Reviews for Joe's Minor Adventure

[TheSongSalad]

~Review Request Club~

I liked the game, and it was well done for the most part. I liked the animated instructions that were given, those were cool. The animation was pretty well done and the design didn't really have any issues. I thought the idea was a little simple to turn into an entire game, I felt like this should be a mini game while I was playing it. Everything was very professionally done though, which impressed me quite a lot.

I liked the game play, but I didn't really end up using the power-ups at all. I thought it could have used more depth. while it's a really simple game in concept, it needed something more in execution to avoid being a game you play once and never go back to. i'm not pretending to know what that is, as i'm just the critic, but i'm just throwing that out there. it is what it is i guess. newgrounds needs games you play once and never go back to just like it needs more complex games, i just know i try to develop the latter, not the former.

The art was very well done. From the menu buttons the the graphics themselves. the only complaint i had in this department was that the words looked a little odd in the instructions to me. that could just be me though, it went by quickly enough that it was pretty hard to notice. it really could just be the way i was looking at it i guess, but might be worth taking a look at.

there were no bugs in the game that i discovered, which is a testament to solid playtesting, and always makes a game better in my book. there's nothing worse than playing a game for 5 to 10 mins. only to discover a game breaking bug, so, major kudos for that.

I loved the sound in the game, it was one of my favorite parts of the submission. I also loved the play on words in the title of 'minor' and 'miner'. great work guys, and i know it's cliche, but keep it up. good luck.

~Review Request Club~

ProfessorFlash responds:

Well aren't flash games meant to be minigames? I personally grin every time I see these big complex games submitted that take you 10 minutes just to learn how to play. I like my games simple to get in to but still a challenge to master, I hope I achieved at least a bit of that with this game.

You're first to mention the word play in the title :). Good that someone noticed it :).
Thanks for your review.

[Animith]

Review Request Club

This was a fun game! Though to be fair I barely got anywhere because I kept managing to be on the wrong track when a train came a'coming. But it was fun, nonetheless.

Controls were nice, simple, easy to pick up; all very good things. Well-layed out instructions page, and the pregame-tutorial was a good touch (Although for some reason I only came across it on the second time of playing). In saying that, I think it moved a little too slowly. People don't need 15-20 seconds to take in each little control, so if there was a way to skip through parts of the tutorial or just speed it up in general that would have been nice.

The music was well chosen, fitted perfectly with the scene you were trying to set. The artwork I think is the best part about this; there's nothing really to fault about it and in general it's just a class higher than a fair few of the flash games you get around here, and compliments the game nicely.

The programming was also spot-on; no glitches that I could find, everything happens as it should and when it should and everything functions perfectly. Which again, is probably better than a fair bit of stuff on here. This is probably just due to my failings at the game, but I sometimes felt like the laying-out of the connectors was almost too random, and that I found myself stuck on a track with a train coming with nowhere possible to go as I'd already used my ghost power. But as I say, that could just be down to me not being very good. xD

Speaking of powerups, I think you should consider having them slowly regenerate and/or being able to pick powerups off the track once you've used them, because having them as one-shots does mean you have to use them a little more tactically, but can get a little irritating. That being said, I thought the difficulty gradient was nicely thought out and while the game did get harder, it did in a gradual way so you got used to the speed before it picked up again. All in all, a very polished piece here. A little room for improvement, perhaps, but as it stands it's one of those games you wouldn't mind playing for a good long while.

-Review Request Club

ProfessorFlash responds:

Problem with random is that it's random :). But I do have plenty of fail-saves there to make sure the tracks / obstacles spread out evenly, but sometimes even that isn't enough. That's why there's the two abilities to get you out of those sticky situations (the armored cart and the ghost cart).
Thanks for your thorough review :).

[Coop]

Good fun and very addictive

A simple game to get the hang of, but rather difficult to master. I think that this piece really does qualify as a game that will burn a lot of time to get a high score. With the reactions and foresight required, there is a great deal of skill involved, beneath the almost childish graphics that this game shows on the outside.

Perhaps there could be other challenges, where some of the bandits are careering down the track at the same time and you can try to put them off into or some such hazards. I would have suggested that other hazards could be a lack of track or falling rocks that appear while you're making your way down the rails.

Some improvements could be made to the graphics, but this would mostly be in the case of putting things in there to stop people from getting bored. A great choice of music and some pleasant feelings are to be made from playing this game. Keep up the good work :)

[Review Request Club]

ProfessorFlash responds:

That's what I hope, that people play this many times trying to get highscore. I've put up my own highscore up there and I'm waiting for someone to beat it. Now who doesn't want to beat the game creator in his own game? :)

I thought about the different enemies showing up in a cart and shooting you and rock slides coming down but that would have changed the whole game. I decided to go with what I got and leave those ideas for the sequel (if I make one).
Thanks for the review.

[Joshsouza]

Review Request Club

I thought this flash was pretty good and I really enjoyed it but the instructions were all weird because all of the connectors looks like something you should avoid but the name was pretty witty.

The art was really good and decent but I think it could be a bit better but the high scores table was pretty good too and it was good to do that. I think the animation was good too like the train coming and the warning for the train coming was all pretty cool plus everything else like that but why was the intro like not animated because it would be pretty cool if you did that.

I think you spent lots of time and effort onto this but it was pretty underrated to me because it looks like you spent a lot of time on this but the power up things was pretty cool too but the story wasn't that good and it is just a generic train chase but is there an end to this game because it's pretty stupid to have a game without an ending to it whatsoever unless there's a free play mode but it was a bit challenging to me.

Overall I think this is a pretty good game that needs a bit more attention on it because it looks like a pretty good game to me and I found it saddening that I didn't see it in the portal when it came out but it's pretty cool and I think you should keep up the good work.

~Review Request Club~

-Joshsouza

ProfessorFlash responds:

It's a highscore game so there's really no real ending to it. Get as much points as you can. But I felt that adding some sort of a story was still important. It answers the question "why am I doing this" for people. It may seem little silly but people find it important to understand the game like that. It gives reason for playing.
Thanks for your review.

[RogerBK]

Nice!

I liked the game concept, is very nice, the game works so nice, you had a nice idea and made a nice game!!

The graphics are awesome, they're not horrible, like lots and lots of games here in NG... you made a nice animation too, Joe is very well animated and drawed...

I liked the music, it's kind of a groovy bass, it is the perfect backgrounds music for this game.
The game itself is pretty easy, just to avoid some things in the way, watching to be always in the correct trail, this makes the game quite challenging, but is still funny...

I just think that the game could even be frontpaged, it's so nice and cool to play, you guys made a really good game, congratulatons!!

(Review Request Club)
Roger

ProfessorFlash responds:

Glad you liked the game. You think it's pretty easy? :) I'm still waiting for people to break the 30k score on the highscores. There's a challenge for you, or anyone else reading :).
Thanks for the review.