I agree somewhat with Derelix. The gameplay is nigh unexistant, so it's hardly even an "art game". Secondly, there isn't anything artistic about it. There are plenty of ways to implement whatever feeling the creator was trying to portray, and several of them would be good implementations, but the entire thing in its current state is a total bore. There is no originality, no creative ideas in this submission, and as such it is woefully overrated.
Alright, so I'm probably not the only one, but I'm so sick of zombie games. It's become the new WWII of games.
However, this game is wonderful and deserves to use the theme it does.
It's a very fun zombie game, but with the largest twist probably being it's not another clickfest, there's actually a lot of thought involved (at least on what I played, Nightmare.)
The game is great fun, and the difficulty ramps up hella fast and hard on Nightmare, which is exactly what I wanted. You always have an idea of what you should be doing, but the difficulty ramps up so fast that it begins to feel like you are actually a survivor in the aftermath of a hopeless zombie apocalypse.
And it's going to be hard to survive, you REALLY have to plan things out and match your wits with the sheer strength of the computer zombie horde army. Easily the best flash game I've played this year so far.
Okay, let's be fair. The game isn't really a game as much as an interactive novel. There's no action sequences or puzzles, you merely pick choices.
I'm not giving it a 4 for that.
I'm giving it a 4 because
1) The choices are limited
Seriously, there only real choice was to work for a cure as much as you can. Not only is it your fault for the disease, but you know when you're playing that it's the only chance your character will have of making it out alive. There were no good options besides that one.
2) If you're going to play an interactive novel, make the story good. Make it engaging.
The story can be described in one sentence, and while it would suffice for a multitude of games, this doesn't work for a game that's COMPLETELY based on the story and how you influence it. The characters are one dimensional, you're not really given a reason to want to stay home with your wife and kids. They've only spoken like two lines of dialogue at that point.
Overall, the idea was a good one, but the execution was really bad. People can go "Aww, that's so deep" all they want, but it's not.
Being a big fan of the first two, I was already pretty sure I would love this one, just looking from the medals, it looked to be a large improvement over the first two.
However, I was initially thrown back by the gameplay. It hardly seemed anything like the first two! Infinite monster grinding, a world map, no random battles, and potentially infinite supply of items. It was completely different from what I had expected.
However, while I didn't think I wanted the changes, at first, I was very glad they were there the longer I played. While this is not the same game as the first two (item conservation and careful planning are trivial in comparison), it's still a very good game, has it's own unique flavor and carries some of the trends of the original, and it feels fresh. Looking back on it, playing the same game for a third time might have been a bit much, so overall, I'm completely thrilled with this game.
Points I liked:
+Ridiculously long for a flash game
+ Great graphics
+ Great music
+ Solid gameplay, makes you think.
+ Even though you can grind and make things easier, the difficulty on Epic seems to be the same level I liked from the other games, maybe a bit easier though.
+ Good humor
+ Any game that adds a cow costume is a good game in my book.
As for flaws, I really can't think of any. It's just a really solid game, and there wasn't anything that annoyed me or kept me from enjoying the good points.
Hoping to see your work in the future, whatever it may be.
You're a very talented artist and programmer!
For starters, you've pretty much seen everything this game has to offer within the first few seconds. Secondly, while I loved the Super Mario World GB music, it looped kinda fast and got annoying after a while. Thirdly, some of the sprites, and especially the egg one, looked blown up and ugly, like they were smaller when you drew them and then you stretched them out to fit the game. Not to mention that the "click an object, find a pair" idea has been worn to the ground and you have nothing innovative to make it any better than those.
It's a rather boring game that I'll have no recollection of playing in a few weeks, and no matter what kind of person you are, I can't see any justification for giving this game any more than a six or a seven, tops.
I didn't think it was funny or interesting. The graphics are the typical madness-grade graphics, and there was not much to hear. It was also VERY short.
I mean, I just didn't find anything redeeming about it. I'm not going to bitch about it being on the front page, since you can't help that, but it was pretty weak, man.
I didn't want to like this. The first level was boring, the graphics were pretty bad, and the whole thing felt like something I would play on Fetchfido in like 2001 or something.
However, it grew on me. I thought it was funny, and it went from being just laughs, to being challenging, to being too fucking challenging, but the whole time I thought it was funny and a pleasant game to play. Plus, it felt good to play, it's kind of hard to explain, but the no voice acting and basic sounds, I enjoyed.
Unnecessary things I liked a lot:
Easter Eggs
The choice of gun/mystery box
The chickendance
The *here's your reward, throw a grenade at him when you're done* part.
Love the animation and your sense of humor, it kind of flows through every flash you do. While I'd like to see something longer from you, or perhaps your animation and voice acting in a game or something, I was happy with this.
There's not much else to say, it was nice, but very short. Keep up the good work.
However, you must forever draw titties in every piece that you do.
Let me go ahead and state that I did not play this game knowing it would be educational, nor did that appeal to me at all. Not that I don't enjoy learning, but most educational games are inferior to standard ones in terms of fun.
I enjoyed this game very much! There are plenty of levels, and each level feels pretty different from the last, since there's something new added so often. The game is a bit complicated at first, but I welcomed the challenge and was rewarded with a similar feeling I had when I finally got the hang of Dwarf Fortress.
Actually, the game being more complex than most games was probably an unintentional side effect of making it educational. Like, would a game developer normally put in so many different kinds of resources, and would they make how each one works differently, rather than, say, Gold - mined from mines, Wood - cut from trees, Food - Grown from farms?
The game trusts the player to pay attention to how each organelle works, what functions they provide, and even to know how the enemy viruses work. With the dumbening down of games to cater to the mainstream (*cough, WoW and EA games, cough*, I found the small bit of complexity very pleasant.
The game itself is wonderful. The idea is great, the storyline is quirky and works well. It's just a pleasure to play.
Now, even if this game wasn't educational, I would probably still give it a ten, since it's the best game on NG I've played in a while. However, this game reminded me that I had a terrible biology teacher and helped what remnants I remembered of biology come together. That class was a little confusing, and it's been a few years! When I finally finish this game (don't get me wrong, I played a large ways through so I could give an accurate review, but the game is (pleasantly!) lengthy.), I'll be able to take with me a better reinforced grasp of biology. That's a good feeling to have. While every game certainly shouldn't be made educational (although I'd love to see more similar in scale), what I would like to see many more game developers do is treat the player like a person.
Overall, I found the game very enjoyable. The fact it was educational was mostly just a nice extra feature to me, as I have no interests working in biology. However, there is certainly an audience who would merit the educational value of Cellcraft much higher than me. More than anything, I enjoyed the game because of the small amount of complexity that is present here that is depressingly absent out of the huge majority of games, even similar strategy games. I only hope this game gets some of the attention it deseves.
Ghandi69
All 84 flash Reviews
Rated 1 / 5 stars August 24, 2011
Overrated Trash
I agree somewhat with Derelix. The gameplay is nigh unexistant, so it's hardly even an "art game". Secondly, there isn't anything artistic about it. There are plenty of ways to implement whatever feeling the creator was trying to portray, and several of them would be good implementations, but the entire thing in its current state is a total bore. There is no originality, no creative ideas in this submission, and as such it is woefully overrated.
Rated 5 / 5 stars April 17, 2011
I have such a weird boner right now
I think /d/ is going to love this.
Rated 5 / 5 stars February 14, 2011
Ohoho, this was a wonderful surprise.
Alright, so I'm probably not the only one, but I'm so sick of zombie games. It's become the new WWII of games.
However, this game is wonderful and deserves to use the theme it does.
It's a very fun zombie game, but with the largest twist probably being it's not another clickfest, there's actually a lot of thought involved (at least on what I played, Nightmare.)
The game is great fun, and the difficulty ramps up hella fast and hard on Nightmare, which is exactly what I wanted. You always have an idea of what you should be doing, but the difficulty ramps up so fast that it begins to feel like you are actually a survivor in the aftermath of a hopeless zombie apocalypse.
And it's going to be hard to survive, you REALLY have to plan things out and match your wits with the sheer strength of the computer zombie horde army. Easily the best flash game I've played this year so far.
Rated 1.5 / 5 stars December 22, 2010
Pretentious
Okay, let's be fair. The game isn't really a game as much as an interactive novel. There's no action sequences or puzzles, you merely pick choices.
I'm not giving it a 4 for that.
I'm giving it a 4 because
1) The choices are limited
Seriously, there only real choice was to work for a cure as much as you can. Not only is it your fault for the disease, but you know when you're playing that it's the only chance your character will have of making it out alive. There were no good options besides that one.
2) If you're going to play an interactive novel, make the story good. Make it engaging.
The story can be described in one sentence, and while it would suffice for a multitude of games, this doesn't work for a game that's COMPLETELY based on the story and how you influence it. The characters are one dimensional, you're not really given a reason to want to stay home with your wife and kids. They've only spoken like two lines of dialogue at that point.
Overall, the idea was a good one, but the execution was really bad. People can go "Aww, that's so deep" all they want, but it's not.
Rated 5 / 5 stars September 18, 2010
Really, good.
Being a big fan of the first two, I was already pretty sure I would love this one, just looking from the medals, it looked to be a large improvement over the first two.
However, I was initially thrown back by the gameplay. It hardly seemed anything like the first two! Infinite monster grinding, a world map, no random battles, and potentially infinite supply of items. It was completely different from what I had expected.
However, while I didn't think I wanted the changes, at first, I was very glad they were there the longer I played. While this is not the same game as the first two (item conservation and careful planning are trivial in comparison), it's still a very good game, has it's own unique flavor and carries some of the trends of the original, and it feels fresh. Looking back on it, playing the same game for a third time might have been a bit much, so overall, I'm completely thrilled with this game.
Points I liked:
+Ridiculously long for a flash game
+ Great graphics
+ Great music
+ Solid gameplay, makes you think.
+ Even though you can grind and make things easier, the difficulty on Epic seems to be the same level I liked from the other games, maybe a bit easier though.
+ Good humor
+ Any game that adds a cow costume is a good game in my book.
As for flaws, I really can't think of any. It's just a really solid game, and there wasn't anything that annoyed me or kept me from enjoying the good points.
Hoping to see your work in the future, whatever it may be.
You're a very talented artist and programmer!
Rated 1 / 5 stars September 6, 2010
Very dull
For starters, you've pretty much seen everything this game has to offer within the first few seconds. Secondly, while I loved the Super Mario World GB music, it looped kinda fast and got annoying after a while. Thirdly, some of the sprites, and especially the egg one, looked blown up and ugly, like they were smaller when you drew them and then you stretched them out to fit the game. Not to mention that the "click an object, find a pair" idea has been worn to the ground and you have nothing innovative to make it any better than those.
It's a rather boring game that I'll have no recollection of playing in a few weeks, and no matter what kind of person you are, I can't see any justification for giving this game any more than a six or a seven, tops.
Rated 2.5 / 5 stars September 5, 2010
Weak
I didn't think it was funny or interesting. The graphics are the typical madness-grade graphics, and there was not much to hear. It was also VERY short.
I mean, I just didn't find anything redeeming about it. I'm not going to bitch about it being on the front page, since you can't help that, but it was pretty weak, man.
Opinion accepted. Bye, now.
Rated 4.5 / 5 stars September 4, 2010
I did not want to like this.
I didn't want to like this. The first level was boring, the graphics were pretty bad, and the whole thing felt like something I would play on Fetchfido in like 2001 or something.
However, it grew on me. I thought it was funny, and it went from being just laughs, to being challenging, to being too fucking challenging, but the whole time I thought it was funny and a pleasant game to play. Plus, it felt good to play, it's kind of hard to explain, but the no voice acting and basic sounds, I enjoyed.
Unnecessary things I liked a lot:
Easter Eggs
The choice of gun/mystery box
The chickendance
The *here's your reward, throw a grenade at him when you're done* part.
Rated 5 / 5 stars September 4, 2010
Fuck Yeah
Love the animation and your sense of humor, it kind of flows through every flash you do. While I'd like to see something longer from you, or perhaps your animation and voice acting in a game or something, I was happy with this.
There's not much else to say, it was nice, but very short. Keep up the good work.
However, you must forever draw titties in every piece that you do.
Rated 5 / 5 stars July 10, 2010
Haha! A wonderful game.
Let me go ahead and state that I did not play this game knowing it would be educational, nor did that appeal to me at all. Not that I don't enjoy learning, but most educational games are inferior to standard ones in terms of fun.
I enjoyed this game very much! There are plenty of levels, and each level feels pretty different from the last, since there's something new added so often. The game is a bit complicated at first, but I welcomed the challenge and was rewarded with a similar feeling I had when I finally got the hang of Dwarf Fortress.
Actually, the game being more complex than most games was probably an unintentional side effect of making it educational. Like, would a game developer normally put in so many different kinds of resources, and would they make how each one works differently, rather than, say, Gold - mined from mines, Wood - cut from trees, Food - Grown from farms?
The game trusts the player to pay attention to how each organelle works, what functions they provide, and even to know how the enemy viruses work. With the dumbening down of games to cater to the mainstream (*cough, WoW and EA games, cough*, I found the small bit of complexity very pleasant.
The game itself is wonderful. The idea is great, the storyline is quirky and works well. It's just a pleasure to play.
Now, even if this game wasn't educational, I would probably still give it a ten, since it's the best game on NG I've played in a while. However, this game reminded me that I had a terrible biology teacher and helped what remnants I remembered of biology come together. That class was a little confusing, and it's been a few years! When I finally finish this game (don't get me wrong, I played a large ways through so I could give an accurate review, but the game is (pleasantly!) lengthy.), I'll be able to take with me a better reinforced grasp of biology. That's a good feeling to have. While every game certainly shouldn't be made educational (although I'd love to see more similar in scale), what I would like to see many more game developers do is treat the player like a person.
Overall, I found the game very enjoyable. The fact it was educational was mostly just a nice extra feature to me, as I have no interests working in biology. However, there is certainly an audience who would merit the educational value of Cellcraft much higher than me. More than anything, I enjoyed the game because of the small amount of complexity that is present here that is depressingly absent out of the huge majority of games, even similar strategy games. I only hope this game gets some of the attention it deseves.