WisdomThumbs's Reviews

[The Tale Teller]

My little brother killed himself this year, far away from here. He was my target audience. My co-writer. My best friend. I told him I was proud of him, just before the end.

I feel like the soldier and the storyteller both. Winter comes for these mountains Jimmy loved, and now mom's new husband has turned into an abusive alcoholic. He reels her in and back again with slurring sweet talk. I can't stay here and I can't leave her. She won't confront him and she won't let me confront him.

But after watching this video, I know what must be done. The only way to end this without more violence is to tell mom an old story. And if I don't survive to see the winter, at least I'll see Jimmy again

Thank you Jazza.

[Leo & Satan IV]

Not quite there

Definitely above average for any Newgrounds submission, and incredibly lulzy. But just... not quite Leo & Satan quality.

They kept getting better and better but this one... well, it was too short. Everything was good until the end, when it was just too abrupt. WAY too abrupt.

Looking forward to the next one, though. Big fan.

[Leo & Satan III]

Satanic worship at its best

Goddamn, this was fucking hilarious. I think I laughed all the way through.

Except you know... I felt genuinely sad and surprised at Leo's death. I was actually kind of pissed by the end of it.

Then Leo pops out of the trapdoor to hell, and Satan freaks out. Best part of the whoel damn thing. I lol'd for ten minutes straight

Rewatching again and again. My friends and I will be going over this at lunch for months to come.

[Horse with a Human Mask on a Tightrope]

Holy shit it's a video game about my current DnD character, who started as my war horse, got Awakened, and years later can wield swords. He stole a dude's mask of disguise, but its convincing humanoid hologram doesn't link up with the correct horse legs.

It didn't have to be fun, but that's a nice bonus. 4/5 only needs helicopter dueling to be lore accurate.

[Snailiad]

Excellence

(note that I consider 5 an "average", and a 9 is something truly rare and exceptional)

Going into this game, I was expecting something cheap and short-lived. I didn't think I'd be playing it for any longer than five or ten minutes.

But as I got deeper and deeper into the world of Snailiad, I realized I just couldn't quit. I became almost obsessed with finding all of the power-ups and Isis Fragments (still haven't accomplished that, though I feel I've found every last power-up). Finding all the secret areas had me in a fever for a while, I think. I actually had to force myself to take breaks - few games can put me in that kind of state. :P

Took three hours to beat the game. I was tremendously frustrated with the last two bosses, spending about 45 minutes to an hour apiece on both. And here's the part that had my palm glued to my face - after finishing the game, I realized I'd been playing on Normal when I thought I was on Easy. XD The challenge was immense, I have to admit. But once I learned how to use the Snail Shield effectively against Moon Snail, it didn't take much longer for me to finally triumph (there's nothing better than beating the hardest boss in the game with just one last heart left right as one of his attacks is about to hit you). :D

I'm going to keep playing and see if I can find this Isis Room. And you should make a map showing all the secret areas with the power-ups and Isis Fragments marked on it. I really want to see all these easter-eggs, after all, but just don't have the time to look for them. Perhaps you could make the map an unlockable (or activated by the Konami Code, just for lolz). And what's this about a secret boomerang? I think I already found the boomerang (I have one, after all), but that one snail only just started talking about the thing.

Anyway, moving on to some constructive criticism before I forget. The artwork wasn't bad - far from it, it was pretty good and simple. However, the opening cutscene does need to be a bit better - some potential players who would otherwise the game might not play it just because the first cutscene doesn't grab them.

As well, the gravity-changing jump feature made things really, really annoying for most of the game. I only got the hang of it AFTER I'd beaten Gravity Box. Changing directions mid-air was really tricky - sometimes Snaily wouldn't change direction even when I was pressing both "Z" and an arrow key at the same time, and sometimes he would. Having to hold the direction you want to go BEFORE hitting "Z" was much more reliable, but incredibly hard to do when you're trying to change direction quickly. And even when I pretty much had the hang of it, trying to fight Moon Snail and Giga Snail resulted in a lot of accidental gravity-changes, which typically got me killed. When you're under stress and jumping around a lot, you'll often hit "Z" multiple times in quick succession trying to jump just once, and you'll probably be holding an arrow key in an attempt to direct your shots which results in gravity-changes galore. (though in the end, I figured out that it's best to fight Moon Snail from the floor and move as little as possible)

Oh! And I should mention that I've never played Metroid. Ever. I think this is one of only three or four adventure games I've ever played. Adventure games generally aren't for me. That said, I'd play a Snailiad sequel.

Boss Tips:

First Boss - you can stay in the bottom left most of the time, even on the ceiling right above the door.

Second - stay in the opposite corner when he releases his mini-squares. Deal with those before anything else.

Final - stay on the floor as much as possible, use Shell Shield on his cluster-attack. Keep up a constant stream of Devastator blasts and always stay facing him to stave off his own stream of attacks. Move only when you need to get under him. For Giga Snail, stay on the walls during his transitions between phases and use Shell Shield during his Red Phase (stay on the wall and don't move, just Shield quickly). When he uses his ZZZ Attack, get on a wall and use Shield again.

[endeavor]

Pure win!

**SPOILER WARNING**

This is one of those oh so few PERFECT flash games. I've so far played twice and gotten two of the endings, and I'm about to go in and get the third. Replayability is exceedingly high for a game like this - it's a platformer with a linear story and lots of repition! Who knew it would be so addictive? o_O

You've definitely got a very strong grasp of game design. The cave area underneath the pillars really emphasizes this - the little blue mushrooms show where you've been before (a GENIUS idea). You also were able to craft a really good environmental puzzle there without actually using any puzzle elements - it's just a whole bunch of different paths to fall down, and a long climb time to get back up. I was so frustrated after ten minutes of this, but because the Blue Mushrooms were there to show me my previous attempts, I eventually worked my way to the gem. More challenging a puzzle than most straight-up puzzle games can manage. :P

As for the story, it was damn good. I've already played Shadow of the Colossus (years ago it was the only game I had on hand to play on my PS2 - spent months just messing around in it during all my free time), so I figured out the ending fairly quickly. Or did I?

I'm going to admit right now, I wasn't entirely convinced that Malor was the bad guy. For a long while it was a nagging thought, a gut feeling more than anything else, and I could tell he was manipulating me. But I STILL ended up falling for it, even though I killed ten creatures and got the Fruit of Eternal Youth. I just had to see what Malor would do if I got all the gems before I got the chest. And you knwo what? When he started sending me back up in the golden beam of light, I suddenly became convinced he had been a good guy all along.

"Hey, I see what the message is here! You just have to trust every now and then!"

And then he turned out to be a villain anyway, making it a double turn-around. I facepalmed pretty hard. :P

I also have to say... killing creatures was actually hard on my conscience. I kept thinking "What if Malor turns out to be the good guy, and by killing these things and going behind his back, I lose the game?" Besides, I just couldn't shake the feeling that I was doing something really wrong. Felt REAL guilt, something most games can't even hope to instill in people.

I even killed one of the characters - the rock guy who wants the unreachable fruit. It just so happened that since I was standing partially on top of him when he died, I picked up his soul instantly AND filled up my Endurance bar to Max, leading me to believe that killing him earned me the "Only the Strongest" achievement. I still felt guilty that I'd killed the poor guy.

And when I climbed back to 'Heaven' after killing someone, everybody treated me like shit. I felt kinda put off about that, but felt that it was my just deserts.

This game was pure win, PURE WIN, and I hope you make a sequel of some sort, at least set in the same world. I'm going to play Summit (the name sounds familiar) as soon as I get the third ending. This is gonna be awesome.

I feel as if there's something I'm missing in this review, but I honestly can't think of what it is. That's right, there's so much good stuff to say about Endeavor, so little bad stuff (read: none) that I'm actually FORGETTING details. XD

Favoriting.

[Limbo]

lulz

It's funny because it's Limbo.

The spider has a funny face. :3 All giant boy-killing spiders should have funny faces.

One problem though. The spider has five legs. Two on one side and three on the other. It's all well-drawn though, so whatever. Looks cool, and that's what really matters.

As an aside, DEATH TO HELMET BOY. DEATH.

Chickenlump responds:

You should be taking your complaints to Playdead. They're the ones who screwed up spider anatomy in favor of making them easier to animate.

That's right, you Danish skirters, I'm lookin' at you!

[FREAK]

Nice wrinkles

It looks genuinely disgusting. In this case that's a good thing, though... so, points.

It looks like my grandmother, if my grandmother died her hair green... and had eyeballs the size of apples. :U

Overall, the hair on the right side of the head is great, but the hair on the left looks "meh" or bland for some reason. Probably because it's just a lot of simple straight lines.

The mouth is really good. Probably the best part here. I wish I could draw mouths like that.

Definitely freaky, very freaky. Good job.

[MonsterMonster]

All I can say is

Roflopter.

I honestly forgot what else I was going to say. I think it had something to do with critiques and profound insight into the meaning of you work.

...roflolpter roflopter roflopter.