Gerontius's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Detective GUI]

A brilliantly inventive puzzler

[Gravity Square]

Struggled through first level. No idea what to do on second level. No motivation to continue

[Depressing Maria]

Apart from the obvious problems, the collision detection sucks

[Anti Terrorism]

Buggy, dull

[Bacteria Simulator]

Predator/prey relationship need balancing

A good start, but there needs to be a way to illustrate the classic cyclical behaviour of oscillating but relatively stable populations of predator and prey. It doesn't appear possible to do that however you arrange the settings.

1. The rate at which the predators consume the herbivores and/or
2. The rate at which unfed cells die and/or
3. The rate at which cells multiply

These need careful balancing to achieve stable cyclical behaviour. What happens in the game is the predators eat until the prey population crashes totally, then the predator population crashes. It only cycles if the game values are set to have a minimum population of at least 1 cell, so the predators cannot eat the final prey, making extinction impossible. But that is a cheat in the programming to overcome a failure in the simulation. In reality, extinction is perfectly possible - but not the ONLY outcome.

I got close to a long term stable cycle by putting the plant growth at the minimum necessary for the small herbivores to survive. This meant that the predator population didn't explode, leading to immediate extinction of the herbivores. But, right on the bread-line like that, the system didn't remain stable for very long and the end result was still extinction.

If you leave out the predators, the herbivores and plants achieve a nice oscillating cyclical pattern, so well done there. Although the herbivore population rockets off the top of the graph if the plant growth is more than about 50% - should be easy enough to fix that so it doesn't happen.

Then you just need to fix the simulation for the predators, or give players control over the three aspects I mention above and make it a goal of the game to find the correct values to achieve a stable cycle.

My guess is that what you need to do is make sure predators multiply more slowly. Also, they shouldn't need to eat constantly, unlike herbivores (that's the benefit of a carnivore diet) but that might need more extensive modifications to the simulation code.

TehCybernerd responds:

thank you for your insightful review. yes, i'm aware that i was cheating by making the last one immortal. the system never actually reaches stability, and it only appears cyclical because i cheated.

you're right, i should have added more options for other rates. it wouldn't even have been difficult. i could have substituted variables for the constants of growth and starvation, then used the same sliders to control them. ah, what was i thinking.

if i ever do this again, i'll be sure to listen to your advice. maybe i'll even make it an actual game where the objective is to balance out a population. thank you again for your time.

[Protostar]

It's alright

But text really REALLY needs to pop up faster or immediately. It's way too slow!

[Gyossait]

Not sure why this is on the front page

It's pretty poor on every level. Floaty control system, unimpressive graphics, dull gameplay - gave up after about level 5 or so: just too dull and the ultra-mysterious (appallingly spelt!) text didn't help engage or make me want to keep on going.

[Epic War 5]

Quite nice

Like the new graphical look, but the later bosses seem unfinished

[Deep Diver]

Really sweet

Cute little game, but loads of problems need sorting.

It's buggy - pearls and fish all vanish after your first dive. And I finished the game with 11 out ot 10 map pieces!

I didn't test it, but I guess that if you don't upgrade the hull but use your money on the engines and oxygen, you'll run out of money and won't be able to reach new sites. Give a "sell" option to avoid that.

Suggestion: make the oxygen run out faster at deeper depths (which it would do) and you can then design some maps which make use of that.

But a really nicely put together game that's calming and fun to play. And I like how it's non-linear in that you have to go to several sites to get the upgrades, then go back and finish them off.

[Magnetic Planetary Defens]

Needs lots of work

Neat idea and done well as far as it goes, but it really needs lots of work.

Work on the graphics and interface, that's a big one.

But then you need to add some new stuff. Have the rocks crash into each other would be good, because you could then add non-magnetic rocks and crash bonuses and fun stuff like that.

And a power-up system - something to actually aim for and keep people playing beyond the second wave.