Score: 10

"Outstanding"

submission: LARRY episode 1

date: November 25, 2009

This looks absolutely brilliant - great animation, great voices, and a cool plot to boot. I thought the humour was excellent too.
If you can keep it up and produce an entire series, i'd imagine this'd be one of the best things on Newgrounds! Looking forward to the later series (and presumably some combat).

Score: 5

"Pain in the ass"

submission: Use Boxmen

date: June 20, 2009

The game is very well designed good fun - until a glitch appeared which had me scratching my head for ages! Level 7.
On the advice of the level, tried every combination of boxman - jumping, running, etc. Still can't solve it. After checking the walkthrough, it confirmed my suspicions that there was a crouching boxman too, but i can't create one!
No matter how much crouching and shift-tapping, he simply will not appear... so i'm trapped in an early level and tired of trying. No idea why it doesn't work for me.

Score: 10

"I loved it"

submission: Jackie

date: March 17, 2009

Is funny, i totally disagree with Rockyace below. I thought it was a great contrast from the previous Jerry film... towards the end of this i was second guessing she was gonna kill herself and it's nice to be surprised there. My favourite part of your animation style it is how you get the emotion in while using little or no dialogue whatsoever. Facial expressions and comedic timing are everything here.

I wouldn't take much notice of the criticism around pasting frames from the Jerry cartoon in - I think it tied everything up nicely and made it clear how the stories ran in parallel (especially the sobriety test in the background, i liked that! )

I did feel a tad dissatisfied though on a personal note... just feeling bad for Jerry ;-)

Score: 8

"Outstanding animation! But..."

submission: The Way of My Madness

date: January 7, 2009

Hey, I watched this through twice and thought the animation was absolutely cracking. Some shots were absolutely brilliant, the drawing was great. If it was a score on animation alone this would probably be a 9 or 10. However...

In complete contrast to what everyone's said before, i thought the music was this animation's weakness. I'm a huge fan of rock and heavy metal music. Yet I get the impression you picked the song first because you liked it, and then looked to squeeze the scenes in around it. The result was some scenes looking oddly stretched out (and at times pointless - watching the protaganist sing the emo lines was incredibly painful!).

Now i love heavy metal and rock, but that doesn't win votes alone. 4 out of 5 people watching will get teary-eyed watching the lead protaganist jump around on screen to heavy metal. Like those tribute montages of your favourite shows on Youtube, only they've wiped all the best bits of the audio from the clips to play their favourite song instead. (See "http ://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=i4yjXXt0fRk &feature=related" for example)

Song subtitles are never a good idea, unless you're making a music video - because in a music video, the music is more important than the flash. Leaving them out makes sure people appreciate your work more than what they're listening to. 4 out of 5 will be perfectly happy with the music, but If 1 out of 5 people don't like it and mark your score down, that minority drags your whole score down by half a point!

With the right backing track, everyone would like it and you could be hitting 4.5 with your styles, easily. Krinkels, Adam Phillips, Johnny Utah, Proxicide, Sakupen and The Swain are all masters of background tracks. I'd strongly recommend finding something metal or rock, but without lyrics - and only after you've made a storyboard showing how you'd like your animation to flow.

Enough bashing of the music, the animation in itself was brilliant. The backgrounds looked really polished, most of the animation was nice and fluid, there was a really nice attention to detail in the drawing. Your history of scores show you've been improving each time you make a submission. If you submit what you've done here on Madness day as it is, you'll probably make front page, with the same score - but if you A) make an original script, B) Put the same quality of animation as you've put on this, and C) pick a good backing track (just like you did in "Insane Dark", especially something without lyrics)... then i'd be expecting you to be on the top 100 board, easily.

To sum up, great job man. Really hope you do something extra-special for Madness Day. If you do a follow-up beforehand i'd love to see it, and good luck!

Score: 9

"Mesmirising."

submission: SuperVillain IV (part 1)

date: October 20, 2008

God bless you BarfQuestion, your animations make me happy.
I've loved the SuperVillian animations (although i've still not been swayed from my favourite - Me Not You). The animation's great and the ideas are really funny.

I can't give it 10 out of 10, because i'm not sycophantic enough to pretend it's perfect - there are pauses here and there across the animation that really break the moment. The music is great but again i can't help but feel some sound quality has again been lost, like some of your older animations.
In fact, please please if you could take one thing away from this review, it would be that sound quality is the foundation of my criticism. When SuperVillian loses his rag in the ice cream parlour, the guitar just sounds like noise - and it's a real shame because the timing is so fine on the songs and animation.

Apart from that, not much complaining i can levy here. Well, when I stood in the centre of Vatican City six weeks ago, and it didn't look like that - but maybe i'm being a tad anally retentive!

In fact, a separate note here - I've got ITunes open right now and am downloading the SuperVillian EP. Yep, let it be known far and wide, cross-selling works! Say congrats to Sulek for a well-deserved £3.95. And once you've congratulated them on my behalf, slap the forehead of whoever put it on ITunes and tell them to learn to spell! SuperVillian needs an extra "i", otherwise they may wonder why nobody's finding and downloading their tracks.

[Ok it's downloaded, maybe their microphones are a little duff, but still sounds fairly good. My favourite's the main theme, "Bazooka Tube". Great tune. Still, around 3.30 the recording equipment does the song injustice]

One more thing - If Sulek should be financially rewarded, I see no reason why you shouldn't get something out of this yourself. In a PM, i've sent you a link to a smallish band called "Essay Like Nephew" - i know, but please give it a try! Who knows, maybe you'll like something. A very good wise friend of mine (Tom Kaneko) does outstanding things with recording as well as being a fine instrumentalist and singer.

Congrats, another fine performance!

Score: 8

"Fantastic progress."

submission: Stryker Saves the Day 2

date: August 7, 2008

I only bother writing reviews for stuff i really like, but have something constructive to say. So i hope this is useful!

I love the sense of humour. It reminds me of Sakupen's "Dad" cartoons, only with the lead protagonist talking too - like it's combined with an egorapter cartoon! Some of the scenes made me laugh really hard (pulling out an ice cream cone on hte train!) and the animation's a big step up from the first one. I can tell where he jumps out the helicopter and into the building you'd worked especially hard on that one scene, and it really showed.

The storyboard extra was interesting and also showed you'd planned this whole thing through which was really promising, because so many artists dive in way too quick and come up short. The concept is really funny, loads of potential. Having read the Fulp's post on Bakshi's speech, i think there is a world of potential for you extended a cartoon in this series to an epic 7-10 mins and getting something really special going.

On some constructive feedback, there were two things that sprang to mind. Firstly, sometimes the voices seemed a little off. The ancillary characters' voices (police officer + chief, gangster boss w. reward, etc) weren't top-class, and the recording sounded a little muffled. Stryker's voice as well sometimes just wasn't quite right - car chase, handing in his badge, "...to finish this!" - it feels like the voice is almost right, but not quite. It sounds a little "silly", instead of the all-out retarded effect! (which i think is the desired outcome, right?)

The second thing was the music. It's great to have some in the background and towards the end it really matched the clips, but in the first half it didn't blend with what was happening on the screen - some scenes were loading mid-bars, and when Stryker blows up the orphanarium he's taking way too long. I can appreciate though getting music and animation in sync is incredibly difficult .

All in all it was a really nice flash, and a huge step forward on earlier work. Get into a habit of tightening the last screws and you're definitely floating in "4.??/5.00" territory!
Please let me know if you're planning a next, i'd really to check it out.
CheesyPretzels

Score: 9

"Pretty Awesome"

submission: Arachnophilia

date: June 23, 2008

That was a brilliant game. It's been ages since i've felt obliged to write a review, but i thought that was pretty fantastic.

So you know my background, before i wrote this i played it twice. The first time, i made it to stagbeetles, then failed pretty miserably. Like a few other people though, i then cottoned onto the idea of using 1/2 of the space to build a super-durable web which could withstand anything, then picked off as much as i could at my leisure.

It's a very well thought out game, but i did have a couple of niggles with this. Firstly, my later strategy was ticking over nicely until i hit Queen Bees. They are RIDICULOUSLY difficult (i managed to nom 3 of them), as my web can barely withstand one bee homing in, let alone an angry swarm. One badly placed snip in the web, and the ENTIRE thing fell apart. In my grief i kicked my shiny red bin over and wept.

A review isn't useful with constructive criticism, so i would suggest if your monster web is snapped and beginning to fall apart (i.e. fading away), you should be able to pull it together - i.e. if one key stand holding it together gets destroyed, you can rebuild that to stop the whole thing collapsing. I felt bitchslapped for a lapse in concentration. I was unable to rebuild (even with a full bar of webbing) and you're doomed to watch your life meter tick away. Which is a crying shame, because i badly wanted to try my hand at a bat...

On a positive note, i loved the fireflies. I was ecstatic when moths started swimming foolishly into my web, only for my pleasure to turn to sheer panic when the firefly got buried under moths and the whole thing began to collapse and i'm nom'ing for my life. The music was great, the speed and line drawing in the game was very clever. The Golden Strands seemed wasted to me - i couldn't decide whether they were better used across the whole screen, but i didn't see much difference in them.

Overall, great stuff - a pleasure to play, and hope you make front page. I found this immensely challenging and at times frustrating, and only resent that the game a) punishes you harshly on later levels, and b) doesn't let you see the later creatures, c) gives you no window for recovery.
Other than that, well played!

Score: 9

"Enthralling"

submission: Burnt Face Man 8

date: April 24, 2008

It's been a bloody long time since i reviewed a flash - David, you have inspired me to write once more! And i swore... never again... (To be truthful i'm a little peeved i left it this long to review BFM 8 - 28 pages of comments already means this most likely won't be read - but it's the principle)

First up, always been a big fan of the series (far more so that Saladfingers) and i'm overjoyed to see a new episode after more than a year. There's something truly brilliant about watching your naff superhero and his adventures. The voice acting was brilliant (as usual) - especially Burntface Man & Bastard Man. Any episode where he laughs scores +1 automatically (and the man at the beginning sounds like a certain doctorware...?)

The surreality was there in fistfuls. The first half had me in hysterics - but this is where i get a little lost. The end kind've strayed and didn't go anywhere. Now please don't get me wrong, I fully understand there isn't supposed to be a typical story structure (i.e. Men from Upstairs, Health Reminder), but the ending seemed a little weak - a joke to lead off maybe was needed? The "Meet your Killer" bit felt a little weak. The humour with the car was a bit more slowed paced than previous episodes which are fast, funny and frenetic, and instead shifted towards a Salad Fingers approach (which should stay on its side of the fence!)

It was a little shorter as well - I would've liked an extra +15% more burnt goodness in timing, but now i'm whingeing. It's great to see you publish a new episode and i pray fervently you'll continue the series in the same tradition! Your flash has a routinely high standard rarely afforded by other flash animators on Newgrounds. I can't wait to see whatever you release next!

Score: 8

"Decent Demo, Still Some Work Needed..."

submission: Dead Frontier Night Three

date: January 17, 2008

To put this into context, It's clearly a demo like you said - hence this review below is based on the assumption that what you were demonstrating here were the physics behind the game, lighting, weaponry, and so forth. The timer or constant direction don't affect this in any way.

First up as a bit of background, I've played both of the previous games and liked them loads, the 2nd one in particular (I must've played that for at least a couple of hours!). I've seen a few of these come by the portal and often my favourites aren't those which are graphically superior (some were dire!), but those that had some clear thought around gameplay.

At first, I was a tad disappointed playing this. I've never been a bit fan of turning all the lights off in my room and cranking the brightness up on my monitor to see what's happening, but it felt kind of necessary here. The second game by comparison was a little easier to make out enemies, perhaps because of the more zoomed-in perspective making enemies a little larger and obvious. However I don't judge too harshly because after all this is only a demo.

The weapons are thoroughbred and work nicely like in previous games, but there's little fresh to say about them. I will say I was very impressed by your programming around the companions that accompany you! I appreciate AI is a very difficult thing to write and think you've made a fantastic achievement there, as this is clearly a new direction you're heading in. They rarely (never?) get stuck.

The comments coming from your companions are pretty generic, but it's never too "in your face" when it does pop up. The man is a pretty decent shot too. It would be nice though to see some different classes that do more than shoot in the finished product, like engineers to blow up obstructions (e.g. overturned buses!), as well as the more obvious well-armed, armored combat troops.

Going back to lighting, another suggestion may be that these character have torches too. Also, the central protaganist might have his light in a field in front of him. I'm very aware you've most likely thought of and disregarded these ideas before, perhaps on the graphic-intensive requirements posed by such a system, but for me that was the only and major concern, a real lack of immersive lighting from the torch, signs, street lights, fires, the moon....

The graphics... what can I say. Every time you make a game these only get better. You've got all the bases covered here.

To sum up, i enjoyed this, but would enjoy it far more if the lighting was tweaked to really immerse the player in the world around them. If you can do that while A) keeping the processor requirements within moderation, and B) building the story and MMO into it, this game could be nothing short of godly.

Please let me know when the final product is ready!

Score: 8

"Very Cool."

submission: A cap opener man comes.

date: January 17, 2008

Really original and bizarre! God bless you sir for doing something unusual to break the mold.

The concept and story is very strange. I sometimes wonderwhat the animator's purpose of surreal shorts like these is - whether there's a fundamental point behind it, or whether it's just there to make people think for the sake of thinking (which is fine - after all, there doesn't have to be a deeper meaning really!).

I really liked the music that accompanied this. The sound and timing really suited the animation and it's clear you put some time into this. Minor nitpick, I would've scrapped the car sounds going by - the man and the girl are the focus of this flash and they should really be the only sounds. Either that, or make it a more immersive world, just so the cars aren't the only distraction.

There's also a bit of inconsistency with the animation style. The first few scenes look brilliantly done as the old man walks into town. The shading was great and rough, yet detailed. The scenes where the girl screams and the old man "empties" her though were a little more crudely animated. I thought you might have been blotting out the background to bring focus on what was happening, but it looked very white! Some background, or maybe more detail up close of the characters would bring it together.

To sum up, it was neatly done, but a little inconsistent - the first half being much scratchier, dark and bold, whereas the end being a little more grey and dull.
This animation style itself is brilliant and fresh, and it'd be great to see a longer animation next time with a more intricate plot! Will keep my eyes peeled for further appearances.