Score: 7

"Tree Unagain"

submission: Tree Again: W.L.o.M.

date: April 4, 2007

I've noticed many people are saying they don't understand the concept of this flash. To that I say that's half the point. The other half is half as confusing as the first. Heh. Sometimes I feel I'm on the same wave lengths as you as far as thinking goes and wondering/designing how the world is put together in unknown sources.

At any rate, this was very well done, more so as far as concept is concerned. The actual flash quality and design can be improved, such as a few sticky animated portions and bad sound quality. I don't mean when you meant to make the vocals and sounds fade around and get bizarre, I'm talking about instances where we couldn't hear the character's narration because your background music was too loud, and some other cases. But I liked the sound crossings and how his sentences would fade into others, very creative, well done.

As far as the meaning behind this whole thing: I've got my own interpretation of it all, and I feel that's part of what you want people to do, but also, I believe I understand things you're saying as well. Not all of course. No one will ever know the deepest things hidden in works such as these, sometimes not even the creators.

Good work though. Pretty creepy, pretty insightful, pretty pretty.

-Darkend-

Score: 2

"I'm Not Impressed In the Slightest"

submission: ..:: BeatBox Beta ::..

date: March 14, 2007

Sadly enough, as harsh as the review by Epikus may sound, it's all true. This "beat boxer" is very faulty, not in that it's broken or doesn't work--it works it's just...well it just sucks at doing what it does.

Seriously what is up with the tempo? You've got this funky 4, 5, 4, 4, 5, 4, 4, layout.. not to mention a random 2 beat to start us off with, it seems, just to ruin the rhythm of what's to follow even more. After seeing the odd 2 set a the beginning, I just went ahead and started my song (or "beat") right after it so that I'd stay on track..not realizing at the time that that was going to be impossible due to screwy beat placement (took me a while to figure out why my beat wasn't fitting correctly). Yeah, you can try to ignore the odd layout and do your own thing but it gets too confusing because then you have to sit there and count out everything and fight the graph. Frustrating.

I don't know what you know or heard about music, but no matter what kind of music it is: country, hip-hop, rock, whatever, beats per measure never ever change. Tempo speed might, hits per beat may, but the time signature just can't flip out in mid-song dude.

And why on Earth did you use those annoying sounds? Some were pretty alright, like the Thump, and Scratch, and a few others but if it had "synth" in it's name is was gross while others were very unrealistic. I'm not even going to begin to wonder why Bump and Thump sounded like a bass and Bass sounded like Darth Vadar on helium. Nothing at all makes much sense here, but it could just be me. You also had a few grammar errors.

For an amateur mixer or someone with no music composing/editing experience, yeah, this might be fun for them because it's something new and lets them be somewhat creative. But for people who regularly submit to the Audio Portal or those who are highly experienced mixers (like myself) this is a joke; just utterly laughable. It's good you're thinking up of new things and trying to provide a route for those who lack music software but still want to submit to the Audio Portal. Yes that's very thoughtful of you, but please.. don't cheat them like this. They deserve more, and I know you can do better. At least, I think you can..

-Darkend-

Score: 8

"Another Hit"

submission: Eres Veneno ++

date: March 7, 2007

Your adaptation skills with characters and events to music is unique and probably the very thing that makes your movies so successful. That is because you are one of the few artists, or people I should say, out there who can actually do it correctly. And it's that aspect where you earn my respect. This flash only reinforces your name and abilities.

And as to the last reviewer, "Liteice" or somethin, this flash scored so high because it captures what I stated above, and it also tells a continuing story of some very unique characters in a very creative world. If you're lost as far as who is who then I suggest you go watch his previous works and read all of his author's comments. And no, talking or any audible dialogue, or even sound effects for that matter would've distracted and ruined this flash movie. The story is told through visuals and the feelings embeded in the song which coordinate with the action perfectly. Any other sounds besides the music would destroy that bond and thus pretty much destroy the foundation of the whole flash is built on; it ruins the moment and feeling. But at least you didn't rate the movie low like most idiots do when they don't understand stuff, so I thank you for that at least.

I love your work and am glad to see you're still alive and producing content. Keep it going, you have a rare talent.

-Darkend-

Score: 7

"A Different Kind of Fun"

submission: Scribble 2!

date: January 29, 2007

This is one of those games that you play but wonder why you're playing it, yet at the same time you know you can't stop because you're somehow enjoying it. I guess I just described addicting.

I notice a lot of people are complaining about the new camera deal in this one. This was the first version I played and upon reading reviews about the camera, I went ahead and played the first one to see the difference and what people were talking about. I've gotta say, despite what others say, I actually like the camera in this version a lot better and here's why.

We all played connect-the-dots when we were younger, yes? What was the funnest aspect about playing them in our coloring books? For me, it was to see what the picture ultimately was; what I was drawing. I loved not knowing what I was making until finished or closed to it and getting that "Ooooh!" inside that little kids do when they figure things out. This game did that. The fact that our perspective is so close, with bigger pictures, makes it harder to guess or figure out the objects, especially as you near towards the end, and it also makes you feel little again, drawing in a big book. When I went back and played the old version I could immediately tell what I was about to draw the instant I turned the page, "Oh..boat...dipper...sled.." etc. hence taking all the fun out of it. Why do it when there's no element of surprise? Very boring.

That's just my take on the whole thing though. You're thrills and reasons for playing might be different than mine. So I suggest next time the artist makes a compromise by allowing the user to set the camera on fixed or pan. That could mess up gameplay though because if you fix it to zoom out all the way the dots may be too small, along with your cursor. If you fix the dots to scale in size as you're in fixed mode, that too could be an issue because dots that are close together will overlap each other with their size. Surely there's some way around it but I'm not going to try to hard to figure it out because its not my project.

The other attributes of the game were very good especially the recap at the end where we got to see all the pictures we drew and you let us know what they were or what they were supposed to be (mine all looked accurate except that coat hanger, hah). That was another huge difference. Not all the scribbles in the last version were actually anything, they were just...scribbles, heh. Which makes sense considering the title of the game, but still, not nearly as fun.

Awesome game! I'd love to see a 3rd one!

-Darkend-

Score: 6

"That's Not Satan.."

submission: Santa Vs Satan

date: December 16, 2006

Story, logic, and design wise, this flash movie doesn't make any sense. Mainly because Satan would never want to do anything like that. You DO know who Satan is right? What he stands for? How evil he actually is? Christmas is the day we celebrate the birth of Christ, the redeemer. Do you actually think Satan would be jumping for joy, wanting to help spread good cheer around Christmas? ...No, he hates Christmas and he hates Christ and hates joy, and hates making little children happy and blah blah blah all that corny stuff. He wants nothing more than to see you burn, to see those kids suffer and tortured endlessly. Sound cruel? Thats Satan.

I agree what others have been saying. This is more so a little imp or a demon seeking love and acceptance. That makes more sense to me and actually makes the story more touching. But with Stan? I almost felt like you were promoting him. Which sounds...loving and all but, I dunno, it is very awkward. Of course you have to right to say or represent whatever you want. It did have a good message overall.

Everything else, graphics, sound, was all pretty good. Above average suits it well for a description. I gave you low style points though for that whole Satan stuff. It was just very awkward watching this movie and felt very condradictory overall. It gets you thinking though, which is good but at the same time you're sitting there blinking at the unrealism. Half and half, its balanced in negative and postive points but a pretty good movie, so I give this is a solid 6.

-Darkend-

Score: 7

"That's Great.."

submission: -The Greatest Movie Ever-

date: December 5, 2006

But who was the Executive's Assistant of Celluloid Medium's Chemical Balance of Film? That's what I really wanted to know, stupid...

=]

-Darkend-

Score: 5

"Your All Grammarz R Belongst To Its"

submission: Bohroks Vs Boxors 5

date: December 1, 2006

Haha, well at first I thought you were being creative with your dialogue until I read your profile and discovered you weren't trying to mess around, but be serious.. however this in turn had a unique effect.

Number one, I love mechs. I naturally had a little attraction to your film because of your characters theme. But I can't really say I like Bionicle.. Regular Legos are cool though.. Anyway back on subject, your flash was unique in a good way because of your messy english. It gave a more believable feeling that they were robots from another world. Naturally, anything from another world would talk different than we do yet base they're language on their creators. (Granted those creators were english speaking humans.) I don't know it just made me feel like I was actually looking into the events of another world, trying to understand the language yet at the same time comprehending the communication. Its one of the few flashes I've seen where communication is transfered indirectly yet somehow clearly. I was going to give you a ton of props for it..er..until I realized what really happenend.

So now I have to decide if I'd be giving you too much credit for congratulating you for doing such a wacked up job and making a mess. Well when I put it that way, I like the sound of it. Yeah, I think I will. Congrats on your screw up. Hope to see you friggen crap up some more in the future! You make a train wreck look good. And that's something to be proud of.

-Darkend-

Score: 6

"Your Mom Goes To College"

submission: Chuck Dynamite

date: December 1, 2006

Haha, that was enjoyable to watch. Nice clean humor. Thats what I love about Napoleon Dynamite. But aw man, you should've had him dancing and showing off his sweet moves at the end. Thats what I was expecting and waiting for the entire time. Then it cut short. But thats alright I s'pose.

This thing probably deserved a 9 or 10 but with 0 interactivity and a lowered graphics score because of such a jittery and unclean walking motion, it added up being a 6 from me. Sorry. Tell your buddy there that I wanna see him dance next time too! Maybe that'll get him a 10, hehe.

-Darkend-

Score: 7

"Hah, Too Easy"

submission: Sudoku

date: December 1, 2006

I've been doing Sudoku for a while now and I've had lots of practice with harder ones so this was a breeze.

However it seems as though the game does not fully work? I solved the puzzle once (under 3 minutes) and the clock kept ticking. Why does the game keep going even after you solve it? So I pushed the Solution button thinking thats what I'm supposed to do to end the thing and get my results, but that just completely stopped the game from working at all. All the buttons became unclickable. So how am I supposed to enter my owning score on the leader board? How do I even see the leader board? The game just dies. That was extremely disappointing, which is why you fell short of your 10 and 5.

Whats the point in playing this if I don't get to submit? If I wanted to just play sudoku for fun (and play more challenging levels) I'll go to some other sudoku website, not play this. This failed its true purpose for me, but it was still quality work which why you passed in the end. Just fix it and you'll have yourself a true piece of work.

-Darkend-

Score: 6

"Different"

submission: -DEBT BUGS-

date: November 23, 2006

This is different from your normal enteries but that is probably because its for work...and it's not LDS related ;)

I'm a big fan of you and your work. I have you down as my favorite artist and I've got a few of your submissions in my favs as well. Going off of all of those, and judging by your previous work, this wasn't the same. In quality yeah, but it had a different style. On the other hand I should give you congrats on that because it fulfilled what it was designed to be.

The game ends way too quickly though and so it gets dull real fast. I suggest making an alternate NG version so we could play longer and it'd have greater value. Yeah?

I don't know..I'm not sure why you submitted this, but either way you get a good job from me. It's not the greatest thing you've done in my opinion but hey. Next time though, I wanna see some BOM stories. Eh? Eh? *nudge nudge* I've always thought about how funny it'd be if you did spoofs depicting alternate BOM storylines. Like, "we know the story goes like this, but what if this happend instead" Nephi meeting Moroni etc, etc. Ah, but who am I to tell ya what to do?

Hence forth. Keep on working and serving. Whether it be in the world or in ours.

-Darkend-