Terms-on-Dragon's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Bug Off!]

I have beaten all stages on hard mode, and this is what I got to say: I really enjoy the art style this game provides, and the different interactions that occur depending on difficulty. I actually felt like I was the nervous beetle at times. :)

Though what made it much more difficult than intended is the sense that the dance moves from the bugs do not seem to match the beat, and vary between a long wind-up, and a sudden move. It would be nice if the music played after the dialogue, with the "Metronome" plants matching the tempo of the tune playing. Adding some anticipation before a key-frame move will help guide the player on which move to follow. Adding a consistent speed for each dance move will also help the player build up the muscle memory related to that move, like the spin could have a long wind-up time, while the dash is nearly instant.

I really would like to see the date mode finished, and hope that some of the difficulty is adjusted to sync with the music and "metronome" plants. It would be amazing if each character had different tempos to their songs, like chanterelle seems like a slow dancer, while ceta could at first go slow, then get more faster as she drops her celebrity facade.

adirni responds:

Thank you so much for this in-depth review! We are so happy to hear you played through the whole experience (so far)!
We are still polishing some elements of the game, specially in regards to the beat and wind up . Feedback like yours is really helpful to try and find where the issues may be. So really thank you!
An update with Date mode is coming soon, and we look forward to hear what your thoughts are on it ! 🙂

[Coach Fight! 0.3]

I really like the concept, it could do with some more "oomp" whenever you hit the arrows. I look forward to when more opponents are introduced.

[Sokobird]

It'll take a master puzzle solver to complete the first level, and I'm not there yet :,(

[Spider]

It's impressive that this game has been made without communication between developers, and watched the video after writing the bugs I noticed which is below:

The boss is invincible after being slain enough, the other phases go by extremely quick due to them having such low health.

When they begin shooting projectiles, they prevent you from shopping; closing when the projectile gets close -- as much as I like the idea of the shop keep refusing to deal while being shot at.

Once the boss begins firing projectiles into the base, it's awfully difficult to build up your army as larva keep being killed. I found that the only way to actually progress is to sit & wait until you have enough larva.

This might count as a useful bug, which is spitting food on top of a group of larva has multiple grow, instead of individual soldiers.

There isn't much point on going outside except to collect corpses, which make the honey outside pointless to get, and the darkness only encourages to coop-up and wait for daylight.

The music over-laps when you go outside or open shop, and it gets dull after listening to the same loop after several minutes.

The video has given me insight, and these are the comments knowing more of the process that went into the game:

The corpse eaters don't eat the corpses, leaving them as a regular enemy like the bees.

At the end of the section "Final Dev" in the video, it shows the field being cleared of enemies, which explains the projectiles. Which unfortunately shoot into the base, and enemies still remain in the battle field.

The brief tutorial has served it's purpose, although I didn't figure out how to get souls until later, which may just be me being blind.

An idea that may bring the purpose of leaving base and to rely less on grouping larva is bees drop a special food that'll boost health & attack when eaten, having the same mechanic as gathering corpses.

[Stick Archer Defense]

I do like the concept, but it got boring once you got a few upgrades that can essentially one-shot all the enemies, this is the most I can give for feedback:

Picking the wrong upgrade for the second wave will cause a game-over even if you try your best. I'd say at the start of the game, either have them attack slower or be killed in one hit.

Being able to hold the attack button and hover your mouse over the enemies isn't as engaging than figuring out when to click at the right-time.

[Loveblade]

This is a fun concept and wish to see this be expanded on, It took me several tries to figure out how the mechanics work and although there could have been instructions, it's fun to discover it on your own.

I have gotten as far as to the second encounter, though there is a huge difficulty spike after completing the first but the boss isn't much of a threat themself.

I'd think having a moment of invincibility and the projectiles move back after hit would make it less chaotic & reduce the sudden difficulty when many projectiles appear.

Although this could be a design choice, the sword easily flying away when you acquire a speed power up really leaves one to vulnerability. It'd be nice if the sword where to return quickly the further it was once the attack has been released.

The enlargement on swing power-up can ultimately keep refilling the stamina & health, leaving not much reason to stop swinging. Putting a limit on how large the sword can get may prevent it from being a cheesy power-up.

I do like the idea of swinging at one side to parry projectiles, giving the risk of parrying for more health & stamina.

I can see this becoming a steam game once it gets some polish, to which it'd be a great game to pass the time.

[BAR-I-TONE]

I do like this concept, and would want to see more songs added to this, however there are some suggestions that'll improve the difficulty of the game.

The drinks are slid in different orders which keep throwing me off, especially when they are on top of each other. An Indicator to show what order the drinks will arrive in will reduce the chaos, like a sound cue for combos or a second display showing the incoming drinks.

It'd also help if you got to focus on one character per song, which will allow you to introduce patterns with them: Which means songs can become more complicated without it being too chaotic.

Hopefully these will help, as I'd love to see this game have more songs added to it.

[NG STARS]

I have discovered a few issues while playing through the training mode.

In cheese tower, there is a chance for the AI to get stuck in the middle platform.
When i tried to spawn in the AI in iceberg, my memory suddenly rose, nearly crashing my system.
The combat seems janky with only two moves. Ranged attacks are either trivial, or spammy.

I haven't tried out every character, nor stage. I do see potential in this if there where more combat moves and ranged attacks didn't do as much knockback.

[TRAILVOID]

This is a pretty neat game, and I'd like to play more levels of this.

I'm thankful it slows when you are holding the mouse down, otherwise it'd get awfully difficult pretty quickly. It might not be obvious for others