Score: 6

"Song creation is messy."

submission: RhythmWorld

date: January 24, 2009

Is there a way to create the song in frets using the arrow keys? JKL; are way too close together for me and I'd like to be able to set the keys myself. Or just slow down the rate of scrolling so as to make complicated songs easier for the player to catch up with. For that matter, placing the notes in a text file and importing it would add more precision, I noticed some songs had inconsistent timing.

Score: 9

"Could be bigger, but really good anyway."

submission: Drastic Plastic

date: December 19, 2008

There was room for more upgrade paths but I like the concept. I actually managed to beat the final boss with no upgrades just by timing my moves carefully and dodging attacks. Decorating the robot was fun, but one or two more logo choices would be cool. Overall, good game with room to expand.

Score: 4

"You're no toot oriole, either."

submission: dragBall

date: December 4, 2008

Having a lives limit makes it go from fun puzzle game to frustrating chore, which is why I stopped playing when I got to the precision-aiming puzzles in Set 3. Having to make these precision aims with the mouse was frustrating, I'd almost prefer to manually set the speed and direction with sliders because the controls make it more reflex than puzzle. Finally, the game lost points in my ranking because you seem to have forgotten something important:

YOU ARE NOT GLaDOS.

Interrupting me after every puzzle to tell me that something happened was rather annoying, especially as I already knew what I did wrong because I read the tutorial before starting. Yes, there's a tutorial, I got it. I read it all before even clicking on the start button, and then you tried to show it to me again. I'm at least glad you let me skip it the second time. But the combination tutorial before playing + tutorial again before REALLY playing + in-game tutorial that fails to be the guiding role of even a twisted mastermind A.I. = no incentive to keep playing the difficult puzzles with hairpin trigger timing.

All that being said, the puzzles themselves were great. You got points back for great level design.

Score: 8

"Pretty good as far as mushroom chases go."

submission: Mario's 1UP Adventure

date: November 8, 2008

Love the music and the plot. I especially like the details, such as the notion that Mario would use a fireball to light up a dark cave, and the concept that the mario brothers get worked up about each others' death until Peach reminds them that they have multiple lives. And the ending really made me laugh. Peach is so possessive sometimes.

Score: 9

"Familiar but better."

submission: Zilch

date: November 6, 2008

Reminds me of cosmic wimpout, but with more strategy. In CW you just keep rolling and check the rules to see if you're allowed to stop. Then you can choose whether to keep going. In this game there are lots more stopping points, so there's much more strategy in whether to keep going. Great menus and awards by the way!

Score: 7

"Original enough to keep me going."

submission: Gemworks

date: August 12, 2008

Nice game, original, addicting, and colorful. I like the powerups and the "build a city" things.

here it comes...

BUT, I'd prefer if the different colored gems were slightly different shapes, because I'm color weak and had trouble telling the difference between green/yellow and blue/purple gems. The reds were okay and I could easily distinguish "imperfect" gems from their dull hues.

Score: 5

"Meh. Not bad, but I've seen better."

submission: Feel the Beat (F2Jam)

date: August 7, 2008

I like the concept, you've got the rhythm down pat, and there's plenty of options to customize your experience. The fact that the order of the notes on screen seems to have nothing to do with the pitch of the notes is not nearly as bad as the one thing that ruined it for me:

You are punished for holding hold notes for too long. WTF? I can't even tell when the hold notes end, because the rounded ends make i hard to know whether the entire hold note has gone past yet, and on almost every hold note I find myself letting go as soon as the rounded tip has vanished, to be greeted with "miss."
To get it right, I have to let go when the rounded tip lines up with the circle, NOT the bottom of the screen. This is unintuitive and is the main reason I did not give this a higher rating.

The obvious way to fix this, to me at least, would be to allow a longer leeway after the note passes for you to let go of it. This would be intuitive, because players are already used to games that only care if they get the front end of the note perfect and just award bonus points if you get the end perfect, too. At least, every rhythm game I play frequently does. Maybe I'm wrong, and there's a fan base that enjoys this sort of thing, but I can't stand it, for me it leads to the sort of "NO! I pressed the OTHER button, I know I did!" that in turn leads to swearing at video games with unintuitive response timing.

Score: 10

"Somewhere between DDR and Guitar Hero, but better."

submission: Incubus Pulsum

date: July 29, 2008

It took me a couple tries to figure out how the button combinations work, but it's really the 4 directions and 6 2-button combos of DDR, plus the Strum Bar from Guitar Hero, arranged in a colorful rainbow circle, with great music and an awesome stop-the-aliens-from-invading-earth storyline. It's hard enough to keep my trying to improve my score without being impossible (except maybe in that "insane" mode).
10/10 and 5/5 because I can't think of anything this needs, (I know I normally hate Strum-Bar-like mechanics but this game works exceedingly well with it and can therefore get my full-points review) plus the animation is great and the music is well-synched.

And for those of you who don't get it, you have to hold down two buttons for many combinations, hold the strike key for centipedes, and strike on the beat of the music wherever possible.

Score: 9

"Yes. My favorite of all the music games."

submission: SC Guitar Maniac Dx 3

date: July 27, 2008

You know, this game doesn't seem that original at first glance. It's a little like Guitar Hero. But do you know why I think this is the best music game ever? You had the courage to do something that other rhythm games have cautiously avoided:

You removed that damn strum bar.

Every other decent rhythm game has made some variation on the strum bar, meaning that your notes don't appear at the same time as you press the buttons. By removing it, you instantly made the controls, well, INTUITIVE! Wow, who would have thought that a game is more fun when one note corresponds to one button! You even divided the hold notes from the strum notes! Everything is so crisp, and none of that "Gah I don't want to play on the drum beat, I want to play along to the song" confusion that some games have.

Basically, the game looks familiar, except that you took everything annoying out and made it work. (You even gave the option to turn off the voice if you find THAT annoying, but I don't usually).

Why then is this a 9/10 review and not a 10/10 review? Well, I guess that while I absolutely adore your mastery of the genre and removal of all my pet peeves, I still look for something new.

*cough*leveleditor*cough*

Score: 6

"Not what I expected, but not bad."

submission: Beat Bounce

date: July 27, 2008

I like the custom sprites and the different bouncy balls to choose from. I especially like the point system and how the balls fall in relation to the music. My only complaint would be that the platforms move so fast that you can't see ahead to plan for the next platform, and the platforms don't seem to be very related to the music. Basically, I'm frustrated because I can't anticipate the platforms using the music. The animations are awesome, and the game is well made, it's just a little unusual.