Alpaca Reviewing Station

Alpaca Reviews

I wanted to do this for a long time, but I never really had the time (and I still don’t). I reviewed some of the flowjam games for personal knowledge and I figured out I actually really enjoyed doing it.

When I rate your games it will be based on these 4 categories.

Fun 1-10
Art 1-10
Sound 1-10
Creativity 1-10


I will be brutally honest in these reviews, so do not be upset if I do not like your game and give it a bad review. I will give a highly detailed review going over everything that can be changed and improved. I will also give point out things I like so you know what’s good about the game.

I will post the review in 1-2 to help keep the topic active for a longer period of time and to give myself some cushion in how fast I need to review the game.


The final score will be given in something similar to school grade format A, B, C, etc.

8 Likes

Hello, can you please review this?

It’s the final boss level but otherwise it’s done. If you want to review all the weapons instead of just the obvious ones, I’ll PM you instructions for the rest of them.

5 Likes

This is my only complete game that I think still holds up

3 Likes

I’m assuming no S tier, lol.

4 Likes

ofc there is an S tier, it’s for those games that get 11/10

5 Likes

I’m still curious about how people feel about this game. It’s been a while since I’ve even changed a single thing there.

2 Likes

Taile Gamougg 4

Review by @CodeAlpaca


Art

Unorganized is the best way to describe it. The character does not match the detail that is given to the ground, the flowers don’t match anything, etc. There needs to be a more consistent art style and the first step towards this would be to make sure you use the same pixel size, the second step would be to use a color pallet.

The ground looks noisy and distracting, this is due to the style in which it was drawn.

  1. The green doesn’t make a lot of sense because it’s underground
  2. The Noise. A very important concept to understand is the difference between a closed shape and an open shape. Imagine a closed shape as an “O” and an open shape as a “C”. What this means is that the C connects to all of those same colors, never closing off. A closed shape is when you create a lot of polygons and it isn’t one continuous shape. Our eyes are drawn to close shapes more than open shapes so having the ground be completely closed shapes makes it noisy and draws the eye away from the main playing area.

Some of the sprites are the basic blank object with something over it. This once again looks out of place and needs to be a complete sprite. Other sprites are the basic town sprites, which is ok if it matches the rest of the game, which it does not.

When you first meet Pro the building looks nice, if the entire game was done in that art style it would look much better due to the consistency and the color palette matches (kinda, the windows are a little bit out of place from the building).

There are more things I can list for the art, but it’s mostly derived from the problems stated above.


The basic alert behavior doesn’t look that good. The size of it compared to the screen size is weird and overall it looks worse than if you create your text box (Which still needs to fit the style of the game)

The text that displays what you can do covers too much of the screen, this is where a text box would be very useful. Not art, but as a note if “Enter” continues the first bit of text, it should be the same for the second part of the message, not a different key.

Animation. There is none. This is ok IF it can manage to fit the style of the game, but even then there should still be some animations/particle effects. And no animations do not fit this game.

I mean, the boss attacks are just several arcs and it looks messy


Make sure the sprite looks correct. The ladder, for example, is the top part of the ladder. Why does the middle part of the ladder look like the top? There is a distance between each object which should not be there. The same is true for the water, why does the entire water have waves like it’s the surface? Make sure you just use another object for things like this, or even better use ray casts to detect if it’s the top of the water or underneath the surface.


Fun

Not everything has to be solid. The chair and table for example are background objects, they don’t need to have their collisions enabled and it looks awkward to walk over the chairs and table.

Level Layout. The cave level is confusing, it’s hard to tell that that opening leads to the shop because you don’t see the door and the opening just looks like it was forgotten to be filled in.

It also feels like it wasn’t fully planned, the levels need more structure to them (mostly talking about the cave, but even the houses).

Stamina does not return after you die, I’m going to guess this is because you use a global.

The jump. I mean, it feels like the Run & Jump bundle. If you press the button fast you get shot up randomly high, allowing you to jump past some areas that need a key.

There. Are. Too. Many. Controls. Just simplify it, please.

My god is it impossible to control the G2. It goes up or down like crazy it’s nearly impossible to control.

I had no idea who to move onto the next level after defeating beefy, it was only by chance that I hit the block sending me to the next level

It’s not that fun to fight the enemies, it feels like killing 1 to get the key and then running past all the others

I’m losing weapons whenever I die.

Beating “TSM” just feels impossible.

Sometimes keys get stuck in walls, making the level impossible.


Sound

The music seems out of place. It seems like it’s meant to be some grand music, but it doesn’t fit the game. I don’t like the talking, it seems disturbing whenever games do this.

The gun is a little loud.

The other sounds are ok, but not great.


Creativity

The game is original, but some references are not from within the game. And while it is creative it’s greatly weakened by not feeling correct.


Overall

Art: 3/10, all the things I mentioned about inconsistency.
Fun: 4/10, I mean it feels like maybe there could be something here, but it’s just not clicking.
Sound: 5/10, not much to say, besides it feels a little off.
Creativity: 5/10, yes it’s your own idea, but it doesn’t feel like it’s complete.

Finale score: 4.25, C

pixil-frame-0 (7)

@John_Shrekinson it’s not a bad game, it just feels like it’s missing quite a bit to make it feel nice and the art needs serious improvement.

(sorry if the format is a little messy, still figuring out how I want to do this)

6 Likes

Thank you for the review! Wow, that is overwhelming. I’m gonna need to think about all of that.

5 Likes

This Gamougg please?

3 Likes

Tank Mischief

Reviewed by
@CodeAlpaca


Art

A simple art style, but it fits the game well.

I love the missiles symbol indicating how many you have left, it’s a really nice touch compared to a random UI element at the top of the screen.

Some of the things I really like

  1. The path the tanks leave behind is really nice, gives the game much more character.
  2. The X mark where the player dies looks nice, really glad you made it different colors depending on if a bot, you, or another player dies.
  3. The bit of after effect, when 2 missiles meet, is another nice touch
  4. The screen darkens a perfect amount after you beat the level
  5. I like that you fully invest in the color for a tank, it makes it much easier to tell which tank does what, and it looks good.
  6. I like the little bit of fire you see come out of the faster rockets

Some things that could be a little better

  1. The walls are a little simple I would have liked some bit of texture so it didn’t feel so flat
  2. The tanks feel like they need something, just a little bit more into them.
  3. Overall the game feels like it needs a little small tiny baby bit more polish
  4. I feel like the art style needs to be fully invested in. It feels like the game is in a slight inbetween space, it seems like the game wants to be in a very simple style, but it seems like it wants to be in similar colors to games like Mini Motorways

Fun

I actually already played this game a little bit and I’ve enjoyed it both times.

Some of the things I like

  1. Each level feels handcrafted and designed very well with a nice skill curve.
  2. It just feel really impressive that the tanks know the perfect angle to shoot the missile at
  3. I like that there are so many levels
  4. Having the bullet bounce 3 times in the Versus mode instead of 2 seems like it would make for a more fun experience for the 2 players. It’s another nice touch

Some things that could be better

  1. I died on the first level with the pink tanks and I won’t respawn
  2. A way to save progress would be nice, so if I leave the game I won’t have to start over.
  3. It would be interesting if there were different map options for the Versus mode

Sometimes the tanks will shoot themselves, but you’re doing some complicated math probably so I’ll let it slide


Sound

Sound design is where I feel the game can be improved on the most. (These sounds would need to be regulated so it wouldn’t seem overbearing)

  1. The shooting needs to have a little power to the sound
  2. The missiles hitting each other need a sound
  3. Driving needs some sort of sound
  4. When a missile bounces off a wall it should have some bit of sound
  5. Clicking the menu buttons need a sound

Creativity

It’s a really interesting concept that hasn’t been done in flowlab and I haven’t seen many games like this in general. I also like that you used sprite stacking (kind of, you used different objects instead of 1 object with multiple sprites) because I feel it’s a really underused mechanic.


Overall

Art: 6/10, It can almost be really good, it just seems like it wants to be fully invested into something
Fun: 7/10, I really enjoy this game, but it would be more fun with better sounds and graphics.
Sound: 5.5/10, Lacking a little bit, but the game still plays fine without it.
Creativity: 7/10, Interesting idea that turns out pretty well

Final Score: 6.375

pixil-frame-0 (8)

@DraftyScienceCoat75 it’s a really nice game that I enjoyed playing. With a little bit more polish it would be very nice

6 Likes
4 Likes

Quick note when reviewing games, if I list 5 things I like and 10 things that could be better, it’s not that I dislike the game. I’m doing that because constructive criticism tends to be more beneficial than telling someone what they have already done right.

(Also if anyone wants I will do private reviews)

6 Likes

Thanks for the review!

Yeah I kinda forgot to add that level in correctly lol. It was the last level though so you didn’t miss out on much.
I definitely agree on the sound, I might actually take some time to add that in.

I’ll probably be thinking about the art, but I’m not 100% sure what I’m gonna do about it. Right now I have an unspoken policy of not changing my old games too much, just to preserve them. This was I also can keep making new projects instead of constantly reworking old ones. The sound is something that just wasn’t there in the first place so I’ll probably work on that.

4 Likes

I am also working on Gamougg 4 so I can respondd too

Summary

Which green?

what?

That’s just his style the default texture can be modified to look cool

Oh yeah John told me why this is. He said and I quote “Making Enter continue all the bits of text would continue all text so it would skip everything.”

I made a new skin for it does this work?
image

even i gotta say “augggghhhhhh”

The smaller game screen compared to taile gamougg 3 wouldn’t let John make the same kinds of lengthy messages that he made in that game, so he instead made more short messages instead of less long messages.

which boss though?

lore

It’s anglin’ time (angles)

Kumala La Kumala GIF - Kumala La Kumala Mrtti GIFs

No its because Gamougg is set to Keep Between Levels. Also stamina is really easy to regain, you just have to kill enemies/bosses, make a vehicle touch an electrolyte vial, or eat and drink food and beverages.

There are hardly any controls compared to Gamougg 3. Even MetaNinja said so in his review, I think it’s just the button combos you’re thinking of.

Are you running out of gravity? Hope not but the gravity is pulling the vehicle down and you have to skillfully keep it up in the air by periodically pressing the fly up button (you don’t wanna go too high!).

Phase 1:
At the start of the level it tells you to touch the blue light block after killing him.
Phase 2:
Kill the beef monster and fly over to the platform where Aurora is waiting with some soda. Talk to her to beat the level. Fun fact: You can “upgrade” the Speedlo G2 by pressing Y+T. This will come at the cost of leaving you temporarily defenseless, but you can easily re-equip all your weapons. The “upgrading” basically transforms the vehicle into a new gunship: the Electrol. It can punch super fast with fists made of pure electrolytes that make enemies drop electrolytes, and it can shoot bullets with an off-screen/invisible machine gun.

bro I thought john fixed this. any way you can fix this yourself in the meantime by pressing Y to unequip all your weapons after respawning. The weapons can be equipped again like this. Don’t forget this fix, as it is rather important for all GamougGaming games.

yeah i dont get this either. john is a strange dude. anyway, I think you can get around this by destroying the wall if you’re playing as Aurora, or using a Botdrone to literally push yourself into the wall, touch the key, and use the Botdrone to get out.

Idk man but everyone wants the music to be AWESOME so John tried, I guess

Just like real life!

how improve pls?

where? i wanna see

2 Likes
Some Answers

I’m talking about the grass/ground sprites in those quotes.


That may be his style, but it can be improve to still keep some of his stylistic choices and look like it fits the game still.


He should be using a Router set to Increment each time it gets an input. Using that will allow him to always use “Enter” (I’m assuming he’s using Text instead of multiple Labels)


A lot of the elements in the game don’t match each other, it’s not just the character it’s how all the other objects work together.


Using a custom text box is still better.


Oops, thought I said which one. I’m talking about meaty.


Well yes, but no.


The controls aren’t overbearingly too much, but it can be shortened. For example, the HJK to switch between weapons could just be J and click J will switch between the 3 (once again a problem solve via a Router)


Honestly, doesn’t seem like a great reason. If you just turned gravity off for it that would be even better.

I completely missed that. And it didn’t look blue, it looked the same as the walls (Display order problem?)


This is another button that should be cut from the game, it should give you your weapons back by itself.


Just the general sounds, nothing specific


tsm.

That might actually be the only thing not from withing the game.


I mean, the game isn’t perfect. It could be good just with an art redo. After that reworking some of the code will make better (For example the jump)

3 Likes
15番: バーガーキングの足レタス. 最後欲しい物はハンバーガーの内に誰の足真菌だぞ。 あのことは可能だけど。。。 匿名で4chanで誰は画像をアップデートした、画像で彼の足はレタス触れてる。。。 確かに靴着た、でももっとやばいね? 投稿したの時間は7月16日午後11:38だった。 20分後にあのバーガーキングの親分は警告された。

It’s all aboveground I just wanted to make the stone blue :)

image

Idk but I’m using multiple Labels.

My artstyle mixture style failed me :(

image

So his projectile looks bad? Hmm, I could change it yeah but its supposed to be messy since the monster’s fighting technique isn’t very well-refined.

image

Yeah but then people would have trouble in level 12, where using the 3 main weapons at once is crucial to the gameplay and story. Gamougg’s badassery wouldn’t be properly conveyed if he wasn’t able to hold and effectively wield a shotgun, an assault rifle, and a rocket launcher all at once.

Again, the character’s awesomeness would be damaged, if not ruined by this. Not only would the game’s difficulty be more casual and boring, like Genshin Impact, but the creativity and imaginative combos that can be done with the Beefblade (boss weapon dropped by the Nightmare Beef Monster) but you also probably wouldn’t be able to gain over 20,000 health like 117JOJO did either.

The light in the middle of the specific single block is blue, but I’ll double-check for visibility issues like Display Order as well.

Gamougg 3’s structure made this a lot easier to fix. Gamougg 4 is literally built different.

image

TSM isn’t an intentional reference to anything, it’s just an acronym for the mech boss battle that stands for “TT Seething Mecha”. All the current intentional Easter Eggs are in the editor (I’ve forgotten most of them lol).

Art will always be updated as long as I breathe bruh. Even if there are no code changes or other updates.

Thank you again for the review!

5 Likes

Pixel Sports

Reviewed by @CodeAlpaca


Art

What I like about the Art.

  1. Having different outfits is nice, the color choice seem to match each other decently (besides Brazil having a lime green instead of the darker grass colored green it should be)
  2. The icons expanding when you’re over them is good, a slight problem is that if the icron is near the edge of the screen it will be cut off.
  3. The rope for the shop going up is a nice touch.
  4. Having the sprite go smaller doing the jump is a simple thing, but chefs kiss to that because it looks great.
  5. For the most of the games, a lot of the objects actually manages to fit the game and has a decent style to it, even the hand drawn sky works.

What aspects of the Art could be better.

  1. Pixel size needs to stay consistent between all sprites, having it be be different makes it feel much more pixelated, but not it a good way. It shows clear differences between sprites and disconnects some elements of the game with others.
  2. The Label text style needs to be something that fits the game, what it currently is doesn’t seem to fit the rest of the game.
  3. Overall I’m not crazy about the sprites in the menu, this is mostly due to pixel size and and not having a consistent color palette.
  4. Text coloring is also very important and I feel this was misused. There are bright colors so you can tell things about apart, but it seems out of place and distracting.
  5. The game options could have a lot more character added to them besides the game name and a single object.
  6. When in full screen, having a black background with the black edge is a little confusing on where the edge of the screen is.
  7. A design thing, is having objects at the very edge of the screen doesn’t actually look good, having them a couple pixels away is a easy thing to do that can really help the overall look.
  8. The icons while they convey what they do, still could have more to them to fit the style of the game more.
  9. The hand goes behind the Labels. This is a Flowlab thing, but if it was a secondary object it could be fixed (I do understand that at the time of creation the Sprite Editor did not have the option to use Text so it’s understandable).
  10. Alerts don’t look great. Luckily for this game it looks better than in most, but it’s still worse than a custom UI element.
  11. Another disadvantage to using Labels is that the transition that covers the screen has the Labels over it.
  12. The gifts chests should fit the style more, this is going to be the last thing relating to art (most of the problems with the art are from the same things; color palette, pixel size, etc).

Fun

Some of the things that are Fun about the game.

  1. Soccer, while feeling a bit chaotic with the hyper bouncy ball is pretty fun. (ball may be a bit too bouncy so it takes some of the skill away.
  2. I like Hocky the most, it feels like it has the most control

Some of the things that could make the game more Fun (including fixing bugs).

  1. Sometimes points are randomly scored.
  2. I wish there was a 2 player mode to play with a friend IRL
  3. There needs to be a way to exit the daily boss, it takes a long time to beat and if you want to leave you can’t.
  4. How do you lose to the boss? It seems like you just wait for it to die.
  5. The AI isn’t very smart. It works decently and not a lot more could be expected.
  6. The bumbers are a bit unfair. Sometimes they make you always score a point.
  7. I wish there would be more varitey between the game modes.

Sound

Sound is pretty decent, the music fits well.


Creativity

A really nice concept, but not quite executed properly. At first I was pretty excited after player soccer to move onto football (american), but it was very similar to soccer (as are all the other games). They each have their own unique concept in them, but I would have liked more investment to make them different.


Overall

Art: 6/10, The style was decently consistent at parts and in others not quite correct. If a few things were fixed it could be a nice looking game

Fun: 6.5/10, It could be even more fun with improved graphics and more unique games.

Sound: 6.5/10, Fit decently well.

Creativity: 6/10,It was pretty creative at the start, but then the other games started to feel a little copy & paste

@MetaNinja It’s a nice game that can be good with a bit more work

3 Likes

Thank you so much for the review @CodeAlpaca!! I agree with several of your points, and this provides quite a lot of criticism I haven’t seen nor considered.

If I may, I would like to address some things you mentioned, including some of my opinions.

Quick Points

These are all common complaints whenever I ask people to share their opinions on the game. When I eventually get back to the game, I will do my best to fix these issues.
For the “copy & paste” problem with the gamemodes, I think the issue was that a lot of the game was inspired by Drive Ahead! Sports, which has a similar problem (except for the racing gamemode). I’ll try to put more thought into the gameplay experience.

There’s a timer at the top of the screen that shows how long you have to defeat the boss. It constantly got extended and squished throughout the development of the game because I was worried about the boss being too difficult or too easy (right now it’s too easy). Also, before I halted development, I was working on a feature where getting surrounded by Husks was a game over. I cannot recall if this is still present, but given how easy it is to kill the Husks, I’m not sure anyone would find that out. I can’t even remember if the boss spawns in the Husks, so chances are you might not know what I’m talking about.
Another common complaint with the boss is that it requires no skill to defeat them. Just wait for them to screw themselves over. At this point the boss might require another rework (the third or fourth in the game’s history).

Eh? That shouldn’t be happening. That is definitely a bug… Oops. :sweat:

Fun fact: I was actually planning on doing custom alerts for this game, but I got too lazy. I promise that isn’t gonna be the case for the other games. Alerts are kinda mid nowadays.

As a person with Brazilian blood, I’m embarrassed that I missed this error… :sob:

Again, thank you so much for the review and I’ll take all your praises and criticisms into consideration, both for this project and all others!

2 Likes

Hey my offline best friend (@117JOJO) would like you to review this game for him. May you do it please?

4 Likes

What do you think of my reviews?

  • I love it! I like how detailed the review is
  • I like it! But I’m not a fan of how in-depth the review is
  • Pretty standard
  • Meh, some things could be better

0 voters

Btw how do you like the format? Going through Art, then Fun, etc. And listing things I like and think could be better in those sections? Also do you think the ratings I give reflect what I’m saying in the review?

6 Likes