Haggard's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Idle Evolution]

One of the best idle games I played (or rather "idled") so far. It's pretty addictive and can be educational, too.

I like that there's so much to do here. Buying upgrades, selling molecules, evolving, gathering knowledge... it keeps the game interesting.

There's still a bug in the upgrades section, though: I cannot chose a different element to use for buying upgrades. The combo box is there, but whatever molecule I chose, the box ends up empty and the amount stays the same (indicating that it didn't change). It's a bit annoying when trying to farm molecules for the knowledge section.

[Idle Pro Gamer]

Balancing is way off in this one. Upgrading the PC is too expensive, as the money only comes in very very slowly. It doesn't really help to upgrade the Video, since it too is a bit too expensive. 1 dollar for every 2000 "video clicks". It does take a lot of time to get the fanbase to at least 2000, so you get at least 1 dollar for every 6 seconds of waiting time, or so.

But still the PC is overly expensive. I will reach 20,000 XP to get to the level 4 games way before I can upgrade my PC to level 4, even if I just idle the game. Would be cool if you could lower the prices for the PC equipment a little bit.

[Idle Dungeon Master]

There seems to be a very nasty bug with the auto save. I built rooms up until the sleeping chambers and I accidentally closed my browser. After I reloaded the game the text box in the middle was gone.
I now can build and research new rooms, but nothing else happens. I started a new game on a different browser and now I see there are supposed to be buttons apearing (B, O, Save, Music Off).

[#Escape: The Waiting Room]

I am going through some of the games I played and did achieve some but not all medals. This was one of it. Since it was such a long time ago I played this game, this was a whole new experience for me.

The setting is simple, but still so enjoyable: You are trapped in a room and need to get out. Everything you need to escape can be found in this room. It's a bit like those old detective stories where a murder happens in a locked room and the detective has to figure out how the murder was done and how the murderer could escape.

I like the voice overs, they certainly add a little extra to the game and the voice also offers some hints, like "I can't read this without my glasses".

The medals also add some enjoyment to the game, but I too have to admit that I used the link to achieve most of them...

Anyway, nice little game. Not too hard but it does offer a bit of a challenge. After one has beaten the game for the first time the replay value is pretty high because of the medals.

Aprime responds:

Excellent! Glad you feel that way. Was enjoyable reading this review of yours. I'm happy you liked the voice over hints too! Interesting what you said about a murder scene, if you come up with a cool idea, I might make it :D

[Craig the guesser V1]

Picked the #1, computer guessed 2. I said "lower", computer guessed 2 again. I guess ( ;) ) you have a typical "off by one error" in the implementation. Or maybe it's a simple case of "guess_number <= upper_boundary" instead of "guess_number < upper_boundary".

jcmaxq111 responds:

That's odd, I was just able to get the computer to guess #1. I might have to sort some things out but thanks for the feedback!

[Frantic Planes 2]

Nice game with a steep difficulty curve. The first few levels are a breeze, but level 10+ become very challenging. Haven't been able to beat the last boss, because there's so much going on on the screen and the final special seems to be pretty useless (even though Iron Man appearing on the screen IS funny), especially since it blocks my view of the screen, so I cannot avoid the bullets anymore. :(

Just like CollectiveSin I encountered the "coin bug" where the coin counter wouldn't stop rising. Didn't affect my game too much, though, as I only had two upgrades left to buy.

Thoughts on how to improve this game:
- Change the specials, so they clear the screen from all enemies (except bosses). I found that the last special was pretty much useless, it didn't even kill the tanks on level 14 (and they are tough to get rid of otherwise!). Maybe even have the special remove all the coins from the screen, so the player has to decide if the tradoff "no coins - no enemies" is worth it or not.
- Introduce some graphic options. Would be nice to be able to turn off the "snow" effects, as they cause the game to lag a bit and there's already so much going on on the screen, it really is distracting the player
- Different music? I know there's the option to turn it off, but I think different kinds of music would be a nice little extra.

Overall, it's a good game. The medals are a good mix of easy to get and hard to get, which always offers a nice challenge.
The gameplay is simple enough, the controls are very responsive, the upgrade system is a nice little bonus.

Overall, I rate this 3,5 out of 5.

Frozennnn responds:

Hi thanks for the feedback hehe yes the money buy its a preformance bug that im trying to fix soon. Thanks for the feedback

[Fortress Monster Tower 5]

Doesn't even work. I click "Tutorial" and then monsters swarm the place twice and a "Defeated" screen shows up. What the hell?
Then I try it again, place some buildings, but they don't do anything at all. Various options tried, nothing... second building tried... nothing. Oh wait, that one building iced ONE opponent. YAY!

Maybe next time don't release a game that's still in alpha status?

[HowTheWildernessWhispers]

Very interesting game. No real instructions, you just hit play and start playing. It's a bit unclear what to do at first, but after the first few deaths the objective becomes obvious. I like that you give no instructions at all here. Sure, tutorials are nice, but I'm really fed up with the "tutorial levels" where you get stopped by a text pop up every other minute.

The controls are nice and simple, just point and click. Maybe it's a bit too much of "trial and error" here, but it's the concept you chose for this game, and you stick to it, no matter what. And that's what I like.

I also give you points for the art. Everything looks a bit sloppy, but it also looks "hand drawn", which is pretty cool, imo.

The music just isn't my kind of thing, but at least you implemented a way to mute it. Another point for that. ;)

Overall: Interesting concept; nice art; not so good music, but it can be muted.

{ Review Request Club }

[Neon Hell]

Ok, this turned from "Boring as hell" to "Wow, this stuff is challenging!" in a very short amount of time.

The overall layout good be a bit better. The colouring in the menu looks awful and the buttons look too simple. But on the other hand: I don't have any experience with HTML5 yet, so I don't know, if you are limited by that in any way with your layouts.

The gameplay is really simple: Just dodge long enough to advance the levels. Can be really easy sometimes, but it becomes more difficult the further you progress.

I liked the idea of the "outrage", but it would be nice if we had some sort of basic attack, other than that special attack.

Overall, this can be a very addictive game, if you spice it up a little bit.

Oh, and that music? I made use of the 'm' button... :P

{ Review Request Club }

Knuckstrike responds:

Thank you very much for the review Haggard.

You're right about everything :D. The menu is indeed pretty bland. I could've changed both the background and the buttons. If I would've changed the buttons I wouldn't have been able to let them change if you click on them though. But better looking buttons would've been better than a click animation.

I should've probably made the levels a bit shorter, both so people can actually reach the last one and so it's a bit faster.