Really fun and challenging game!!! Except it stopped registering that I completed levels! It only did this when I came back to continue though... fix your bugs and this would be awesome
Reviews for "GigaBuddy"
The Good: You know, I think I like this game for the reasons many other players hate it. It's got a refreshingly fast learning curve and it doesn't take long at all to get to the real action. The different blocks are cool too; their textures bring that feel of a retro game like Manic Miner (not to mention the cheesy level titles :P ), and they are interesting to come across and experiment with. There are a lot of levels and it's cool to be able to play them in a different order as long as you beat enough to advance to the next row. Props to you on that. The difficulty is what draws me to this game most; it not only gets really difficult really fast, but it stays that way throughout, getting somehow even more difficult until it's almost impossible, and I like that kind of game.
The Bad: There are things you want in a retro-throwback-style flash game, like sheer difficulty and pixelized graphics, but there are characteristics of games from the past that really should've stayed in the past. I'm talking about poor, jumpy controls and lack of instructions. Unless this game comes with a manual, and I assume it doesn't, you really have no idea what kills you, what bounces you, and what to do in general. Level 10, Cat's Cradle, is the perfect example. You're boxed in with no key to get out, and when you try moving and jumping around, you die for seemingly no reason. Then comes the moment of revelation where you notice the mysterious green hacky sacks you assumed were enemies of some sort. While these are a cool feature and deserve to be in the "The Good" section, they were introduced very poorly and given no explanation as to what they are or why they're connected to you. So, it turns out they move around copy-cat style and interact with objects just like you do; if they touch a key it unlocks doors, if they touch a spike they die, etc. But when they die so do you, so now the problem is figuring out how to get mold-ball 1 to the right-most platform on the top so mold-ball 2 can get the left-most platform to grab the key and free you. Trouble is, you can't reach the middle platform without a boost of some sort, and unless you know those coin things can give you an extra jump before you touch the ground. As there's no instructions that can tell you this, you're absolutely stuck until you try double-jumping out of sheer frustration and it magically works. This should not have to happen. Is it really that hard to include a text, either in an "instructions" section or in the description, that tells you what certain objects do? This was a problem back in the 8-bit age, but you can still bring the 8-bit age back without bringing its problems too. Speaking of which, the controls are very jumpy. They're not the worst, but it's still frustrating to have to lightly tap the keys every time you want to move less than an inch on the screen and avoid impaling yourself on the closely packed spikes. Also, the music is very repetitive and I don't see a mute button. Again, why not include this? Is it that hard to include that option? All these problems persisted in the Nintendo-Sega-Atari classics, but just because you're imitating the style of such games doesn't mean you have to make your programming so primitive.
The Fatal Problem: I turned off the computer, turned it back on, then came back to this game. When I did so, my progress was saved, but now it won't recognize me beating a level as beating a level. I don't understand why this happens or if it's only me who came across it, but I did come across it and it's very disappointing because I loved what I'd seen so far despite its shortcomings. If it wasn't for this, I'd have rated the game 3.5 to 4 stars, but because I lost the opportunity to play the full Gigabuddy experience, I'm going to have to rate it 2.5. Sorry.
Conclusion: Great concept and fantastic difficulty curve, but it falls victim to the reasons why the gaming community moved to the new generation games in the first place.
garageworldgames responds:
Thanks so much for the incredibly helpful/in-depth review! The notes you pointed out were very insightful. Great feedback that we will definitely take into account moving forward. As for the saving problem, we're sorry! We're testing/messing around with that now, so hopefully it'll be fixed tonight. If you decide to start a new game, it will hopefully save like it should. Keep me posted if you decide to come back.
I like this game a lot, but after level 23, it stopped registering that I completed levels, so it wouldn't let me start level 31, even though I finished 1-30.
The control is really a mess in this game. It seems like my character can't decide whether to over-respond or under-respond to my input, almost like it should be played with a joystick. But this is a PC game, and that means it has to play well with a digital pad (arrow keys).
Tighten the control, and it'll be acceptable.
The music is cool. The graphics are simple, but cool too. The gameplay are boring some times but, some levels are very well done.