Reviews for Witching Hour

[nightmare-edge]

Good, but easy

I'm afraid this was pretty easy. I never took more than two hits on a level, and I only let one enemy slip past me during the whole game. My final score was over 150000.
Anyway, the witch was cute instead of hag-like, and the 3D enemies with smoke looked pretty cool. The thing that threw me for a loop though was how the green and red enemies emitted grey smoke like everything else. I think it would be better if their smoke had greenish and redish hues, repectivly.
Now for the boss. I liked how the boss used visual cues before his attack, to let you know how to dodge. However, the fact that he simply used bigger versions of the same, easy-to-dodge attacks all game lost points with me. However, I appreciate that my attacks do not simply hit the bosses arm, but rather they keep going until the hit its chest.
So to put it in a nutshell, it was good, could use some improvements, and this gets an 8/10, 4/5. Hope the next one is even better =)

WarpZone responds:

Thanks for the feedback. Higher difficulty is certianly on the roadmap. Not just by spawning more shots or making the enemies tougher, though that's sure to be part of it, but by requiring more from the player than just moving around while holding down the button.

After that, I plan on enhancing the bosses and adding other content to help diversify the different levels. Graphical enhancements are last on the list.

I agree that the smoke would be better if it matched the colors of the enemies. In fact, the original design for this game called for multiple fog effects, but fog slows down most any computer, so I decided I'd better limit it to one layer of fog, or even none at all. I might try making all the enemies in a particular level be red or green, which would let me change the fog effect, too.

[Darmoth85]

Bewitched!

The music was a nice touch, as well as the sound effects, it was there without getting annoying or repetitive. The graphics were awesome, the enemies and smoke effects were especially good. Though the game play did get a little repetitive, seeing essentially the same boss every round was a little disappointing. I would've loved to see some 'magical' power-ups too, they might break the repetitive cycle. The enemies weren't quite as repetitive, even if you only used a little pallet swapping and resizing. The witch was cute, but maybe I have a dirty mind because every time I looked at the way she clutched the broom... well yeah it looked a little like something else. Heh heh

The only other suggestions I have... maybe a highscore board, I got 149500 I believe, and perhaps adding a portrait of said cute witch we're flying around between rounds or at the main menu.

WarpZone responds:

Thanks for the suggestions, Darmoth. They're all pretty good ones. Right now the plan is to focus on powerups first, then upon making the gameplay more meaningful, then upon further diversifying the levels and adding new content. Extra eye candy comes last. The game is already pretty enough.

I wish I'd had this kind of feedback when I was working on the game. I thought getting lots of opinions would save me from making these kinds of mistakes. Next time I'll be sure and go through NG Alphas so the feedback I get is coming from you guys, my audience.

[talonCT]

entertaining holloween side scroll shooter

i enjoyed the semi-3D baddies. i would have liked to see more of an effect when an enemy dies. effective backgrounds and good sprites, good job.

WarpZone responds:

Hey, I'm glad you liked the graphics. :) But, you see that seven, there? You need to tell me how I could make that a 9.

If you don't tell me what's wrong, I can't fix it, my friend. :)

[RyantheMick]

I agree

The art and style wasway above par, but the lack of powerups and sense of achievement really killed this game. Please continue to work on this game as it has alot more potential.

WarpZone responds:

Will do, man. It was really down to the wire with this project, and the hours blown on dead-ends didn't help either... hours spent trying to get MP3s to import (turns out you have to install Quicktime if your bitrate is above a certian arbitrary number... WTF Adobe?) Numerous complicated formulas I had to redo from memory just because auto-format can't tell the difference between order-of-operations parenthesis and function parameter parenthesis (here's a hint, auto-format, how about you just DON'T remove ANY superfluous parenthesis, EVER? Where's THAT option, Adobe?) And don't get me started on the preloader. Those jerks at kuripa kept telling me "Get rid of the timeline, your game will go faster!" I didn't find out that preloaders need to be on the main timeline until it was too late.

Uh... I seem to have digressed a bit. Thanks for your feedback. Now that I've had sleep, I shall hunt down that elusive potential.

[Neorequiem]

nicely done but

you missed the power ups dude u^^ its a hell of the same thing over and over again.

WarpZone responds:

kk ^^