Reviews for Duke Dashington

[Ericho]

I love this game! I know I really shouldn't, simply because of how difficult it is. What do you know? This truly motivated me to keep playing the game! I'm pretty much lost with Atlantis. It's amazing how fun you make something so hard.

You have to keep on going and going with this. I love finding out what's coming up next! Its difficulty seems to change. Maybe it's just how I play the game. It's great as a puzzle game too. You really have to figure out where to go with it. I'm so glad this is on the front page!

[Simius]

I personally don't like two things about this game:

1. When pausing the game there is only an option to retry that particular room. I'd would be neat if there was also an option to retry the entire level, so you don't need to go trough all those menu's.
2. It doesn't have a little bar, like most games have, that tells you what level you're playing. This would be useful, because you can more easily remember when a difficult level is coming up.

The "story" doesn't affect the gameplay much, but it is weird. It makes very little sense. The bird stealing the treasures feels a bit pointless. I was expecting there to be a boss-level where you had to steal the treasures back, but there wasn't. I'm basically clueless as to why this stuff with the bird is in the game. The fact that Duke can instantly leave after finishing a building is also just stupid, as some levels wouldn't even be possible in reverse. It would have been more logical if Duke was somehow trapped in the building by some sadistic wizard creature. That way the story would have made more sense. But the story as it is now is not really annoying, it's only just weird; it doesn't stop the game from being fabulous.

I'm also a little disappointed that there wasn't a boss battle. But that's just my own fault I guess, because I shouldn't really be expecting there to be a boss if there aren't even any living enemies in this game. But I would have liked seeing a boss with these gameplay mechanics. I imagine some beast -that bird for example- chasing you trough different rooms or something like that.

What I like about this game is that it's quite unique even though it's a platformer. It also has quite a lot of levels. Similar games like this that are posted on Newgrounds only ever have 20 levels or so, but this one has 120, which I find impressive.

AdventureIslands responds:

The game was originally created for a game jam in 48 hours with only handful of levels, so the story took a backseat. I focused on adding more levels and traps rather than work on a story because the game worked fine how it was.

If I ever make a proper sequel for the game, I want it to have actual story, perhaps even boss battles or escape sequence "boss" levels.

[NeonSpider]

Excellent game as always. I frequently find you consistently make some of the best games on all of Newgrounds.

Also I find it incredible that you somehow completed all this in just 48 hours. I would think the graphics or music alone would take much longer than that to produce. The level designs are quite excellent too, for the most part, with a few exceptions.

Level 24 in Hades Volcano Run is simply ridiculous and badly-designed. It's very twitch and pixel-perfection sensitive and sometimes you'll lose because of a sticky bug. If anyone is having a problem getting through the Hades Volcano Run with zero deaths, I bet anything that level is the main culprit. Maybe there's a more reasonable way to complete that stage but the only way I know requires pixel perfection and twitch-accuracy.

The sticky bug in that level doesn't always trigger, but when it does you stick to the vertical platform once you touch it and, for example, instead of dashing left from there once you press left, you dash while sticking to the platform, then fall to your death.

For those confused about the hitbox, it seems you get a bit more leeway in the hat area, if that helps. Assume the top of his collision box is near the bottom of his hat.

I will assume he's wearing a magic hat. This makes the most sense considering wearing a hat in those conditions would otherwise be completely impractical, plus how is he able to dash like that? It's gotta be a magic hat!

AdventureIslands responds:

This is post-jam version, not the original 48 hour entry

[SuperSapito]

*gets all medals

Superb game, hard but not impossible. I like the way it makes us push ourselves in order to complete it without deaths.

[Papakrow]

This week i came back to try to unlock more medals from your games because you are one of the best in this site, i finally did get all the medals in this game, it is one of my favorites from your games, i like the challenge from the limit of movements with just dashing, plus the obstacles,timing and puzzles makes this game really challenging, even more for the medals(Flawless volcano run is kinda of a hell) , the game is fair but can be really hard bcause of the medals, i dont think is a problem in this case because no one is obligated to get the medals, i just wished that there's a restart from the beggining, because i was kinda getting angry from dying and needing to click again and again, sometimes i needed some seconds for me to click and go to the level select etc , but at the end this was satisfying.
The art style and music are fine, i like the themes of the levels, every temple with it's on visual and challenges , implementing new mechanics like the swim. One last thing was that sometimes i pressed to dash and didn't this happened after playing a lot, i think maybe was because my pc, but i even lose one medal because of this, almost on the final and i didn't dash because of this kinda lag...but anyway, a good game and i happy to finally beat 100%, wish you can make more new games with your challenges and creativity