Reviews for Space Station Jason

[etaw64]

Formidable length mars enjoyable gameplay

First of all, allow me to start with the main nagative of this game: The only reason I finished it was because of my intent to write a review for it. The game starts off quite slowly, and the level-by-level progression just seems like a mistake on your part.. That came out harshly. What I mean is that having to finish a level before moving to the next level, while acceptable, frustrates those looking for a challenge at a sooner time. Perhaps a point progression system, with X balls required to reach Y level, would have been a better choice?

Switching over to the positive side, your use of A & D was, in short, brilliant. It was the main plus of this game, and mid-jump switching made for a challenge that I personally have never experienced in gaming. I would say the same goes for the late levels with the robots; level 13 was frustrating, but in a "Later sense of accomplishment" sort of way, and I felt it was another rewarding challenge for those who kept on through the ridiculously easy parts.

I'm afraid there were more negatives, though. The portal world was unnecessarily difficult to navigate later on. (After the end, I needed to collect the one I'd missed from 8 and 10... Frustrating, and not in a good way.) The storyline was... lacking, though not much is expected from a platformer, and this caused no deduction as it was sufficient to set up the gameplay.

Graphics were impeccable, music was... honestly, the Olympics are on and it was just BG anyways, so no effect there. I considered rating this lower because it was item collection, a concept that was aggravatingly overdone in the Playstation days, but I have seen one so cleanly done in Flash so it was overruled.

There was an occasional bug where Jason wouldn't walk off the current block, but I couldn't create it when a wanted to so no help solving your problem there. Overall, your game becomes insanely addictive... sadly, it does so too late into the session to be a real classic. Your overall score is 7.75, rounded up to 8. That's good coming from me, so congratulations.

Phantasmagor responds:

Creating the right difficulty curve was perhaps one of the hardest aspects of the game. I wanted the game to start easy and amp up, but then of course if people found it too easy they would be bored. Getting the right balance was almost impossible!

You make a lot of good points and I may try and improve on them in the future.

Thanks for your review.

[nukulr]

alright

pretty good but a checkpoint midway through the level would hurt
challenging enough to be interesting but not so challenging that its frustrating.
the shifty camera was cool but a little annoying when all u wanna do is move to the side, i don't see why u shouldnt just be able to move with the up and down arrows.
anywy it was a decent game and if u fix those little problems it would be a 9 or 10

[soulreapd]

very mell made

I did not enjoy playing the game. I just couldn't get into it for some reason. Having said that, This game looks and plays amazingly. I think people like you are really pushing flash animation and gaming forward. It was crisp, clean, and straight-forward. Mind you, I did only play the first 3 levels before I lost interest, and I did feel as if the level design was lacking. However, I am giving 8 stars for a game that I didn't even like playing, so I think that says something.

Phantasmagor responds:

Thanks for playing and giving the game a chance. You really didn't play far enough into the game however to see the greater aspects of the game. As I mentioned above in the Author comments, you really need to play to level 5 to see the better levels and more interesting game play. The first 3 levels are very simple and kind of bland. I suppose it was a big mistake to make the first 3 levels so simple.

[AfterglowAmpharos]

Fun game!

You had me until level 7, where you have to flip the camera while in midair. Just not quite enough co-ordination to pull that off without plummeting to my doom.

That's a little much to expect from your player, I think. Especially since it can be hard to remember in a pinch if it's A or D that turns the correct direction.

But then you won me back in level 8 and 9. I liked the puzzles where you have to turn the camera to hop on the ceiling of something you couldn't in 2D.

Then I got a game over in level 9 between two laser with no ground between them. That was rough.
And, man, restarting from a game over only gives you one life? I don't think I can ever win the game in that case. Still, I had fun while it lasted.

[sharpnova]

how can a game with such nice level design, art, music, mechanics, animation fall into such a stupid outdated pitfall of limited lives?

that's so weird and absurd.