@MetaNinja I might have another game for you to review, but I’ll wait until the list gets a bit shorter, lol.
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Okay, @ManiacPumpkin. Just as a reminder, your game will be reviewed after LukeW’s game. I can only hope that I’ll be able to get there by Sunday.
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It’s okay. The game that I submitted is kinda short anyway and I made it for the 2021 flowjam so you shouldn’t have much of an issue with it, lol.
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No harm meant to any other reviewers lol, it’s just a meme and I don’t really believe it anyways
One I finish Boombox, believe me it’ll be here
Notes and Waves - By @meburningslime
Review of Gameplay - Now, I do not have epilepsy or anything like that, but that theme background really hurts my eyes. I had to turn to full-screen in order to make sure my brain doesn’t explode. Now then, now that my eyes are completely safe, I should say that the intro is REALLY well made. As I entered the game select, I tried to see what level I should start off with. And my goodness, you chose good songs. I decided to start with Highscore by Panda Eyes. I gave up immediately after I failed. So I went to Space Invaders by Teminite and MDK. I tried Nitro Fun’s music as well.
Pros:
- Nice songs/music!
- Lots of color…
- There is the potential of replayability.
Cons:
- The particles move fast for the game screen size. Too fast.
- If you drag your mouse off-screen, you can cheat the entire level by staying there and watching the pellets get shot by Stormtroopers.
- If players choose not to exploit the bug I mentioned above, they are barely given enough time to tell what is coming at them before they get hit by a random pellet.
Art: [4] The intro is very well done, and the icons for the levels are also good. The colors that flash in the background are good too… but the Theme background kills my eyes every time I exit full-screen.
Sound: [5] You picked very great music to play in this game. Sound effects probably would have interrupted the music. Although I wish the death sound was a bit less… anticlimactic…
Story: [X] This game contains no story, so this category will not be graded, nor included in the final grade.
Entertainment: [3] Even though this game has the potential for replayability, there is just too little stuff to replay. Only 3 complete levels, and two levels that have nothing. (See Difficulty for more information)
Originality: [1] Even though you claim to have come up with the idea of shapes that move to the music first, with the existence of Just Shapes and Beats, and how closely similar to each other those games are (such as the colors of the player and hazards, as well as the overall gameplay), I am not convinced. Even the title makes it look like a JSAB fan-game.
Difficulty: [3] This game is difficult. Too difficult. As mentioned in the cons, the projectiles move too fast for their game screen size. I barely have any time to react before my character is pummeled. This is what drove me away from the game the first time I played it nearly 6 months ago, after the Summer Jam 2020. I recommended at the time that the player should have at least has some time to see what happened before they have to try again, but now that I replayed the game, I think that more needs to be done to prevent your players from rage quitting the game, wondering how they are supposed to avoid ninja pellets. And I doubt most people would want to return, knowing they cannot learn from their mistakes this time, because the mistakes are never clear.
Total Score: 3.2/5
Good work on this game, meburningslime. While this game does have potential to be a fun fan-game for Just Shapes and Beats, it is lacking some of the fun from that game. As a JSAB player who has played the game for almost 9 months now, it just doesn’t feel the same way. What I would do is add some more ways that players don’t die over and over again because their mistakes are not clear. For example, don’t pause the game when they die, increase the game screen size (or make the projectiles a bit slower), or give warnings showing where the lightspeed pellets are coming from. As I said, the game has potential, but is lacking some important features.
Congratulations, and thank you for your submission!
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I also would like to take into account on what the total score means.
So in terms of the individual categories, the following numbers mean:
5 - Excellent
4 - Good
3 - Neutral
2 - Bad
1 - Poor
In terms of the total score, the following numbers mean:
5 - Perfect
4 - 4.9 - Impressive
3 - 3.9 - Good
2 - 2.9 - Okay…
1 - 1.9 - Needs improvement
0 - 0.9 - Needs COMPLETE redo (virtually impossible to get, based on grading algorithm)
While a 3.2 or a 3.8 in the total score might seem bad, it isn’t considered bad in this review thread. So try not to freak out if you get a 3 or something like that.
So think of 5 as an S rank, 4 as an A rank, 3 as a B rank, 2 as a C rank, and 1 as a D rank (0 would be F rank, but it is impossible to get).
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Ooh! I’m loving the grading system here. Do you take private reviews through DM’s? I may want to submit Boombox before the full release.
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Yes, private reviews are allowed. However, it is unlikely to be reviewed very quickly, to encourage people to post their game publicly here. In some cases though, like wanting to see what I think of a game before it is publicly released (such as yours), private reviews are welcome.
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Ok sounds good. I Just want to keep it a private side project till’ the full release.
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Just a quick explanation of the game: Boombox! A game where you take control of a lil’ yellow boi with a megaphone head, and do some basic platforming and puzzles until you unlock the next mini game ( mostly consisting of rhythm challenges. ) just ask for more info!
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Thanks. I got a million requests to pause the game when you die to make it like Gdash, but I’ll definitely add a toggle for it. For the background, Idk why you still see the flashy background.
For the pellet speed, what do you think of having it to where they generally go slower, but you can turn on nightmare mode (no not a Gdash reference) to have the speed the way they originally did?
Thanks for the feedback. I am really trying to make it a kaizo-style since there are pretty much 0 kaizos on here. As for the difficulty, I’m aware that you can cheat the level and put your mouse off the screen, but that’s purely a fullscreen bug that @grazer has already been notified of (I’m pretty sure.) Some people say the game is too easy lol, but I don’t know what they were on when they said that. Thanks for the review!
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Wait, didn’t you say you had a back-up for Notes and Waves? It could be because I was playing an older version that I saw the theme background?
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Also i still don’t know the reference/ripoff to just shapes and beats, do you mean how the game plays? Because you could say that Undertale, basically every tbrpg and gdash (somewhat) stole that from jsab.
That’s probably it, as soon as I revamped the old one the background was changed instantly.
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Just realized I did a you lol, I’m now a monologuer
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So here is a list of things that I see that make Notes and Waves look like a JSAB fan-game:
- The character is a cyan square
- All hazards are pink
- Those column laser things
- It is a bullet hell game where the projectiles move according to the music
- The title of the game
Geometry dash is a platformer game, and the hazards completely vary, and are not just pink bullets or lasers.
Undertale is also a bullet hell game, but the projectiles don’t depend on the music. It depends on the enemies and how many are there. For bosses, the projectiles also depends on how far you go in the fight.
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Ok but still tbrpgs.
Ye I took the laser idea from them but honest to God I didn’t see the cyan square thing, or at least realize it was cyan, until after I had developed the player. Bullet hell games = every tbrpg ever. I see the bullets as deep red… Lol, maybe I’m part colorblind?
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I didn’t even know Just Shapes and Beats existed until my Prototype was done. (I tried to find the prototype but I have 100+ games lol, if you find it please link me so I can save it XD).
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I always tought it was kind of similar to just shapes and beats…