Skaven252's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Hungry Gamers]

What a joke. Love the art, great character caricatures. Not sure how to get all the medals... with a shorter countdown I could have had the patience to keep trying the outcomes.

[PixEvo - The Fountain]

This is one of those "pure essence" platformers. I like the catchy background tune, it didn't get old even though it's only 1:30 long. Nice simple yet epic story/context. The evolving stages keeps it fresh (as long as you don't get stuck).

Took me about an hour to beat. Some of those jumps really have to be pixel perfect. And it can take pretty long before you can try again. But I guess that's a part of the essence.

[Zombie Die Hard]

Another physics puzzler, but a very simple one, the only thing the player does is remove obstacles in right order and/or at the right time. The first ten levels pretty much play themselves, after that it gets a bit more challenging - but often it feels like the puzzle got solved with sheer luck rather than brains.

Not too fond of the production values. The sounds and music are quite poorly mixed together, and there is a bug in the sound too: if a zombie falls to a pit below the lava level, it triggers death growls in rapid fire. The graphics look detailed but aren't particularly stylish or appealingly designed.

Anyhow, kinda funny, could work as a Halloween party game for kids.

[Oil Night]

Took me a while to beat this "pissing contest" genre game. Nice steampunk design.

Tips:
- Successful offence (hit on opponent base) gives more oil than successful defence (barrier or unit hit)
- First let the barrier soak up enemy units until you get the faster attack unit. Once the opponent stops sending units, send the fast ones to attack
- Keep spamming fast attack units while the enemy is not sending units. The fast ones get through the hammer quite well
- Upgrade to bigger barriers, let them soak up all the damage they can before you replace them
- Once you get the "strong and fast" attack unit, you can start spamming for heavy damage
- The chain can be used to bypass enemy units near your base (didn't have much use for it), and the dynamite is best against the big and slow enemy units that would otherwise sap a lot of points from your barrier
- Keep an eye on the cannon shots and shoot them all down - remember it costs the opponent oil to fire them

[Overhaul]

Great concept, an interesting blend of genres. Got me hooked! The game also offers a nice twist every once in a while, when you get assaulted from both directions. Didn't complete the first planet yet, I hit a wall in the "Abnormal" zone. I'll come back for more later...

Some critique:
- I would appreciate a wider, zoomed out view. Through the later levels, most of the action ended up happening outside the screen. I had no idea which enemies were coming (excepy by the sound) nor what I was doing right or wrong. I just kept stacking. Would be nice to have a bit more room horizontally, overall. The game felt cramped at times.
- At one point, the Miners seemed to stop working. They just weren't launching any mines, regardless of their position. Same seemed to happen with some of the newer blocks too, but I couldn't be sure. I was still able to complete the levels.
- I think I figured out how to survive the first assault in the Abnormal Zone: SPOILER: you can drop blocks straight onto the flying aliens, they'll blow themselves up attacking the blocks. But I still couldn't complete it, because the assault left me in too bad shape for the next wave. Too hard? At least for me!

[Steamlands]

Cool game

Love the concept, the setting/theme and the art. I wonder how well this could translate to 3D (Minecraft style). Or even just variable height terrain with slopes - tho that would pose quite a bunch of problems from rotating the tank tile graphics to game balance as non-rotating cannons would have to be aimed by driving the tank up and down the slope.

The isolated missions break the feel of continuity though. Maybe there could be a separate 'sandbox' mode where you retain your tank parts between missions and towns - but I guess that would require a system that generates enemy tanks automatically.

I ran into a little bug: after mission complete in one mission, the win music was left playing infinitely and didn't stop when the next tunes started, so for the rest of the game I had to endure the cacophony of two simultaneous songs overlapping. I didn't try to reproduce the bug.