HerbieG's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Electric Rubber 2]

The game is great, but I'm not sure if not bugged. I have a feeling that the rubbing and capacity upgrades, especially taken from the shop, have much stronger effect than it is written on them, for example when I bought a +10K upgrade my only plant got +30K, also after purchasing several rubbing upgrades I don't know how, but my rubbing power is over 4000, thjs makes the idle gains and clicking completely useless. I'm not sure if it was supposed to work this way, because it makes the game much much more easier.

applessmillion responds:

Will check
Edit:
Checked, and nerfed some things.

[Earth Taken]

Game taken! Completed with all achievements unlocked :-) This game is AA - Absolutely Awesome! The graphics, the gameplay, the plot and the most important: the atmosphere, everything made in a brilliant way! There is only you and your skills, with a bit of upgrades. The challenge of directing the survivors in the best way, the fun of finding secret places, everything absolutely perfect! It just seems impossible that so good flash - not PC - game could have been created. One of my new favourites :-)

SeethingSwarm responds:

Oh that's awesome! I'm glad you liked the game and thanks for the kind words :)
I'm especially happy that you enjoyed the atmosphere of the game. I really wanted to get the mood right with this game series and it's so nice to hear that you appreciate it. Thanks!

Hopefully you'll enjoy Earth Taken 2 just as much. There are a lot of new stuff in that one. Oh, and there might also be a third Earth Taken in the near future, but it's kind of a secret still, so shhh! ;)

P.S. I'm a firm believer that it doesn't matter what software you use to make games. The only thing that matters is the final product, the game itself. Technically this game is still a PC game even though it was made with Flash, but I know what you mean. Flash is more powerful than most people realise, but I think I'm starting to push its limits a bit, especially with my latest project, an upcoming game called Enter The Flesh Again. That game is still heavily under construction, but it's already bigger than all of my games combined and there's still so much to do. I'm just hoping that I don't break Flash before it's done :P

[Alien Hunter]

Ok, the game is well-made when it comes to the graphics, gameplay etc., but...
I got a crucial issue: a meaning of the game is that you can win it if your skills are good enough, but since - I think - the Aliens are being placed by the game in a completely random way...
The question is: can you be sure that you will win this game after a certain amount of tries or if you don't have luck, you can play it for entire eternity not being able to find the last Alien.
I don't know how many times I returned to this game and still nothing. When oh when the game will decide that I finally deserve to win it?
Answering to one of reviews below you wrote: "If the aliens were too common the excitement of finding a rarer one would be significantly less". Well, when I would finally find the final one, it would not be excitement, it would be nerve exhaustion caused by frustration, something like that and a bit of relief: "It's finally over". I mean it is a bit ridiculous that I am finding an orange legendary one almost every single time now, but cannot find the final Alien. And the game itself isn't doing much to keep you entertained during these more and more repetitive flights.
Oh, one more thing: the Miles and Miles medal is obviously broken.

Cartoon-Electra responds:

Hey, I am sorry that the game has frustrated you so much! You can blame my programmer for making it so rare haha..Once you pass i think it's 32,000m there is something like a 0.1% chance of seeing the rarest alien every small bit of distance you move(impossible before then). with a fully upgraded rocket, making sure you travel far out as possible, and throwing away other aliens, It would be bad luck to not catch the rarest alien within 15 launches. I have caught it 3/4 times and had to do it to test the game ending so i know your frustration you're probably just having bad luck. The second rarest alien i think is only 2-3 times as common as the rarest.

[Electric Cock Rocket]

Only one suggestion: enable an alternative button for shooting, a, x, space, something different than the arrow key.

DBuck-Eye responds:

Sure, I could probably add that!

[30 Second Clicker]

Good game! It reminds me some others I played here on Newgrounds. It has one glitch though: every single time you have to restart it by reloading it, because either you click "retry" or "begin" from the menu, you get a timer with -1 second and no score counter.

applessmillion responds:

Thanks for the report.
Edit: Fixed!

[PAWZ V]

Ok, you probably remember the earlier version of this game, even I admit that it was a bit impossible, while this one is definitely playable, you only need to fully understand its logic.

When I was a kid I played a board game, it's title was Master Mind, try googling it. In this game one player was setting up a "code' composed of 4 "pins" with different (or partially same) colours. The opponent had to guess in a certain amount of tries what is the code. When the second player was submitting his/her proposition, the "coding" player was "saying" whether the code was correct or not by using small black and white smaller "pins". One black "pin" meant that one "colour pin" was in correct position, while the white one meant that a "colour pin" is in fact in the code, but in a different position. And this is how this game is also working, obviously with some changes.

What I am missing here is the ability to "ask" the game with my own submitted words, not to be forced to choose between the clue words that sometimes aren't very helpful, at least not necessarily fit with the letters I would like to currently "ask" the game about. This is my only half-star drop for this game.

It would be also good to have a version of thinking-only game, without the time pressure, it would be good if you are planning to submit versions with longer words.
I must admit that this game can be a serious pain for people not so familiar with English language, few times even I was submitting words that I did not know what they mean, but the letters fit perfectly and the word was correct.

The game is also partially luck-based, since in the first choosing you can get a word with 4 letters in place as well as a word with only one letter in position or even none, with only 1-2 letters not in position. In this situation if you don't get/pick a good word from clue-words 2-4, you're rather screwed. This could be eliminated by my abovementioned proposition of allowing the player to directly "ask" the game about the words/letters.

There is one difference between this game and the Master Mind, sometimes it seems that after picking all the "clue words" there can be more than one answer possible. An example:
The base word was hoist with 4 letters in position.
I "asked" the game about some letters and all my logic thinking told me that the answer should be moist (there was no "m" in clue words, so it was impossible to determine whether this letter is in the word or to exclude it), while the game considered it as being incorrect and took some points from me.

Only one thing: the way in which the Doge's "hints" appear are completely unclear for me, I don't get it when they appear and what are they trying to tell me.

Whoa, that was long ;-)

jemcy responds:

Thank you for the good review. I also think Master Mind was a fantastic board game for teaching and building logical skill and am happy you see the connection.

This game requires both logic and vocabulary skills to reach the highest levels. Although many of the puzzles can be solved with either pure logic or brute lexical memory, the ideal is a combination of both. It is nearly impossible to recall words as pure letter combinations, and it is nearly impossible to remember every word you might need short term. The idea is to exercise brain circuits that actively produce words by engaging both logic and memory for optimal efficiency. Most people need to strengthen the logic skill. In your case, it seems you may benefit from more of the memory practice to solve at least some of the puzzles most quickly.

After briefly trying a rule change that would allow for a penalty free first attempt at the answer, I found that players did not respond well to the idea. It seems that it is better to leave the game simpler than to add such additional complication. With build 1080, the game again penalizes every wrong answer. Like many other memory games, you must play the odds best to win. If there is no instance of a single letter in any of the clues, then chances are it is not in the solution because the game screens every crossword clue to contain at least two correct letters with at least one in position. Nevertheless, there are no guarantees and luck does play an important role for the game.

I also experimented with starting the clock later in the game, with the second clue, but again ultimately decided against it because it too easily allowed for cheating using scrabble cheating tools. Furthermore, I again determined that the game is simpler, fairer and therefore better without such a change. The clock now starts with the selection of the first clue. However, because you know that each of three choices is pre-screened to contain a minimum number of letters you will need, you can (and should) take as long as you want (no time pressure) to think about likely target answer words based on the letters you see in the choices before starting the clock with the first clue.

The doge-hints are just a way of tracking / marking expired time (with some pre-credited puzzle points removed with each doge-hint) and are used for posting a few synonyms near the end of the countdown time to possibly jog your memory like a regular paper crossword game. Every time the dog periodically speaks (barks), the game takes back ten of sixty points advanced for the round. The doge-hints do not actually show (print) until after the player selects all the available crosswords. The first doge hints are intentionally broad and cryptic. The doge-hint "such do" for example, just indicates that the answer word is primarily a verb. The solution is obvious (revealed) with the last doge clue.

Players may currently use this game without time pressure by choosing when to end each round. Simply wait to select “show answer” to see the last doge clue until you really want to give up thinking about solving the puzzle by yourself to better practice and build your logic / memory skills with practice games.

I have found that if you let the user submit specific crosswords, every puzzle is normally too difficult to get started without using a significant number of guesses, and people immediately give up trying to keep track, therefore the current presentation has proven to work better.

[Monochrome Obstacles]

After Roomryder I must say that I am a bit disappointed ;-) It is clearly some kind of a flappy bird mechanics clone, c'mon, enough of these! :-) As i see the subsequent obstacles are random and it makes sometimes impossible to pass some segments when in one obstacle the free space is near the down border and another one just the opposite - totally up. It is not possible to get there in a such short amount of time. Also about the direction change: when you are just hitting the spacebar when it happens it is an instant kill. Sometimes it even happens just before reaching the obstacle. Maybe make the spaces between obstacles a bit wider or slow the game down a bit?
On the other hand the game has very nice and relaxing music :-)
And there is something in your games that makes the player want to try again and again! ;-)

rawb1t responds:

To be honest, the concept wasn't planed to be like another Flappy Bird. But I had to face the fact, that my original concept was totally shit. But I definitely wanted to use the monochrome design and the changing gravity, so it became a little clone of FP. But that was definitly not the first intention.

About the difficulty to reach the gap on the top of the game, if the player is on the bottom (and vice versa): It is possible, to reach the highest possible gap, even if the player is on the ground. I tested especially this issue very often. The only thing is, that you need to be fast at the Spacebar. ;-)

If you reach an obstacle, which switches the gravity, just do nothing! Thats important. If you jump, you will crash into the obstacle, as you could see. ;-) I know, it tooks much time to get the controls right, but difficulty is the core of all my games, isn't it? ;)