Score: 5
"Upon request."
date: August 27, 2009
Here's my review (at least I think this is what you were asking me to review?)
Ok, firstly, I do like some of the ideas here. The quaking cursor was probably my favourite. But overall, the ideas were kinda repeated. And limited. You can do away with the three 'difficulty' levels and make it all into one because quite frankly, they're almost all the same. I don't really think it increased in difficulty quite as much as it increased in tedium. The later levels just took the same ideas and added more bends in the maze. Not much of a difficulty shift.
Also, I do like the addition of control choice. I sometimes don't like the idea of only using your mouse and the option of using the keys was a good addition. I do not, however, enjoy the physics based motion of the cursor. The momentum affected movement does not really suit these kind of games. When you have maze games like this, precision control is the key and adding momentum to the cursor means less precision, which in turns means easier levels. If you create a more precise form of movement, it allows you to create a more intricate maze, and more enjoyable overall.
Also, the cursor shape and size is quite misleading. Simply for the fact that the only collision point is the center dot. Now, I think there's something going there for the moving 'arrow' cursor. If you make the entire cursor collide with the walls, then that moving cursor presents a whole new type of challenge. Try it out and see.
Lack of music is never a good thing. (If you read through my other reviews you will note that I stress on music or sound alot because I think it affects games very much). Especially when you have games of this type that have a lot of repeating elements. Good background music and sound effects help to release some of the tedium in playing levels that look or feel similar. I know you've left the choice of music to the user, but that's actually being lazy. Learn to choose appropriate songs for your games and it'll actually help you develop games later on with a good choice of music.
Work on new ideas that challenge a sense of difficulty rather than tedium, and also expand on some ideas that would make this game stand out a little. The quaking mode seems like a good place to start.
Some nifty ideas here and there, definitely worth expanding on.
August 27, 2009
Author's Response:
I geuss your right. I should make a sequel to this one. Indeed I should add different elements to different levels. A full cursor collision detection with the walls is a good idea though that will eat up a lot of CPU useage. I'm not gonna get rid of the smooth movement, becouse this is the anti-cheat =D and I worked really hard on that. Also, I was NOT LAZY to make a music selector, I just thought that everyone could play whatever they want during gameplay this way. It took me an entire week to figure out how to build a music selector becouse I wans't that expirienced with programming yet. I like a lot of you're ideas, and I believe there are some ways to combine them with mine. Thnaks for your time, though I told you to review my "userpage" and not "mini maze". Thanks though.
