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Reviews for "Robotic Emergence"

This had great potential but you didn't achieve it

You really could've done a lot more with the story, gameplay, and generally polished it more, but you didn't, which is a real shame. Maybe it's because I study game design, maybe it's because I have a horrible affliction called "standards" but to get an "OMFG AWESOME GAME ILOVEU" response from me you'd need to fix a few things;
First of all, the story:
VERY interesting story, at the start. There are only 2 problems with the story, really. You didn't include a drive, and you didn't include an ending (it's kind of obvious, but I'm just highlighting what's important). Basically, it seems that the story started and finished and this is just a minigame epilogue to pad it out, except that you didn't include any 'game' in the backstory (that isn't a problem so much, the point is that it just seemed pointless in terms of story). It felt like there was no point whatsoever, And not having an ending made it moreso. Which group of robots am i representing, what am I supposed to be achieving, and why? Why would Judgement city be so important? Are robots sentient in their own right, and act just like humans? Maybe You're the last human alive or something, and [reasonGoesHere] (blah blah blah, come up with a story on your own then put it here. replace the 'last human alive' if you like).

Then the gameplay:
It was really, REALLY unpolished. from the tanks seeming to simply slide sideways when going vertically on roads, to the 'wall' being in the wrong perspective (were you going to make a horizontal wall, then just use the sprite fr a vertical wall after rotating it 90 degrees?), although technically they're both simply graphical, to the "spambot" nature of the game, the hard-counter EMP (you don't wipe out every single unit on the field, EVER, maybe make it wipe out all units on your side of the field and damage the units on the other side, and damage all of your units or something) and the incredibly slow-pace and lack of challenge (but don't force extreme challenge on players, EVER, make sure the average player {in your targeted audience, which in this case would be whoever goes on newgrounds} can pass a level with no retries, assuming they're trying their best), not to mention the lack of original units (average, fast weaklings, [literal AND metaphorical] tanks, medics, maybe the lightning unit might've been useful but it was situational at best and was never, ever necessary).

By the way, the survival REALLY DOES need work (ramp up the difficulty, make sure the ending doesn't stay forever surviveable, the "don't force extreme difficulty upon players" doesn't apply here unless you force the players to play endurance or you make endurance a requirement to advance the story), when I was playing "endurance" I left it for 20 minutes or something and now i have 40,000 money. I also left it on while typing this, it's impossible to lose accidentally (unless you do something really insanely stupid, which I don't think anyone with an IQ above 80 could achieve accidentally).

Now, the doctor* prescribes a full set of vigorous playtesting and a healthy diet of not interfering with playtests and actually fixing anything which all the playtesters hate. Here's some help so you can get some decent playtesting going:
(these are links for info on playtesting)
P1: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature /3963/the_silent_revolution_of_.php
P2: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature /3985/the_silent_revolution_of_.php
http://creators.xna.com/en-us/playtes ting
http://www.gamecareerguide.com/featur es/503/pro_game_dev_tips_play_.php
Last up, this article is the most directly important (if you have to read one, read this, and read all of it):
http://www.moddb.com/games/digitanks/
news/video-and-playtesting

Now, go achieve that potential.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING DOES NOT REFER TO MEDICAL PROCEDURE AND THE READER CLAIMS FAULT IF THEY ACCIDENTALLY KICK THEIR OWN HEAD IN FRUSTRATION OR SOMETHING EQUALLY DUMB

Pretty fun

Although now I know what it's like for the computer against a cheating RTS player. Sheesh, they can't even get out of their base anymore in judgement.

LOL

its like warfare but its robots

Good start, needs content and balance.

This is looking like a very fun game engine. I really like it, because it has a lot of potential. It is pretty fun to play, and fool around with.

However, my problem #1 is: too little content. There are just 5 levels, which is just too little. I would really like some sort of world map with regions (which are levels) which I have to conquer one after one, choosing what civilizations to attak, which territories to take. Maybe you could even add some sort of permanent upgrade system based on points you get for conquering regions, and special bonuses (like.. unlocking factories!) for conquering the right territories. This would fit the story and make the game fun for a longer time.

My problem #2 is balancing. Zerging is _far_ too strong. I just beat every level by just cramming as many small pyramids into the place (maybe adding some dark huts to get some roads below the main road), upgrading production rate and after that upgrading random things (usually, range first for more damage because more bots can shoot). After that, the enemy just gets overwhelmed. Even EMP cannot save them in that case, because ALL bots die and I produce more bots faster than he does. I think this results from the lack of area of effect damage to counter such large numbers of stuff and from too little benefit from the better bots. In fact, most larger bots are just bigger smaller bots (like, the tank is just a large shooty robot, while the mummy is just a small shooty bot, but those 5 mummies I can produce for 1 tank kill the tank thanks to overkill and too little fire rate of the tank), so overall having more smaller bots just offsets the statistics advantage of the larger bots. I'd like to see something like starcrafts psistorm added, or suicide bombing robots which can take out hordes of smaller weaker robots efficiently, but suck against bigger robots with more health.

So, overall I am going to vote for some 7/10. It is no clear 10, because it feels mostly like an engine demo due to length and balance, but it is fun and has potential.

However, I'm looking forward for a second version of this game and if it comes, I'd volunteer as some sort of beta-tester, I guess :)

????

Well i'll just give it a 10 assuming it's awesome. Because i can't play it for some reason. When i get to the level select screen and click one, none of them load. I've tried refreshing the page, restarting my browser but whenever i click any of the levels on the level select screen, it doesn't do anything.