second boss is such BS compared to the other ones.

the reason for the 3rd boss being unranked is that you can clear either one without moving, which removes the difficulty caused by spikes and the missing floor entirely. honestly i'm not sure how difficult they would be if i had to jump around while avoiding obstacles, but as they are now they're about as easy as the first boss on easy mode.

still some issues with the sporadic black screens out of nowhere, although it's not as annoying depending on whether the hard mode glitch gets fixed or not. honestly if i didn't discover that i would have never bothered trying to get the medal again, the second hard mode boss is too hard (too many lingering bullets; their slow speed makes it so different layers of bullets stack and form a wall as the boss moves towards you, so you can't really jump past it without getting damaged)

TwistedFW responds:

Wow! I really appreciate this review! Honestly. There are a lot of valid points here. I feel like the third boss is very interesting to find out about. The spikes on the ceiling were supposed to deter the player from standing in one spot. But it seems you have bypassed that, or, I suck at placing spikes lol. The second boss (Hard Mode) actually was doable for me and I thought it was actually too easy tbh. But I will take the time to nerf them. The third boss will most likely be changed to have another form of attack (similar to the white eyeball) to deter you from standing. This will of course also means that the number of spikes will decrease in the stage or they might get removed entirely. The black screen issue I am still not sure of. I've tried everything to fix it. The only thing I could think of, at this moment, is the game is crashing at a certain point. But that can't be true if you can exit back out. At the very least you can do that to solve the issue for now. The white eyeball seems to be the deadlist of all enemies however lol. Everyone so far has said it's been a problem. It seems I fixed it for easy mode but I will see what I can do for hard. Thank you again for reviewing my game again!

[Ms. Leblanc Dress-up]

the premise of having to find the clothes yourself is original, but there's a few bugs here and there:

- if you place the white roses on the dress before completing both sleeves, the roses disappear and you're locked out of getting the sleeves for dress 2 unless you restart the game;

- for dress 3, i had trouble getting it to register as completed although i had all correct pieces already on; for good measure i reset everything after completing each outfit, but that didn't help.

the way i managed to get it to trigger was by completing the outfit, then adding the second necklace, then removing it. after removing the necklace it triggered the completed outfit, but i have no clue why that worked. just putting it out there

Edeshye responds:

Just fixed the bugs. Thanks a lot for pointing out!!

[Surive The Storm!]

the last jump at the end of the cave has a closed pit, so you need to refresh if you fail that jump.
it should probably be a bottomless pit, or add a refresh button in case you end up somewhere you can't get out from

UntitledGames responds:

I forget that while creating the game,thankyou for reporting that.

[Above the Clouds]

what's the secret medal? i was thinking it had something to do with clearing the game quickly but i got flawless in 214 seconds and that wasn't it.
not sure if i can do much better than that

edit: as a matter of fact, i did realize you could trigger the serpent and the raven at the same time, but i simply assumed it was a bug, not a feature.
i managed to softlock myself: if you trigger the raven, you can trigger the serpent during the raven fight because it's close to the fighting area.
if you defeat the raven and then die, the game saves in a state with the sky serpent triggered, and if you die it will continuously kill you as it circles around your respawn point.

edit 2: turns out the serpent can be triggered with either of the other two, because it doesn't have an area delimiter like the other two.
if you trigger the old one, you can get it to punch the serpent in the face, which is much faster than defeating it normally. might try for a faster time knowing that

edit 3: with sky serpent skip and no deaths, cleared in 74 seconds.

as a side note, if you defeat the sky serpent with the skip and the old one, without dying, and then you fight the raven, the camera stays zoomed in and locked in the location where you triggered the fight (camera doesn't zoom out, and stops following the player character. the fight works as normal).
dying during the fight prevents this from happening (dying to the old one after defeating the serpent) or fixes it (dying during the raven fight makes the camera for the subsequent fights work as normal); dying before the double boss fight is irrelevant in regards to the bug.

tl;dr defeating serpent and old one at the same time without dying (during the fight) causes a bug with the camera if you leave the raven fight for last

OmarShehata responds:

Have you tried getting one of the gods to fight another?

Edit: Thanks qwerty741! Yes I can reproduce that bug as well, don't have a fix for it yet.

[Tankmas ADVENTure 2021]

found a bug with the jukebox. if you pick the "silence" track, then go back during the animation of the disk being insterted, the game freezes. tried the other tracks but it only happens with this one

for the yeti game, sometimes some cones completely overlap other cones (to the point that they look as if they didn't appear at all), so you have no way to clear the level because you end up collecting them out of order (or you can't even tell if they exist in the first place);
also the game freezes if you press z to restart too quickly after being prompted

btw is there a guide on how to unlock all costumes? i'm pretty sure i logged in every day but i'm still missing 4 costumes from the 2020 submission and an additional 3 costumes from the 2021 submission
(i believe i missed the 1st day both years, so it's possible 2 of those are accounted for. not sure about the other 5)

GeoKureli responds:

4 costumes are restricted to certain players