BenMarkson's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Shamaniac]

Cute. Very reminiscent of Samorost. I'm not sure if it was just the general lagginess, or whether some of the timing in simply off but it became an exercise in frustration. First time around I think I lost one the 'significant' clouds off the top of the screen.

I never did get the final two bark pieces and therefore the final assistant. Either the game is too buggy, or the triggers were too subtle for me. For example, I never did get the lever on the left, raised, island to work (no worms for me). Nor did I find the second pin for the dislocated branch (at least I think there is a second pin).

The zooming and panning is very imprecise. The triggering of some effects is unpredictable. In general I found the usage very fuzzy.

why are these canvas based games such CPU hogs? It basically constantly maxes out one core on my CPU. Even a static screen (like the help screen - which, btw, I couldn't find a way to leave) sits on max CPU. Basically it is horribly laggy. Thankfully, if you switch tabs it does relax the CPU.

CrounchyBrothers responds:

Hi & thanks for your feedback!
Sorry that you encountered so many issues and thanks for reporting it.
Most of the things you noticed are fixed now ;)

[A Missing Moon]

The jumping does get very tedious (and why Space is jump when 'W' or the Up Arrow are more intuitive, I have no idea), at the end there is no huzzah, and you can retry anytime you like but you can never quit, but I did enjoy the game.

The whole point'n click genre has become very mediocre and this makes a refreshing change.

[Click to save the day]

Desktop Computer Killer with rampant CPU for me.

[Air Wings - Missile Attack]

When a games fails to load I usually just move on (in our brave new WebGL, post-flash, world it happens increasingly often) but I'm bored so here you go...

Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at https://static.mygamesisland.ru/mobile/alternative_id/airwings.txt. (Reason: CORS header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' missing).

What kind of security do you guys use to play this game?

Gotta love unity ;)

devizgl responds:

Game is waiting while this file will appear :)
This is for emergency case

[Finding Fifi]

Played for a while (only 3/9 cards). Looked at the walkthrough (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEtC5Vg4PJZKInLsBLzomoA) for the 'golden button' and started to worry that this was going to be too subtle for me. This was perhaps not helped by the fact that I was finding everything to be very small (I would never have even noticed the spot to put the button, for example).

It all looks nice enough but for some reason I can't wholly put my finger on it feels uninviting - maybe because it relies heavily on some damn keen eyesight.

Before I gave up I had a quick peek at the five number slots solution and... yup, it starts with another hunt. Even worse, having placed the candle and the snow globe they both disappeared! I used that as an excuse to stop.

The game style is in the best tradition of escape games - unlike the hideous collect and place style that has come to dominate the genre - so please don't stop. My advice would be to rely on your puzzles without feeling there is a need to preface them with too much hide and seek.

I'm rating this high because I think you deserve more than my abortive attempt.

AndHalfAFish responds:

Thank you Ben, for your review and kind words. It is good advice, and I will definitely keep it in mind for a next game.

[Bear's Thirst For Honey]

Refreshingly nice escape game given how the quality of these games is in such decline. Having said that I almost gave up at the start. The only clue to the coloured circles and squares puzzle appears to be the (tiny) unzoomed image of the puzzle. I was only able to decipher this by doing a screen shot and zooming the image using graphics software. This, added with the fact that the puzzle is wrong - there are only two dark blue squares but four pink squares - I wonder how many people gave up at this point in the game?

Still, once past that initial puzzle the rest of the game was quite enjoyable.

Personally, I'd steer clear of the tedious puzzles, and anything that requires the eyesight of a hawk - your escapees maybe older than you think. ;-)

[Escape the Room]

This is an interesting game, albeit one I think I am doomed not to complete, the 7 button trial and error puzzle was too tedious for me, oh well. However, before I go, I will leave a couple of clues for others:

The arrow keys can be used to move.
The 'Z' key is the action key (for example to place things on buttons), and variously take and examine things, and so on.
The 'X' key opens the inventory, and is also a kind of a back button.

Avoid the mouse buttons, at best they don't work very well, at worst they will trigger the browser context menu in addition to in-game actions.