Animith's Reviews

[CoolJaw: T.T. V-V]

Epic. 'Nuff said.

Alright, I'm going to start with the pedantic parts because I have a pretty high standard set for your stuff now so I feel a need to point out the little faults constantly because they're what's letting you down more than anything else.

1-Spelling. There's still a fair few typo's in this, most of which Steph covered. Really, really consider finding a proofreader, I'm sure a fair few people in the club wouldn't mind just looking through it, because as I said last time and maybe the time before, it's such a simple thing to fix and so aggravating that it's still a problem in your flashes.
2-The advert in the corner. Quite distracting, it would have been nice for it to somehow be able to disappear if you clicked a button. I get wanting the impressions/exposure, but having that moving image in the corner really didn't help things.

That aside: Dude. So glad I found the RRC, because I'd've never found this otherwise.

Definitely one of the darkest episodes you have. With the kid, especially; most people tend to avoid the threat of infanticide, just because it's so much more disturbing and disgusting with murder, and so as soon as you see the frame on that wall, you start to get uneasy, very quickly.

The artwork, as always, was stunning. One favourite would probably be the frame with Colin explaining how he wouldn't help Mason, and despite the relative lack of colour you can really sense the emotion there...to be fair, it probably took Colin a lot not to kill this guy right in front of him, given what he'd done...though it's interesting that we don't know Mason's fate...yet. ;D Does he survive his horrible wounds in the end, does his kid manage to stay sane, will either try and find revenge? Either way though, nice batch of karma for him...to save his son's life, he had to relive Malik's horrible fate.

Even moreso that Colin didn't come clean with Malik about it. Maybe he realised Malik wouldn't take it all that well, and it's not like any of them really have much sanity to share between them...if anything, Mason was probably the most sane, because he'd managed to work past his past.

The standoff with Malik and Colin was really nicely done' you got to see that Malik's vendetta extended way past Colin's, almost past the point of sanity; with Mason alive, Malik could kill his child and have Mason have to bear the burden of being "responsible" for his sons death...but with Malik believing Mason dead, it just seems like he was taking his anger out on an innocent for no reason other than madness. The frame with Colin standing behind Malik is perhaps my favourite of the series; it kind of mirrors the one we saw a few episodes before with the detective, but this one is far more malicious.

Annd I'm running out of characters, so I will stop rambling. In general though, this was a kickass conclusion. And yet again, you have an epic cliffhanger...as if people needed an extra reason to want to see Act 3.

You tied up a lot of loose ends, but there's still a few fates left uncertain and a few questions left unanswered. Can't wait for act 3, I'm almost curious to see if you can get even darker than you did here. Really, excellent, excellent work. You created a total nightmare, and it's an awesome to read through. Recommending this to every horror fan I know...now.

-Review Request Club

Celx-Requin responds:

This review was epic as always...
I'm going to start working on the third act tomorrow.
I hopefully should get at least one chapter of the last act done before I head out on my business trip :)

Thanks again your reviews in particular have been very helpful!
Sincerely,
- Celx

[The Sketch Collab 2010]

Review Request Club

Really nicely done, overall. Obviously there's a great amount of work that's gone into this, and that's definitely to be commended. And a fair few of these were really outstandingly done, which is always nice to see.

Like a couple of other people have said, I think maybe if there was some kind of theme to follow or vague story to base a flash on this would have been a little more coherent...not that this is bad for not having pieces related to eachother, but I think having a theme other than what it's 'drawn' on may be an idea to consider.

I liked the music, but it drowned out the one or two flashes which had sound effects, so I think either you should have not had sound effects, or had the music turned down a little for the ones WITH sound effects, so people could hear what was being said a little more. Or even just a mute music button would've been good, because while the music's alright, it may not be to everyone's taste, and no-one complains about having a mute button available.

Really nicely done, overall. Congrats on the daily first, and guess we'll see you next year for Collab '11? :)

-Review Request Club

[CoolJaw: T.T. IIII-V]

Awesome.

Yay, number 4! It'll be interesting to see how you can tie up all (or maybe just most) of the loose ends of this chapter in these next two episodes without it sounding to long-overdrawn-explanation-y. Because you answered a lot of questions with the last episode, but opened up a whole set of new ones at the same time, so I'm hoping to see a few of those cleared up here.

On the first run-through, I can see a lot of improvements from last time; the speech bubbles kind of come in one after the other, so your eyes know what parts to read first so the story flows well together, and there's no obviously noticeable typos in the speech, which is nice, because it means crazy grammar pedants like myself can enjoy the rest of the story, xD Though I did pick up on three which my mind feels obliged to tell you about:

"And the man with the serpents smile..."--There should be an apostrophe in serpent's.
"Mason left, and Malik, and I were left in the hands..."--You don't need the comma between 'Malik' and 'and I'
"Now 3 decades later, I'm at Masons door"--There should be an apostrophe in Mason's.

---
Anyway. Still really liking the artwork! The way it's mostly black-and-white, but with the odd splashes of colour in the red blood and green uniforms kinda gives it this dark film noir edge that I really like. It also makes me think that maybe in the future (Perhaps the third chapter?) you could play with colour a little bit more, maybe even have some of the more crucial scenes in near-full colour, or completely devoid of it. Though I do really like this current aesthetic; it almost forces you to focus on the more gory aspects because your eye goes straight for the colour...which tends to be the colour of someone's open throat or something equally as delightful. The drawing between the panels does seem to vary more than somewhat, but it's not incredibly detrimental to the flash as a whole; the entire scenario's a little messed up and jagged, so I don't see why the drawing can't sometimes reflect the harsh mania of the reality.

The development of the storyline was really nicely done. It starts tying everything together; how they all met, why everyone's out to get Mason, why Malik is so very disfigured...
Though it does make me wonder. Scissors do seem to be the weapon of choice; with the man in the first episode, and with Malik here...they both seem to be going for the nose as well...perhaps there is a connection between the two? I almost get the feeling that Colin's going to be looking at an enemy who's not all quite there...but I guess that will (hopefully) be revealed in the chapter conclusion. This was probably one of my favourite parts of this chapter though, purely for the story arcs of it and how things have started to fall into place for the conclusion...though DAMN YOU for making another cliffhanger! :P You HAD to leave it right there, didntcha?

Anyway, I'll end my ramble there. Still very much enjoying this, looking forward to the conclusion of this and the beginning of chapter 3!

-Review Request Club

Celx-Requin responds:

Your rambles are always fun, and informative!
I need to end with cliffhangers, or else people wont salivate over the next one :D

Thanks again!
- Celx

[Bounce the Coffin Dodgers]

Review Request Club

Ahaha, love the opening title screen. Nice friendly graphic, there. :P
One thing I would say is that the yellow text of the instructions were pretty hard to read over the blue sky; they were fine in the title screen as they had a pretty thick black shadow, but not so much in the instructions. Anyway, onwards:

I think the difficulty ramp needs to be tinkered with. I love the fact that they fall at different speeds, that's a great dimension to have taken, but I pretty much got nowhere...fast xD

As always with these kind of games, it's the kind of thing that everyone with any sort of gaming history has played at least 4 times before, so you have a whole lot of wiggle room for development. Going the coffin-dodger route was pretty damn novel and the different falling speeds were good, but would get repetitive...or at least I'd imagine so, if my games lasted any longer than 40 seconds a time xD So maybe adding in different locales, maybe the odd powerup/powerdown or so, like having a larger blanket to bounce off or having a longer distance to travel...or as some people have said, the chance to upgrade in a shop to try and make things easier. You have a lot of scope to do a lot of things, and I think that while this is a solid game, you had a chance to go even crazier than coffin dodgers :P 'Tis a nice bit of addicting fun, though, I'm sure I'll be back once I've finished off a few more reviews. Game and Watch, FTW!

-Review Request Club

SantoNinoDeCebu responds:

Ah thank for pointing out the menu screen is hard to read, I totally didn't notice that after I lightened the background colour!
Ye the difficulty has been mentioned a few times and I'll definitely tweak it for my next lot of games.

Since a single game and watch game if fairly limited, I wouldn't really want to spend to long pimping only one up. Therefore, i intend to make a wee game involving a few of my favourite titles (thinking this, manhole, chef and that whack a mole one) and try weave them together in a little story mode. Not to sure how you can weave together this to cooking cakes in the kitchen though :p

Hopefully that would solve the ''gets old fast'', ''needs more variety''!

Cheers, J

[Pyroscape]

LOL.

Ahahahahaha xD Awesome.

In a very very very distant way, this sort of reminded me of :the game:. It's not meant to be hard, it's not meant to be groundbreaking. it's meant to be a set of simple games with lots of humour thrown in to make it interesting. It's just meant to be fun to play for the relative mindlessness of it. And this is what this is. But you have to feel sorry for how bad Nick's day just got :O

I mean, if it was just the games by themselves, you'd probably think "...yeah, this wasn't all that good", but with the...storyline...:P it had the funny aspect to it.

I ended up just buttonmashing for the airplane game. Tried clicking, but realised I was too lazy to work out the timing so I just put the mouse in line with the plain and kept clicking 'til the clouds were gone. The room ashamedly took me forever, because I instantly thought the water would be the solution...but no, Nick was apparently thirsty :P

Anyway. It is what it is! A fun little game, but with all the games working as they should, there weren't any programming or coding issues that I could see, and it'd definitely be fun to see what madness is gonna happen with the sequel :P

-Review Request Club

Fro responds:

The sequel will match both of the people who want gaming and humor. Thanks. :)

[Drug the mouse]

Review Request Club

A very odd twist on a pretty well-used game idea. There were a few flaws with this, but in general it's addicting-as-always and none of the things really stopped you from playing the game, which is good.

The heart-shapes being a bad thing was confusing, because the heart symbol is the pretty universal game symbol for health/life/good things, so it might be an idea to change at least that shape; even if you just had it as a red pill, and say 'red pills are bad', then that problem would be solved.

The animation was a little choppy, it kind of reminded me of the old Frogger games, except here instead of moving one space he seemed to move six or so, which was a little odd. And as has been said, having the mouse move a little more animatedly than it did would have been nice, though not totally necessary.

The music was fine, but I say again: Mute button! If there was one I couldn't see it, and it would have been really nice to have one ;D There was nothing wrong with the music, just the fact that you couldn't turn it off.

Given the pretty standard nature of the game, you have a lot of scope for changing it up and making it more unique. Have more levels, different powerups or bad items, maybe have the pills descend in a way that's not a straight line...because the gameplay is something most people are used to, it's a good chance to do something a little crazier...though an exploding mouse is quite crazy. Just add a little more to this, and it's a pretty solid effort.

-Review Request Club

MonoFlauta responds:

"The heart-shapes being a bad thing was confusing, because the heart symbol is the pretty universal game symbol for health/life/good things"

Yes but you said that :P is a health symbol and you needed to fuck your mouse :P

"The animation was a little choppy, it kind of reminded me of the old Frogger games"

Yes that one is the worst point it has i think -.-

"The music was fine, but I say again: Mute button!"

Haha i always forget adding that sorry :P

"Have more levels, different powerups or bad items, maybe have the pills descend in a way that's not a straight line...because the gameplay is something most people are used to, it's a good chance to do something a little crazier...though an exploding mouse is quite crazy. Just add a little more to this, and it's a pretty solid effort."

Thanks for reviewing! :P

[Xyirx - Dragon's Breath]

Review Request Club

0:00-Loved the drums, they kinda felt like they were mimicking a slowing heartbeat; the dying seconds of someone as the heart stops pumping. Whether it was deliberate or otherwise, it's a really great intro.
0:11-Lovely starting strings, great that you made use of the silences as well, which in general are almost as important as the music itself in the creation of emotion.
0:34-Great addition of the woodwind instrument, just adding to the emotion conveyed in an awesome way
0:53-Nice slight discord there; wasn't expecting it, but it works well.
1:34-In two minds about the cymbal here, not entire sure it's necessary.
1:43-Think the brass could have been a touch louder, took til about 1:55 to be sure it was there at all, before that it was just an ambiguity under the strings.

The ending note I was unsure about because it doesn't really resolve itself, but then again it kind of lends itself to a feeling of uncertainty, because you're not quite sure what will happen to the young hero now that these things have come to pass. Really nicely done track overall, though. Major kudos.

-Review Request Club

Xyirx responds:

Wow....a detailed review. I'm in awe!

There was a lot of problem about the strings at first because I couldn't judge how long the pause between each part should be. But I think I've done fine since you like it, I guess. :)

About a doubt on putting cymbal, I was trying to put a climax in the following part. However, I think it's not really enough with epic-ness I've put currently. xD Maybe brass could've been louder like you said.

Thanks again for the review. xD Much appreciated.

[3 Britney Spears Remix WGuitar]

Review Request Club

Should start by saying I quite like the original of this, so will be interesting to see what you do to it :P
0:02-love the reverb on the percussion, straight off. It's something that doesn't occur in the original so the subtle change is instantly noticeable.
0:12ish-Like the mix of synth and guitar; almost wish the guitar was a little more pronounced just so you got the sharp punch and aggression of it a little more, but I get why it's a little behind the synth in an effort to keep the pop/dance feel.
0:46-Cool lead, though drowns out the vocal a little too much.
0:58-Nice pitchbend into the chorus. AWE-somely heavy chorus, but still with that pop feel, which is nice. Still think the vocal's a little drowned out, though, so maybe consider turning the vocal line up a little.
1:42-In two minds about the prechorus, because you don't change chords as the original does, so it doesn't quite fit at some points with the voice.
1:55-nice drum breakdown into the chorus, 'nuff said
2:25-nice piano work, but in two minds again about how the chords don't change, and when they do..they do oddly. Some with the guitar when it comes in. Clashes majorly at 2:48-2:54 to me. The solo is cool, though some of the notes seem rushed (like 3:14-3:15)

In general, it's a pretty nice remix, really nice guitar work...just maybe pushed the levels a little too high? xD

-Review Request Club

Mushroomhead18nc responds:

I agree with some spots of the vocals being quiet but Im just starting to do mixes with acapellas so I dont have much expierence with using them and puuting envelopes on em and such...

As far as the end solo goes.. Im playing sixtuplets at 145bpm so its pretty quick and thats why they seem rushed lol

Appreciate the review..

[Make Me Feel (Mans0n)]

Review Request Club

0:15-Didn't have much comment on the first drum, but the echo-y percussion here was interesting. Can see how you took inspiration from a guy who uses percussion in a unique way, for sure.
0:44-COWBELL! Everything is awesome when cowbell gets taken out, don't even try to deny it. :P
1:01-Nice percussive introduction; like how the melodic synth is still very much in background, giving it a chance to slowly work its way into the foreground
1:38-Subtle change in the beat here works well to introduce the more padlike synth later on. Which in itself helps to thicken the texture; not that the texture was lacking, given the amount of synths you have in there.
2:05-Again, slowly revealing the synth works well. Percussion seems to be lessening as you go along, though, and I'm unsure of it being either a good or bad thing.
2:23-Not quite sure about the rapid drum fill here, it's toeing the line of machinegun.
2:35-Nice climax; again am torn as to whether I think the fact that the percussion has reduced to just the kick for a few seconds is good or bad...or neither.
2:54-When the perc comes back in here a lot of the synths seem to peter out a little abruptly
3:22-Definitely not sure the repeated drum works here, as there's not much synth at all for it to have a texture to sink into.

In general, it's a pretty solid track. Could have maybe used a stronger buildup, but is gemerally fine structurally as is.

-Review Request Club

Mans0n responds:

Yeah I admit there are a few flaws, but overall it's pretty solid :)

thanks for the detailed review!

[Won't You Be My Neighbor]

Review Request Club

Yeesh. Would be one way of putting it, anyway. This is quite a disturbing piece to first look at; right from first glance it really hits hard with its stark and almost unforgiving depiction of this character.

The detail in this is pretty incredible, especially in full size; you've got the very dark and moody background, the several shades of skin tone, the shading of the fur...the detail you put in is relatively astounding, and certainly pays off in creating the atmosphere you have done.

I'm sort of in two minds about the mask. It certainly adds to the seeming distress of the picture as there doesn't seem to be any escape from it, and the eyes visible through it do appear a little angry, yet impassive. But that aside, I think seeing the captive's face and/or the emotions running through it may prove just as effective, maybe even more so, in creating a sense of despair. Failing that, maybe making the chains a little more substantial and binding, to link to the heavy restriction that is the mask a little better. THough that's essentially just nitpicking, though, because the picture itself is one of the best I've seen on NG. Great work, overall.

-Review Request Club

[Ghost]

Review Request Club

I think you do yourself a disservice by not having a larger full-size picture. Because here it is obvious that you've got a lot of shading detail in the clothing and on the gun, but there's no chance to take a closer look of it as the full size picture isn't much larger than the preview size.

That aside, the picture itself is well done. You have have no outlines, but it still looks very polished and semi-realistic...for a guy with a skull for a face, anyway xD. Really like the detailings on the clothes and weaponry; the several similar colour shades makes it hard at some points to pick out the different sections of the body, but not overtly so. The lower jaw in the face seems to stick out a little too much, but that aside I couldn't really find much fault in it. Save for the fact it's a little too small to do itself credit. Good drawing overall, though.

-Review Request Club

[SHW-29 Graveyard]

Review Request Club

The background and foreground seem almost completely unrelated, but at the same time it kind of brings the harshness of the foreground event into focus, because while the background's relatively happy you're still confronted with this vaguely violent scene.

The robot design itself is pretty interesting, though the upper half certainly seems a lot more detailed than the lower half, and some of the lines are a little sketchy; some of the pink of the background looks like its made its way onto the very top of the center robot's head, not entirely sure whether that was deliberate or not. I think the shading on the robot itself could definitely have been a bit more detailed; this is what a bigger full size picture would have been useful for, just to give you a chance to have all that potential detail in there. Good piece, nonetheless.

-Review Request Club