For Your Future Self is a very short, almost prototype of an eerie laboratory with a plot and mechanics about time travel. The dialog is flavorful, concise, and has good touches of humor. The audio and graphics work together to sell the setting.
I encountered multiple softlocks and errors in my playthrough, which I've DMed you about. In the future for a finished product, as I'm sure you know, easily triggered softlocks or errors aren't acceptable, and ruin the atmosphere especially in a game like this.
Since the game's so short, I feel I need to deduct a lot of points in the scores I'm giving it. But I liked it and I wish there was more. Sincerely, good job with your game, and thanks for participating and helping make this contest a memorable event in our community. :)
Overall: 3/10
Theme: 2/5
Level Design: 1/5
Atmosphere: 3/5
Audio: 3/5
I Wanna End My Growth is a cute adventure fangame with tons of spirited sprites in a cute art style, fun platforming, and epic-feeling bosses.
Great job creating a cohesive and rich cartoony atmosphere, with a lot of personality. The music choices were spot-on too. The intro and end cutscenes added some nice flavor too. The bosses are full of interesting attacks and creative characters.
The added mechanic of switching between, small, medium, and big kids was well-made, and kept things fresh while still playing like an IWBTG fangame. The level design did a good job exploring the different kid sizes, and also had situations with multiple options/strategies. Really great job here. I only wish the switching went smoother - I always forget which key does what kid, since they're not in size order, and it was also frustrating having to wait for the long "cooldown."
My biggest complaints are with the balance/pacing of certain segments. I know this section of the review is long, and the timeframe didn't allow for much testing, so don't take this too harshly. The spooky (second) area boss was thematically great, you successfully captured Cuphead's spirit. But the spider phase gave me frequent unreasonable RNG situations with the green orbs exploding closeby while and after I jumped over the spider. The main offender is the last phase though. While I love the frantic feeling and the projectile patterns, it's just too dense, feels too cramped, and the RNG, especially with the extreme curving, is too much. I died multiple times at the very end to unreasonable situations. I'm only complaining because it's the last phase, and it's also of a very long boss, so it wrecked my progression through the game which was very smooth up until there.
I also found most of the segments in the electric area to be too long compared to the rest of the game, and it felt bad to have my progress suddenly slow down a lot.
Okay, phew, that's the end of the negative section, hah. My ratings also incorporate game length, and I've lowered some scores artificially to separate the game scores a little more. Sincerely, good job with your game, and thanks for participating and helping make this contest a memorable event in our community. :)
Overall: 9/10
Theme: 5/5
Level Design: 4/5
Atmosphere: 5/5
Audio: 4/5
I Wanna Follow The Story is a whimsical walk through some simple environments. The game has interesting ideas, but could use a bit more love in sanding down the rough edges.
The music really makes the game's atmosphere, setting a mysterious tone. Good pick there. Details like the houses and the cryptic panel with colored circles and rectangles, while crude, add to the game's unique charm for me. The barren level design and non-existent production value add a little to this mysterious tone, but really I think some more populated levels with interesting gameplay and graphics would help this game be a lot better. You say you're inspired by The Stanley Parable, a game I also love. That game has a lot of narration, and a large variety of details to look at while you walk down each hallway. It's also paced quicker than your game, to avoid boring the player. I hope these remarks can nudge you in a good direction in your future games.
It took me a lot of time to locate how to enter the "glitched" ending by pulling the plug of the button. It's a cool idea, but I think it needs to be made more obvious; I couldn't even tell that it was a plug. Maybe if the outlet were visible on the background wall, or there were a sign with a picture warning not to unplug the button. It's better that it be slightly too obvious than to have most people miss it (in my opinion).
The glitched path itself I really liked, with the corrupted verions of graphics we've seen throughout the game. Good job there. I like the fact that there was a boss, and I like its sprite. Thematically it fit well to fight the "narrator" character, and I was excited to. However the boss itself was 1. way too long, 2. too hard compared to the rest of the game, and 3. mashing the spike is tedious.
I hope my critique is helpful to you, and more importantly I hope it doesn't discourage you at all, and I mean that. You will recieve harsh feedback from this community about your games, but just know that most of it comes from a place of helping you get better. I had fun with Follow The Story; it has some neat ideas. Sincerely, good job with your game, and thanks for participating and helping make this contest a memorable event in our community. :)
Overall: 2/10
Theme: 1/5
Level Design: 1/5
Atmosphere: 2/5
Audio: 2/5
I Wanna Grow Up mashes up Megaman and IWBTG fangames to give us the best of both worlds.
The level design really shines in places, remixing concepts like the floor-crawling enemies in more intricate and precise ways than possible in Mega Man, to create fun and interesting obstacles. The flames falling from the ceiling having slight RNG, rewarding precise movement control that's not feasible in Mega Man. There's many segments that do things like this and they're all great. The McDonald (Wily) stages then combined elements from the previous stages beautifully, better than I remember seeing in any Mega Man Game.
The bosses were great, again taking ideas from Mega Man and remixing them for IWBTG fangames. Though the butterfly and Ronald McDonald Your Magical Friend were (too) significantly harder for me. Also the game has a good amount of content, especially for the one month time frame.
Lots of nice production touches like the automatic checkpoints, variety of tiles, power-up cutscenes, sound effects (I love the block switch sound; explosions got annoying at times though). Graphics, though obviously many were taken from Mega Man, were very well put together and cohesive throughout the whole game.
One of my main complaints is the level design and enemy HP levels which frequently force/encourage you to quickly mash down flying Metools, orange accelerating "dogs", rabbits, and others. There's mashing in Mega Man, but this game has more, and it's too much for my tastes. I wish those were replaced with situations like the blue following enemies or the bosses, where carefully placed shots are rewarded. This complaint could be partly caused by me hardly ever remembering to use alternate weapons.
While I really enjoyed some segments, there were others that I disliked equally as much. I can't list them all out here, but if you pick the 10 longest segments, those would match up closely with my 10 least favorites. I felt like they were asking too much of me and it got frustrating and tedious.
The intro sequence was excellent and hilarious, and could honestly have a review of its own. The music was a great pick and set the perfect mood, and the story and writing were very charming and memorable. The humor in the end credits was also nice, as well as throughout the game with the stages and bosses.
I Wanna Grow Up made me smile from not only its humor, but its gameplay which give me nostalgia for Mega Man, while keeping things fresh. My ratings also incorporate game length, and I've lowered some scores artificially to separate the game scores a little more. Sincerely, good job with your game, and thanks for participating and helping make this contest a memorable event in our community. :)
Overall: 9/10
Theme: 3/5
Level Design: 4/5
Atmosphere: 5/5
Audio: 5/5
I Wanna Solumn is a short walk through two areas which have simple yet effective and interesting ideas, if a bit under-explored.
I like the obstacle of goombas popping out of pipes, it has a lot of potential, and I think you actually used it in a variety of interesting ways, such as the backtracking corridor, the 8 pipes in a row, and the "kill all goombas" section. Great job there. However, I think that the execution on these ideas was consistently lacking; the outdoor area could use a lot more polish, balance, and shorter segments.
The first segment had a long walk up until the only hard part, making it very tedious. It was also very tight timing and tricky maneuvers, which might be tolerable, except they were too precise and also at the end of the segment.
The "kill all goombas" segment had RNG that was frequently unfair or impossible, making it also un-fun. Some ideas to fix this are making the goombas' walk speed slower, make the ones from the left hole always walk right (and vice versa).
The 8 pipes segment suffers from the same "difficulty at the end of a long walk" problem as before. The bug where you die if you stomp on two goombas at once makes this segment un-fun too. A bug this obvious and obnoxious should have been either fixed or designed around. I had to skip this segment.
The boss has cool and balanced attacks, but it had a bit too much HP for my tastes.
I want to reiterate that every segment in the first area has legitimately good ideas, it's just the execution on them that needs some love.
The second area is a whole different story. I like the production (obviously it copies VVVVVV but still, well-copied) and the music choice. The "path hint" mechanic is again, a neat idea, but this time it was executed very well! It starts easy and then slowly ramps up, it doesn't have overly long or hard segments, there are no bugs. My one complaint is using the mouse to scroll the view was awkward; I'd prefer the view to scroll automatically, or use the arrow keys. The segments with the screen turning and flipping were clever and were quite fun to play.
I hope my feedback was helpful to you. Sincerely, good job with your game, and thanks for participating and helping make this contest a memorable event in our community. :)
Overall: 4/10
Theme: 1/5
Level Design: 2/5
Atmosphere: 2/5
Audio: 3/5
I wanna spread my wings is a whimsical and charming trek through a random variety of environments. The game is short and sweet, with no filler content; every segment feels purposeful.
Since the areas are fairly self-contained I'll go one by one. The underground factory area had solid fangame platforming with moving spikes and some limited-breath water, good stuff. The long save with 5 levers was tedious though. The escape from the factory was thematically well done. However the segment itself was just way too long and tedious; I spent almost 1/3 of my play time here. Half of the issue is the moving spike jumps at the very end that are just way too precise for the end of a long segment combined with the time pressure and screen shake.
The outdoors area is full of some standard, but quite fun and balanced platforming. The music is pleasant, the clouds are nice, and the brown blocks, though not unique, feel at home. This area is a great example to show that it's possible to do nice things with just brown blocks, spikes, and apples, if you know what you're doing.
The clouds area adds something new in each and every segment, keeping things very fresh while still cohesive thematically. The long cloud ride segment was a bit long for my tastes.
The abstract bordered area was very skillfully made, it caught me off guard, hah. The moving borders and orbs provided interesting obstacles which the level design explored well. The graphics are pretty and have a lot of attention to detail. Everything is well-programmed and smooth. The levels are fun and flow well. This area is one of the coolest things I've seen in a fangame, and I hope it inspires some people.
While the areas feel sort of "random", I enjoyed the overall atmosphere of the game. All the little things like placing down the watering can and the seed, the cutscene of the kid falling after getting the wings, the factory escaspe sequence, the cliffside end screen, they're quite charming and I appreciate them.
There aren't a lot of non-engine sounds added, but each one (like the save sound, orb sound, warp sound) were great. The music choices are also nice and fitting.
My ratings also incorporate game length, and I've lowered some scores artificially to separate the game scores a little more. Sincerely, good job with your game, and thanks for participating and helping make this contest a memorable event in our community. :)
Overall: 8/10
Theme: 3/5
Level Design: 4/5
Atmosphere: 4/5
Audio: 3/5
Kid World successfully captures the spirit of Super Mario World and brings it into an IWBTG fangame, with a few twists, and quite a few traps. Although the game is short, it's polished and there is no "filler" whatsoever.
The "format" of the game, with a world map and multiple objectives in each area, works quite well. I like the freedom of choosing which areas I want to revisit, and the option to take a break from an area I'm tired with. Minor thing: I wish the backspace to quit control was explained in-game.
Great job with the production value (obviously taken from Mario, but you translated it into a fangame well). The detailed world map added a lot, as well as things like the screen transition effect and the underwater effect. The first 2 levels had interesting and varied obstacles and traps, from the goombas, to the multiple types of fish, and sea urchins.
My main complaints are with the below few obstacles. I know this part is long, but it's not as important as the positive part above.
In the Super Mario Bros. area, I struggled for a long time figuring out how the tree trap at the end worked. Having an obstacle which isn't crystal-clear at the end of a long segment (especially one with traps) is a recipe for tedium. The tree's spinning makes it unclear that it moves down at an angle (which isn't usual for fangames), plus it moves quickly, plus the trigger is in a non-intuitive position. I had the same issue with the moving fish circle 2/3 through the water area; it's not clear how to dodge it, and it's so far into the segment.
The puzzle of the ghost house area is neat, but it wasn't intuitive at all for me, and so it was tedious trial and error. I think telegraphing would have helped, for example, having wooden tiles in a border around the door you just entered through, to show the player that it has some significance. Also, the coin trap at the end was infuriating, but I think I would have found it hilarious if the ghost house had gone quickly for me. That may have been too dangerous of a place for an end-of-segment trap.
Overall I enjoyed Kid World, despite my frustrations at the above parts. There are a lot of little things to find and enjoy. My ratings also incorporate game length, and I've lowered some scores artificially to separate the game scores a little more. Sincerely, good job with your game, and thanks for participating and helping make this contest a memorable event in our community. :)
Overall: 6/10
Theme: 2/5
Level Design: 3/5
Atmosphere: 4/5
Audio: 4/5
I wanna be the knight in shining armor is a Mattinvania fangame with a lot of attention to detail.
There are a lot of neat level design moments. The bosses have fun attacks that are unique from the common bosses in IWBTG fangames. The production value, with the tiling details and variety, sounds and music, animations, is really polished, and is a great example of repurposing commercial games' assets.
The shrink and grow mechanic is cute and well-programmed. Though there aren't any puzzles or combat situations involving decision-making with the mechanic, it's used in a way that just makes the world more playful. Climbing spiderwebs, and later once big again looking back on those tiny segments, is a fun feeling, and you provided a lot of those cute moments.
The game fully knows what it's doing as a Metroidvania - player upgrades fit well and are spaced out well, there are hidden rewards scattered throughout, the layout of the world fits together well.
My main complaints, similar to I Wanna Grow Up, are about some segments being frustrating and/or too long.Some examples are the final castle segment with the 3 small thwomps side by side, and the cave segment with 2 fireballs surrounding the big jumping guy, among others.
My ratings also incorporate game length, and I've lowered some scores artificially to separate the game scores a little more. Sincerely, good job with your game, and thanks for participating and helping make this contest a memorable event in our community. :)
Overall: 9/10
Theme: 5/5
Atmosphere: 5/5
Level Design: 4/5
Audio: 5/5