all I have to say is that my cuscenes in after math told you how to progress
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RISE gives a great preview of what’s to come in future Vipertech titles: Immense detail, interesting stories and charming visuals. Now, all Flowlab has to do is be stable enough to support such games. Sigh
+This games resolution is of impressive girth
+The games main-menu is lifeless, but i’m saying that’s a positive since the logo’s bird-polishing-a-window gives it all the life it needs and besides that, the depressing-ass music tells me it’s intentional
+“Press Space to Skip” That’s a rare, and beautiful sight to see in a Flowlab game. Treasure it…
+“I have… An idea… Take this” Magically slaps a wand in his hand. This games humor is great
+The location cards are a nice touch
+The grass flattens under your weight, and pops back up a few seconds later. Small details like this make me coom
+The smooth camera is a simple, yet great touch
+The cave level is genuinally creepy, good work!
-The opening cutscene is charming, yet flawed. For starters, the test goes at a fixed speed, which makes some text take 1 second to read and 10 years to scroll-over, and others 10 years to read and 1 second to scroll-over. This is the ONE time automation is shit…
-The god-rays appear like they’re on a treadmill, which is admittedly funny, but you should’ve just took the cartoon approach and made them “Cycle”
*Bird polishing a window > Plague Doctor riding a wand
*I was unable to get past level 2 because Flowlab disabled jumping, and there’s a reason why. Simply put it, for technical reasons I don’t understand: Flowlab is inherently buggy due to differences in hardware and monitor, yet, however, rendering the game directly on your desktop fixes this on its own. See where I’m going with this? “Brower-only” Flowlab causes half of the bugs in most Flowlab games.
Scores (Scale of 1/5)
Visuals - 4 (Needs more detail)
Sound - 4 (Needs more of it, but what’s there is great)
Story - 4 (Simple, yet effective, story)
Controls - 2.5 (Not a big fan)
Difficulty - 3 (I wouldn’t even know)
Stability - 2 (I completely blame Flowlab here)
Final Score: 4/5
Grazer, make a desktop version of Flowlab. “Browser only” is not a good thing.
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I churned-out 2 game reviews today, but I wasn’t able to get to Beard Your Own Adventure before Grazer could announce a winner, ugh
Good luck to all the Flowjam participants!
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Could you review the finished Ace Vanguard? I’ve added quite a few features since then.
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yeah it’s pretty bad, made it in 2 weeks, and didn’t really focus lol
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This game is the opposite of “Grow to the Heavens!” in the sense that it’s a game with a central gimmick that does it right. Even if the game does a horrible job at setting expectations, it does a good job at doing pretty much all there is to do with its gimmick and doesn’t let it overstay its welcome or eat the game (…Debatable, come to think of it). Overall, well done!
+Being able to vandalize the “todorrobot games” logo on the main menu is a nice touch
+The (Admittedly basic) mouse-tracking behavior on the eyes is a creepy, but good touch
+OK, the subtle Scooby-doo reference was great
+This games main gimmick is clever (If just a cooler dialogue box)
+This games music sort-of builds off the previous song, giving the impression the music is progressing with you. And I love it
+The games changing backgrounds are a nice touch and help make the game feel even more alive, I just wish they took up more of the screen so they mattered more…
+I take back (Some of) what I said in the negative notes, the “flavor text” at the top of the screen acts as a very clever way to guide the player in the right direction (Along with the players sense-of-style)!
-The company intro gave me tinnitus
-Not a fan of this games IPhone resolution
-Who the hell is “Johnny Reb”, and what is he doing in a Flowlab game?
-Uhhh… What am I doing in this game? The game itself barely explains what’s going on, you’re just sort of… Doing things until something happens
–The game doesn’t say so (For whatever reason), but your choices in how you “hair” the characters “facial” determine what you see next! For dumb-asses like me who thought this was gonna be a normal game where you shave peoples heads and get paid, it sets horrible expectations. This can be fixed by showing you what will happen if you pick either option on “baby face”.
-This games “Gameplay” isn’t really fun long-term, for the minute your interest in seeing new faces dies – So does the game.
-See that face in screenshot 3? I got to that by shaving my characters facial hair entirely, which you’d THINK would lead me back to “Baby face”, but no, we somehow got to a SoundCloud rapper
Scores (Scale of 1/5)
Visuals - 4.5 (Fantastic art, great direction)
Sound - 5 (Incredible sound overall!)
Story - 3 (???)
Controls - 2.5 (Just a little clunky)
Difficulty - 3.5 (Can be confusing at times)
Stability - 4.5 (A few cosmetic ones, but that’s all)
Final Score: 4/5
Overall good, if gimmick-based, game. Even if it’s no “Competition winner” in my opinion
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I think this quote is funny in retrospect, because iv’e reviewed every single game submitted since then lol
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Fantastic review @Crigence thanks for taking the time. I agree with pretty much everything you said. It’s definitely a “lite” game without score or specific goals. The only real reward is opening free play for making it to the wizard. This idea originally started as a choose your own adventure mini comic but it never made it past the concept stage, so that may be why the game feels a little unconventional. When I posted it to itch, I labeled it as Interactive Fiction. Lol.
Glad you liked the music and the references in the illustrations. 28+ of each was a real challenge in two weeks.
Oh. And Johnny Reb is a generic term for a Confederate Soldier. I knew some of my references might be a little obtuse, but I didn’t have a lot of time to rework the pages.
And when you shave the Amish Farmer you see that you’re leaving a little hair around the chin. The jump from farmer to sound cloud rapper makes me laugh every time. Actually, that’s pretty much every reference in the game. If it made me laugh then I kept it. Haha!
Thanks again for the review! Great stuff!!
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hey crigence, is this still open? if so, could you do a review of august silence?
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My game Adventure Jake doesn’t have sound yet, adding somewhere like tomorrow! Link: https://flowlab.io/game/play/1641282
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Yeah, it is, just taking a bit of a break as I shotgunned out a LOT of reviews before
You can expect a review for August Silence tomorrow!
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really? that’s quick, thanks!
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august silence is, even though I have limited experience with the genre, the best Metroidvania style game iv’e ever played on or off Flowlab. Technically speaking, even coming from a more experienced developer like me, the game’s an absolute marvel and sets a new standard for the big-releases of Flowlab (Such as Sol or HAKK3R 2). Though this games “Scary” elements are more stylistic than anything, if you love 2D retro shooters, you will certainly love august silence!
+Great main menu (Despite being mostly blank)! Constant movement, good music. Well-done!
+From the minute to see “Unknown lifeform detected. Sending distre-” You know EXACTLY what this game is going to be straight from the get-go. Overall, good jo-
+The aiming system is intuitive, the gun pointing at the mouse is technically impressive and the crosshair looks great (Even if it is somewhat distracting), though having it be transparent or less in-your-face would be nice
+There are so many small details in this game that add up to make an incredibly immersive experience, such as shooting the ground and having the screen shake accordingly, blood splattering as you strike enemies or slashing water and having it actually splash based on range! I love it!
+This game is a master of Flowlab “Show don’t tell”. This game has 0 dialogue (After the intro) and yet it works! You’re just given your toolkit and the game pans out naturally from there. VERY well-done!
+An important thing to remember about this game is that it’s a horror game, and in that regard the game does a fantastic job at easing you into the gameplay. If I had to metaphorically describe it, I’d say while most Flowlab horror games just flood-gate every trick up their sleeve out after a certain point (Ex. The Facility), this game intelligently trickles horror at you as you play
+It’s very obvious this game takes inspiration from the greats of gaming horror, with the (Very necessary) inclusion of ‘Saferooms’, or the slow, ominous tick of the fuel going down for example
-The description for the game is unprofessional, to the say the least…
-Annnndddd after all that praise, we finally found an issue. There’s a room in the game that will suddenly start draining your health when you enter it and nothing you do will stop it. While it’s obvious that the room is there to teach you how dying and respawning works, I’d argue the player should learn that naturally by dying under normal circumstances since… You know, this is a horror game?
-Tiny nitpick, but the game probably should do a little more to explain to you that the water in the ‘Saferooms’ can regenerate your health, perhaps via a sign with a red cross on it?
-I had to stop playing because I got stuck in a room, for some reason phasing through platforms didn’t work for me (Assuming that’s what I was meant to do…)
*Since I never got to complete the game, can someone please explain to me why it’s called “august silence”?
Scores (Scale of 1/5)
Visuals - 5 (Does an incredible job at making the player feel claustrophobic, absolutely well-done!)
Sound - 4.5 (What can I say? Does a fantastic job at setting the tone and is overall well-done!)
Story - 3.5 (Vague, but on purpose)
Controls - 4.5 (Very intuitive!)
Difficulty - 3 (Overall a very relaxed game)
Stability - 4 (Buggy controls, but that’s all)
Final Score: 4.5/5
Incredibly well-made game with incredibly intuitive mechanics and a sexy learning curve. What’s not to love?.. The occasional bug, actually
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I spent about 30 minutes writing that review, and 5 extra minutes making sure I was happy with it, lol
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Thanks so much! I know it’s kind of a vague title.
There’s some more extra story stuff That i plan to add a bit later that kind of ties into the title, but to put it simply, it takes place during august, and the space station is for the most part silent, since everyone is dead.
and btw, the room that your health ticks down that you talked about is a room with no oxygen. your oxygen is the blue number in the bottom right corner, if it starts going down, you need to get out unless you have the oxygen tank, which raises that number significantly. I probably should have made that more clear in the game
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Is there room for a review cuz jus in case i got one!!!
just a question -
does this mean the game should be a bit harder? I have a few ideas for more challenging platforming/combat bits written down.
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Well remember – I only got to play for a few minutes because I couldn’t get across a bridge because sprinting was busted and phasing through platforms was broken (Something I lightly mentioned in the review with the-
I only got to fight 1 enemy and it was honestly pretty easy, so that difficulty of 3 is just what iv’e seen so far. What i’m trying to say is don’t take difficulty advice from that review
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@F3Art
I forgot to give august silence an opening paragraph,
Sorry about that, here’s the games finished paragraph, I’ll admit due to it being a while since I played the game I was extra reflective during it (@rcreger’s Sol and @browngr’s H4KK3R 2 were roped into it for example) but here’s the new opening:
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