Dinkelborg's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Dizzy]

Wow... I think it's pretty much in the title...
Since you concentrate on the player so much, when you look anywhere else everything is still spinning...

The game is really basic tho... what about that remark to turn on one's playlist?
It didn't really seem to change anything...

I didn't get too far... not only because it was actually exhausing for my eyes to play :D
... is there moving blockades later on? would be a cool challenge I think...
Anyway a good concept basic graphics and an interesting render effect.

guipremonsa responds:

Thanks a lot!

Yeah, there are some different game mechanics later on. The game invites you to turn your own music playlist on just to make sure you will be tripping. ^^

Make sure to come back later to play the later levels and get a better time on the ones you already beat! It takes a while, but i already got used to the spinning (initially it was really hard to even test it!).

It gets pretty hardcore for the players mind later on tho. :b

[Brightee's Soup Kitchen]

The graphics look cute and the game idea is nice especially for a 48h project I think it turned out well, but the actual game play is way to difficult and unbalanced.
The time the ingredients get shown is okay and it is possible to memorise the recipe, but the time the ingredients positions in the shelter get show is WAY to short.
One just oriented and maybe found two of the ingredients and BAM - Darkness ...
So actually I don't think it's a bad game but that just really ruins everything since it is like that from level one on.
If the game had a better learning curve it would be really nice, maybe you can quickly implement a function that will gradually decrease the time that the player is allowed to look at the recipe and the positions in the shelter so that it will be easy in the first and then afterwards gets more and more difficult as the player proceeds.

Music ***
Graphics *****
Menu/HUD *****
Gameplay **

TheRavenger responds:

Hey, thanks a lot for the feedback! You made some valid points there.

Actually the game was initially going to be harder than this (but we tweaked it at the last second). There's a difficulty curve, but not so much of a learning curve. I guess it's sort of a 'learn through doing' (or in this case, learn through much pain and agony'.

But honestly, I'm not sure that the game is 'so' difficult that it's impossible. There's no real penalty for failing a stage, so you're free to retry it as much as you have to in order to move on. Memory and Repitition are the key factors here. We've seen people writing things down or taking pictures with their phone in order to get through, all of which are totally allowed (and encouraged, really).

[Labirion]

Okay ... so I played this several times now because I thought I did something wrong in the end ...
But apparently there is no ''good'' ending...

I think this game is really confusing...

I mean the graphics are innovative ... tho the Story is... yeah as the Tags say already Abstract... I guess that is why there is so much negative feedback as well ... Once you get the king gets kidnapped and looses his memory over this well... it's okay but than again ... really really short ... it took me maybe 3minutes to get to that ending...?
...and most of that time was spend watching that guy walk, while I could not do or click anything else... (it would be nice if we could cancel the last choice by making a new one... so I click right he starts walking but I click left and he just stops turns around goes left...maybe...)

It does lack the typical feedback methods and it has no learning curve. As a player I get thrown into a foreign world and this game doesn't help me at all, when making my first steps.

The first obstacle was super random: A statue is blocking my way and when I walk back in the direction where I came from I will not go back to the previous room, but instead magically get transported to the other end of the screen and so I can go on... Here would be a really good moment to tell the player that things may not always be as expected in this world and that he should just try thing... or something alike this...

The controls are also confusing since sometimes I can click things on Screen like a button, while to go into a cave I have to click the rim of the screen (What is also the standard way to move...). You could either try to unify the controls so that we always have the same or you could make them act different. It would be nice to have objects that I can click light up or maybe they could have a red halo... something showing, I can click this, while the Mouse could transform into an Error when we get to the Rim of a page or a door we can enter ... this would clarify a lot.

The 'gift' of stealing names is also rather confusing and never gets explained or exampled to the player. A little tutorial and positive feedback when I do apply the right name to the right person would really help here... The idea of changing peoples behaviour is really nice, but it could be used more intense. We just get this ability and we change exactly 3 names and the game is over... I think there is a lot more potential in there and you could for example try to build up on this ability, we just get the names we need in a linear form we don't have to go back or swap special names with others... if there was a need for that it would create a nice puzzle-challenge

I'd call it rather an interactive story than a Point and Click Adventure. It does have more in common with a book than a game, what shall not insult you as the creators, but I think it does not fulfil the needs of a game, but rather is a little nice story demo.

PS: What's up with that flower? ... Did I miss something? ... it seems to be the icon of the game tho in the game if has no real function ... it's just being there in a dead end telling you you can't steal his name...

CanibalRabbit responds:

Dear Dinkelborg,
we would like to say to you that your review is realy informative and fair. Thank you very much for writing it, thanks for your time. Being very young we can not to focus on something big and complicated, we just making simple short games with abstract stories for fun and we understand all of our mistakes an imperfections (almost always they caused by the lazyness and the desire of getting feedback as soon as it is possible, because it is really satisfying to read any reviews, either bad or good), but we have some ideas of big projects, after your wonderful review we begin to discuss the idea of making a big game with the same principles,but with the sensible storyline and characters . Unfortunately now we can not realise it, because we just entered in the university and we need to concentrate on studies, anyway now we decided not to do the crude games, so as soon as we will have some time we will begin to work on something a little bigger, we even think that we will be able to reach the length of Samorost and Machinarium after few attempts. Because it's now more interesting for us and there are a lot of people who says that our games need to be bigger and more complicated. So, we will try to use all of your advices and do some better games!
P.S. We are sorry if our speech is a little chaotic and if there are some grammar or lexical mistakes. English is not our native language.
Sincerely yours, Fedor and Me.