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Reviews for "Cube and Me - KS Demo"

Well, it's a neat concept, but even as a demo, it's woefully scattered. I'll try to give you a really concise, bulleted list since you seem to actually be reading/replying to the reviews:

1. I get that interaction with the player is one of the main ways of keeping them engaged, but it's awful and tedious to have to manually click on literally everything- envelopes, items, selling, crafting. Looting shouldn't be a chore, that's supposed to be the "reward" for doing other tedious tasks.

2. Lack of guidance. Specifically regarding the dungeon. I sat around the first level for 15 minutes trying to figure out how to go home before eventually getting an escape rope from a mid-dungeon shop.

3. Envelopes. Your minigame inside a game was a neat little thing for me to spend 5 minutes getting good at, and then summarily being frustrated about having to learn in the first place. Five minutes in the dungeon makes it apparent that envelopes are a waste of time and the only reason one might ever need to make use of them is if all of their cubes die. A much more streamlined mechanic would be to just make adoption free with a smallish cooldown timer so you couldn't adopt over and over for a perfect cube. The envelopes, unless made integral to the natural progression of the game, need to go.

4. Lack of party options. Why can't I re-order my party in the dungeon? I shouldn't have to waste an escape rope if I decide a floor in that my main and my assist should switch places. Secondary to that, if I bring two "main" cubes, why can't I bench one of them? It's clear that health is an important issue, so why should I have to watch my cube slowly die in front of me when I have two perfectly healthy assist cubes hangin' out doing nothing on the sidelines? And why can't I switch mid-dungeon to just using one main cube?

5. Crafting. I had no idea for the first half hour that crafting the same item twice could result in different stats. I was also just barking at the wind trying to figure out what went with what to craft what- and further, what on earth crafting level did, since it didn't appear to make individually crafted items better.

6. Theme vs. Outcome. This is a preference issue I have, and others may not share it, but it makes me scratch my head to see a pair of sunglasses contributing anything to attack, defense, or speed. Same with the rest of the items. I realize that cubes don't really have the appendages to wear boots or wield swords, but maybe you could incorporate different theming so that it's a little more sensible? Like crafting other cubes into a weapon that attaches to your cube. I don't know what substance they're made of, but if it's slime, break a cube down into a slime axe or something- not that that makes a whole lot more sense, since the cubes are shooting weird lasers or something. Point is: it comes off like a dress-up game where stats are arbitrarily attributed to the costume pieces in a fashion that has no basis in logic.

7. The cube powers are pretty cool. Why can't I know anything about the power they use until after I take it into the dungeon? (It seems like it might be color-based, but I don't know that after an hour of gameplay, so it's a moot point unless I'm told from the getgo.)

8. Scattered. So, you're going for something unique, which I get, but in the process, you dabble a bit in pet simulator, life simulator, rpg, dungeon crawler, crafting game - but you don't really hit hard on any of the points. I enjoy the combat system, though it gets stale after a while- but other than that, everything feels like the start of an idea for a totally different game that you mashed all into one.

9. Bullets. Why does my character have a gun, why does that gun heal my cube or spawn platforms of all things, and what necessitates this mechanic being separate from the standard inventory? Why not just make it so you can hotkey certain inventory items and use them mid-combat for certain effects? Bullets are confusing mechanically and thematically as an addition.

10. I understand that this is just a demo, but without knowing what your plans are for the dungeon's layout, holy stuff is it bland. It's the stuff of dungeon crawling cliche nightmares- I can the same 3 enemies, see an empty room, a room with one or two crates, or occasionally one of four or so scripted rooms that function to serve me in some way. This goes back to picking a direction and sticking with it. The resources wasted developing the envelope game could have gone into making the dungeon something other than a repetitive slog.

11. Why the main character? Is there really a role the main character plays? If these robots are the size of the cubes, why am I not stepping on them or hitting them with a baseball bat? I feel like the game would be more streamlined if you just took control of the cubes yourself. As a little aside on top of the need to have human elements in this game, what's with flying to California? (And why is it free?)

I say none of this to discourage you, but I'm not sure something like this is ready for kickstarter. I think you should pick a direction and really push in that direction without getting distracted by mechanics that you want to design, but don't really fit with the game.

Good luck~

jegnan1 responds:

First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to write out all these points. It helps a lot to get some in depth reviews like this. Let me go over these.

1. I do have to admit there are too many clicking involved in this game. I will try to find a way to reduce it and make it more intuitive.
2. The dungeon needs more guidance for sure. I was thinking about fixing that earlier today.
3. Envelopes is a bit problematic. I do think of removing it from time to time, as it is not really a necessity in some ways and as you said, it can get tedious. However, this is the only "safe" method of earning money that the game has to offer at the moment. You mention auto enabling adoption from time to time and whatnot, but there are other things in the game that requires money. We also plan to balance the game so that having some spending money in the dungeon will raise the survival chance of your Cubes. If I can come up with something more stress free, I would implement that, but I'm currently sort of being chased by time and pressure.
4. This will definitely be in the future. It's something that we couldn't include due to time concerns. Also you can swap Main cube with Assist cube by holding Q or W during combat. Something that wasn't explained in the game.
5. Every hat that you create/obtain will have randomly generated range of stats depending on it. Crafting level basically adjusts your success rate. If you try to craft a level 2 hat while being level 1 in craft, your chance of success is 50%. If you are crafting something in the same level as your craft level, it's 100% always. We will add crafting recipe book (or just make a wiki) if this game makes it.
6. This point, I can't really agree. I will have to see what others think about this aspect further.
7. Yes. We will do something to cover this aspect very soon.
8. I understand where you are coming from with this. We will try to look into it and see if we can streamline things better.
9. This is a great point. I will think of a way to merge them together smoothly.
10. I understand, we haven't had much time to put as much feature as we wanted into the dungeons. This is something we want to focus on as we add more content.
11. This sounds like a problem coming from us removing the cinematic and story dialogues from the build. This is merely a demo, so I didn't think this part was necessary. Also, 20mb upload limit on newgrounds.

Some of your comments did hit me like a truck, but overall these are really solid points you are making here. Thank you very, very much for your time and review! These are very helpful!!

its a very well thought I game I enjoyed the bit I played, but maybe its just my computer but the mouse cursor in the game was very laggy feeling, and also you should have it where when you hover over an action or item, a description of what that action is or item is may be displayed. but other than that it was a good game.

jegnan1 responds:

Thank you! Your mouse cursor was probably lagging due to the game taking up a lot of physical memory. We will fix this issue when we port the game to another language.

The description on hovering on icons/items are already in. It shows up if you stay over the stuff for over .8 seconds. Did it not work for you?

Good game. I will be supporting the Green light of this game on steam. The only thing currently holding back a better score is apparently me being stuck on the first floor of the dungeon. After clearing the first floor i returned to the room were the tube says down. However clicking this yields nothing and there seems to be no other options to progress or even head back. Perhaps a dungeon level progression tutorial would prove beneficial. Also had noticed a game breaking glitch, if you hit M in a room with an enemy inside just before the fight starts, you will be taken to the battle room but the battle will never truly begin, (No enemies start to fall) this breaking progress til one refreshes. Otherwise the game seems sound.

jegnan1 responds:

Did you try clicking on the black circle part of the tube? I'm very sorry for the trouble. We will increase the hitbox for this.

We will try to do something about progression tutorial. Didn't really have the time to put it in yet, but yes I agree it's a necessity.

The M was a dev key that was unintentionally left in the demo. We will remove it for the next fix.

Thanks for playing!!

Well it's pretty fun while it lasted

But seriously, you've made mistakes with kick starter.

1, you're demanding a little too much (as of goal)
2, flash game for $12?? most games starts with $10, and they even had higher costs...
3, no early bird discount?
4, your beta is 2x more expensive, seriously?

jegnan1 responds:

Thanks for playing! Here are the answers to your questions!

1. I need food and shelter to make this game. Also, it would be my responsibility and pride to deliver a good product if I were to get funded. I'm not sure if I can lower the goal and risk being financially unstable later while still having the responsibility to deliver.
2. It won't be flash if it gets funded. As you can see with the physical memory issue, I don't think flash is an optimal platform for us either way. Porting is the first thing we will do if the campaign is funded.
3. It was under consideration, but it was dismissed. Too late to add one at this point I feel because there are already people backing 12.
4. Yes, I don't want too many people getting a hold of early build of the game for reasons.

okay so....wow. cool concept but....why is there no way to leave the dungeon? why is there no sell all button for envelopes? why am i folding envelopes to begin with? not crazy laptop friendly. i managed. why is there no story? whats the purpose of keeping my pets happy? do they fight better? how do i check the status of my pets? oh and the little hat button didn't work...some of the time? it was bizarre. finally figured out e opened the menu (i know its in the book but i was in the dungeon at the time). and why does the m key start the map over? like i said cool but needs tweaking. i like the assist and the different types of cubes.

jegnan1 responds:

-There are actually two ways of leaving the dungeon. You can either use the escape rope item in your inventory( you are given two at the beginning of the game), or you can use the teleporter that may appear in one of the floors in the dungeon.
-you are folding envelopes so you can buy and prepare for your adventure. Cubes permanently die in the dungeon and this is the safest way of making money. We had no time for sell all function.
-stats are shown in the inventory screen. you can hover over them to see what they are for. Yes, mood increases damage.
-inventory icon not working will be addressed in the quick fix coming soon.
-we will remove m key. That was for testing.

Thanks