blackcat2000's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Interactive Kitten]

Not particularly interesting...

There were decent music choices which fit your animation quite well, and the art wasn't terrible. Everything was recognizable and really quite presentable. I'll have to say that this was decent, besides mainly the essential actual content of this 'game'. It was horribly short, and there wasn't that much to do. Mainly buttons which would cause the cat to do something when you put your mouse over it.
The backgrounds were really quite simple, and there are little imperfections which annoy me such as when you make the cat blink (what kind of cruel person pokes their interactive kitten in the eye??!) the lines in one of the kitten ears changes a bit.
Furthermore, whilst having to wait until an animation for a certain part of the cat to finish before another one will start has its advantages, it is somewhat more difficult to catch all the different aspects of inter-activeness of the cat.
Overall, it was good but too short with a few quirks here and there.

[TNEJ (art collab)]

It's an alright submission, I guess

It was indeed an art collab by many different people, so I won't need to comment on lack of animation.
The art as a whole was alright to the extent that even without the relatively tiny text (decently legible though... consider sans serif next time) it was almost possible to understand what was going on.
It was very random, and unfortunately, not very funny to me. It was also very long. I know it was called "The Never Ending Journey". but halfway through I was forced to stop reading and click to see if it did indeed ever end- it did. The thing is the art isn't spectacular, and the text is a pain to read paragraph after paragraph, and attempt to make sense of it.
The music isn't too bad- it's calming and sort of a good background song (maybe a little quieter). However, I don't think this piece needed to be 5.8 MB long. Perhaps next time you could choose a shorter song/loop and optimize the audio so it doesn't become so huge. Maybe you could do something about the image sizes too. Oh. Add a mute button for the music next time too, in case.

So in short, I rate this animation as an 'okay' and-
Optimize your audio/video further
Sans Serif fonts are easier to read than fonts like times new roman
Mute button

Decent story though, if not a bit long =)

[Notepad Drawing Collab 2009]

S'good, despite the lack of animation

Obviously as a drawing collab, there won't be much animation, but I'm saying it was good even as such =)
Firstly a few bugs. When you press the 'previous' button, the pictures still more in the same direction (they always seem to move right to left).
Furthermore (and less obvious) I think one of the authors comments may have been left out or replaced (or put there as a deceiving joke >.>) as the Naruto comment popped up twice.
Also, was the collab reference meant to have an authors comment above it when you finish looking at all the pictures?

Anyways, the music was great- calm, background-ish, not too intrusive, overall a good choice. The art was... virtually all great, no disputes. Everything worked smoothly for me (picture scrolling, viewing authors comments, receiving medals when I should) so I can't say anything but good job! =)

JKAmovies responds:

Yeah, there are a few bugs (but nothing too bad though). The pictures were just something that I didn't want, but couldn't fix. And no, the bios shouldn't be with the collab reference (another bug).

But I'm glad you liked it, and hope you look forward to next years :)

[HRmageddon]

Wahey, great game! =D

It's an awesome fun game, with an original concept, even if it's just a different version of certain board games. I like being able to choose your team with a certain budget, and although this is a beta, I wanna put in my suggestions in the event that you haven't already considered them (also, I hope the author gets to actually read these reviews =P).
Employees should have different costs, and a couple more combo bonuses similar to the manager team building.
You should have different game settings when you're playing like with different starting budget, maybe multiple rounds (loser starts round 2 with less money, or make an excuse to give the loser a slight advantage), and great game! I hope I get to use the multiplayer feature with my friends sometime. The private room idea is great =D

[The Catcher]

I'll just say "could be better"

The gameplay was quite boring and repetitive. The storyline was... meh... I didn't quite finish the game (yes I read your "please finish the game" comment) and maybe it's all explained, but the way it is just doesn't quite appeal to me.
The game on hard isn't even hard, by my standards (I'm no pro gamer, either) and in my opinion, there was no reason to have the starting difficulty buttons in both chinese and english (or at least I think it was chinese). The only thing that served for me was making me scared the game would be in chinese too.
I liked the music, it was decent, the artwork decent as well. In fact, they complimented your piece.
Improvements... I think there's not much you can do to actually improve this without totally changing the idea... What comes to mind are shops and upgrades, but I always say that.
Sorry about not being able to find much you can really improve, but I'd still like you to know it was a decent game. Looking forward to any future work, eh.

Todd-Studios responds:

I'd like you to atleast see the bossfight, to maybe change your mind.

You don't have to, but the password, I believe is "bossfight" for intermediate.

[Knights Castle]

Decent game, but could be better

I'm sure you've heard these few complaints before, but I'll quickly get them out of the way:
The death timer should (in my opinion) be constant, and 10 seems like a good amount of time. Either that or the player should be able to do something during the time, i.e. press keys to slow down the enemy.
The huge guys are indeed a tad hard, but due to the spells, it was not quite challenging, rather than how long I'm willing to wait to kill them. Dying wasn't an issue.
Why was dying not an issue? It's because I can get the enemy to follow me. I can simply have them follow me until all my spells (the ultimate ones included) and kill them off with that. That's why it was more a game of patience with me. The melee attack should be upgradable or something to that extent to maintain it's usefulness.
The green mage people were hell annoying, but sorta funny at the same time.
Now what could be done to improve it. I'm no expert on game coding or balancing things, but I'll do my best.
When you die, have the counter be at 10 or so.
Make your melee attack upgradable/generally better
Once the enemy passes you, have it just go to the castle rather than simply continuously follow you (if you get close enough, it'll leave the castle door).
Maybe include a timer on how much longer the invincibility shield thing will last.
Upgradable spells are almost always a nice touch...
Somehow have it so that the player can't beat around the bush until the spells all cooldown (in addition, you can use your thunderbolt the moment it gets to 0, then just wait around with it activated, meaning you can essentially save up 2 thunderbolts).
I like the way you can chooses between 2 different alignments in your spells, but maybe you could make it so you can only choose one, but the spells have the same effect. There could also be a 'neutral' section, and an ultimate spell can only be unlocked by getting both all neutral and aligned spells.
Don't get me wrong, I liked your game. Looking forward to any future work!

[Strategy Defense 3]

Hm... not bad, but personally, not quite great...

As a side note:
I prefer your other sequels, for example, the one where your an archer and can eventually be a knight and all. I like how they form all different kinds of defense games.

However, I didn't particularly like this one. It involves excessive spamming, in my opinion. One can complete extreme difficulty IF:
One can spam
One can run the game decently fast on even the lowest quality (it lags for me on high)

For those reasons ,I don't believe it's very strategy oriented. It could be because I set the timer to every 10 seconds, but it wasn't too long a game.
Nonetheless, it's relatively original, what with the air/ground/sea attacks, and I compliment you on that. I like the consistent graphics on each part of this little saga of games. Now what can you do to improve this... hmmm...

You can:
Have a little walkthrough. The demo is a nice touch, but it doesn't really tell you much about the game. Maybe a demo, but with instructions as well.
A list included in the instructions on what the units do. Maybe... a weakness triangle. Water>Air>Troops>Water. That would probably add a little more strategy to the game.
Maybe the 3 different troops could have specific abilities, like one targets the other type (i.e. troops target air or water, and the other bases, and they are all neutral to their own type).

I hope this review helped, and I'm still looking forward to any of your future works :)

[Age of War]

Wow. Very fun! I love the choices!

The music wasn't obtrusive (easy on the ears and doesn't get annoying). It was in fact very nice. The drawings were very detailed and evidently much work has been put into the presentation. As I said, I love the choices. You have so many different units, so many turrets, (oh... and specials!) rather than the standard few types. It's one of those games with 1 objective and many paths to it. Rather than forcing the player to do exactly what is needed to complete the game.
Except for the ion cannon which eventually destroys the enemies base, it was a very fun game. I like the concept of evolving as well. Quite unique!
Improvements? Well... none. I DO have suggestions for a sequel or general game like this though (this particular game is, personally, fine).
1. The player, in addition to the units, turrets, and specials, can control a hero, whom he can buy/revive/upgrade.
2. The special... it was sort of annoying to not know where the special would affect, so... Either have it so you can see what it will do, or be able to drag it around the map (except maybe for the enemies base).
3. Make the enemy turrets a little... easier to pass I suppose. I'm not usually able to get any units past. Only very close to their base.
Overall very good game. Thanks!

[Throw Me]

Wow... it's like... addictive!

It's so... simple, yet fun!
I believe this game deserves it's high ranking (at time of writing, it is #3).
Well, first thing I didn't really like was the little explosion when you click the mouse... it's a little... odd. Other than that, I love the momentum gaining. It seemed to (somewhat) realistic.
This game could be a stress relieving game. It gives you satisfaction in blowing up an alien character, as well as the feeling that you flew really far. It's also incresingly difficult (in the most, cleverly, subtle way), in the bar moving up and down faster and faster as one progresses (very obviously so nearing the 100,000 point area). The high scores are also not hacked (yet), and it gives one satisfaction to get on the top 100.
The animation and game itself seems so simple, but is very much so entertaining. Suggestions for improvement are lacking from me... besides the explosion, although I don't know how to improve it. Maybe have the box unlock itself into the alien... or something.
Maybe different characters to throw. A green one... blue one... random one...
I very much loved this game. Highscore is something like 104k. Another thing is that your scores can keep going up. There's no real limit. It's not hard to try again and happen to get a better score.
If you were to include instructions, say that the clouds that blow up are somewhere around 1100, and that the ball thingies (sorry, can't identify the name at the moment) on the floor can throw you further. Simple instructions.
Very nice game. Very very nice.