I confess I'm not thrilled with #4 either. However, that's because I like my puzzle games to be somewhat intuitive - I like to be able to work out the pattern and solution without having to sit down & plot it out. I keep finding that with all the new things I get lost, all the more because I'm now worrying about 3 action keys (space, shift, control) and I often hit the wrong one by accident, unless I'm thinking about it very consciously. And up/space gets me too - don't know why. So this is a good game, and I think a valid expansion from the previous ones. As a side note: the sketchy style of art in this game is rather unpleasant to me. My favorite new thing, however: the gravity. It's wonderful being able to fly!
Really an interesting game - both concept and gameplay! Good job implementing the snapshot control. So many games relying on unconstrained user input (I mean anything outside of keyed responses, point-and-clicks, etc.) are either too imprecise or too picky, and I think you hit a good median.
This is an entertaining concept for a game. The first fifty were horrible - but the boss was almost relaxing. So not a bad game: could use some balance to the difficulty. Good variety in changing the way you have to play so it's not just the same thing over and over again.
This is an unusual game in a lot of ways. First, there's the mandatory send-half-your-units thing that changes strategy quite a lot (I have to wait until I'm sure I won't be attacked). Second, the graphics really aren't a focus of this game at all - but it doesn't suffer in the least. It's well put-together, and I haven't suffered any glitchiness (except odd lags in later levels, perhaps because there are so many units moving around the screen at once). I really love this game! I have to agree with a number of other comments that the last level is quite a bit easier than the two prior to it - but I can understand why it comes last; your strategy changes significantly because all the bubbles grow at the same rate. There's so much interesting stuff in this game. This might be kind of a silly comment - but usually the player colour is green and the adversary is red. It takes a little getting used to. :)
This is based on being one battle short of completing the Elite Campaign. Perhaps that's part of the idea behind the "elite" level - you have to be persistent and very patient? :) (Sorry about the triple-post; I was over the character limit.-.-;)
Challenge level is fairly good, except that I have found myself getting terribly bored less than halfway through the battles at the end of the campaign. As I reach higher levels (not even power-gaming; I seem to be able to level up almost every battle), nothing is too costly or difficult to achieve; and by halfway through the battle, my buildings are leveled-up high enough to take care of anything I can't immediately destroy. The second half of most (all?) of the last ten battles or so becomes just tedious. I'm holding my mouse down in exactly the same place, not having to move, and desperately waiting for the big boss ships for a change of routine. Unfortunately, there are seventy ships between now and then, and no way to make the battle go any faster. So while I'm not troubled by the length of the early - and even medium - battles, the final battles just get dreary.
First of all, I'm quite impressed by this game all around. It's well-thought-out, and I love the system that allows the player to have long-term goals (leveling up, points in skills) although each battle is a new setup. The lack of overarching continuity in many battle games gets really frustrating - you complete one battle and learn skills/develop nice systems, only to have it all be reset by the next battle. I also like that you're responsible for firing only your own turret, and that you don't have to worry about micro-managing several at once. Badges in-game give replay value, graphics are simple but effective, sound adds better quality to gameplay.
One criticism that I have of this fairly ingenious game is that there is so little consistency in the controls. For some objects, clicking the object will attach it to the mouse; for other objects, you must hold down the mouse button and drag it across the screen. Sometimes simply mousing over an object is enough to activate it. If there could be consistency in whether or not clicking/dragging is required, I would have rated this game higher. This problem with controls interferes with the player's intuitions - on some levels where I had the right idea, it took me forever to complete the level because I wasn't clicking or wasn't dragging, since I was expecting the environment to react to just my mouse's presence. As it stands, 3/5 for effort - although the graphics on some levels could have been at least a little better.
@supercharged: Thanks! I'd only tried random in the Practice, and I think it always picked randomly from my cards, so I didn't think to try it in the multiplayer mode. Good to know!
A couple of things: it would be nice to be able to watch matches (although I don't know if I want other people to see me beaten into the ground!) to get some idea of strategy for anyone who's new.
Also, I keep being frustrated by the really low number of cards I have. I think I've acquired every weekly one since a certain point, but I wish I could re-choose my starter cards now that I have a better idea of the game mechanics (especially since one of the starter cards, I subsequently acquired as the weekly challenge). I also wish that there was some way to gain cards more quickly - I'm a fairly new user on Kongregate and it seems agonising to have to count on random opportunities to gain new cards.
an auto-save feature would be nice!
took me a little while to get a hang of this game - but it's pretty interesting. 3/5: it's a decent idea, and especially with the different types of doors on the later levels, but there's nothing terribly distinguishing about it.
How do skill ranks work? It's not based on win-loss ratio, or on the number of cards in your deck (as far as I can tell). Does it have something to do with the way you defeat opponents?
After the first nightmare level, the next two were incredibly easy. There definitely seems to be an imbalance of difficulty - then again I know that I'm no good at navigation, so perhaps the first level was also easy. The final boss, likewise, wasn't really all that bad. Anyway, I like the concept a lot - tying a bunch of platform games together with music - but the execution's a little funny, and the graphics are almost overly simplistic. Looks unpolished, but has a lot of potential.
I enjoyed this game much more than the original, I confess. The upgrades made things much more interesting, so even though I'm still not particularly good at this game, at least I'm having fun while I'm losing. :)
Also having trouble with completing levels on lower-quality settings. This is a nice game - a reinvention of the lasers-and-mirrors idea, and difficulty is completely appropriate (no jumping random things on the player without explanation). Music & art is pretty - yes, it gets repetitive, but it's hard to find a music loop to put in a game that won't sound repetitive. I did find the puzzle's sensitivity a little frustrating, but that's not a real criticism, since it doesn't take too much away from gameplay.
I like the simple intro levels every time a new star type is introduced. Gameplay and layout are fairly intuitive, at least after you discover the arrows. ^^
This game is pretty much everything I could want in a puzzle game - simple concept expounded to several levels, but not repetitive or overly simplistic. Good job!
After a couple of days trying to get the Legendary badge, it's working for me. I don't know if the trick is in the time of day or just perseverance. I was just about to try another browser as well. ^^ Anyhow, glad that glitch is ironed out!
Maybe I'm just doing something wrong on the last level - but I can't imagine what! After getting the ant head & spear, feeding the blue guy a crumb, levering out the rock into the crack, and igniting the fire bug 4 times, the sponge rock turns green and swells up. I click to get it, click to feed it to the queen, and she eats it. She pauses for a moment, then spews green out of her mouth, waits, and starts opening & closing her mouth again. I've tried every variation I can think of! This is rather frustrating.
As far as gameplay - if you survive the initial levels, it becomes very easy to win the game, due to the rapid increase of repair-per-hour ability and the other survivors you gain, as well as the better weaponry. One thing I found very frustrating, especially in the initial levels where my character moved a lot, was getting stuck on the background or on the wall. It's easier just to have the character move up and down rather than having to navigate around objects - particularly since the point of the game isn't anything to do with movement.
I think you did a great job with the game, even though action/shooters aren't my thing. :)
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 "I wish I were the Moon"){kind=icon}
 "Parachute Retrospect"){kind=icon}
 "Nano War"){kind=icon}
 "Balloon Invasion"){kind=icon}
 "ButtonHunt 2"){kind=icon}
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 "Open Doors"){kind=icon}
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 "Bubbles 2"){kind=icon}
 "StarShine"){kind=icon}
 "The Several Journeys of Reemus"){kind=icon}
 "The Last Stand"){kind=icon}