Reviews for Guy & Buddy

[Triarii]

Horrendous and horrendously frustrating...

Note: The 'violence' and 'humor' scores have little (if anything) to do with how good a game is... They are only there because they used to be in the sub-scores and are only a measure of how much violence and humor there is to be had in the game (if any). Also, the sub-score 'interactivity' has been replaced with 'gameplay'...
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A game's primary purpose is to amuse and entertain, so you know a game has failed when you literally have to FORCE yourself to keep playing it, as I did...

Graphics 4/10 (poor): The graphics were lackluster at best, with generous portions of (frequently grey) block colour, a poor drawing style and lame special effects, such as the boss' "block white" attack and the dull-as-dishwater "static" effect of the anti-ghost areas... The colours (other than the grey) were fairly nice to look at, if a little stark but really, a four in this category is probably being generous...

Style 6/10 (fair): The set pieces seemed a bit random, which caused the coherency of the package to falter significantly... I also didn't much like the characters, with the exception of the guy in the green suit, who actually had a few different expressions, whereas the other three characters were all rather "blank"... There didn't seem to be any serious bugs, however, so props for that... However, once again, a six in this category is probably being generous...

Sound:3/10 (very poor): There isn't much in the way of sound effects (and the ones that are there are generally very quiet, with the exception of the coin sound effect from Mario, which is at a decent volume) and the music is terribly repetitive, but at least it's somewhat entertaining to listen to (the first six dozen times at least)...

Violence 1/10 (slight violence): Any violence is at "cartoon antics" level at best (or worst, depending on your point of view)...

Gameplay 1/10 (terrible): At first the gameplay is mediocre and rather boring, then in the later stages it degenerates further into a frustrating mess... Some of the later stages were so difficult I literally died dozens of times and it was only through sheer force of willpower that I was able to see this game through to the end (complete with the spectacular anti-climax that was the bewilderingly easy final boss battle)... The problems are first that it is simply impossible to focus on and effectively control both characters at the same time, second that the controls simply stink (feeling stiff and unresponsive for the Guy and loose and sloppy for the Buddy, which gets particularly bad when she's carrying the Guy and he keeps slipping off when you try to move the Buddy at anything faster than a snail's pace) and third that the collision detection is questionable at best... It would sure be nice if the characters actually FITTED inside their hit boxes... What is this, a manic shooter? The first problem can't be fixed (it's an inherent flaw in the concept behind the core gameplay), but fixing the latter two problems and drastically improving the level design (I don't like to navigate moving obstacle courses in my spare time whilst also attempting to direct a friend in a separate obstacle course, do you?) could help mitigate that substantially... Once again, a one is probably generous as I honestly can't think of any significant redeeming factors that this mess has...

Humor 0/10 (no humor): None to speak of. There were a few attempts at humor, but these fell flat.

Overall 2/10 (bad): mediocre to poor graphics and fair to mediocre style I can put up with, but the near abysmal gameplay is simply inexcusable. I really do think I've been generous with these scores and should probably have knocked another point off of most of the categories. Frankly, I think the problem really does lie in the inherently flawed concept, you just can't control two characters effectively at the same time. I'd call this a failed experiment and I really think you should just drop this as a concept, rather than torturing yourself trying to make it work.

Flash gamers, don't bother with this one.

TaroNuke responds:

XD well at least it was constructive =]

I'm going to completely ignore 70% of what you said and focus on
the things you mentioned I could improve upon, and release a sequel XD

[filio]

its grate

but damn too hard or maybe I'm too seallyt hahahaha anyway I couldn't beat it but it was grate I'd like to see the end

[Soshidow]

good game

that was fun. i liked how you had to watch both characters as they could both die. if only one character could die it wouldnt be as challenging.

(like what pyrosian said)
maybe you should like make it so the ghost only gets stunned when hurt (or disapear and takes a couple of seconds to reform)
BUT
have a second difficulty (e.g. hard) and on that difficulty the ghost can die aswell like on this game.

[CapitalB]

good job

great game. nice job putting it together. never played a flash game like this.

[Pyrosian]

For every word of my praise that comes out....

...along comes quite a few phrases "and the horse you rode in on!".

The game mainly uses a combo of Mouse and Keyboard, similar to a shooter I saw called Big cat or something like that, and shows the one weakness of a lovely invention created by one Douglas Englebart, the computer mouse. While quite accurate, sometimes pinpoint, it is never quite as accurate when forced to be so while moving in a set path or moving quickly. For instance, when you move your mouse at something, your hand's momentum will usually make you overshoot by a small margin. Or, that if you take your hand off your mouse, it will "jump" a bit.

These things make games that require careful dextrous movements of a mouse through a hazardous path...a sharp pain in the rear. Doing this with a time limit while also having to control another character is almost maddening. I guarantee almost no one will be able to get to the final level with any points gained from level 1.

This is made even harder by the fact that in order for the cooperative parts of the game, where you carry your more tangible buddy around, he can easily fall off, even with the slightest, brisk stroke of the mouse. Much of the game will come from you trying to find the balance between moving slow enough to keep your passenger safe and fast enough to avoid death. Moving one's mouse off the game screen is always fatal, as the mouse will always zip back to the spot where it reentered, making the ghost ram the nearest forcefield.

Worse yet, there are parts where you are forced to maintain your ghost's position in a tiny or moving space whilst manipulating the guy with the keyboard, that can make you forget about it or cramp up your hand making sure you are perfectly still while doing the jumping.

The guy's jump is also a terrible, iffy jump (Jumping straight off the ghost girl...never works!) and the jumps required need a bit more playtesting, as a jump I can only make 50% of the time and I'm not allowed to use the ghost girl as help feels a bit broken.

The fact that both characters can die independently of each other (prompting the restart of the stage is infuriating, as you can get so far...only for the ghost girl to accidentally bump into something and you have to do it all over again. Why does the ghost girl need to get to the exit portal as well anyway? Shouldn't it be just the guy? And how can the ghost girl die again? Couldn't she just reform elsewhere, without us having to restart everything?

As the previous paragraph is full of gripes, you'll be right in guessing this game is hard. Really hard, particularly past lvl 4. But the premise itself is novel, the story is silly, and the boss fights (while sometimes aggravating) are very good exercise for multitasking.

A good idea would be to try and play with a friend, or, "buddy" of yours, and try and team through it.

Hope for a sequel, where the ghost shoots lasers, and the field merely stuns the ghost (Consider how lethal that'd be for the Sadako Boss? You throw him above Her, accidentally get stunned, and now there's no one to catch him before he falls into the hole!)

TaroNuke responds:

Good review, don't worry, the sequel will have an innovative new feature,
better jumping and less broken difficulty.

Also---
I don't think I mentioned Sadako's name anywhere in this game.
Good eye. (Please PM me and tell me what the hell XD)