Great game, great concept!
However, I think the game could improve if you put some storyline in it and make it more challenging.
Rack some brains! It's "the study of words"!
Reviews for "Ononmastica"
I like the simplicity of the game, however, if you strip it down to its raw form, its just pushing blocks (which happen to be words) together left or right, with the occasional twist (i.e., rocket). It's arty, nice track, but I personally think it's missing something, but don't know what…maybe a bit of action which doesn't just include the arrow buttons- like shooting a couple of letters to make a word…? Or mini games where you need to spell out a word to progress. None the less, a good time waster. :)
3.7/5
I liked the sequel and wanted to play the prequel, but it keeps on telling me that I need to get the newest version of Adobe Flash Player, but I have the newest version...
Ouch, ouch, ouch.
First off, "Onomastica" is misspelled in the page title. (It's fine in the game; the typo is specifically on the Newgrounds page, as "Ononmastica".)
Secondly, the game is almost pathetically short, and both the gameplay and the wordplay are at best uninspired. (At the very least you could have had "ROC" fly violently away.)
Finally, strictly as a platformer, it's occasionally confusing and frustrating, with walls and floors being almost everywhere invisible; this made it impossible to see progress, or its lack, while moving. (At the very least a faded, optionally parallax-layered background full of lorem ipsum and/or newsprint would have been nice -- and would have eliminated the need for that jarring flashing arrow that comes up when you hit an invisible wall, since you'd have had a visual cue already.)
The programming at least is solid -- I found no bugs -- and while the graphic design and music would have been grating in the longer game that this needed to be, they suited this one well enough.
Ultimately this is a pale shadow of works like ASCIIvania or Silent Conversation, or alternatively of Ad Verbum or Counterfeit Monkey. It's interesting neither from a paronomastic nor a platforming perspective.
I don't see what the big deal is. Putting the wow-factor aside, this game is boring and unoriginal. You can't see if you're moving unless there are words in the frame, and you can't see where the ground is until you're touching it. Besides that, it's just jumping and that's it.
The wow-factor, being the pop-art style, is only so interesting. I personally don't care for it, but apparently it was enough to get people to like this otherwise boring mechanic. Without it I imagine this game resting at 2.5 stars.