Reviews for Raider: Episode 1

[CaptAcid]

Good Fun

I really liked alot of things about this platformer. It was very nostalgic, I liked the colors, music, and animations. Enemy variety was decent. The gameplay was on the border for me, going from challenging to hard. The story/universe looked interesting as well, even though we only got a peek at it so far.

The jump mechanic was fine for the most part except for the closed in areas where there were spikes, ghosts and turrets all going. I understand the challenge but considering the number of oppurtunites you are given to get hurt, fall, etc, it sometimes felt a bit excessive. Timing some of the jumps required until waiting the last literal second, allowing no room for error (latent jumping).

I couldnt help but notice something you said in another review, about "punishing" the player. I believe games should be fun and challenging, but certainly not frustrating. In order to have challenge there has to be a certain degree of difficulty, but to design the game with "punishment" in mind seems counteractive to a game itself...which is supposed to be fun.

Having said that, this game is pretty good as it is. Just wish the min/max of the jump was a little tweaked. I noticed some of the level design took into account that you expected the player to jump max and float into the ceiling. Since that is counter intuitive to most platformers, you might want to throw that expectation onto one of the ingame signboards, because it makes seemingly impossible jumps possible once considered.

Good Luck on future flashes!

[TheReviewGuy]

Great fun

I love this little retro style platformer. Every element is in there. The sword and blaster worked just perfectly for certain situations. The graphics were very retro, but still very smooth and enjoyable.

I think the colour needs a little working. You might not need to implement it in a single stage, maybe for your next four stages. But if ever you compile all of them into one game, it would be nice to see some colour variations.

Also, I got pretty tired of having to hold down the jump key to make a maximum height jump. It's relatively useless when I don't actually need any form of a low jump to pass through any of the levels. You can do one of two things. You can either make the jump a max one right away without having to hold down the jump button, or you could make a jump collide with the roof so that you wouldn't hover in the air for a short period of time. If the character actually bumped into the roof, then yes I would need that lower jump to get past places where the roof was low. That would make a lot more sense.

Certain spike areas were a one time kill. If you're going to implement spikes that only take a certain amount of health, might I suggest putting 'rescue' platforms at certain stretches of spikes? I mean, some of the spikes were so far down that you couldn't hop out of them when you made a mistake, which basically doomed you instantly. You couldn't run anywhere or jump anywhere safe. And that's very frustrating.

Also, I didn't like the fact that when you got hit, you'd drop down ladders. That's especially crappy when the ladders have no floor and the bottom was full of spikes. One touch and I'd plummet to my doom.

Some things that need to be addressed, but overall this is very good. I look forward to the next couple of stages.

Pseudolonewolf responds:

The next few levels will look far more interesting; this one was originally built as a sort of test for the engine that I ended up using anyway but I didn't really change the graphics...

There are places where you do need to jump at less than maximum height, especially in the other levels (which I've made some of but not refined them enough for release yet). Parts with short ladders and spikes on the roof, for example.
Generally I use roof spikes instead of head bumping to necessitate low jumps because I saw the 'head sliding along the roof' thing in some old games and wanted to include it because it amused me. o_O

I should probably change some of the deep spike pits so that there's some way to get out of them, but hmm... I wonder if it'd make things LOOK worse...
Oh well. I'll do it anyway, probably.

Falling off ladders when hit is quite intentional and it's in many old platformers like Megaman, etc. I can't remember playing a game where getting hit while on a ladder DOESN'T make you fall, actually, and it seems far too forgiving, that...
If being hit makes you fall off, then that just means that patience and carefulness are encouraged, which I think is a good thing,
I don't like the idea of mistakes being so minor and 'unpunished', which is so common in modern games... It's sort of like the 'you're great the way you are!' mentality which I also don't like...

Anyway, thank you for the lengthy review. It's appreciated.

[Patton89]

Fine....

But seriously, even with easy mode, the game has parts that you have to repeat again, again, again and again. It was to be expected, but still, if i have to try a part again and again untill i master it and can move on to another part of a game where i have to master certain ladder/spike/platform sequence, it gets too repetetive.
I have completed megaman 2 and 1, so i dont really suck at platformers.
The background would be okay, but all you see is few colours, and the game looks brown, you mainly see 4 colours, blue,a lot of brown, gray, and green. Some variation in the background colour and even in the enemies would have made it better.

Pseudolonewolf responds:

The later levels look more visually interesting... This one's sort of disappointingly bland-looking because it was originally made as a test level for the engine which I ended up refining and using anyway. The other levels have more effort put into their looks.

[Sub-Zerox]

Core! This same is smooth and Retro

Cool Game. I often had the feeling it was one of those gamemaker games for some reason.

However I liked the pixel artwork and concept.Sure its a ploatformer however its SOLID. The movement and mechanics are great and I like the way the robots blow up. Reminds me of em oldschool games.

The only thing I'm wondering is the fact the music is in MIDI format.I guess thats why I got that impression.Also did you get inspired to make that blue guy from Halo or something? He looks like an Elite.

Good game though,Like I said its a solid performer.

Pseudolonewolf responds:

I usually compose my music in MIDI format largely because I like to compose that way and I like the sound in the same way that I like pixel graphics... It seems that people largely consider music and graphics to have only one single scale of 'goodness' with 'bad' at one end and 'good' at the other. Games that don't have 'good' (realistic) graphics therefore are just closer to 'bad', and music that doesn't sound 'good' (again, realistic) is also considered just closer to 'bad' because it's not tried hard enough to get up close to the 'good' end... Or something. o_O
I don't see things that way, and think that MIDI music is appealing in its own way, aside from the usual sort of sound quality that people go for.

It also goes really well with pixel graphics!

Oh, and I've never played Halo (I don't like FPS games at all), so it'd be only coincidence if the character in this looks like anything from that.

[Atur]

Yup.. I agree with Alter-native

This game is definitely the best oldskul platformer on NG..

It is one of the top games I've played online.

I too feel it is a lot like MegaMan and metroid.. which was the reason I was hoping you could collect upgrads.. haha

Words of praide do little justice to this wonderful 8-bit style game.