Score: 8

"Just heard about your version of Albi... [726]"

submission: Albi, the racist dragon

date: June 16, 2008

While watching a new version just submitted today. So anywho, gave it a shot. Your animation and hand-drawing skillz (as opposed to relying upon textures) are actually better than the dude who did the new one... but there's two major problems with it:

A) most importantly, you used a subpar (IMO, at least) version of the live FOTC recordings of Albi. This one's much shorter, doesn't have a lot of the nuances and slower (better) timing/pacing of the more well-known live recording (or even of the HBO version). Also, the audience in this one... laughs way more obnoxiously. Of course, you didn't record it, but there's a better version of the audio you coulda used, so it was an error of selection, an editorial error, IMO.

B) why is the mob (which is well designed, good job!) sitting right outside the mouth of the cave doing nothing the entire time Albi and the Albanian boy are talking? That just seems weird... both the official FOTC HBO version of the animation and the other NG Albi show the mob chasing Albi off, but not sitting right outside the cave for the private conversation that makes up most of the storyline of the song. Which I think is a better choice.

Aside from that, I love a lot of things about your version. Making Albi red instead of the usual green was an interesting difference, and I loved Albi's reaction to his teardrop jellybeans (though this version of the song cheated us of the later line in the song about the one special rainbow jellybean tear.... which is what Bret and Jemaine eventually started making the song cause Albi to not be racist anymore... apparently this is an early draft of the song, which doesn't have the layer of detail their eventual development of the story would come to have... alas. ;_;).

That reaction shot was priceless, in fact. So overall, great job other than the choice of the song version and the mob intruding on all the privateness of Albi + the boy for the whole rest of the plot, and of course... thanks for adding more FOTC flash to NG! WE NEEDS MORE. Do the Robot song or the David Bowie song, if you ever make another. #;-}>

Score: 9

"Bret and Jemaine would be so proud.... [725]"

submission: Albi the Racist Dragon

date: June 16, 2008

.... if only they came to NG. (sniff)

Great idea for a flash, and while at first I was worried you'd just be directly copying the original animation from the FOTC show... when I heard the audio from one of their performance clips rather than the HBO show, and when I saw that you added your own little touches, like the thought bubbles above Albi and the Badly-Disfig'red Albanian Boy.... I was quite relieved and pleased. That was brilliant!

Also, the textures you put in for all the grass, trees, and Albi's scales... and dirt and stone, as well (but mostly the green things, which is fine by me as it happens to be my favourite colour EVAR)... were all quite good and lent the flash a distinct feel to it. Excellent job!

The only criticism I can levy against it, in fact... is that while the first dragon tear jellybean (the red one) was gorgeous... the second multi-coloured one looked kinda crappy by comparison. But that's okay.

The Albi song is in my top 3 FOTC songs along with the Humans are Dead and the Bowie Song, so... I'd love to see your take on other FOTC songs, especially those two... but really any of 'em. MORE FOTC FLASH ON NG, PLZ. FTW.

Score: 10

"Loved the first one... [724]"

submission: More Brawl Taunts

date: June 3, 2008

This one's good, too... but I think some viewers can definitely sense the... "gun held to the animator's head" aspect that you hint at both in your author's comments and in the intro of the flash itself. #;-}>

Snake eating MetaKnight as though he's a Canadian-with-detachable-upper-jaw-'n '-skull (a la T&P in South Park).

Whoa. Slippy "huh huh HUH"ing was kinda disturbing.

"Up the butt, Charizard!" .... WTF?

R.O.B. FTW.

Ike: "You'll get no sympathy from me..." hahaha. Only funny because my gf uses Ike constantly, so I've heard him so damned many times... o_o

PIKACHU's voice... so scary. He's my main, too, so... slightly disappointing part.

Link + Zelda scene was fun.

Too much DBZ stuff between the early Otacon/Snake "power level" scene and then the Lucario/Goku kamehameha sorta craziness. WE GET IT. IT SOUNDS LIKE HE'S STRAINING TO SQUEEZE OUT SOME FECES ON THE TOILET. YES, WE GET IT ALREADY.

Whoa... super-sped-up chipmunk DDR music with King Dedede dancing...

And finally, a knock on YouTube NG-flash-staelers. I take it your first SSBB taunts flash got the "Charlie the Unicorn" treatment, eh? Oh well, take it as a compliment, man. Your stuff rocks, people want to show it off to a wider audience. You should probably beat them to the punch and put it on YouTube yourself first.

Thanks for another good one, Rina + Chris!

Score: 9

"18th b-day + ROCKIN' NYC? [724]"

submission: Casualty in New York City

date: June 3, 2008

Double win, man. Double win. YOU GO, CASUALTY.

The transition from lovely aerial shots of NYC bridges, waterways, and highways... and then midtown buildings.... set to ol' NY, NY by Ol' Bue Eyes........ to SHREDDING GUITAR SOLO ROCKING THE CITY TO ITS VERY FOUNDATIONS AND CAUSING THE SCREEN TO WHITE OUT FROM HIS GUITAR'S POWER...

... was quite an epic birthday present. We could only hope to receive such gifts on our own birthdays.

I should hope he enjoyed it, is what I'm getting at here. YOU BETTER HAVE, CASUALTY.

Score: 6

"I am sooooo deja-vu'ing to Oregon Trail [722.2]"

submission: Don Quixote

date: May 18, 2008

Dude.... your game's graphics totally take me back to the Oregon Trail days. Seriously... I love it. Great backgrounds... the road, trees, greenery, buildings.... it's the zenith of your flash.

Now, the gameplay.... OTOH... is a bit more... problematic. And when I say problematic, I mean overly simplistic. As others have said, a linear path with four stops along the way to kill enemies arranged in the exact same pattern... 4 each time (BTW, it's very considerate of them to line themselves up JUST PERFECT for your lance to slice 'n' dice 'em all like that!).... it's just not very full and enriching an experience. Even Oregon Trail had branches in the path where you had to select different routes or methods for crossing a river and so forth!

But here's the main problems I can spell out for you

A) the lance hit detection's a bit off... if you move the mouse faster than a snail, you can skip right past an enemy, even though the lance was flung right over them.
B) speaking of that... lances are used to knock people off a horse, and they're used along the same line as their length... meaning if anything, you would stab with them, not slice/chop.
C) you spelled Dulcinea right in the intro but wrong at the end of the gameplay.

But really, it's an educational and fun little thing here... you could really turn this into an awesome flash game on NG with just a little more work, man. Good luck tilting at windmills, Don Quixote style! #;-}>

Score: 8

"Love the backwards NG tank logo! [722]"

submission: April Fool Donuts

date: May 18, 2008

Seriously... somehow the direction the tank faces in it... just feels better.

Anyway, your donuts are amazingly.... hole-y. I wouldn't eat a donut as air-filled as that. Perhaps that's how they've survived long enough to become sentient.

Anyway, a short but effective REVERSAL April Fool's gag. Mmmmmm.... gag. Oh, and good choice of music with the Mac commercial music (the only good thing about those "Switch" ads back in the day... was that music... thank god the new commercials with the Mac guy and the PC guy are so much better overall).

KUDOS TO YOU, SIR DONUT.

Score: 10

"Wow... great zombie-killin' game [721]"

submission: The Last Stand 2

date: May 12, 2008

Absolutely fantastic atmosphere and decent gameplay. It didn't even lag that badly on my 2-year old laptop (though at times, when a lot of zombies came onscreen at once, especially late in any given night, there would be a lag of a few seconds between getting shots off on my .357 magnum.

Love the dark low-gamma visuals, the concept of using survivors you find as backup gunners, and the whole "searching houses and stores and other buildings during the days between the nights of ZOMBEH KILLIN'"... awesome plotting, awesome concept, great execution (PUN INTENDED).

I woulda loved it if you'd left the low/medium/high quality right-click options in the right click menu. I know you put the quality change in the options menu, but sometimes we laggin' users don't think to lower it until the game lags, and by that time it was too late for me, since I couldn't see any quality toggle mid-game, and since, again... the right-click menu didn't have those options (I understand disabling play/back/forwards/etc. for a game... but I wish more authors would leave the quality options if nothing else).

Score: 8

"Pretty easy to see from the preloader... [720]"

submission: Jim and Jebs Concert Hall

date: May 12, 2008

That you're in for a WILD RIDE indeeeeeeeeed when you load this baby up.

Graphically, it's nice looking... but considering I'm a cheap 2-year old laptop.... I would have traded some graphics for a bit smoother gameplay experience. At first, the fret indicators coming down to the ASDF line seemed somewhat coordinated to the song, but as the song went on, it got more and more choppy... so much so, that by the time my score got to 2500 or so, the framerate had literally dropped to 1 or 2 fps.... which obviously makes playing a skill and timing involved game like this quite difficult!

But it was very pretty, you gave exposure to a lot of audio portal artists, and you made your own take on a GH-style game with a lot of characters inhabiting the visuals... good job aside from the lag, in short!

Score: 9

"Played this a bit on 4/01 and more today... [719]"

submission: Amberial: Nebulosa Realms

date: May 12, 2008

Gorgeous opening... And indeed, we shall choose... to GO FORTH! :::click:::

The gameplay is really interesting... a 2d platformer with no jump or up/down controls COULD be limiting, what with being limited to only left and right... but the vast amount of vertical gameplay/level features you added totally make this a rich experience.

From the blue-glow-giving energy elevators to the moving platforms to the springboards to the weird fan-like blowers, I guess I'll call 'em.... vertical movement abounds.

And of course there's gravity to help out, plus momentum, in banging off floors and ceilings and walls... so much fun!

Anyway, from level to level, the design is excellent. Good gameplay + good level design = great game. Congrats!

Score: 9

"Sketchy, erasy, black and white fun! [718]"

submission: MyMind Cartoon Experiment

date: May 12, 2008

Gotta love the simple visuals here. The black and white scribbles, erase marks... flowing motion... how you turned what was in our POV a piece of paper being written upon... into a sky with stars.... and other such twists in perspective... was quite lovely.

When that huge pink schnozz intruded upon the procedings, the lovely black 'n' white world was shattered, but all good things must end. The colourful things that followed, however, were no match for the B&W beginning. Well done, on the whole... and in the specific, too.