theCornyJoke's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Mystic Sunset Forest]

Gonna have to be honest. I didn't enjoy it as much as I wish I could've. I do like the chill aesthetic, the birds chirping, the bell and animal sound effects, I enjoyed the fish and firefly puzzles, but other than that, I was either kinda bored or really frustrated.

It just felt like I was doing a bunch of things to do another thing; find the fruit to give to this animal that will give me the answer to this 'puzzle' which if you are just going to give me the answer without abstraction or encoding or any type of indirect second step to answer it, it's essentially just finding the key to a lock but bigger. The firefly and fish puzzles were really satisfying though, I enjoyed putting 2 and 2 together to solve those puzzles.

Every environment seemed to blend with every other environment, it was like being in a maze. In fact, it was even more confusing how the bear was blocking the path, but you could go forward, and how click the cave to go forward brings you to a different place than just moving forward. In general, moving around was just awkward.

By the end of the game, getting those last couple of gems, at least for me, was so frustrating. Like I could understand making the gem green for the sake of it not being easily noticeable but why does it have to be the exact same color as the grass? What does giving exactly 45 gems to a bear accomplish anyways? I don't know, the ending what really unsatisfying to me.

Overall, it's not TERRIBLE, it's just really flawed. I wish I could've said a lot more positive things about the game, but I just can't really do that in the state it's in.

EscapeFan responds:

Thank you very much for feedback, I have written down all improvement ideas/suggestions and I will try to implement in next game.

[Ja!l]

It's a cute little game with a simple plot and an eerie atmosphere. I enjoyed it. I think there's definitely room for improvement though. Starting small, there could've been some type of ambient background noise, strengthening the ominousness of the game. I was honestly kinda disappointed with the lack of different description per bookshelf. I think there has to be a bit of leeway when the assassin gets introduced, I thought it was complete BS how he caught me while I was just trying to look at him.Other than that though, I liked it; the game gave me a genuine spook.

CBunnysworth responds:

I agree it was very difficult to program... I had very little to work with (from my experience) I would if I could change descriptions and changed the places and sizes of rooms, I honestly thought the game was rushed and incomplete. But I was so excited to post my very first game.
So thank you very much for your review, it means a lot to me.