Reviews

Review by elias all reviews by elias

Pyrotrash is an online multiplayer game of up to four players. Each player can choose one of the four beautifully animated characters:

Crisp packet
Rather slow, but strong attack. Burns good.

Milk carton
Faster, but weaker attack. Also burns.

Energy drink
Very fast, and can walk through fire without too much harm.

Burnt chicken
Slow, but fire resistant and can start fires.

After characters are chosen, the game begins in a random generated level. There are usually several floors connected by ladders. Each player can run around with their character and shoot. The goal is to survive the longest.

This opens the possibility of different strategies. One is to ignite lots of fires, then hide behind in an open space. If the other player is in a smaller space, and doesn\'t have a fire resistant characters, you will win for sure - if the other player runs through the fire to attack, he will lose a lot of health. If he waits, the fire will catch him sooner as he is in the smaller space.

Another strategy is to assault the opponent directly, before fires start spreading. Here it is important to know the strengths and weakness of your characters. E.g. if you have a fast bug weak one, try to dodge hits and use your speed for surprise attacks. And with more than 2 players, it\'s always good to keep an eye on all the other players.

In the games I played, I had a lot of fun, even though currently, it seems a bit unbalanced.. but if you can find a server with players, definitely worth playing a few games. With some improvements, I think this has the potential to be a great game.

But for a TINS entry, even the current version is quite polished and playable.

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical 4 Technical 5 Genre 4

Review by Onewing all reviews by Onewing

Good: Multiplayer functionality for extreme fun.
Bad: Reminds me of my lack of friends.
Runner up in: Best Characters of TINS 07

Pyrotrash is extremely ambitious, a multiplayer game with a unique setup for a 72hour competition. Surprisingly, it works really well, making it very 1337. Unfortunately, I didn’t really get to enjoy it without having other people to play.

The four different characters you play in Pyrotrash are extremely silly, giving the game a comic-esque mood. Each character has its own movement, appearance and attributes, which I’m sure makes playing multiplayer all the more fun since you can have your own personality.

I also like how the battle system works. It’s simple, but affective. Random worlds generate a different arena each game, so there’s plenty of replay value. Sure, there’s nothing that knocks me out of my chair in Pyrotrash, but there’s fun to be had and what more could you ask for a 72hour game? Nothing, that’s what…

Overall: Four funny characters is enough to give 4 points, but really I just think it’s a good game.
Artistical: The graphics are pretty week, but the fire is pretty neat. Cuteness is pretty indeed, so I will give you a pretty 3.
Technical: Given the readme, a lot of the code is reused. Also, I don’t remember any smoke…3 for ye.
Genre: I suppose the characters are the trash items? The genre wasn’t very strong. 2

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 3 Technical 3 Genre 2

Review by Raabinator all reviews by Raabinator

Pytotrash is a networked multiplayer game for up to four players.
The game takes place in a coal mine. At the start of a match each player chooses one out of four possible \'creatures\' as his character. Those \'creatures\' have different skills. They differ in moving speed, attack style, caused damage and fire sensibility. The \'creatures\' are not good balanced, so if you choose the right one, you are the winner. Additionally the mine is populated by some miners who run around very confused but don\'t harm the players.
Aim of the game is so be the last one alive. Players can be harmed by attacks of other players or fire. Players can also harm the miners. When a miner dies, fire is spread from its position and crawls along coal floors, walls and ceilings until it reaches an earth tile. If a player or miner runs into the fire, or the floor above one, he rapidly dies. So if fire is spread, the game is quickly over. Bad is that you can\'t shoot over the position of dead opponents or miners.
This game is made according to a news report where some miners died in a fire in a coal mine. The instructions say that the game shows you what really happened. So I think the rule of actual news event(s) is somehow fulfilled.
There is fire fx and smoke, which is part of the fire, in the game. The fx is adapted from someone others code as stated in the readme. This was not forbidden by the rules and the author had to change a lot to fit into his requirements, as stated in the readme. The cawling fire looks very nice, but it makes the game hard because you can be trapped into a corner. If you try to run over the fire (even in the floor above one on the ceiling) you die a quick death.
Also stated in the readme, a lot of code, including network stuff, was reused from his previous Speedhack 2006 entry (Bananza). The gfx seems to be self made. There is no music or sound in this game.
The garbage theme is not really hit, I think. Except for the creatures, a crisp packet, a milk bottle that fires sour milk, a energy drink, and a burnt chicken, which you can all judge for trash, if exhausted ones.
The network performance is not the best. I estimated a lag of about 300ms between a key press on one computer and the reaction on the other (in a LAN). If you fire an attack it is paused on the sending computer and started synchronously on every connected computer from the server. But you can\'t escape a projectile because of the lag. If one is hit on the firing computer the projectile follows the other player on his computer, which sometimes looks curious. Another issue is when someone leaves the game the others are not informed. His character stays at the last position.
A good point is the included chat function, you can send messages to all other players. The game can be played over the internet, if you find opponents.
Overal, it looks good for a 72 hour job, in spite of the reused code.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 2 Technical 3 Genre 1