Octo's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Innoculation]

Work on making the assets not mind-numbingly pixelated.

InvadeTech responds:

Haha thanks it's supposed to be pixel style. But I can see where you're coming from.

[Helen Keller the Game]

This is kind of a funny idea lmao

[stasis: an interactive haiku of isolation]

This game has an amazing amount of potential. I know that this is just sort of a little one-off game jam thing, but with some work, this game could be amazing. The visual style is really nice to look at, and also somehow fitting. I think the sound could really do with some changes, I think that the kind of style of the game's sound effects are way too whimsical to really be taken seriously, so that should be toned down. And while I'm on the topic of sound, there should be some kind of music playing in the background, something kind of somber and lonely. Something kind of cool you could do with the music, (let's say it's done with a violin since the character mentions it in his notes.) you could have the music sound more out of tune, deranged and experimental the further you get into the game, reflecting on the protagonist's mental state. I felt that the notes/diary entries that the protagonist writes felt random and weird. Instead of the notes becoming more unintelligible as the game progresses, it just kind of flip flops, sometimes he writes gibberish, sometimes he writes nothing, and other times he just writes normal English. The gameplay leaves a lot to be desired. the gameplay loop gets insanely repetitive and mindnumbing at times. There should be little things in the ship that just go wrong and you have to figure out how to fix them, and other things that go wrong that can't be fixed just completely shifting the gameplay, like that gravity thing. (I thought that was a really cool addition) The bottom line is, that there should just be more to do in general. Let's say the protagonist does bring his violin, and when you interact with it, there's like a little mini-game you can do like in the Night In The Woods musical parts, and the more the player plays the violin, the saner the character stays, shown with the notes that he writes. The game has a lot of potential and I would love to see a finished product. Thank you for reading, and have a great day.

esayitch responds:

I thought to add a bunch of things that would make it more sandboxy, more things you can do inside the ship... but not necessarily repair it. The violin via minigame is a great example, or the actual treadmill having some obstacles, adding a basketball hoop for you to shoot the ball.

Another thought I had was something you touched on - having the logs be affected by stuff the player does. For example, if they break the violin or the ball deflates, it would appear in the logs somehow.

In the end the result is what I managed in a few hours on the weekend, not even the whole 48 hours we had for the jam.

In regards to changes that would "gamify" it, I deliberately steered away from those... for example introducing a sanity meter. The reason for this is that I didn't want it to be a game where people are actually doing something that gives them any progression or competition, as the main goal is to get players to feel a futility of sorts, a growing depression or despair that no matter what they do, there is no progress here, merely stuff falling apart... which I did via the text, the gravity, and the food becoming perishable at a certain stage in the game, thus not allowing you to do normal sleep... would have been neat to add more things falling apart, like being unable to enter stasis or the ball being lost, to a point where the only thing you can do is enter stasis and jump to hyperspace between bouts of stasis that take a long time.

I really wanted the player to just go: what the hell am I doing, why am I still in this game?

I'm glad you liked it overall :D and thank you for the detailed comment.

[Pixel Minecraft]

This SWF doesn't work. fix the file before this gets fucking blammed.

[I Drink To Forget]

This is a pretty novel idea. Would like it better if glasses filled faster.

tomerssh responds:

Thanks! I think increasing the speed might make people "overshoot" the right answer and cover the top part as well, and since the only way to fix it is restarting, it may be a little frustrating.

I'll keep it in mind though. Might find a workaround.

[Super PSTW Action RPG]

". . ."

[You Broke the Game]

Thank you suVrik! Very cool!

[NEAR DEADline]

that moment when you have a deadline in 5 days but you're busy playing a game about having a deadline in 5 days.

[Bullet Bill 3]

awesome game! I love the almost extreme difficulty and the level editor (you should play my level! find the code at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wSJXKgp4BFoFhnxRmL8WqeY_Lk-yZNyCTLGU9J7B0Os/edit?usp=sharing )