Every month I see to review all of the games that were nominated as the Best of that month, which you can view in the link above!
As a game developer myself, I know how difficult it can be when you are starting out and how tricky it can be to tell how your game will be received by users. After all, you know how your game is meant to be played, and you can't just wipe that from your memory when you're building and testing it!
Therefore, I record myself playing all of the games for 15 minutes and try to voice how I'm feeling when I'm playing it, so that developers can see how a user might experience their game for the first time, especially for things like tutorials. I also try to provide some advice as well, but it might not always be the best: what I'm really hoping is that developers can draw their own conclusions on what might need work from how I stumble through their game.
When I first started these reviews, I would send an email to each creator to let them know about the review. Now, however, I realized I could just use the tagging system to notify them all in an instant! Yes, this is the level of technological intelligence you're dealing with here, people.
Game devs reviewed: @DrGeraud @Bretterick @porwaltz @GoodL @tozy @PsychoGoldfish @HealliesGames @MoeAnguish @KilledByAPixel @Rob1221 @YellowByte @SominStudios @MostlyMadProductions @LeSam @itsnotsimon @LeviRamirez @MDEV0 @Dezue @NicedenGames @AKTStudios @rmkubik @GuyUngerNL @ChacsGames @kbvpneofit @PatrickOReilly @dlodz @OmiyaGames @Munguia @JinxSpell @nightape @IceDrumGames @StonesOfAnarchy @Airdorf @b-random9
While I do love all of the games (they are the best of the month, after all)...
TOP 10 BEST GAMES OF FEBRUARY
My top 10 was (in no particular order and based on my own criteria which is nonsensical and changes constantly):
Dr. John Black Smith -
Great crafting game with goofy voices that has an excellent multi-ending setup where the choice is made cleverly through the game mechanics!
Blooming -
For hardcore people who love old school games like Out of this World: figuring out the really unique mechanics to get to the end of this game is a treat!
Bogus Roads -
Wish I had more tracks to play through in this fun retro obstacle course!
Resizer -
Rob1221 delivering yet another great puzzler: how do they do it every month so well!?
Guitar Munchers -
Starts out really hard, but once you get used to it, you just can't resist this game's retro charm and challenge!
GRIEVOUS -
Cool 'Binding Of Isaac'-ish roguelike shooter with some fun exploration and combat scenarios!
Bubu & Chida -
Charming, cute game that is over too soon! I need more adventures with these characters!
Spell Guardian -
Great dungeon crawler with some cool movement and combat abilities to use in the challenging obstacles and boss battles!
EXTRAORDINARY -
Excellent presentation and variation of gameplay mechanics - a real smooth and professional experience!
Sarah -
That story! WHAT A TWIST! And delivered effectively without sound or music, and without beating you over the head with a long cutscene!
Hope the feedback helps the devs out there!
SIDE NOTES
I did so bad reviewing Dezue's game: I was wondering the whole time whether I'd need to censor it or whatever that I missed so much, haha. Sorry!
I plan to be back soon with the final version of Final Fharmacy!
GoodL
I forgot to get back to you last month, but I just want to say - thank you SO MUCH for doing these. I think this is an incredible resource for the dev community on NG, and your thought process behind doing these is totally on point. It is very hard to know exactly how people will interact with your games. When I got your message last month for World War Wizards, I was ecstatic, but I put off responding because I was frankly a bit embarassed since it did showcase all the places I went wrong, but it was still very valuable.
As for this one though, I'm generally quite satisfied with how you interacted with the game, and I completely agree with your critiques in every aspect. I've been saying since I released Closing In that its an idea I want to revisit, and when I do - I'm going to be keeping this video in mind. It was incredibly helpful.
I do want to respond to one point - those green boxes you were seeing, you were right, those are assets that just failed to load for some reason. I had seen that a few times while making the game but assumed it was some kind of caching issue so it probably wouldn't happen when people played for the first time. It's good to know that I was wrong about that, for future endeavors.
Anyway, thanks again. I really appreciate that you make these and I hope you continue to do so. And thank you for the well-wishes regarding the podcast, I'm glad you enjoy it!
FutureCopLGF
Cheers! Glad it is having the intended effect of helping out, and I get to learn and have fun at the same time so it's great! I'm still trying to be a better reviewer myself: sometimes I'm worried I might be being too stupid or harsh in my feedback, which is why I usually say to just focus on how I play, not what I say, haha.
Ah, I thought that might be the case for missing assets. That's always a really annoying thing to figure out! Plenty of times when I published a flash game with custom fonts I would make the mistake of not testing on a fresh computer: if you don't attach the font files to the each instance in the game, people without the font installed on their computer would see terrible default text.
And no problem about not responding: we're all busy with our projects and I have difficulty keeping track of everything as well so I don't want any pressure on anyone. I need to catch up on the podcast myself: I'm an episode behind! Keep it up!