Butzbo's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Tree House Quest]

Great little game; had some good variety with its own story and characters for a short ludum dare game :)
The combat started really basic (could be easily button-mashed through nearly half of the game), but it got a little more interesting towards the end with extended and 'one shot' attacks.
The dwarf bit made me wish that the camera could have zoomed out a bit more, many times I was seen by dwarves I wasn't even aware of, and the alert sound was a bit loud, but that's a smaller issue, heh.
The overall art, animation and humor was pretty entertaining, and really shined through the different environments.

[SANTA RUNNN]

Good work! While I was expecting my yearly dose of christmas speedrun, this was a nice twist to the series. it's cool how you keep exploring the level designs with the main base mechanics for some fun puzzle-platforming segments. Also I love how the screen shakes with Santa's jump, it's just one simple detail which adds a lot to the character.
The only thing I missed were the secrets you could find before, they probably made more sense in the 60s version as shortcuts, but I still hoped to find more hidden things in the level other than the stars, considering that there was no time limit and you could explore at will.

[Tower of The Wizard: Gameboy Adventure]

Phew! glad I could finish it on the 50 min mark.
Overall a pretty entertaining though game, I got this early reaction of getting somewhere and thinking "man, this looks pretty advanced, there must be an alternative path", but no, that was the path! It required a lot of practice but it was achievable. The whole game had me on the verge of quitting due to difficulty but just then I could improve enough and beat the segment.

Still considering the difficulty, one issue I had was that the spear-bouncing segments (before getting the gloves) was the hardest part of the game for me, having to do with how precise the collission had to be, and the fact that approaching from the side had a really limited hitbox, otherwise you would get hit and fall to your doom, but in contrast, the later segment before getting the 'cape' was surprisingly easy, difficulty has its subjective side, but just out of curiosity It made me wonder how was the testing process to determine the difficulty.

That aside, great job on a short satisfying game (being able to play with one hand was also a plus!)

esayitch responds:

Hey! Glad you enjoyed it :)

Regarding your question: The game was designed with mobile in mind as well as flash, and tested mostly on Flash. That said, I knew that due to the sometimes finnicky controls on mobile, and the nature of the wall jump, that difficulty of the last area would need to be toned down otherwise it will be nearly impossible, so that's why it's easier than the glove area, when played using a keyboard (no issues with the controls). The wall jump is also less than ideal on a computer, so there is that.

Thanks again :)

[Coffin Counseling]

Great work!, this was a fun one to go through!, creatures felt very unique, and it was entertaining to follow their problems, some of them being pretty humorous or just strange in general, nice you could sneak in a gamedev monster aswell.
Music was engaging and visuals were well implemented within the palette, there was a lot of fun variety on the backgrounds aswell.

That said, one thing I missed was that it made me wish that there were some more puzzle elements to it or some characters you could help and then they would influence other puzzles or be more connected to other characters from the castle (or maybe there was something like this but I didn't notice) as a 'break' from just talking to characters through the game.

But in any case it was a fun experience to follow, good job!

[House]

Awesome work on this!,
I played it MANY times just trying things out as fast as I could, until I finally realized that there was not enough time and decided to finally focus on specific goals. At the end I liked how the game wasn't too explicit in that sense telling you what to do, which serves the genre really well.
Keep it up!

[Get Witchy]

Fun little halloween game, I liked how you solved it with just one button for the navigation, takes a bit getting used to it, but it's cool how it gives more meaning to the release of the button as a way to get momentum.
I didn't get too far on it, though (than ~15 candies) as sometimes the only way I found to survive was to accelerate, and as I got so close to the right side of the screen, I died by touching a freshly spawned ghost a few times. It made me wish you could actually 'advance' through the stage (more like a side-scroller) instead of a static screen where you can get too close to the spawning zone; that's what comes to mind, but I may be missing a few tricks.

[Mr Coo Interactive Teaser]

Superb!
I guess the low general score comes from it being short and linear, but still as a standalone piece I found it enjoyable to play with, specially when you turn around and see the creatures' reaction.
I'll be following the game's progress now,! it gets me pretty motivated from its surreal concept and fun directon on character acting (not to mention the great traditional animation!).

[Flatwoods]

Nice little quest with some fun stuff to read and watch, the animated segments with their own OST added a lot to it complementing the more simple look, and I liked how you had to go back to the chicken house to get the final piece. It left me wishing that there were more 'puzzle' elements on it, but that can go for another project :).
Good job!

Gerkinman responds:

Thanks Butz! The length and lack of heavy puzzles is something I wrestled with throughout development, but with the game taking as long as it did to make (almost entirely due to my work schedule more than anything) I am still really happy with what I did manage to pack into the game. Its definitely something I will be trying to improve on with whatever I make next.

[On Fire]

Good job in this one!
The fireball 'pass' mechanic added a lot to the gameplay, brings a lot more from what I originally expected. It also made fun challenges considering the 'time limit' aspect of it, specially on stage 4 where (at least from my experience) the strategy was to 'skip' one of the guys, so you could refill the fire and then get back to him to have more time in general.

Sounds were fun (although the 'death' guitar sound was a bit loud for me in comparison).