Score: 9

"Nice!"

submission: Christmas with Dad and Me

date: December 31, 2009

You did a really good job with this flash! Those 2-3 weeks paid off! The characters look great, and as difficult it is to display emotions through skull-masks, you pulled it off very well. The body-language was animated beautifully to carry the story along...it was some really nice work!

I lol'd that their chainsaw was right there by the door with the umbrellas and I lol'd at the ending as well! The rest, I genuinely felt pathos for the kid...his sulked over depression with the bag of coal and his murderously upset face extracted an "Awwww" out of me....same as the final embrace.

Because even homicidal internet maniacs can have touching family moments...

Dialogue was proportioned out perfectly in my opinion. Though Santa only had one line, it was necessary to the plot, and any additional dialogue wasn't needed. Sound effects were great! Especially the start-up of the chainsaw as Dad's approaching.

My ONLY complaint......ONLY single solitary complaint:

That preloader screen is really boring and bland....this one complaint is set back, however, by it's quick load-time! Still, I can't give it a ten because the preloader was weakly executed, but I most certainly can vote a five.

That I have no problem with at all. :D

Great job! Keep up the good work, and gratz on Daily 1st!

Score: 9

"Normally I loathe stick figure movies..."

submission: The stickroom

date: December 29, 2009

But this made me lol. :D

Great job! Funny premise...ultimately what saved the flash for me was the character's unique body-language...they moved well for a stick animation, and you can tell they were all hand drawn. You displayed a great amount of effort into this, so I'm doing my best to save it by voting five. More-over, you showed conscious effort in syncing the action with the music...a point that seems to be lost for most people, and I feel like it deserves recognition......even if (most of) the Matrix soundtrack is rapidly approaching the "decade old" age. (Just fuckin' with ya :P)

The facial expressions, the visual comedy is what stands this flash out from other millions of xiao xiao wannabe's throughout Newgrounds' history. In the future, I'd like to see what you can do with amped up creativity....from here on out, strive to constantly out-do your last animation.

Your second flash will be better than your first, third better than the rest, and so on and so forth. In other words, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

Score: 7

"It was charming."

submission: A Newgrounds Christmas

date: December 25, 2009

Very awesome for the holiday spirit, and NG fanboys throughout the world. The cameo's were well done, although there seemed to be more emphasis on Swain's Blockhead and Mastermind than anything else...almost making it disproportionate with other cameo's. It's like, "We got Tom Fulp, Swain, JohnnyUtah, Swain, Egoraptor, Swain, this guy, and Swain!" y'know?

(Don't get me wrong...I love Mastermind. :P)

That, and Egoraptor's humor seemed....strained. The Kenstar reference was weakly plopped onto stage, as if to say, "Here." and walk off. That whole bit where Egoraptor was all over the place about that arm-wrestling match tried SO hard, I felt embarrassed FOR him.

In-all, I think what would've helped the flash tremendously is if it had a plot; The Grinch wanted to silence the citizens of Whoville, Polar Express challenged faith on a mystical journey to the North Pole. Present a conflict, a story structure...stuff like that. Y'know, WRITE something....this would normally be the point in the review where adding content like that would help the score, but my opinion can't beat over the feverish preteens that five it the moment they see the turtle from Toss the Turtle convulse in a puddle of it's own juices.

References seem to take precedence over creative material in the eyes of the average user.

*sigh* ....Oh well.

Voted five. Merry X-Mas!

Score: 6

"Impressive Animation!"

submission: May the Force be with you

date: November 11, 2009

You got really cool dynamic camera motion, but when the clone troopers first came in, it got a little too shaky, making it difficult to follow. Moreover, you're limiting your visual potential by keeping it at that terminal side-scroller view.

Think about it...by keeping it in that same 2D perspective, you have almost no diversity in-between shots. It would be much more exciting if you mixed it up.

You're also limiting your visual potential by keeping them as sticks. In my eyes, that's very lazy and unoriginal. Dish out simple character designs, and make them more...lively. This flash demonstrates you have the ABILITY to animate, so if you're going to do it, do it right. :D

The voice acting kinda came out of left field when they/he first spoke on the speeders...it was almost too clarifiable considering they're going 50-90 mph on those things, but I digress. If you had set something up before the fight, allowing the audience to follow how these characters fell into conflict, that would be tight, and it would prepare us for dialogue later...but in all honesty, that final line "May the force be with you" seemed so snobby, it kinda disgusted me.

The special effects will probably reflect high scores among other users...as they should, because they looked great! Being a Star Wars nerd myself, though, I'm having difficulty understanding a blue/silver/red AT-AT in the same shot as a Clone War era drop-ship...again, though, I digress. :P

I gave it a 3. Keep up the good work!

Score: 10

"Pretty badass!"

submission: End is the Beginning

date: November 10, 2009

Great visuals and overall, well done!

My only complaint, and has been my complaint with EVERY flash music video, is the footage for the chorus is more-or-less the same each time the chorus plays (I'm aware of how each are different from one another...that's why it's "more-or-less")...I always thought to myself how much more impressive that, even as the song progresses and takes you new places, it KEEPS taking you new places in familiar parts of the song....

...but then again, I listen to a lot of Prog-rock. lol...

I thought you did a great job! Never stop animating, because with time, you'll only get better and better, pulling off even more complex visuals.

...like the spinning, 3/4th's shadowed globe...that LOOKED GREAT, and I have no idea how you did that...

Voted Five.

Score: 10

"Damn this game!"

submission: 3D Runner Arcade

date: November 5, 2009

It's about as addictive as jacking off and cigarettes; I couldn't, for the life of me, stop.

I'm in class, and I'm just casually blamming and saving flashes, when I stumbled across this thing...I was going to briefly play it, and vote accordingly, but FML, it had me ensnared.

Time, after time, after time, I kept trying to beat my own score. Students over my shoulder gave it a shot, and it just got worse and worse. As I got closer to beating my own score, I would get more and more outraged whenever I died.

This game is addicting as hell. Mad props! The only thing I would add are transitioning backgrounds...like, every 200 distance it would shift into something new with some cool, distracting effects, to up the challenge.

Voted five!

Score: 8

"I'm having difficulty believing this is your first"

submission: Death's Shadow 1

date: October 31, 2009

...because it's pretty damn good.

-There are a few minor spelling errors you should check up on. (Off the top of my head, I knew there was "longe" instead of "longer" , but there might be others.)
-There were also a few minor inconsistencies with the character designs. When the black guy first went down, he had that photorealism to him like the other faces did, but from then on he was vector drawn. Although the photorealism added to the gritty details, and only complimented the rest of the flash's very "Noir" feel, I would try to keep designs consistent throughout in the future.
-The green font...it's not that I outright have a problem with it, but there's just something I don't like about the look of the fonts. Possibly because that shade of green didn't mesh well with the background, or maybe it's just the design of the font...I would switch it up in that area.

Other than that, though, it was very interesting. Like I said, it had a really nice "noir" grit to it. The garbled voices were a little odd, but unique to the flash's credit. If you were to build on this, I'd love to see how deep you could make the story arch in this red-sun, bleak world of lawlessness.

In other words, keep up the good work! You'll only get better from here on out by doing more and more! Keep pumping out flashes for the experience of becoming more comfortable with animating, and challenge yourself by focusing on animation techniques you're not particularly good at.

Once you attack your weaknesses in animation, you'll quickly become a power-house, because if this REALLY IS your first flash, that's pretty incredible.

Score: 10

"Omg, did you write this?"

submission: Pokemon: Explained

date: October 23, 2009

I actually read every word...I don't care if I was just trolled; that was still a good read! I laughed out loud a couple of times because, although completely ridiculous, it made sense...and puts one helluva dark twist on Pokemon in general.

Score: 8

"I'm not gonna lie..."

submission: Evil Cat

date: October 18, 2009

For a first flash, that was pretty damn good! You have an eye for consistency, and I understand how difficult it is starting out, making things appear to move smoothly; that shit ain't easy! You pulled it off pretty good!

The sound effects were crisp, the music went well with what was going on...and unlike a lot of first flashes, it had content with some form of structure....albeit basic, it doesn't matter because the purpose of this flash is an exercise in your ability to animate.

I say keep up the good work! Practice every opportunity you get! It didn't get a perfect 10 because with the borders and quality of the animation, it didn't seem like something made in flash, and I took off a point because some sounds stood out louder than others...try to keep all sounds in proportion with one another.

You're doing great! Voted 5.

Score: 7

"Original, but just too damn short."

submission: Glass Fish Rhythm

date: October 16, 2009

Lemme start by saying I love retro games; I grew up on the 8-bit NES. On top of that, I love music and music based games. Naturally, I had to give this flash game a shot.

With a hefty, big scaled screen, and consistent graphics throughout, this game delivered in the visuals department! Even gave a good, clean, original introduction cutscene! Although I'll have to admit, it's a little confusing after the Wizard disappears...

Immediately I picked up on how being turned to glass would effect the gameplay...really, that's a clever way to explain WHY you would die by touching things like in games like Silver Surfer...HE wasn't made out of glass, and just a tap would knock his ass down. Why more games haven't touched on this premise? I dunno...

But I'm getting side-tracked; it was confusing in the beginning because our protagonist never talks, wasn't clearly seen, or established as being our hero. Since the Bully was more distinct looking among the fish with his hat, had speaking roles, and continued speaking after the Wizard, I was under the impression that we were supposed to be the asshole bully fish...Our protagonist is mute? I thought he was frozen solid for some reason...all of the other fish did...but it was a minor misunderstanding that was quickly corrected in the beginning of the first level. Just thought I should share my reaction to how the intro was set up.

The gameplay was incredibly unique...key events happening along the side-scroller to the music was a neat touch, and the mobile save points were also very interesting. The moment that first statue starting blowing up in tune with the music, I grinned widely and proclaimed how awesome this game was going to be...I literally had to stop, scroll down and five it right then because I was pleased with anticipation.

The level went on, and the structure of the game held up solidly by changing the pace with the haunted ship, following the asshole fish. Still grinning, I trudged on...facing minor difficulties with the shifting ghost-fish and bats...

...wait...Bats? I thought we were in Atlantis! This aren't Aquabats, are they?

...No...not THOSE Aquabats...

Then we got to the whales mouth, and I'm like...Ohh, this oughta be interesting! Anticipating that I was going to encounter the mid-point of the level...maybe face a sub-boss (tee-hee! "Sub" boss...they're underwater...). Little was I aware of my grim impending disappointment.

It's not to say that the level was designed badly...the first time I heard the song, I thought it was awesome! So awesome that I honestly wanted it to go on longer to see what it would develop into, so you can understand that I was a little bummed getting to the final boss so soon. But, it was no biggie.

Oh shit. I died. Good thing I left an egg right by that cannon!

Wait, what? I gotta do the whole level over? ...Well, okay...at least it's short. Go through it again...jamming out a little lighter. Bounce the fireballs back into the Wizard...FUCK. Got hit again...

It became incredibly annoying not being able to save yourself from getting around that level...the boss fight was premature in it's arrival in the game, and what I didn't get was why the whole premise was discarded for the boss-fight. When Mega Man plays through the game, he runs, slides, jumps, and shoots. When he fights bosses, he does the same thing. When Starfox plays through a game, he bombs, blasts, brakes, boosts, and barrel rolls...When there's a boss, it's the same thing. This little fish played through the game timing his movements to music, level after level...why was all of that changed for the boss-fight? We get traded out from the catchy soundtrack we've been hearing for an comparitively bland and boring boss-theme. Take after Dr. Wily and make the final boss music the best out of the whole game!

The final fight wouldn't be a problem if the fish weren't as sluggish in the movements, but it's just rubbing our faces in it when we have to drone through the level repeatedly. Finally I just got fed up with it, and wrote the review.

Great game, but needs a sequel