Score: 6

"Overdone jokes that work."

submission: Ask Taco-Man

date: May 7, 2009

None of the jokes were anything new, with the vast majority of them having been done time and time again. However, due to your style you managed to pull it off without turning the flash into a groan-fest. That being said, this definitely wasn't one of your best works though.

I didn't like the fart sound made as a censor noise at the beginning. Fart jokes are just far too childish for my liking and there are a large number of noises you could have used which would have worked so much better. While the opening song may have been irritating, there were a few funny lines included.

I felt that the disclaimer went on for far too long. You'd made the point well before it ended, so a lot of it was unnecessary and it ended up being boring. The list of possible names for Taco-man, while also long, worked better, as with this joke you were offering a variety of different things, whereas the disclaimer was just the one joke stretched out.

It would have been nice to see Billy writing in different places on the paper instead of putting everything in the same place, which was also the incorrect place to end and start a letter. I thought that the narrator was going to make a joke about this each time he interrupted him mid-writing, but unfortunately he didn't. The closing line of this movie was a definite highlight and it seemed to be poking fun at the fact that the jokes you used in the flash have been done many a time before.

Score: 7

"Pretty good."

submission: Tobacco Man

date: May 7, 2009

Definitely a pretty good movie with a nice level of humour for the most part. Plenty of the jokes may have been predictable and cheesy, but most of them still worked. The base of the idea wasn't particularly original, but I don't recall having seen a cigarette as a bad superhero before.

It was a shame about the low quality of the video, which was particularly noticeable during camera movement. Was this due to you editing it in a program other than Flash? If so it seems a shame, since you surely could have at least used the trial version of Flash to edit it.

Some of the lines were difficult to understand due to the voices being put on being far too strong. I'd suggest subtitles or making sure that all the lines could easily be understood. The sound volume of the audio in the end credits was at a much higher volume than the rest of the flash and once the credits stopped rolling you were left with an extremely dark still from one of the scenes with black lines over it. It would have been nice if it had gone back to the preloader screen with the play button instead.

I didn't fully understand the jokes regarding the colleges. I could work out the point of the joke, but of the colleges mentioned I had only heard of Harvard. Obviously this flash was aimed more at American viewers than overseas ones. Tobacco Man's coughing fit went on for far too long, which made it become a pain to watch. You could have made this much shorter, still got the point across and would have ended up being much funnier in the process. I also felt that the scene with Cindy went on for too long, with it taking up the bulk of the movie. It would have been nice to have seen this time spent elsewhere on a wider variety of jokes.

Score: 6

"The ending made the movie."

submission: Skeleton Jack

date: May 7, 2009

I didn't find the movie to be particularly good for the most part as it just seemed to be another fight movie with an escape and little story. The movie didn't really pick up until the end, which raised a smile. The fight seemed to be over too quick, so it was fortunate that this wasn't what the movie revolved around. Despite it not being the essence of the flash, I still felt that it could have lasted longer though, being more intense.

The preloader could do with an overhaul. Not only could you have chosen better fonts, but the black background didn't fill the entire screen and a white line was visible on the edge. This created a bad first impression and led me to believe that this flash was going to be of a fairly bad quality.

I didn't like how the movie constantly switched from widescreen to 4:3. It bought far too much attention to the fact that 4:3 is far inferior to 16:9 and any other widescreen variants. The graphical inconsistency wasn't particularly good either, as one minute the graphics seemed to be fairly good on the whole and the next, not so. Some shots of the artefact and temple had been created in a different program from Flash and were pixelated, which made them look absolutely horrible.

The best aspect of this flash in my eyes, which even managed to top the ending, was your absolutely excellent choice in sound effects. The selection you made in the scene leading up to the fight was absolutely brilliant.

Score: 9

"Great fun."

submission: Crush the Castle

date: May 7, 2009

This game was great fun to play and despite some levels requiring multiple tries it never managed to get tedious. Definitely one of the best destroy games out there, helped out by a very fitting theme. However, there were still some things which could have been improved. Most of which shouldn't take a great deal of effort.

The time limit was just a nuisance. There didn't seem to be any real need for it, as it was easy enough to get five shots off within the time-frame once you were familiar with the game. While I was still adjusting to the gameplay I ran out of time and failed the level despite having killed everyone in the castle. The deaths need to register instantly instead of a short while after in order to prevent this from happening.

The people within the castle were oversensitive to anything that hit them and undersensitive to falling from distances. The faintest touch would cause them to die whereas falling from the greatest height did nothing whatsoever. I proved just how ridiculous this was in the level editor, where making two people overlap made them die instantly and someone who I made fall from the top of the screen managed to survive.

If you failed a level it should have immediately ended once you'd used up all your shots and nothing was moving. The reset button did nothing once you'd used up all your shots, which didn't help matters. There were a few times when I had to wait for the time limit to run out which was a little annoying.

The battle plain could do with being extended so as to leave a little space behind the furthest object, enabling you to see everything. Castle 22 started right on the edge and it was possible to knock pieces of other castles out of the frame, as well as being able to build castles on the edge of the fram within the level editor.

There should have been some sort of advantage to using the smaller rocks, as by the end of the game they were useless (apart from on one occasion where I needed a small rock to fall down a small gap) and didin't really need to be displayed on the bottom of the screen. Maybe throwing multiple rocks could have taken up more turns too, with a larger number of turns being allowed on some levels to compensate, as the advantage these had over a single rock was far too great.

I felt that there should have been some sort of reward for completing a level within one hit, or a certain number of hits. Just something in the game for each level saying it had been achieved would have been enough and this would have added replay factor as people aimed to achieve it on every level.

More variety with the lines when completing and failing a level would have been nice, as seeing the same one over and over got pretty boring. For the completion of a level, maybe the end comment could have been different depending on how many shots it took you to complete it.

Perhaps the game could have done with a few more levels, as it didn't really take me a great deal of time to complete the whole thing. Instead of adding some to the main game, perhaps another game could have been unlocked upon completion, which offered a few castles where you had to kill a certain number of people instead of all of them, but were much harder to make up for it. Maybe even some levels where you had to kill everyone apart from a particular person.

Score: 9

"Most excellent."

submission: Spewer

date: May 7, 2009

This was an absoutely brilliant puzzle game in every way possible. The puking offered an interesting system which I haven't experienced before. At times certain levels could prove to be frustrating, but the game was fun enough to keep you playing, anticipating the next level. Were it not for some bugs this game would have been as close to perfect as they come.

I felt that you needed to make it more clear that the acid would kill you when it was first introduced. Since it was introduced at around the same time as a new type of puke, I was under the assumption that this was another new type which I could also consume.

The sensitivity of the spikes is something which needs to be fixed. There were a very large number of occasions where I was stood next to them (where if I continues walking I would walk directly on the spikes), clearly not in contact with them, but ended up dying. They also seemed to be undersensitive if approached when in line with the entire spike block itself. On a couple of occasions I hit them side on and expected die but didn't.

Button sensitivity was another issue. On a number of occasions I hit them/stood on them and nothing happened at all, which meant I had to move away from the switch and try again. There was also a number of times where there was a time-delay, with me having to be stood on the switch for a few seconds before the game actually realised I was there.

On the level where activating a button released acid, it was oozing out of the blocks. Attempts at re-creating this in the level editor lead me to believe that the game can't handle the liquids being behind blocks (surely it shouldn't be possible for them to be there anyway). It was also possible for liquid to pass through the blocks, presumably with it seeping through the cracks. This was something I didn't particularly like as it meant that certain aspects of the game could be made easier by exploiting this.

I sometimes found myself falling directly through the black puke. Something which didn't fit at all with its solid characteristic. On a couple of occasions the character went out of control, randomly jumping about despite the fact that the button was not depressed.

There was no way to exit the level editor other than pausing the game and returning to the menu. A button to go back should have been included on the page somewhere when designing the level. There was also, as far as I could tell, no way of being able to return to the menu from the level select screen, something which I wanted to do once I'd completed the bonus levels. This meant that I had to start a level, pause it and then return to the menu from there.

On the levels where you needed to have all, or most, of the puke in order to do something, it was frustrating having to wait ages for it flow off of the spikes and towards you. Perhaps the puke could be made to flow more easily. There was a little bit of puke in the puke bar which could never be used, so it seemed pointless having it stored.

The game became extremely laggy after playing for a while, which made the frustrating aspects of the game even more so due to the time delay. You may have warned about this beforehand, but lag is something I've never experienced before on this machine and I feel that I've played many games which are more high-end than this both off and online.

The levels at the end of the chapters were pointless. Maybe you could add some sort of fun aspect to these if you want them included. I was disappointed by the fact that only a small number of levels had you using more than one kind of puke. Maybe the character could also take on more dramatic changes in appearance for each different type of puke.

It would be nice if there was some sort of achievement for completing each level with/within a certain amount of puke remaining/jumps made/steps taken/time. Aiming to achieve this on each level would add replay factor.

The inclusion of a level editor was nice and it created a reason to replay the game after completing it. However, I couldn't work out how to use other people's level codes.

Score: 5

"Not bad."

submission: [Slayer II]: Deathwing

date: May 6, 2009

Definitely not a bad little game, but it could still do with a bit more to it. Some sort of background story would be nice. The ending movie could also have been much more rewarding as what you had was very bland. The motion controls were a very nice feature, which worked very well. I haven't seen this done in flash game before, so you seem to have offered something new with these.

The various difficulty settings and achievements to unlock gave you reason to replay the game, but I only found myself playing through it three times as the various difficulties didn't really offer anything entirely new. Fortunately you included the option to speed up the end credits as it would have been annoying sitting through them in full every time you completed the game.

The unlockables menu couldn't be closed on the menu screen and even opening up the achievements menu didn't rectify this problem. This meant that the unlockables menu overlapped the achievements menu, which didn't look at all good.

The sword movement could do with some improvement. It didn't match the movement I made with my touchpad at all, when really it should have. Not only was the movement completely wrong (a thrust forward when I was slashing sideways), but the attacks were very rare given how rapidly I was moving my finger.

I wasn't overly fond of the ending sequence where you had to press a few buttons on your keyboard. It wasn't particularly exciting and seemed to be far too easy, although perhaps this was much harder on the higher difficulty settings. You worded it like the character you controlled was the one on the brink of death which seemed strange considering you'd just emptied the enemy's health bar and were nowhere near dead yourself. Perhaps a different font could be used for the keys, as I couldn't be 100% that the B was indeed a B. The snow during this sequence needs fixing as it was only a small square which filled the initial window. As the camera moved around you could see the square shape to it and everything outside the square was completely snow-free. Needless to say, this looked very unusual.

Score: 2

"Nothing but a fight."

submission: [Slayer I]: Dark Knight

date: May 6, 2009

The game seemed to be far too trial and error based for my liking. This was due to the fact that the enemy had an insanely high amount of HP, while that of the character you was relatively low by comparison. Various methods just didn't seem to work at all unless you were extraordinarily lucky. The best method I managed to find was to focus on strength and health regeneration whilst picking up the vitality to increase toughness. This meant that there was no challenge to the game though, as the enemy could deal little damage to you and it was soon restored anyway. It was also extremely time-consuming as I had no choice but to continually hack away at it dealing very small amounts of damage. Perhaps you could decrease the amount of HP the enemy has to make this less difficult and time-consuming. I'm very curious as to how you managed to beat this within 24 seconds, as with all the methods I tried this just wasn't possible.

I liked the 3D start to this and it led me to believe there was going to be some story to the game. Unfortunately there wasn't and I was just thrown straight into a fight. There wasn't any at the end either, which was even more disappointing since I had worked so hard to get there and was rewarded with nothing.

I didn't like the fact that the game automatically switched to low quality and this made the numbers in the menu look particularly horrible. If you were going to do this it would have been nice if you'd allowed people to switch to a higher quality.

Once you had finished setting up the character's strength, dexterity and intelligence and went to continue the game it showed them being reset to 15 before the opening movie kicked in. I'm not sure if this actually reset the stats or if it was just a display problem, but either way it needs to be fixed.

I noticed that the character seemed to gradually move up the screen as I played the game. By the end of the game his feet were half way up the tree trunks. I'm not sure what caused this. Perhaps it was the jumping. This is something else which needs fixing. The jumping animation could also be imporoved as when I jumped straight up without moving in either direction there was no leg movement whatsoever.

Hitting the boss at a specific time during the attack where he would hover in the air green beams would rain down from the sky would cause him to stop hovering and he was able to progress as normal with his attacks. However, the green beams still rained down. I feel that the boss could also have done with using some new attacks when his HP got low, as by this point the game had gotten far too boring due to the same repetitive actions and vitally needed something new.

Score: 4

"Failed to live up to its potential."

submission: Down the Well

date: May 5, 2009

This had the potential to be a very good game but unfortunately it was far too harsh and glitchy. Dying multiple times for extremely unfair reasons and having to redo entire levels over and over got extremely frustrating. The game could also have done with story being present throughout instead of just at the start and end.

The ending was too abrupt. There were a few lines and it was all over. I was certainly expecting more to happen and it left everything unexplained. Why was the dog killed in the first place for entering the well? The ending line said that now the character knew how it felt to have a life taken from him. But what exactly had to he done to warrant this? It seemed a little strange that the main character was able to walk around in the well without being taken off and slaughtered when this happened to his dog just for entering the well.

You could have created more of a reason to speak to the well-folk. They could have revealed aspects of the story or set tasks enabling you to progress. You should have made pressing the space bar place all of the text within the current text box on-screen instead of having it automatically go to the next one. Text boxes located on the edge of the screen got cut off, meaning you couldn't see them fully. You should have set it up so that the text box would always appear full on-screen. The section with the large number of tombstones would have been more interesting if you'd had them insripted with different things instead of the same thing on each one.

I shall now address the numerous glitches and problems with gameplay that I encountered in both the main game and the bonus games, starting with ones which were present in all.

Upon landing I occasionally found that the character would fall straight through a block. The positioning of my landing may have been on the line which separated each block on each occasion this occurred. It definitely was at least twice, but I can not be 100% where exactly on the blocks I landed on all the other occasions.

The faintest touch of either an enemy or a spike led to instant death. With the spikes this was particularly frustrating when you landed just on the edge of a block, clearly above the spike, but died due to close proximity. With the enemies it was at its most frustrating during the colour version of the game, where I found myself dying multiple times just because the character's foot brushed against an enemy's ear.

Main

The area you had to land upon when jumping on an enemy's head was extremely harsh. On a number of occasions I found myself landing just on the edge of their heads. However, instead of them dying, I did.

When I went through the door leading to the level with Robert's house instead of coming out through the door on that level I fell from the sky. On the level where there were lots of houses you could see inside the other houses on that level when in another house.

On some levels the music didn't loop if it was playing for a long time. I had no sound for the last few levels. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be this way or if the music had stopped looping (which would be strange since the piece had not long started).

While the game may have been extremely difficult due to a number of flaws it still didn't seem right that dying had no punishment other than restarting the level. This meant that it was often advantageous to die so that you could go back and collect any missed items.

Colour

One of the types of enemies wasn't much shorter than you could jump and another wasn't much wider. Jumping over these creatures was extremely frustrating.

I walked off the edge on one of the levels but instead of dying, nothing happened. This left me with no choice but to restart the game from the beginning.

Hi-res

Since the falling blocks only had spikes on the bottom, you should have been able to walk across the top of them.

Vector

The boss was far too easy. I held down A to fire and in a matter of seconds it was all over. The boss didn't do as much as initiate an attack and I didn't even have time to look at the level

Score: 6

"Fun at first but soon gets old."

submission: Magnetic Defense

date: May 5, 2009

This was definitely a nice take on a defence game and the ability to upgrade your ship and base by absorbing what you also used has weapons left you with multiple choices with what to do. It didn't take long though before you realised that the best course of action to take was to constantly upgrade your ship and base, only using the scrap as weapons when in a pinch. This was due to the fact that once upgrading to certain levels you could pick up the vehicles, using them as weapons against their own forces. I felt that this aspect of the game made it too easy, as did the fact that the scrap regenerated far too often. Peforming the same tasks over and over soon got dull and there didn't seem to be enough variation with each wave to keep me playing.

There were a number of aspects of the game which I feel need to be fixed. If you dropped scrap on a vehicle from too low down it would rest on top of the vehicle and you were left unable to pick up both the bit of scrap and the vehicle. This was somewhat of a nuisance, since the only way to destroy the vehicle was by flinging a piece of scrap into either the back or front of it. There were also a few occasions where I was unable to pick up a vehicle when I should have been. Also, twice I was alerted that my base was under attack, yet both times when I approached it to investigate there was nothing there and its HP was still full.

I felt that the small pieces of scrap, which were created after destroying a vehicle, slowed down the enemy far too much and this just served to make the game even easier. I think you could have made a better choice in music, as what you had didn't seem to fit with the game at all.

It might be a good idea to use a different buttons to drop and absorb the scrap. On a number of occasions I accidentally held down the left mouse button when I was waiting for a vehicle to move into position and thus ended up accidentally absorbing the scrap.

Score: 6

"Just as good as the first part."

submission: SRM Transformers 4 Part 2

date: May 5, 2009

It seems a little strange watching another one of these and not seeing it improve upon the last. But then this was one episode split into two, so this was to be expected.

I liked how you updated the menu this time round to include the fact that Jazz had been deactivated. I was a little disappointed by the fact that the 'deactivated' text covered his profile though, which meant that it couldn't be read. It seemed a shame that Jazz wasn't more involved in this episode as the coming up speech in the previous episode led me to believe that he'd play a role in this flash.

Just like the first part, the sound levels were too high in this flash. I also feel that the opening speech mentioning what happened in the previous episode could have been improved, as your voice went a little off a couple of times.

It's a shame that we're yet to see the main character's in this series transform yet. Since we're four episodes in it seems very strange and it would have been the perfect time for you to have done so in this episode when Optimus Prime told the autobots to 'roll out'.

The use of the song worked much better this time round as it actually tied in with the rest of the movie instead of being out of place and I also didn't find it to be terribly unfunny. The playing of the wrong song initially managed to be pretty funny, despite being overdone. I was pleased to see that you didn't play an overly ridiculous song as an attempt at humour, as this could have potentially killed the flash.

Watching the credits definitely seemed strange without the clips, although it surprsingly made a very welcome change. Initially I considered the inclusion of the clips here to be a strength of this series, but this series seems to have improved enough for them to no longer be necessary. The strange little movie after the end credits was completely unexpected. There seemed to be a slight problem with it though, as it switched back to the opening screen mid-sentence.