Score: 10

"Awe Inspiring."

submission: Super PSTW Action RPG

date: July 19, 2009

This marvelous creation has truly revolutionized not only my outlook on gaming's future, but also on life itself. This rollercoaster ride of a story had me on the very edge of my seat from beginning to end. A tale of love, loss, and triumph above adversity, the likes of which have gone unparelled in the medium of gaming, and even most Academy Award-winning films.

And what a truimph indeed! You've taken an ancient standby of keyboarding, the space bar -- something many traditional keyboardists refuse to even acknowledge as a proper "key", and injected it with new life, having it singlehandedly carry this masterpiece of a production. No mere "key" could ever handle the intense pressures and demands of this task. In the face of its detractors, the space bar has truly ascended to something greater.

It nearly brings a tear to my eye.

Add this all to a beautifully crafted musical score through a massive collaborative effort of indepentent artists, flawless-incredibly-unsurpassably perfect vocal performances from industry stars Cam Clarke and David Kaye, along with jaw dropping, high defintion, vector-based visuals which make me fully immersed within this living, breathing fantasy world.

You have displayed the very definition of gaming as an art form, and it's time the rest of the industry took notice. I can only imagine how long and hard you toiled to make this all finally happen, and I thank you.

Score: 10

"Well this was just outright amazing."

submission: The Press & Punch Collab

date: April 30, 2008

Certainly the most unique spin on the NG collab formula I've even seen, and there wasn't a single part that I wasn't impressed by.

Score: 10

""Shoot the core!"/"We know that!""

submission: Project Inthri 3

date: January 20, 2008

One of the reasons why I enjoy your work so much is because it's really apparent just how much effort you put into visual atmosphere, in spite of your artistic limitations. Along with a ton of variation in the stage backgrounds, I love new little details such as enemy ships now disintegrating as they explode. Some -excellent- music selections (Pompeii!), though they -slightly- overpowered the voices at times.

Now what can be said about the gameplay? Fantastic. Simply fantastic. Even in 2D, Project Inthri 3 plays like the best Starfox game in 10 years. No over-complication, just classic run and gun action, likeable characters, unique bosses, and a story that's easy to get into.

Though there are some moments where I'd love to have the spread gun back, rapid-fire remained a strong replacement, and the overall action is incredibly well-paced from beginning to end, never feeling monotonous. Most every boss design really impressed me, with the highly innovate Claw leading the pack. And of course, it's just not an Inthri game without a Giant Enemy Crab, is it? In addition, four difficultly levels and 2-player mode result in some excellent replay value.

From XS's cover fire, to the mini-boss in the asteroid field, a ton of moments made me stop and say, "Wow. This is awesome game design." All in all, with non-stop action and a well-delivered story, hats off to you on putting together one truly incredible flash gaming experience. PI3 was an absolute blast to play through, and an honor to be a part of.

Score: 10

"Simply amazing."

submission: Actstravaganza Vol.1

date: October 23, 2007

As it's longest serving (non-founding) member, I'd really like to give a heartfelt thank you on behalf of the entire VAC. Few animators are so appreciative of the work that we do, and it's awe-inspiring how you took all the time and effort to make this great production possible.

Watching through this was a real treat from beginning to end, as the visuals here are so impressive for so many reasons.
From excellent lipsyncing, to well-timed perspective changes, to enhancing details such as arm flails and hand gestures, you did an incredible job of bringing these characters and scenes to life, in the most creative of ways. Never a dull moment, and the audio and visual aspects of this production truly blended together seamlessly.

It's been an absolute pleasure to have been part of your productions, and from all the ability you display, you've got a very bright future ahead of you in the field of animation! That said, I hope you continue making great animated works, and I'll be continuing to enjoy them!

Score: 9

"Very well done!"

submission: Going Grim

date: October 22, 2007

Fun concept with a very clean presentation, and some great lipsyncing work! Pacing could've been a little more upbeat around the beginning, but I still enjoyed this a lot overall.

The easter egg was grand, though to a point where it could've easily fit as the last scene in the main animation itself. This led to the origin of the blooper line confusing me for a bit, as I played it before watching the actual easter egg scene.

Heh, I see Mr. Tomar was not too fond of his "evil" laugh. Though, in an odd twist, I found it perfectly befitting of a Grim Reaper... who's not meant to be taken seriously!

Hearing Francine Louise in this was also a very pleasant surprise! Excellent delivery from Fran in all her roles, and I'm glad that Josh recommended her to ya, as the idea totally slipped my mind.

And thus, congratulations on winning a daily award with your very first NG submission! You certainly deserved it, and I'm really looking forward to seeing more flash work from you in the future!

Score: 7

"Much better than the first."

submission: Pro Tec Tor .:2:.

date: June 15, 2007

Well this was quite a fun little diversion. I played up to level 8.

Considering what you were aiming for, I couldn't ask for much more in terms of style and presentation. Simplistic yet smooth graphics, coupled with simplistic yet addicting gameplay gave this a nice, old-school arcadey feel. The thinner, taller screen really aided in recreating that feel, though having the movement of the starry background increase along with the speed of enemy ships during "LEVEL UPs", would've been a nice atmospheric touch.

Humor points because the "story" amused me.

Good use of sound effects, and while I thought the infinitely looped music would get annoying early on, it didn't bother me too much once I got into the game.

One or two more laser-altering powerups would've be nice, and while I found the "slow down" item to be a great addition in terms of adding difficulty, it could've been better implemented. It felt rather awkward for the ship to still move somewhat faster than its original speed after acquiring one "speed up" and one "slow down". The balance in speed change between both items should probably equate to zero, as they seemed to pop up at an equal frequency.

All in all, this was certainly a major improvement over the original in every regard, and it was very interesting to go back and see just how much you'd improved the game's design in only two weeks time. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing more things like this from you in the future.

Score: 7

"Looks great, but disappoints otherwise."

submission: Haphazard Episode 1

date: June 14, 2007

Sitting through this was kind of depressing.

I reeeally wanted to enjoy it, and could tell just how much time and effort had gone into the art and animation, but as beautifully fluid as the visual atmosphere and character animations were at times, this production seemed to fall flat in virtually everything else it attempted.

With no specifically memorable lines of dialogue throughout, the story writing is uninspiring and and stagnant, in addition to being riddled with poor grammar, spelling mistakes, and all around disappointing sentence structure, making it all the more difficult to follow along with.

I understand the need to spend time introducing the characters, but this was very much drawn out in its execution, and did very little to maintain viewer interest. Though I did find the scene featuring the cyclops performing as a jester to be rather amusing.

In regards to voice work, much like writing, when it doesn't fit, it only hurts the overall production rather than helping it.

Rodrigo is an extremely talented musician, and a decent voice actor when he works in Spanish, à la "Crow's Life", however, he simply CANNOT work in an English style.

His pronunciation, pacing, and word emphasis were all consistently off, clearly showing that he doesn't yet have a good enough understanding of the english language to deliver humor to such an audience. Breathing directly into the microphone and relying on obvious pitch editing to achieve voice distinction are also good ways to suck the life out of a performance.

William Arbuckle was passable as the narrator. I do like a British voice being used, though he could stand to be a bit more powerful and exaggerated in his characterization. Though in this production as a whole so far, you can do much better in terms of overall casting, as a number of reviews have already stated.

I certainly commend you on dropping the TMNT crutch of your previous animations, in favor of more original character designs, but in doing so, you've also dropped a large fraction of your viewership base: TMNT fans who enjoyed watching the turtles do mindlessly stupid things. All too similar to the huge dropoff from viewers of the "Mixed in Balamb" series.

You won't be able to attract much of a new audience with simply more of the same, minus the TMNT focus. You're going to have to compensate for that loss by making far better productions than REBELS in all regards, including more appealing and memorable characters, working together with strong and well delivered dialogue.

Otherwise, you may find the Haphazard series positioned as a production that's beautiful to look at ...and not much else.

Score: 10

"Was soooo very worth it!"

submission: Hewitt

date: February 4, 2007

Hats off to you and Casper for putting together one heck of a production! And a huge congrats on your first NG daily award! You've more than earned it!

Just gotta love the quirky style and sense of humor in this game, and while a few spelling and grammatical errors did catch my eye, it was still a blast from beginning to end, and easily the best adventure game I've played on Newgrounds to date.

It was great being able to watch this gradually come together over time, and I had just as fun being a part of it as I did playing through it! :)

All the best in your future productions and it'd be a pleasure to work with you once again sometime.

- Dee

Score: 8

"Oh, snaaaaap!"

submission: Phoenix Wrong Rides Again

date: August 1, 2006

Do mine eyes deceive me? A Phoenix Wright flash winning a Daily Award?!!?
IT'S ABOUT FREAKING TIME. :D

I quite enjoyed this, and it had much better lip-synching than the last.

If you do another PW-based thing, I'd actually sorta like to see you write the scenes from scratch, and possibly get some voice actors from the VA Club to read 'em. Though that'd make for an entirely different, and unfortunately, more coherent style of flash. So maybe not. ;_;

Regardless of whether you change the format or not, I demand MORE PW flashes, even if it's just one! o_o

And use the English "OBJECTION!" text for goodness sakes! A large .gif of it is one of the emoticons on the Croik/PW site forums. =P

Score: 9

"Excellent work!"

submission: SW: Sith Confrontation 2

date: June 8, 2006

Hi all. I was the voice actor for Mace Windu.
Just wanted to note, whenever you criticize the voice acting in a flash, please try to be a bit more specific with what you didn't like, beyond just saying "It sucked. lol."
I like when reviews can actually be used to help people improve. =P

---

Xen, It was definitely a pleasure working with you. You handled direction of your voice actors incredibly well, especially considering you've never worked with VAs before, and English isn't even your first language. Though your english ability did have a noticable effect on your scriptwriting at some points, your art, animation, and overall graphical presentation -never- missed a beat, and you managed to create a unique style which successfully blended comedy with seriousness. It was great to see things finally come together after all those months of work, and you definitely earned your place on NG's front page! :D

Of course no sequel to this is necessary, so I don't expect one. However, it'd be honor to work with you again sometime in the future. :)

~ D-Mac