Gerontius's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[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.

[SandStorm Racing]

Nicely done

Well put together and fund for a quick play .Seems a bit buggy (pardon pun) with random cars popping up now and again on the track.

johnnytwoshoes responds:

Thanks. Basically, just like you, the computer players can mess up and they too get restarted to the last checkpoint. That's why it looks like they are popping around I guess

[Mech Slayer]

Well made

but gets dull quick. Needs something more to keep it interesting

xdragonx10 responds:

How far did you play? Did you try getting all the weapons?

[Epic War]

It's OK

It was enjoyable at first and kept me playing until the end, but the more you played, the more problems were noticeable with the game.

1. The "perfect score" makes no sense since you just get a high score by playing one level for ages and killing people off with your crossbow rather than sending lots of troops to destroy the castle. The only limit to your score on any level is boredom. A better idea would be to have the "perfect score" as a maximum score and to only award all of the experience points gained if you get less than that score.

2. I was halfway through the game before I realised that I could just hold down the keys to fire a constant barrage of arrows. You should have an autofire option or something - perhaps have auto-fire on by clicking the icon on the screen and then off by clicking again or by hitting the relevant shortcut key.

3. The crossbow is way too powerful. When it was fully maxed out I could keep the enemies even on the final level at bay pretty much permanently while I built up my mana reserves before unleashing an army of troops. Hint for playing the game: max out the ordinary crossbow early.

4. The game is way too easy except for the final boss who is way too hard and too long - it's just a game of attrition against him and so dull.

For those who can't defeat the final boss, the tactic that worked for me was to just fire arrows constantly and send out alternate dragons/angels with an undercurrent of hobbits. The hobbits are no good for fighting but they slow down the movement of the boss when your angels and dragons get killed. You win with the boss by slowing him down for as long as possible. It's stupid, but that's the only way it seems to work.

5. The game really needs a fastforward mode.

artlogicgames responds:

thanks for input
but #5 is imposibble to add. if speed is faster....we could have difficulty aim the enemy.
but once again. thanks for the review.

[Lupezz]

Good, but massive bug

On the level where you can mirror/flip and rotate, you can have all the pieces in the right place and what looks like the right orientation, but the game thinks you need to rotate, mirror and flip them so that it looks identical but has the "correct" state.

That wouldn't be so bad if the piece remained selected after m/f/r so you could m/f/r it again.

NafNaf responds:

I thought I had ironed that out.
If someone runs into it it would be great to have a screenshot or something.

[AddUp]

Simple, but pretty good

Suggestions: fix the mute button!
Maybe give bonus scores for using more than two numbers to make 10, or something like that.

deadwhalegames responds:

Thanks for the info! The mute button should be fixed now.

[-Twins-]

nice idea

but when you said "lots of lag" you weren't kidding. It's practically unplayable. One star for effort, but you might want to try optimising your coding and submit it again.

Kwing responds:

I've been trying. That ActionScript was the first script that worked, and about my 5th attempt, so I decided not to push my luck.

[Linear Assault]

Way too repetitive

You forgot the first rule of boss battles - put an energy bar up for them. That first boss had way to much health as it was with only three different firing modes, and I was this close to just giving up on him when he exploded without any warning.

WarpZone responds:

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it was obvious: they heat up and turn orange, then yellow. When they're pure white and yellow, they're nearly dead.

It is repetitive, though, you're right, which is part of why I named it what I did. I'll do better in the future, I promise.

[Entropy: 3D Pong Game]

OK remake

I think I prefer the wireframe version of this 3D pong idea. Frame rate was higher and the depth seemed more realistic.

Good job, though.

amPar responds:

Yeah, if you are having framerate issues. You're computer probably needs more ram or a faster processor. I've had a few issues with it lagging on slower computers. The 3D uses papervision, so it lags out a bit with all the 3D objects in the scene.