Valark's Reviews

[We Are Science Probes]

A Step Too Far

Poignant if not overstated message about trusting in superstition, but seriously, that was just plain mean what you did to Kansas there. You had to make it a state-sponsored educational institution and couldn't have just used a fortune-telling house?

[BitterSweet]

WHAT?! NO!

He broke the absolute first rule of auto-cannibalism! You never eat your arms first, you need them to remove your legs and non-vital organs. If you eat both your hands, then you're just awkwardly stumbling around looking for a viable way to snap your legs off. And no one wants that.

[Hawaiian Puppies]

Great Animation

The animation and music were amazing and genuinely top-notch, and the voice acting seemed to work very well with the characters you had. There's just one thing...

I know you mentioned that you were going for a kid's animation and not to expect a great plot, but the plot progression in general was bad to a point of being painful. I'm not trying to be malicious to you or this clearly amazing animation, but I've never seen any story with so weak a plot without being satirical, even kid's stuff.

You've clearly mastered the drawing portion, but please, for your own sake if for no one else, put more work into your script next time.

HawaiianPuppies responds:

Thanks. The thing about this response is that its criticism, but it's tasteful, and although I've addressed this issue in a couple other responses I'll reiterate.

I'm one of those people who watch movies and often say "Man, the special effects were AMAZING.... but GOD, that script was awful!"

So, when writing this, I was a little disappointed that perhaps, even for kids, the plot was too simple and the dialogue too dry, but over time I came to just see the plot as a vehicle to promote animation and the comics.

I knew I wanted to do a musical and moreover wanted to fit in as many characters and locations as possible, and more importantly I knew I had just 3 minutes to do this. That being said, I am VERY proud of the sheer amount of story and characters packed, intelligently and progressively, into that short timespan.

Is the plot simple? Yeah. Does it progress disjointedly? Eh, that's up to interpretation. The characters are introduced, a problem arises, then the problem is fixed. There's not much dimension to the characters in this short, but that's because it's, well, short. And I guess that's my only defense, although I do not disagree the dialogue and plot can be painful, it's certainly not the worst and it does the job for the purpose of the cartoon.

[My First Game!!!]

Don't Bother Trying

No matter how far you get in this game, you will never finish. This is because the last ten percent is literally impossible.

You are presented with a screen full of randomly appearing and crawling bugs, and the instructions "The last 10 percent! Game is loaded but there are bugs. Don't let them get away! Kill them all! Remember, clicking on them slows them down!" The bugs appear from off screen and make their way at varying speeds towards the alternate edge, growing red to indicate that they are about to escape. When you click on a bug, it is randomly pushed to some other point, where you must click it three more times to get it to disappear, moving and being pushed all the while. If a single bug makes it across, your progress is reset.

Assuming you don't mind frenzied, random clicking, this wouldn't be much of a problem if it weren't for the massive AddictingGames logo in the bottom right corner. If so much as a single bug crawls under that ad, it will escape and reset your progress as you angrily close the several resulting AddictingGames tabs that pop up when you accidentally click it. Add that to the chances of a bug spawning in a corner and making it off the screen in half a second flat and you have a completely impassible level.

3 of 10, for interesting concept, but absolutely dreadful execution and wholly impossible-to-complete game.

[Every day the same dream]

Take THAT, Roger Ebert!

This game is art. A harsh, conformist environment in which the subject undergoes a series of minor, but significant world-view altering changes in an attempt to, literally, make himself a new person.

Also, the graphics and music didn't hurt.

[Darkness - The Cage]

Finally...

When I first saw the premise for this game, I felt equal parts angry that someone was ripping off Ian Dallas and happy that someone had taken the time to put together a playable version.

When I first began to play, I felt equal parts happy that Dallas had been credited as inspiration and angry that it was a simple platform game and not the full 3D shooter game that Ian advertised.

When I finished the game, I was pretty much just bored with the subject and voted 5 for the heck of it.

Also, Dallas needs to finish his game. Like soon.