TINS Logo

Welcome, new user. Please log in or register.

Reviews

Showing 2 reviews by SiegeLord [2012]. all reviews

Laundry Day at Bananas Manor
by amarillion
all reviews of Laundry Day at Bananas Manor

Review by SiegeLord all reviews by SiegeLord

My first impression of playing Laundry day at bananas manor was that it was just a simple platformer... that impression dissappeared along with my character in the bottomless pit after I got to experience the disaster that is jumping in this game. Classically, jumping in platformers can be split into two categories... you can either control your character's horizontal velocity after jumping like normal, or you your horizontal velocity is fixed after you jump. This game adds a novel combination of those two mechanics: you can't alter the velocity normally once you jump... you can only alter the direction. Platforming with this mechanic is incredibly difficult, as it is impossible to make small adjustments in your landing spot. Frankly, the only way I got through the game was pretending that you couldn't alter your velocity at all during the jump and setting up the jump ahead of time. I suppose this mechanic is an interesting twist to something that would otherwise be a forgettable platformer, but I don't think it's a good mechanic nevertheless.

Once you spend all your lives figuring the jumping out, you'll learn that the nice introduction sequence (which I found very nice otherwise) is unskippable... luckily you don't need to see it if you have a password. Those two issues aside, the game reasonably fun to play.

The weapon selection is varied and the level design in principle encourages using different weapons for different situations.

The graphics are inventive but a bit basic. There are sound effects but no music.

Overall, I think it could have been a very good game, but jumping just ruined it.

In terms of the TINS rules, all rules were adequately touched upon without anything extra-ordinary. Primes were implemented somewhat weakly... there's really nothing that a naive user would be able to look at in the game and confidently say that it's a prime.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 3 Technical 4 Genre 3

Drakes
by Gassa
all reviews of Drakes

Review by SiegeLord all reviews by SiegeLord

Ouch... my finger hurts from playing this game...

Drakes is an interesting twist (I don't play these games I don't know how novel it is) on the marble matching games that are so common. A constant stream of crud falls from the sky and you need to make it dissapear by clicking it... sometimes when you click on things a dragon appears and if you pay close attention you'll note that that happens the number of things that disappears is prime. I first noticed it when I clicked 29 bones an a dragon appeared, but when I clicked 35 threads it did not... just kidding, it's impossible to count how many items are in the group and hope to win in such a fast paced game. It's an interesting idea but it just doesn't mesh with the game itself. Even ignoring the dragon bit (I think it just increases your score?) there is no real strategy in this game. My best score was gotten by simply constantly clicking on the items without regard to the number of items that would dissapear from my click. If I see a column that's too tall, I click up and down it and it dissapears. Otherwise I just go side to side across the rows. It's unfortunate that this brute force strategy is so effective, because otherwise this game idea has some potential.

The graphics are very good. It's too bad that the game doesn't have sound though... not even a tune to keep your mind of the endless clicking.

Overall it's a nice game for the genre, I think. Nothing in it really made me angry at it, so that's a plus.

The TINS rules are touched upon, but there's nothing too spectacular happening. The prime usage, as I mentioned above, is interesting but has to be ignored for you to have a chance of winning. I liked how parallax scrolling showed what all those tiny items are supposed to be, a nice touch. Anachronism was not implemented too well, I thought.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 3 Technical 4 Genre 2