Beta tester available!

I enjoy games, and I enjoy helping!  And I have a habit of picking apart things.  It's only natural that I offer up my services as a beta tester!

I have some serious general gaming cred to back up my comments and opinion on flash games.
-- In-depth reviews and criticisms. Please note the date on these reviews.  There was a time where I was just a derpy child doing childish things, and this account is really old xD
-- Achievements earned, to prove that I am skilled and thorough.  I even get a good number of secret achievements without receiving help.  Here's the medal rankings list for comparison (sorry, no official list seems to exist).  Just to be clear here, I don't play games to be number one, I just play games because I like playing games.
-- If for some reason you need something stepping into serious commercial territory, I can still serve in that capacity.  The best public profile of my skill and attention to detail would be my League of Legends ranking: season 1 Silver tier in Summoner's Rift ranked solo queue, which is approximately in the top 10% of players that have played season 1 Summoner's Rift ranked solo queue.

What do I require for my services?
-- For a play of your game just like any internet surfer would, mention your game here.  That's all.  Based on what I experience and how far I've played, I'll leave first impressions, criticisms, details, and suggestions.  If your game is especially good, I'll probably go the extra mile to do my full services anyways, at no cost to you.  This is basically the "no guarantee" option.
-- If you want me to thoroughly test everything (for a typical flash project) and/or spend many hours testing, I require a mention in the credits in the final product.  I'll leave first impressions, criticisms, details, and suggestions.  I'll try to honor major deadlines you may have, but I can't guarantee that I'll hold your hand from version 1.01 to 1.02 or something like that.  Failure to give me recognition in the credits will result in me badmouthing your reputation.
-- If you're wanting me to beta test projects that require a serious commitment (probably much larger than anything that I've seen in flash portals tbh), that's when I require money for my time.  A PM to negotiate a deal will be required.

Some things to be aware of:
-- I'm currently developing my own game for the Stencyl Jam 2012 on Newgrounds.  I've also had the misfortune of it blowing up on me, so I'm scrambling to recover what I can and make up for lost time.
-- I actively play medal games on Newgrounds.  Depending on the flow of medal games and how many medals there are to get, I could become pretty busy.
-- Most of my public reviews and criticisms contain negatives.  That's because many other people say a lot of the positive things!  In my private reviews, I try to do both the positives and negatives.  I don't try to go out of my way to insult you, but if you wilt and cry, or throw lots of ad hominems my way, then perhaps I am not for you.  Or you're not fit for serious game development.

Failure to meet my demands will result in me badmouthing your reputation.

Stopped reading there.

No thx. 4chan testers not allowed .

Stopped reading there.

No thx. 4chan testers not allowed .

Because spending a significant amount of time testing a game that one may or may not enjoy does not warrant some recognition?  Also, since I'm offering my services virtually for free, I gotta set the limit somewhere.  But chances are if you are serious about your project, and it only takes up to an hour at most to beat the game, the first option is usually good enough.  And this applies to the vast majority of games I've seen.

There actually have been a couple of projects where I have ended up in the credits, even though I didn't ask for it.

I think it's just a misunderstanding. When I read your post for the first time, I thought you would want the author to make changes in the game as you wish, like this:

I'll leave first impressions, criticisms, details, and suggestions. (...) Failure to meet my demands will result in me badmouthing your reputation.

Later I realized that you are reffering to the credits part, which is fine.

Ah, I see my blunder now.  Yeah I can't have people think I'm trying to control them.  They are the ones that make the final call, not me.

yeah , you are kinda scary still

I dont need bad reputation on me right now...
last thing i need.

Your result of badmouthing our reputation has given me a bad impression on you so you kind of badmouthed your own reputation

If you're up to beta testing could you test my demo by chance? It needs a little work and i'm unsure what changes need to happen.

also please disregard the graphics, i'm bad with sprites and currently looking for an animator.


Thanks

Zhaetur


link: http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/13349

If you're up to beta testing could you test my demo by chance? It needs a little work and i'm unsure what changes need to happen.

also please disregard the graphics, i'm bad with sprites and currently looking for an animator.


Thanks

Zhaetur


link: http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/13349

Sure thing.

The good:
-- A game where you control the effect of gravity on various objects with a gun is interesting.  Seems like there's quite a bit of room to explore some gameplay options here.
-- In the real world, not only would your weight cause the box to fall downwards (if you're trying to glide across a pit for some reason), but the box would rotate too.  It's good that players don't have to deal with such frustrations, which makes it much more accessible to the general population.  Though to be honest, I wouldn't mind allowing real physics to take place, either in part or in whole.  Both have their own set of ease and challenges.
-- Barriers prohibiting blocks, the player, shots, or a combination are a good direction in making puzzles.

The bad:
-- If you die by not falling down a hole, you lose your gun permanently.  You are forced to restart.  Strangely, this is not true in the second last level when you get electrocuted.
-- Why is it that I can fall through the bottom of the screen, but the block does not?
-- You can shoot into solid walls, and it will even "hit" other walls that it encounters.  This can be best demonstrated by screwing around in the first level that you encounter an enemy.
-- If you press up against a wall, the friction is enough to make you "stick" and stay off the ground indefinitely.
-- The speed at which the blocks move suddenly changes depending on the distance they are from the point that you shot.  This just feels unnatural.  Either set the speed to be the same, or have the speed change gradually as opposed to suddenly.
-- The blue block seems to behave strangely, and I suggest you take a serious look at it.  Just to show one example, shoot something using a non-blue color.  Then when you have the color switched to blue, while the block is still flying through the air, cancel gravity.  It causes the block to stop moving, but float there as opposed to fall down to the ground.  They also seem to defy gravity.
-- The red block in the same room has its origin point at one of its ends instead of the middle (I'm not sure if the green block has the same problem).  This causes the block to rotate on an imaginary hinge.
-- If you try a point-blank shot or something close to it, it just plain doesn't work.
-- The demo ended =(

Suggestions:
-- You should probably set the power of the jump pads so that they work more consistently.
-- I would try to work on the quality of the physics and controls.  That way, it doesn't feel like a chore when playtesting harder levels.  You should enjoy the game you're making!
-- Make bigger levels! You're not limited to a single screen you know!
-- An idea: maybe the player needs a certain shape to progress through a level, while a different shape would either make the player's job more difficult, or just outright kill him at some points.  And maybe the player would need to bring a couple of blocks with him across a sea of electricity or something.

I have received some good critique on my demo for my first project so far, but I wouldn't mind an in depth review on what is and what isn't good. Could you test out my game and give me your thoughts on it?

http://www.kongregate.com/games/servvs/spaceship-prototype-demo

If you're up to beta testing could you test my demo by chance? It needs a little work and i'm unsure what changes need to happen.

also please disregard the graphics, i'm bad with sprites and currently looking for an animator.


Thanks

Zhaetur


link: http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/13349

Sure thing.

The good:
-- A game where you control the effect of gravity on various objects with a gun is interesting.  Seems like there's quite a bit of room to explore some gameplay options here.
-- In the real world, not only would your weight cause the box to fall downwards (if you're trying to glide across a pit for some reason), but the box would rotate too.  It's good that players don't have to deal with such frustrations, which makes it much more accessible to the general population.  Though to be honest, I wouldn't mind allowing real physics to take place, either in part or in whole.  Both have their own set of ease and challenges.
-- Barriers prohibiting blocks, the player, shots, or a combination are a good direction in making puzzles.

The bad:
-- If you die by not falling down a hole, you lose your gun permanently.  You are forced to restart.  Strangely, this is not true in the second last level when you get electrocuted.
-- Why is it that I can fall through the bottom of the screen, but the block does not?
-- You can shoot into solid walls, and it will even "hit" other walls that it encounters.  This can be best demonstrated by screwing around in the first level that you encounter an enemy.
-- If you press up against a wall, the friction is enough to make you "stick" and stay off the ground indefinitely.
-- The speed at which the blocks move suddenly changes depending on the distance they are from the point that you shot.  This just feels unnatural.  Either set the speed to be the same, or have the speed change gradually as opposed to suddenly.
-- The blue block seems to behave strangely, and I suggest you take a serious look at it.  Just to show one example, shoot something using a non-blue color.  Then when you have the color switched to blue, while the block is still flying through the air, cancel gravity.  It causes the block to stop moving, but float there as opposed to fall down to the ground.  They also seem to defy gravity.
-- The red block in the same room has its origin point at one of its ends instead of the middle (I'm not sure if the green block has the same problem).  This causes the block to rotate on an imaginary hinge.
-- If you try a point-blank shot or something close to it, it just plain doesn't work.
-- The demo ended =(

Suggestions:
-- You should probably set the power of the jump pads so that they work more consistently.
-- I would try to work on the quality of the physics and controls.  That way, it doesn't feel like a chore when playtesting harder levels.  You should enjoy the game you're making!
-- Make bigger levels! You're not limited to a single screen you know!
-- An idea: maybe the player needs a certain shape to progress through a level, while a different shape would either make the player's job more difficult, or just outright kill him at some points.  And maybe the player would need to bring a couple of blocks with him across a sea of electricity or something.

This all is fantastic, thanks for the input! You answered a lot of questions I had regarding certain gameplay choices i had made. I'll be sure to include your playtesting and such in the credits page when I release this. lastly I'll upload another release when these errors are fixed.


Also what did you mean by the last 2 points?

I have received some good critique on my demo for my first project so far, but I wouldn't mind an in depth review on what is and what isn't good. Could you test out my game and give me your thoughts on it?

http://www.kongregate.com/games/servvs/spaceship-prototype-demo

Sorry about being MIA for a bit.  4th of July weekend and all that jazz.  Gimme a few hours and I'll see if I can't get right on this....

EDIT: Right, so I just played the game until I got to the "End of Demo" message.  I'd say it's a fairly good game for the effort of a single dev, and it works just like you'd expect it to.

The good:
-- Other than the level 1 bullets and explosions, the graphics almost seem like they could mesh very well into a single style or theme, and you could very well expand the game into multiple levels.
-- Good tactile feedback on events, such as when you hit the enemy, and when the enemies hit you.
-- When items appear, they are immediately visible and not hidden behind a bunch of junk.
-- Auto-fire when holding the fire key, yay!

The bad:
-- Flash crashes if you crash into an enemy ship head-on while you're at the very bottom of the screen.
-- Some bullet firing noises are ear rape; sound pitch is insanely high.  I didn't find myself wanting to kill the sound (I'm pretty resilient), but I know quite a few other people who would.

Suggestions:
-- I don't like when a single actor simulates two bullets.  What this does is that you create the illusion that you are firing more bullets than there actually are.  What if I want to hit two ships at the same time?  I can't do that because (for the level 1 weapon at least) the bullets are all one actor.
-- I also don't like that there's no clear bottom boundary where your ship can't move.  Sometimes players plan out evasive maneuvers a few seconds ahead of time.  And when they discover that their maneuver does not work because of an invisible boundary, they get upset.  Even if they know the boundary exists, sometimes that just fails to process in their mind when they get into the heat of action.  Crash course 2 does not suffer this problem because the bottom boundary is the edge of the screen.  Your bottom boundary is the top of the HUD that has nothing but space in the middle.
-- Why is the ship apparently drifting towards the top of the screen during the start and finish?  And why does the ship jitter when the camera is panning upwards?  This can be pretty distracting, and should be fixed.
-- On rare occasions, enemy bullets would end up spinning!  I don't know how to reproduce this.  Pretty hilarious.

Also what did you mean by the last 2 points?

The second last one is a suggestion made in part by the fact that all of your levels were only a single screen large.  Scenes can actually be larger than the screen itself.  And since your level is as large as your scene (or I guess the walls), you should have greater creative freedom.

You can safely ignore the last point.

Can you test my RPG WIP game? I need to know if there is any bugs.

Arrows to move
Z to attack
Escape to go back to character menu when you are in a level

Link: http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/13596

I need feedback on:
- Level up system (+5 attributes each level in the future, only +1 atm)
- Attribute balancing (Str +1% weapon damage, Vitality +3 each level, Magic +skill power (skills are not in the game yet but it scales like in LoL))
- Equipment, Inventory, and Looting system (finding bugs)
- Floating texts (like when you attack, damage show on screen)
- Please tell me what you think about the skills that I posted below
- And other things...

What I already knew and will be fixed:
- Items "blink" when I equip , unequip, or loot
- Save and load doesn't work until I finish the game
- Graphics are only temporary
- Character can exit scene
- Mobs AI will be changed and more type of mobs (dps, tank, mage, healer,...)
- More random item attributes on loot (+spd, +life, +life steal, etc...)
- Basic attributes from loots are not random (9001 damage or defense)

In the future, you can invest points to increase the skill's effectiveness on. My ideas:

Fire
- Ignite: burns an enemy, deals fire damage overtime
- Combust: stuns an enemy, deals fire damage overtime instantly
- Pillar of Flame: blasts an area, deals extra magic damage to burning enemies
- Fire armor: deals magic damage to enemies that hit you
- Hydra: summons a ranged minion that shoots fire balls at enemies, deals magic damage and burns them.

Cold
- Frostbolt: deals magic damage and slows an enemy
- Soul harvest: deals magic damage and gain life back by a percentage of magic damage dealt; also gives you a shield if it hits a slowed enemy
- Frost nova: blasts enemies nearby, deals magic damage, slows enemies and stuns enemies that are already slowed
- Ice armor: slows the enemy that hits you, also deals magic damage if the enemy is already slowed 
- Cold shadow: summons a clone of your character, takes all damage that is inflicted to you.

Fury
- Precise: extra range and more damage to fury skills
- Slash: deals damage to enemies in front
- Ground slam: deals damage and knock back to enemies nearby
- Whirlwind: deals damage to nearby enemies while moving
- Rage: gains life steal on attacks and constantly dealing damage to nearby enemies for a duration

Berserk
- Double strike: strikes twice, reduces cooldown of this skill on use for a short duration and can be stacked up to 5 times
- Critical: increases chance to deal double damage with double strike
- Reckless swing: deals damage and gains back some life base on dealt damage
- Bleed: double strike and reckless swing now bleeds enemies overtime base on damage dealt
- Takedown: deals damage base on the enemy's missing health and extra if the enemy is bleeding

Stances (only use 1 at a time)
- Battle stance: +atk
- Defensive stance: +def
- Balanced stance: +atk, +def
- Frenzy stance: +spd, +cooldown reduction
- Spirit stance: +hp recovery

Utilities
- Adventurer: gain extra exp from killing mobs
- Thick skin: chance to ignore damage
- Strong legs: jump higher
- Swiftness: moves faster
- Greed: better loots

I didn't find any bugs.  But there really wasn't much to test in the first place.

A couple of suggestions:
-- Don't spawn enemies in places where they can damage the player uncontested.
-- Allow the player to drag and drop items wherever they want to.  It's a lot more intuitive.
-- Sometimes the floating text can interfere with each other.  It's not a problem this time because all there was to show was damage and level ups.  Simple enough.  But if you're going to add things like status effects or damage types, things can build up really fast.
-- Depending on how many different types of equipment there are, you might want to consider expanding the inventory.  I obviously didn't mind this time because there's only 4 unique pieces of equipment.  But it can quickly become a serious PITA if you're inundated with tons of different pieces of equipment.

As for your ideas, I prefer not to comment on them unless there's something that sounds really good.  It is one thing to have them on paper.  It is another to actually play the game and find out how it all plays out.

I also can't make accurate calls and thoughts on stat progression.  As it currently is, my thought was upgrading magic might be the best way to go early on, assuming it works just like LoL does.  But since I don't know how ridiculous the end-game stuff can get, I can't really say if it is ever worth pumping points into strength.  You'd have to invest a lot of points into strength to get any meaningful damage out of the rusty sword.  On the other hand, it has ludicrous returns on stuff like the Sword of Badabing.  But if the end-game stuff only has a base damage of 500, I might think twice about putting points into strength.

For people bothered by Kajitii's attitude, i must tell you that i have been working with professional testers for my Job, and people with straightforward approach make the best testers..
So don't worry