ShangXian's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Particle Accelerator]

I admit this was a very challenging game despite its simple graphic and lack of music. I played the original one mentioned in the description and I enjoyed it too. Both games have their own charm, in the original one I appreciated a lot the fact red balls can bounce against each other, giving a very natural feel (btw I lasted only 81 seconds XD). Whereas in this one I appreciated the challenging aspect of balls appearing one after the next making you think "oh I can adapt to this movement" just to be beaten by the physics of the next ball. The only reason I gave it 4 instead of 5 is simply the ragequit aspect it made me experience since I can become pretty competitive if something challenging stimulates me enough. Otherwise I tend to be very casual in approaching games. I wanted to test myself and I'm glad that after almost 20 tries I managed to get the medal.

I will try to give some tips to those who are struggling with the medal, hoping my little guide may help.

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The game is based on dodging skills, you are a blue ball and you have to dodge the red balls for long as possible. I noticed that every 12 seconds or so a new ball appears, so my first advice is to study the pattern of the first ball, then when the second one appears start with its pattern while keeping in mind the pattern of the first ball. For a while the balls will follow their own pattern but over time, due to the physics of the room and the distribution of kinetic energy, even the first balls will start to change trajectory slightly.

This will lead to a change in strategy adaptation. I noticed that focusing on the blue ball does not help much in the long run because you lose sight of the overall view. So my advice is to focus your view on the white screen and watch all the red balls. Focusing on their movements helps to have an overview on how to change strategy (blue ball movement) in time and resist to unlock the achievement.

You will unlock the medal at 47 seconds.

Another advice is to keep practicing and study the random patterns as much as possible. I know it can be frustrating especially for those like me who love patterns and a well-defined scheme.

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Games like these test more my patience than my skills XD
Nice job nonetheless.

[Start Powerless]

This was an extremely lovely game experience. The combination between strategy and new abilities gained through power-ups make the overall gameplay enjoyable and well balanced. This is the type of games that combine challenge and relaxation at the same time, and this relaxed me even when I had to retry some levels (level 3, 12 and 15 actually) because there are no frustrating elements that prevents you from going on. I managed to finish it in a single run but because I liked it a lot, I wanted to replay other times just to enjoy the atmosphere and the nice graphics. After you memorized the pattern, playing it a second time is a lot easier. I liked the basic idea: starting powerless and then gaining abilities the more we go on but to do so we must study smart, not hard. In a way this game is like a metaphor for life where we all start powerless and gradually we gain abilities to overcome challenges.

As I briefly mentioned the graphic is adorable, simple and pleasant to look at with its bright yet simple-paletted. I liked the artistic choice of using dark and dull colours for background and environment while the character and power-ups have vivid colour to make them stand out nicely and help the player focus on.

Another element I liked is how levels are designed. Each of them is well-designed to increase in a fairy way the level of difficulty without getting annoying nor frustrating. This element adds a nice intuitive level when grasping how to solve each level and gives an actual feel of progression which is not always that easy to achieve in games like this. I admit I am glad there is no time limit because I tend to take my time to study a level before solving it.

I liked the characterization of each power-up, the one that "scared" me the most was the double, yellow-coloured arrow power-up that can be used in level 12 and combined with the high sensitivity of the controls, makes it the most "difficult" to master but after a few tries one manages to control it decently.

Reading from the updates, I see the game was a bit more difficult but I'm glad you listened to feedback and balanced it, I love when game developers listen in a proactive way players' feedback. Despite I might give suggestion to improve I actually think that this game doesn't need any suggestion with its current state. It's perfect the way it is^^

Nice job, I truly loved it. 5 stars from me! Keep it up.

[Creep Craft]

Despite I never played Minecraft (I know the game and its lore though), playing this game gave me lovely nostalgia vibes of an era where things were a bit more simple for people of my generation. I liked a lot playing as a creeper, I like them, and the music is really adorable and relaxing even when you battle zombies and endermen. Getting the first four medals was pretty much easy and straightforward as the overall gameplay is simple and not that hard, but it's fun trying to see how many days you can resist before stop playing. The three secret medals were more difficult to figure out but after some tries I managed to find them all and I would like to share my tips.

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pro-tip: if you want to get the "Die!" medal just right click and then click on "play", the creeper will explode and die, giving you the medal without waiting for the night to come and the zombie to kill you. This way is easier and faster.

-Thank you!
Open the game, wait for it to load and once the page where you can start playing the game appears, click on the icon at the left side of the screen.

-Thank you too!
Same as "Thank you" medal. Here an image to sum up what I said:

https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/09012042b3bc3ef862b8aebfece59e0f

-GLITCH
This is the hardest to get because I initially thought to get it at the right side of the edge of the map where you see the mushroom but nothing happened, I couldn't go past there. So I thought "what if it's on the left side of the map?" so to get it wait for the night to come, wait for the zombie, bring him inside your cave and where you see the hole, jump on the zombie. Jump towards the edge of the map at the left hand side. Here an image to better show what I mean:

https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/e73a0032315e2b9dac295fe7bf7f0950

Once you reached the far left of the map, you basically got out the map and if you keep going you will see a dancing, naked man XD
Congrats you now have the medal.

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So that's it for the medals, I enjoyed the game a lot despite its short replayability but because of lovely graphics despite very simple, nice nostalgia feel, the music choice I give it 5 stars. Lovely job :)

[Windowz 98 NetTowns Edition]

Time to finally review this game that I enjoyed so much minus a small thing that I will mention later in the review, but first let's focus on elements that had me spend hours reading most of the web pages (except for fanfiction because frankly I never enjoyed them and most of the time they are not even well written). This simulator superbly managed to recreate the atmosphere of 90s Internet especially in its last years. It reproduced the same vibe and feel even on a visual and sound level. I had my first PC in 1995 where I could play my first games on PC such as Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem 3D and many others (I learnt Europe capitals and countries thanks to a geography game). I had Internet Explorer but at that time I couldn't connect to Internet because we couldn't afford it and my parents didn't even know how to connect to it. So I spent my days looking at that small world icon thinking "wow, that's the window to the world, through that window I can see the world, I can connect to the world, I can know different worlds".

I had goosebumps when I saw that icon, one day I even tried to click on it and I see the image of the computers connecting to each other but beyond this nothing happened (I also feared that connecting to it I would suck up telephone bills XD but that was silly me when I was little, lol). I liked drawing with Paint, this is one of the draws I mad in the game:

https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/4ece16bc6ae0ec0d75b12633ebaff51d

The part I enjoyed the most was Internet Explorer especially Politics and Conspiracies theories. The conspiracy theory I loved the most was the British one XD I laughed my ass off when reading it but at the same time it allowed me to see the thinking process of a conspiracy theorist. I admit I miss those conspiracy theorists because at that time they put effort in their nonsense, now it's just rage, disrespect for science and lack of thinking process. Reading the world events was a jump in the past because I lived all these events and the one that left a mark in me was the Balkan wars and Kosovo wars. I still remember as if it was yesterday when I was about to get on the bus to go to school and I saw two fucking McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagles flying over my head to go to Kosovo

A bit oh history of this strike fighter: in August 1993, F-15Es from 492nd and 494th FS deployed to Aviano, Italy. In late 1993, NATO ordered a limited F-15E strike at Udbina airfield, targeting Serbian forces in neighboring Croatia. Eight F-15Es armed with GBU-12s took off to attack an SA-6 anti-aircraft vehicle; the mission was cancelled mid-flight over the application of stringent Rules of Engagement. In August 1995, in support of NATO's Operation Deliberate Force, F-15Es flew strike missions against Serbian armor and logistics around the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. On 9 September, an F-15E deployed the type's first GBU-15 bomb; dropping nine on Bosnian-Serb ground forces and air defense targets near Banja Luka. Then in response to the displacement of Kosovars and the Serbian government's rejection of a NATO ultimatum, Operation Allied Force was launched in March 1999. A total of 26 F-15Es flew the first strikes of Allied Force against Serb surface-to-air-missile sites, anti-aircraft batteries and early warning radar stations.

Why did I mention this? Because this links to a scene I saw on TV during the 1999 NATO bombings of Yugoslavia: the bombing of Hotel Jugoslavija. Maybe this name doesn't tell you much but to me this hotel has a special place in my heart because it was the hotel my parents and I went after they adopted me in Romania. They brought me to this hotel which was one of the oldest luxurious Serbian hotels. It is located in the Zemun municipality. The hotel was opened in 1969 as "one of the most comfortable and most luxurious" hotels in Yugoslavia, and "among top 5 largest and most beautiful hotels in Europe." I can guarantee you that the food was excellent (Serbian cuisine is fantastic, try it if you ever have occasion!), service spot on, the waiters were very kind, everything was perfect.

It was used as an accommodation for celebrities and high officials visiting Belgrade, as president Tito included the hotel in his official protocol. Some of the famous people who stayed in the Hotel Jugoslavija include Queen Elizabeth II, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, U Thant, Willy Brandt, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin, Belgian and Dutch royals, Luis Echeverría, athletes, artists and so on. Well, during these fucking bombings the hotel was hit and damaged during the night of 7/8 May 1999. Two attacks, two missiles in the first and one more in the second, left the building unusable. The west wing was damaged, while the annex and the north wing were thoroughly demolished. Reconstruction began in October 1999. Only parts were fully renovated, while other parts were only fixed enough to stop further collapse. The hotel was reopened on 31 December 1999, with the New Year's Eve party.

I was glad the hotel managed to be reopened, but trust me that seeing it ruined because of bombings on television was like being stabbed right in the heart because part of me has been destroyed.

sad fact: the structure was demolished in January 2025
https://creativesunite.eu/article/the-jugoslavija-hotel-is-being-demolished-and-belgrade-is-rapidly-uprooting-the-modernist-legacy-of-the-socialist-era

rest in peace, you were a good hotel....

Thank you for letting me discover možeš da nam pušiš Klintone, as someone who studied Serbo-Croatian, hearing the lyrics was easy to understand overall meaning and now I can't stop singing it XD this is why I love Serbian spirit, they can held heads up even in the darkest moments. Ofc I know how complicated is the Balkan because the more you study about it (and I don't mean just Balkans in the 90s but I mean Balkans from 13th to 19th century and we went through a lot, as Romanian I can confirm), the more you have questions than answers. By the way here the entire video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42PcV8Gch_Q

I loved noticing the singer also sang Bandiera Rossa. Bandiera Rossa (Italian, 'Red Flag'), often also called Avanti Popolo after its opening words is one of the most famous songs of the Italian labour movement. It glorifies the red flag, symbol of the socialist and communist movements. The text was written by Carlo Tuzzi in 1908; the melody is taken from two Lombard folk songs.
Plus I loved seeing all those flags, awww Greece *_*

I found very interesting the part about George W. Bush, I read his biography with interest because I didn't know some elements. A thing that characterized 90s Internet was the massive presence of personalized web pages where people created personal space to share their interests or slice of life. I did enjoy reading these parts and I read in the description of your game that without Internet Archive the game couldn't have been possible and this resonates very much considering that right now Internet Archive is facing a threat of being sued of $700 million by important record labels, here a journal to know more about it if you are interested (sorry for spam, but I think it's important since the game is also a product of this gem, plus in the blog you find other blogs talking about it):

https://yatsufusa.newgrounds.com/news/post/1530391

I liked how that Internet was characterized by these wacky sites, pages, fanpages (seriously the Friends vs Seinfeld had me crack XD, that was the best part of the Celebrity and Pop Culture section). I like how back in the 90s not all people knew how to make decent-looking pages, some pages were a pain in the eyes because of bright colours and bright backgrounds, lol.

And now the only part I feel to criticize: AOL Runner mini game. The game itself is cute and enjoyable but if you aim at getting the last medal, which I suppose is 100 points worth, prepare for a lot of frustration and ragequit. I managed to get the first two medals, but this one is a pain in the ass because:

1) the speed at which the game goes reaches a point that is almost impossible for the eyes to keep the pace. I am trying every possible strategy (keeping an eye on the moving obstacles, using the arrow as focal point, etc.) but nothing seems to work because there is another element that makes the minigame quite unfair

2) unbalance between obstacles and resources (coins and clocks). I see more obstacles than resources and I've noticed that each match changes location and frequency at which resources may appear. In some combinations, like I called them, I can find clocks and coins relatively at the beginning, helping me to reach decent scores and keep up, but in others I struggle and after 300-400 points speed becomes too fast to keep with the eyes.

I sometimes think that only birds and flies could play this game since they have high Flicker Fusion Frequency (FFF) which refers to the rate at which a flickering light appears to become a continuous, steady light. Humans typically have an FFF around 60Hz. This means that if a light flickers faster than 60 times per second, we perceive it as constant. However, many birds, especially smaller, agile species, have a much higher FFF. Some studies have shown that small songbirds have an FFF of over 140hz. This means they are able to see flickers that to us would appear as constant light. Because of this, birds can detect rapid movements and changes in their environment that humans miss. Because they can process visual information faster, they see more ‘frames’ of the action and therefore can very accurately track the movement of the threat. This gives them an opportunity to anticipate the predator’s trajectory and take evasive action. A high FFF contributes to a more detailed perception of the environment so birds can discern the fine details of a predator’s movements, such as very small changes in body posture or direction. This can help the bird to see the very beginning of an attack and, therefore, react quicker.

I think that in order to make more obtainable this difficult medal a nice balance between resources and obstacles would be nice: maybe adding them more at the beginning and then making them less frequent once you reach around 800 points.

I also wonder if velocity increases with incremental speed or if it reaches a maximum and stays that way. Congrats to RomWatt for being the first to have achieved it, I hope others will make it. In the meantime I will try to reach that too because it's the last medal I would like to unlock. I also reached 1123 points but NG servers crashed when I was playing and the game didn't register the score and is still at 1048....

Besides this only negative element I still liked the game a lot and I read and re-read those web pages. Thank you for making it, for the FP and Daily Feature, totally deserved all of them^^

UPDATE 29/04/2025: I finally managed to get the 1,500 points medal of the AOL Runner minigame. It was a pain in the ass but worth under certain aspects because I could train my mind and breath during these constant failures.

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I made a walkthrough for AOL Jumper minigame: https://shangxian.newgrounds.com/news/post/1531535

It will be updated in case of updates and/or changes

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NickSenny responds:

bro...

[Dadd - Les aventures de Teltok Part14]

This game has a really nice visual appeal and I like the soft colours of the environment, it really gives a calm, relaxing vibe of an oneiric experience towards a world full of mysteries to unravel. I like the overall vibe the game gives you and the style is lovely. Controls aren't always intuitive but overall you understand how to use them and which ones to use. I like the sound of footsteps and even though there doesn't seem to be a soundtrack yet, I like the lack of external sounds, maybe adding some natural sounds would give a more immersive experience. Despite everything I like exploring this world, however I noticed a bug that occurs every time I reach this area, shown here in my dump file:

https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/9ca9b0f0bdc604d54c276c56bfcdf3bf

Every time I try to go up the first step, the animation seems to glitch and it takes me back to this step. I've already tried reloading the page several times but I still get this problem. This is not the first time I see this game in the UJ section of Portal, and even back then I encountered a bug that blocked my character in a previous area. I understand the need to fix the problem. Now I notice that that bug is gone but there is this other bug. I gave it 4 stars because the game is very promising despite this bug that I hope will be fixed because I would genuinely like to continue exploring this dream world. I hope it will be fixed so that I can also give it a higher rating and a much more thoughtful review.

Best of luck with your game, and congrats for making it with flash back in 2012^^

anthony-p responds:

Thanks a lot ShangXian for playing it : o ) No it's not a bug, it's just because i'm in a "work in progress" and the part where the character can't move is the part i am working on to continue it.
Because this game is a old Flash game project from 2012 and he is only runnig with a very recent RuffleJS emulator : i am testing if the game is running well in Newgrounds and i upload theses Preview to see if people on Newgrounds are arriving to playing it good conditions : o )

Music and other sound are in the original old 2012 version, i'm working on adding it to the game very soon.

I see some comment so this is the proof that my game is working well with others in this page. So i will upload other finished part, and upload very soon all the next parcours.

[OLDCAT / Cat ilusory kill robot]

This probably one of the shortest reviews on a work due to a series of things that made me lower the score from its initial 4 stars (mainly due to the cute pixel art and catchy music which I enjoyed) to 3. The very first thing that is greatly noticeable is the non-existent function of arrow keys, initially when the game was UJ the keys were W and S. I tried to use them and they didn't work, now that I see in the description the keys are Up and Down arrows, they still don't work like HerrGammelig rightfully pointed out. I've noticed that if I press many times I manage to move a bit the character with the Down arrow but nothing happens if I do the same with the Up arrow.

Another thing I've noticed is that every time I reload the page and the game starts an ad appears below the game, nothing too problematic since I can just remove it by clicking on X. It's just curious that it appears, but it doesn't jeopardize the gameplay experience.

Last but not least the joypad that can be used as alternative to the non-functioning arrow keys may be useful but I've noticed that sometimes when I press it down to make the character go down, it seems to freeze and let the character continue going down unless I stop it. This can be pretty annoying if you try to shoot the robots in a fast way.

Another thing I didn't understand is that if I have to destroy all robots in each corner or I have to move up and down across the corner of the planet to kill as much as I can. A strange thing I've noticed that once the game ends (and I still don't know if there is a time limit or not) ending titles (the famous "thanks for playing") go down instead of up like they usually do. Maybe it's a bug or a glitch that needs to be fixed.

I have few suggestions to improve the game and make possible getting the last achievement that is becoming quite frustrating to me (congrats to the first 5 people who got it):

-make instructions more clear both in the description and in the game
-fix the arrow controls since they don't work at all
-add an "option" section in-game where one can decide to switch from arrows to in-game joypad and viceversa
-add description of the enemies in this hypothetical "Instruction" section of the game, where it's explained their weak points and how to avoid their multiplication in order to optimize a strategy.

I understand that a 100 points medal require a lot of effort but with these conditions it gets very difficult for majority of players. Hope this helps, good luck.

UPDATE 19/04/2024: I finally got the last medal, I will share my personal tip on how to get it since I think to have found what might have caused its difficulty to get it.

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The last medal, 100 points worth, is not easy to get and not because of the task itself but of the game mechanics that seem to trigger the game ending. I explain myself better, hoping that others that will get it might confirm or disprove what I think. When you move the character you can shoot robots very closely and wait for them to spawn to kill many in a short time. I've noticed that when I try to apply this strategy when I get closer to 80 the game ends with the "thank you for playing" text and the medal doesn't unlock, maybe I even reached the score but trying to shoot many robots at once will trigger this glitch/bug. So I thought to kill some of them in a fast way (wait for them to spawn, and kill en mass) until I stop and wait in my starting spot for them to regenerate, then I go up or down (I preferred to go up) and kill one or two robots at time, then I wait for them to regenerate/partially regenerate and repeat the process. This slow and more patient way allowed me to finally get the medal.

But of course others more expert than me, who will get it (good luck with that!), might correct me in case this tip doesn't work and if they find a more effective way to get it I will update this tip.

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So my judgement is the same; lots of stuff to improve, starting from the controls otherwise the experience is quite frustrating if you aim at medal hunting.

SketBestReal responds:

Thanks so much, I'm going to fix the controls, maybe there was a code that does a "release" instead of "Pressed" when typing on the keyboard

[Friday: The Game]

This was a really fun, pixel, text-based game to play and I liked to experiment different commands to get the easiest achievements. A command was particularly funny when typing it (SPOON, the message is "the spoon grows arms and legs and starts dancing. No, not really"), also typing BOWL gets a funny message. Graphics is fun, the music is very fun even if I liked to mute it and play in the background Rebecca Black's Friday XD to make the experience more immersive and fun. While listening to it, I've noticed some parts of the lyrics are put in the medals' names. Nice and fun reference. I am a relatively fast typer so getting the "Everybody's Rushing" achievement wasn't that hard (my current score is 00:00:37.49) but the problem was to get the right combos to complete each of the three main tasks (feeling stylin', hands washed and you had cereal) to get to the party. So after experimenting I finally found the combination of actions to perform in order to get the achievement.

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Let's first start with the easiest ones, those that imply a simple input to get the achievement immediately:

-Suicide
just type DIE or SUICIDE anywhere in the game

-Oh poop I
pretty straightforward, type POOP anywhere in the game

-Derp
just make 5 typos

easy achievements that require extra commands to obtain the medal:

-Oh poop II
type BATHROOM, then TOILET

-Burn Baby, Burn!
type BATHROOM, then SHOWER

-Cereal Killer
type STAIRS or HALL (pro-tip: I suggest HALL since it has less letters and it's easier to type in a fast way), KITCHEN, PEANUT BOWL (pro-tip 2: you can type PEANUT AND BOWL and you'll get the same result but I suggest just PEANUT BOWL because you will type faster, useful for the "Everybody's rushing" medal) and then type EAT

-Have a nice trip!
type CLOSET, then DRESS and finally type again HANGER

-Oh poop III
type CLOSET, DRESS, BEDROOM, BATHROOM, and finally DRESS TOILET (don't flush the toilet first!)

-Poop Princess
this achievement will automatically unlock once you get all Oh Poop achievements

-ZAP!
type BATHROOM and then SINK

Well, now we reach the achievements that require some conditions to be obtained, the easiest one is "Going Viral"

-Going Viral (viral ending)
while in your bedroom just type COMPUTER

-Partyin, Partyin, YEAH! (normal ending)
start from the closet to get your first condition to go to the party because it's the fastest way to end the game and end it in a fast way (less than 2 minutes), so the commands are:

CLOSET, DRESS, BEDROOM, BATHROOM, FLUSH, DRESS TOILET, DRESS TOASTER (1st condition: feeling stylin'), TOASTER, SINK SOAP (2nd condition: hands washed), BEDROOM, HALL, KITCHEN, CHOCOLATE BOWL, MILK BOWL, EAT SPOON (3rd condition: you had cereal), HALL, DOOR, FRONT

you beat the game and if you are fast, meaning you manage to beat the game in less than 2 minutes you will get two extra medals:

-Everybody's Rushing
-FUN! FUN! FUN! FUN! (100 points worth!)
reach the party after completing every task and/or achievement
-Winaholic
you get all three "You Win" endings

Now the last medals, the losing medals

-Partyin, Partyin, NO!
CLOSET, DRESS, BEDROOM, BATHROOM, FLUSH, DRESS TOILET, DRESS TOASTER, TOASTER, SINK SOAP, BEDROOM, HALL, KITCHEN, CHOCOLATE BOWL, MILK BOWL, EAT SPOON, HALL, DOOR, NO

-Road Kill
CLOSET, DRESS, BEDROOM, BATHROOM, FLUSH, DRESS TOILET, DRESS TOASTER, TOASTER, SINK SOAP, BEDROOM, HALL, KITCHEN, CHOCOLATE BOWL, MILK BOWL, EAT SPOON, HALL, DOOR, BACK

These two losing endings will trigger the achievement "Loseaholic"

-Loseaholic
get all deaths possible in the game

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As I said at the beginning of my review the game was very fun and I think I will replay it again for the fun now that I have all achievements. Nice job, keep it up!