Score: 4

"Well It's Not a Bad First Attempt..."

submission: Portal Hopper

date: May 19, 2009

I think it still needs a bit of work, but you were definitely showing potential there. The graphics were acceptable for this sort of game, and pretty good for a first attempt I would think. Later on you'll want to work to improve them, but that should be at the bottom of the priority list. You might want to check with other people, but for me, the far right side of the screen was completely black, preventing me from seeing where the final platform of the first level presumably was, and once I jumped over there, my character disappeared and would no longer respond to any button input. If this was an intended obstacle, fine, but you should have something that lets you know that you "died" or "game overed" and lets you restart either that particular level, or the entire game. If you have it so that people just restart that level, then you should definitely give them a limit on how many times they can do that before they have to start over from the beginning. And yes, I did retry it a few times, including attempts at double jumping to the platform directly above, right before the screen is black. That attempt led me to conclude that there was no "double jump". Anyway, the music was fun, so I don't think you have to do anything further with that, unless that was the only music, in which case, I'd suggest considering changing up the music if not every level, then every few levels or so.
I hope you found this review helpful.

Score: 8

"I Want My Movie Ticket Now, Please!"

submission: PAC-MAN the Movie Trailer

date: May 19, 2009

Pac-man is Pac-man in Pac-man the Movie! Loved the "big action movie of the summer" theme to the trailer. The quick cuts between epicly huge flying words and hyper-action sequences with Hollywood thrilling soundtrack blasting came together beautifully here. The animations could be cleaned up a little, and maybe it was just my computer but there was a moment between the cuts of zooming words and action clips where the screen was dark and the music kept playing before the trailer went on. Maybe it was just me, i don't know. I'm not knocking your work, just trying to offer construction criticism while singing some praises. I'm really hoping you follow this up by adding to the clips you already did to create an actual "Pac-man the Movie". I thought the high point was when he ate the big sphere and started looking like he was gonna go super saiyan and then tore his yellow skin off to reveal -- an equally yellow Pac-man underneath (with angry eyebrows!), but then he ate ghost AND CRAPPED OUT HIS EYES!!! I almost fell off my chair laughing, that explains soooo much. Good work man, looking forward to more.

Score: 3

"Bring it back when you've got more done with it."

submission: Kickass Dragon!!

date: March 19, 2008

The premise is fun enough to start: your cursor is a dragon breathing fire and when you move your cursor to touch a building the building catches on fire. That's cool. Unfortunately, that's where it stops. Once you move your cursor away so the fire no longer touches the building the building "magically" stops burning. You could definitely expand on that and make a fun game with it. First, fix it so the buildings keep burning after you move the cursor away. Make levels to it, so that your goal is to burn down as many villages as possible. Add in various amounts of tiny villagers that you can also burn, but have some of them be bucket brigaders trying to put out your fires, and throw in some knights that try to slay your dragon, maybe at higher levels a priest or wizard can show up to try to zap your dragon at range. The graphics right now aren't the greatest, but they're decent enough that if you expand this into a game like that, it'd be really cool and fun for everybody.

Score: 6

"Ah, the wonderful world of phone sales!"

submission: Angry BT Customer

date: March 7, 2008

Wow. That brings back memories to that summer I worked for a telemarketing firm in Wheeling that no longer has offices there, or the two years I spent selling subscriptions for the Pittsburgh Symphony. Yeah. Those are the calls you tend to remember. Never the ones where the overly nice, polite person is attentive to your spiel and purchases whatever you're offering (P.S. most credit protection offers are sheer evil). No. It's always the violently screaming spazoids and other freaks. Thanks for the text to allow us to better follow the..."conversation" and I liked what you added to something as simple as that. The plain black background/white text for the caller and the red background with text colors that changed according to the volume and violence of the customer. I'd say the next step here of course is to create an animation to go with it .

Score: 5

"Definitely should be added to NG Tutorials"

submission: A How To Tutorial On HTML

date: March 7, 2008

Not bad for a basic tutorial. You could have used spiffier graphics (spiffier of course being a technical term), but if viewed as simply the introductory or basic tutorial it came off as, then what you presented seems pretty handy to keep around the site along with the flash-making tutorials Newgrounds offers, especially since it should then give beginning flash programmers a place of their own to store their work and to promote during the loaders to their flash programs. The music you had playing throughout the tutorial was rather upbeat and catchy and - probably most importantly - never got annoying. The reliance on the side arrow keys was a bit of a nuisance for those of us who tend to leave Num Lock on, and perhaps another means of moving through the flash would've been better, but still proved easy enough to work with.

Score: 8

"Hey! A sequel as good as the original!"

submission: Final Fight: Thug Revenge

date: December 11, 2006

Actually, this just might have been better, especially considering where some of the characters end up. I really enjoyed the first one, and this just built on that so well. Thanks you so very, very much for including the "Oh my car!" moment from the game (one the most personally satisfying bonus rounds in the game), that gave me a real kick. If only there was a "not again, not again" line thrown in there...but nah, fans of the game will recognize it and bust a gut, and those who aren't familiar with one of the great SNES classics from Capcom will still find it funny. I also enjoy it when someone is having enough fun with what they're doing that they can not only poke fun at other matters (like an overabundance of advertising), but freely take shots at themselves in the process. Including the incredible Hulk in there was absolutely brilliant. I'm definitely looking forward to your next submission and I hope that some newcomers to flash and sprite animations don't get discouraged by the razzing I've noticed a lot of them getting and look to you as one of the many examples on Newgrounds for how to do it well.

Score: 7

"A fun little entry."

submission: Marco's Heist Part 2

date: August 2, 2006

That was almost over too quickly. Great use of sprites, and of utilizing everything you filled the screen with, but maybe next time you could build the tension by and excitement to more critical mass by having the characters be more confrontational with each other, more arguing and threats of violence between them all that escalates as each additional person enters with their own reason for wanting the money. Then you could also have hints of possible alliances forming -- hey, sometimes if what you want is some money, you're willing to help someone else get some too if it scores what you need. Also, were there no guards for the money van? Taking out the guards and the driver/s while fighting amongst themselves over the money would have ramped up the tension (not to mention the action) between the characters before it all blew up in their faces. Now, despite the lengthy suggestionns, keep in mind I thought this was some friggin' good stuff, I just think you showed a lot of potential for something great, and I'd like you to share that with us. Extra points for using an awesome Queen song that also nicely underscored the flash. Keep up this kind of work, and let me know when the next one is up.

Score: 10

"Now here's a reason to check out the flash portal!"

submission: DVP: Fight Knight

date: July 29, 2006

That was fantastic! Nicely put together, polished, smooth, great graphics, sound effects, voice overs, it all came together fluidly to produce the kickass start to what promises to be a great story arc. I'm definitely looking forward to the next one. The only criticism I can muster is that sometimes it was hard to tell what the big blue guy was saying because of the voice he was doing, but for the most part you could understand him so it's only a minor detail. Great execution of the action in this, I'm really hoping to see some knock-down drag-out fights in the next one, although I get the sense there will be more suspense and plot intrigue just because of where this one left us. Keep up the great work.

Score: 3

"Take it to the end, please."

submission: Makedamnsure Music Video.

date: July 20, 2006

That wasn't too bad. Sprite music videos can be really fun, so try pushing the limits of what you can have happen on the screen, especially if you can link it to what's going on in the actual lyrics of the song. When the match up just right, it's a beautiful thing to behold.
BUT YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST GIVE US A FINISHED PRODUCT.
You're cheating yourself here, man. That was pretty decent and then it just screeched to a halt. Music videos don't get the whole "part 1, to be continued..." deal that other submissions get, because the songs don't just quit in the middle. I'm sorry if you feel I'm busting your balls here, but there had been no indication that you were running dry until it just stopped. It's okay to sit on it for a few more days until the inspiration comes before submitting it. Please update this soon with the whole thing, I'd like to see what else you can bring to the table.

Score: 8

"Nice addition to Madness fandom!"

submission: Madness Elimination

date: July 20, 2006

That was an excellent piece of violence that any fan of Madness can appreciate (actually, any fan of this entire site come to think of it). The graphics were smooth, fluid, and perfectly matched the style of the original, as well as being perfectly in sync to the sound effects. The pulsating soundtrack gave the whole piece a rather nice heartbeat that managed to nicely punctuate every gunshot, stab wound, blunt force trauma, and last second dodges. Not much of a critique here, but I did notice that you left out the bodyguards in the bios, and that none of the upgrade agents dodged bullets or turned into zombies (although that was hilarious that their bios made them sound like a cross between "Matrix" Agents and zombie infections), so I was just wondering if we'll be seeing some of that in later installments. This was excellent work and I look forward to seeing the rest. Keep it up!