Radioactive Potatoes by Linda Enciu

Categories are rated from 1 (excellent) to 7 (poor).

Sound and Music: 6

• Liked the background music (very spacey) and sound effect for introducing the frogs.
• However, it got repetitive real fast.
• When I shoot the tank makes noise, but when I move it doesn’t - strange.
• I really wish the frogs went boom when I hit them.

Graphics and Art: 5

• I liked the art, but nothing stands out. It lacks style.
• There appear to be 3 disctint styles of art used:
  • That alien and the tank - few colours + thin black outlines for definition
  • The background - painted in watercolour, almost out of focus
  • The network - bright red, blue and gray - very high contrast, pixelly
  • These don’t really mix. Unless you’re an exceptional artist, you should stick with 1 style. i.e. everything should outlined in black, painted in watercolor, or high contrast colours. A great example: http://www.puppygames.net/ultratron/
• When I shoot an alien, it needs an explosion graphic. Vanishing just doesn’t work.

Adherence to Theme: 6

• While the game uses the elements, the game doesn’t use the theme to its advantage.
• Why am I tank shooting potatoes?
• Why are the frogs presented as mutant frogs?
• Why is there a giant network in the middle of the desert?
• Does it have something to do with the frogs.
• This game would have been better with a different theme. i.e. I could have been a farmer throwing potatoes at regular looking frogs while trying to setup my irrigation pipes (in the shortest, least costly way possible).

Originality and Creativity: 5

• You’ve basically combined “find the shortest path” with “shoot everything with your tank”.
• While an original combination, I don’t think they work well together. i.e. You got my chocolate in my shrimp.
• If you had >just< made the game “find the shortest path” by clicking with your mouse, I would have had a lot more fun..
• If you had >just< made the game “move the tank, shoot the mutant frogs” just using the keyboard, I would have had a lot more fun.
• The 2 games actually work against each other. The frogs annoy you when you’re trying to make the shortest path, and the network makes it harder to see the frogs.
• I would have given a 4 here if the graphics / atmosphere of the game were different i.e. a tank, mutants, plus space sounds are unfortunately overused.

Technical Achievement: 5

• Finding the shortest path would have been somewhat tricky.
• Otherwise, I believe his is fairly easy to do in Java.
• The tank movement is choppy (maybe on purpose), but it makes it hard to align with network nodes (so I can press enter).

Overall: 6

• Shooting game was not polished enough to be compelling.
• Using the tank to connect the lines made the puzzle game a chore.

Comments:

• Liked the ending, “Haha, loser !!” although it felt out of place.
• You seriously need better instructions. Specifically, you need to say: “Connect the dots by making the shortest line possible.”
• I actually like the way the tank controls. It’s choppy, but for a certain kind of retro shooting game it might be fun.
• I could zoom around in that tank all day. Reversing and shooting was extremely fun.
• Why do I fire so many bullets, when there are so few aliens?
• The network lines go at angles my tank can’t. Is that fair?
• Should they not be forced to obey the same world rules as my tank?