Score: 4

"A disappointing waste of a good physics engine"

submission: Magic Pen

date: April 9, 2008

I'm very impressed with the physics of this game. I'm still trying to figure out how to implement hinges and pins myself. I don't know whether you wrote the engine yourself or if you used something premade like Box2D Flash, but it's a very nice engine either way.

But this game hardly does anything with the engine! Not only did you neglect your chance to do something awesome with all this physics, you made a direct copy of the game Crayon Physics instead. If you're going to borrow someone's ideas, you might as well have the decency to only keep the good parts of it and throw out the bad. But I see no evidence of such discrimination here.

What do I mean? Well, you have this great physics engine, but then you force us to go through frustratingly awkward lengths just to interact with it. I want to be able to revel in the wild bouncing and swinging and falling and collapsing and exploding of a screen full of crazy physical objects, all easily stirred up and built up and broken down and mixed around by me, in real time! You could have done that with this engine, but you didn't! Why didn't you?

I hope your next game rectifies this unforgivable error. ;)

Score: 9

"I am overcome with awe... and fear"

submission: Madness: Deus Ex Machina

date: September 24, 2007

My g*d, that was both horrifying and overwhelmingly awe-inspiring. Maybe I'm just jaded with the whole Madness thing by now, but this felt so much more gut-wrenchingly violent than almost anything produced by Krinkels. I hate it and at the same time I'm strangely drawn to it.

I've never played any of the sort of video games you might have been inspired by in your use of this style, but there were so many new things I had never seen before... It gave me so many ideas. Even if all of that stuff - the style, the setting, the moves, the fights - was taken from existing games, putting it all together like that is much more original than most anything I've seen here.

And the technical ability necessary to pull off such complex scenes with such a high level of polish - it seems incredible to me. Did you just code your own fighting engine and record one play-through for this animation? It seems like it. You should release the game and profit mightily.

In all, you succeeded at something I never thought possible: You took Madness, and from it made something even more violent, more horrifying, more offensive, more dazzling... Somehow, taking the epic, archetypal characters of Madness and combining them with the slick, exaggerated, flashy style of, well whatever you call that style, pushes things to an even higher extreme. Only time will tell whether this altitudinous high will fade, or stand to challenge the exalted throne of Madness itself. ;p

Score: 7

"Good animation, unoriginal story"

submission: Xionic Madness

date: September 22, 2007

I laughed at the Shadow of the Colossus parody. :D That was my favorite part! (or not)

This must have been a colossal undertaking, especially for one person. Congratulations. I didn't find the story or characters particularly compelling (Madness was better in that respect) but there were a lot of interesting bits. And of course, the anime-ification of Madness was pretty original.

Though I wonder, couldn't you have tried a little harder to make your female character actually out of Madness parts? Like with just her goggles instead of those big anime eyes, on an oval and cross head? It was kind of silly to see one non-Madness character, but whatever.

At the very end there, I saw something that was very cool. When it went completely dark, and all you could see were the glowing lines of that one guy, that was a really cool style. Maybe I'll try it in a game.

Keep up the good work! :)

Score: 9

"One of my favorites of yours"

submission: {Flying Away}

date: April 19, 2007

This is a beautiful song. I really feel the sadness and joy of the song. It's a perfect tribute to someone you lost. Thank you. :)

Score: 9

"My favorite"

submission: My Own Blood On My Own Fists

date: September 19, 2006

This is one of my favorite songs here, because it is used in Greg-Anims' Move-It animation, which is one of my favorite animations. The music fits it so perfectly!

It is really refreshing and clarifying to hear this song. So you get a 9 for clarity (there's always room for improvement). :) I don't know about the other categories, so I gave you a 7 just to be safe.

If I make a game based on Move-It, could you help me make a soundtrack for it?