Soulanger's NDS Application Reviews

[soulanger]

Soulanger Review System

I give Overview reviews from the following:

Concept - Is the general concept interesting? Does it have something innovative? Will it be fun or usefull? Is it basic?
Presentation - Is the game presentated gracefully? Was the graphics bad? How about the sound? Were they generic?
Execution - Is the program faithful to its promising Concept? Is it okay? Are there glitches? Did exceed expectations?

Overviews points are merely, guides to show if the game has strong points in a certain category. These score will not affect the Final Score.
The only categories that will affect the score are:

Motion Support (.5/.5) - Does it support Motion?
Original entry (.5/.5) - It wasnt posted in the previous Neo Competitions?
Overall (10/10) - Was the whole program good? What did it lack?

It will then sum up to the Final Score (11/11)

This system was made so that game genres that have rare times to show their graphical capabilities (like Text Based Adventure) and games that can show graphics in each portion of the game (like Platformers and action games) would be much fair. In apps a great example would be comparing flashme to an image viewer, flashme would certainly receive lesser points even tho they are quite different. I also try to review the game/app in its coding side, something coders might find as a treat.

The reviews are aligned from best to not so bright, homebrews.

Japanese Hiragana & Katakana Review

Concept 9/10
A free tool created to aid students learning Japanese from learning kana characters. You are given some activities if you can recognize the following hiragana or katakana characters. The activities uses visual and audio cues. Afterwards you will be rated based from your speed and accuracy. Additional scores will be from the difficulty of the activity taken.

Presentation  9/10
It's awesome. The color palette is pretty good. The icons looks great, although those round edges has to go, the black spaces are very eye candy. The sound Presentation  is very nice. The Japanese character are spoken by a lovely sounding girl. Although the No(ie) and Yes(hai) voice clips tends to get annoying after a few mistakes.

Execution 9/10
Very well made. I believe I will learn a lot from using this program. Its insanely great to use. It's very complete but I do hope the author will still update and give us more features. I was very surprised with this program.

Overall 9/10
The game is nice as hell.. Wait did I just say game? Argh, I forgot that is an application. But yes this application is very fun to use. I already decided not to delete this program, as I do think I will learn a lot with this. Thank you to the author... Your awesome..

Motion Supported  .5
Original Entry  .5

Final Score  10/11 Try It!
http://tinyurl.com/NEOHIRAGANA

Savsend

Concept 10/10
SavSend allows you to dump your slot-1 save file for flash cart or emulation use.
 
Presentation  7/10
A basic blue ascii gui. It does the job done nicely, and it's very informative. No stylus or dpad controls though. Rather than selecting the function and pressing A, the program has 2 buttons which is A and B that instantly does the action stated. Which could cause mistakes, being instant.
 
Execution 9/10
Awesome the execution is merely awesome! The program is quite easy to use, and does what it says quite perfectly. Both of the options work nicely to me. Although, the first option is a little glitch when used with some browsers. Perhaps it is because of how the browsers handles the HTTP header of the program's mini server. No worries though, if you do have trouble getting the save file via this option, you can use the second provided option which sends your save file online. This option is very solid, I haven't seen it fail.
  
Overall 9/10
The sweet program just made me backup 14 game carts flawlessly, and I believe I will backup my other carts as well. Because of this baby, my game carts are now rendered, worthless. Although I do wish the author could add a feature that allows you to do the alternate. A save flash feature would be quite awesome as well. Anyway, I give this damn sweet brew, a try it.
 
Not Motion Supported
Original Entry  .5

Final Score  9.5/11 Try It!

http://tinyurl.com/NEOSAVSEND

UA Paint v1.30c

Concept 8/10
A paint editor that does everything. When I mean everything, I mean everything from music playing to clone stamps. I am quite confused on what artist the author aims. Unlike  before, the application doesn't feel like it's for pixel art. From what I could gather from its users, it's more of a toy now rather than a real paint app. It's quite similar to Mario Paint. It's fun, but it's not for actual art. Although, it being a toy from what I've read the author made this as an drawing application -- it was posted on applications rather than games, so i guess the fun factor shouldnt be rated. So I believe it would be okay if I review this program as an artist. Lets see how it works well.

Presentation  8/10
The interface isn't that very ergonomic and isn't very efficient for fast artists. Buttons are very small and requires effort and precision. Its great but it isnt fast.

Execution 9/10
Its execution is definitely great. It adds alot more to than the basic features, altho it is more quantity rather than quality. The program has no antialiasing built in. The program is very poor when picking colors, as it uses a weird system when picking the brightness of a selected color. I believe it uses addition rather than subtraction. Those who will create art with this program will notice this. The undo is very lovable, and very usefull. I also encountered a major bug that turned my DS off, It happened after I press undo alot of times. Doesnt matter tho. It's still great.

Overall 9/11
But as an artist, having too much unnecessary features is very cumbersome. One of the reasons why Colors! was so impressive is that it only have few tools, but these tools were extremely polished. Artists prefers quality than quantity. Even tho its not perfect as a professional, the program is very fun to use. If you do plan on using it as a real graphics tool, the program is pretty good when creating pixelated lineart, altho creating these line arts will just use the basic features such as zoom, rectangular and pencil with a black color. Still its a great program tho! Try it!

Not Motion Supported
Not Original Entry

Final Score  9/11 Try It!

http://tinyurl.com/NEOUAPAINT

DSi4DS

Concept 8/10
A graphical clone of the DSi's interface. The author is most known for his interface work. This is his latest work.

Presentation  9/10
Graphically it looks very identical to the DSi, hence it even has those empty boxes. The animation isn't a perfect copy though, those with keen eyes could see that the acceleration and deceleration of the boxes isn't that fluid as the DSi's. The colors schemes isn't that as good as the ones on the DSi also.

Execution 8/10
It's not perfect but its near perfect. You can't do everything like DSi does like pulling the box up to move it around, you can also click the icons so that the menu will jump to the clicked icon. There are no other menus other than the main DSi.

Overall 8/10
A pretty fine DSi clone. It wasn't mean to be a complete program. The author merely did this project just for fun and for a few laughs. It's also a complete rewrite and is currently open source for those who want to learn or use his code. But overall if you want a complete firmware replacement, I suggest the author's other project, DSision2 rather than this.

Not Motion Supported
Original Entry  .5

Final Score  8.5/11 Try It!

http://tinyurl.com/NEODSI4DS

MorseDS

Concept 8/10
MorseDS is a DS homebrew application which currently that allows you to do a lot of Morse related stuff. Such as a translator Morse text, practice mode, a Morse chart, etc.

Presentation  7/10
Composed of mostly static background. Kinda hurts the eyes but it works alright.

Execution 10/10
Very nice execution. For having an in-progress state, the author was manage to squeeze out a great number of features for a simple concept. Very nice indeed.

Overall 7/10
The author did say that the program is still in development, and that he has a lot of planned features for it. Even though he said that this program feels complete and very usable in its current status. Awesome work!

Not Motion Supported
Original Entry  .5

Final Score  7.5/11 Try It!

http://tinyurl.com/NEOMORSE

SoundBoard

Concept 7/10
A DJ board that allows you to play numerous sound.

Presentation  7/10
A simple gui. Again, it isn't astonishing but it does the job quite well. Although I think it's better if the buttons would be a lot bigger. I do like it when you the buttons when pressed. The preinstalled sound are pretty nice, but the sound quality makes it sound less better.

Execution 8/10
It's what you would expect. With the general concept you can't do much, but the author also added the ability for you to customize the sounds to your own preference. It also has a feature that allows you to record from the mic, which activates by pressing A and replay it by pressing the B button.

Overall 7/10 Sneak Peek
An application not all can appreciate, but for those who think they would it. It's pretty good. So maybe a Sneak Peek would be best.

Not Motion Supported
Original Entry  .5

Final Score 7.5/11 Too Early

http://tinyurl.com/NEOSOUND

WintenDoS

Concept 8/10
Windows XP for the Nintendo DS. Use your DS as minicomputer. Quite a sweet concept.

Presentation 7/10
Interesting presentation. The lower screen is for the input, it can either be a track pad, the main screen itself or a keyboard. The keyboard and the track pad doesn't look as impressive as the actual screen though. It's quite an imitation of XP's interface. It's almost exactly what you would get when you use 256x192 as resolution for XP. The windows are pretty nifty, you can drag and minimize it like you would expect it would. Sadly the are some graphical glitches when you enter one area of the program.

Execution 7/10
It's still not complete, the program is full of glitches, but do take note that this is obviously a Tech Demo/Proof of Concept. If you look at it as a Proof of Concept, it's pretty awesome to see and feel what's to come.

Overall 7/10 Too early.
The program isn't incomplete, by estimation it is more likely 2% of the actual product. An amazing demo, but currently a really bad program.

Not Motion Supported
Original Entry  .5

Final Score  7.5/11 Too Early

http://tinyurl.com/NEOWINTENDOS

Paint DS

Concept 7/10
A paint program with some basic functions. I am not sure what the author is trying to aim for this drawing tool. But right now it's just an incomplete MS paint clone, which is a little decent when doing pixel arts.
 
Presentation  7/10
The program has big icons which is always good for interfaces. The interface presentation feels uninspiring. It also gives users an old Window 3.1 like feel. It needs a lot of work, but it does the job done.

Execution 7/10
Being an incomplete project, it's pretty alright. Right now, it isn't much of an MS paint clone.

Overall 6/10 Too Early
Very incomplete. Right now, you can't do much with it. You can't do even a decent pixel art, with the lack of zoom. It would be interesting though if the author will focus this application for pixel art.

Not Motion Supported
Original Entry  .5

Final Score  6.5/11 Too Early!

http://tinyurl.com/NEOPAINTDS

DsOS v0.6 neocompo edition

Concept 8/10
A mini-os that can multi task applications, and load other homebrew NDS files.

Presentation  6/10
The interface is pretty simple. The OS feels very static, controls feels the same, also. It also uses text engine that displays unaligned letters. The most eye catching thing the author added though was the addition a unique NeoFlash splash screen that most likely offended a great number of homebrew DS developers.

Execution 7/10
Despite having a high version number, it feels quite far from complete. There are not much applications aside from the explorer, picture viewer and text viewer. They may not have been presented nicely but the applications we're nicely coded. Sadly the code side of a program will not be felt by its users.

Overall 7/10 Too Early
Although the version says otherwise, the program feels more like a POC/Demo. We'll see what the author has to offer when it's completed.

Not Motion Supported
Original Entry  .5

Final Score  7.5/11 Too Early

http://tinyurl.com/NEODSOS

NdsMiiMaker

Concept 7/10
A mii maker for the DS.

Presentation  7/10
It's quite decent. The graphics are inanimate and the head isn't antialiased. Even so, it does the job quite right. The program is stylus-only. The screen contains buttons to move or modify the selected parts. Sadly you can't switch both of the screens to have an on-the-fly manipulations of the parts.

Execution 7/10
With a basic concept like this, its execution was alright. It doesn't have all the features from the original material, such as body parts, scale, etc.

Overall 6/10
Even though the program is incomplete, it already did most of what the original Mii Maker can do. It's pretty okay, but it's not for everybody.

Not Motion Supported
Original Entry  .5

Final Score  6.5/11 Passable

http://tinyurl.com/NEOMIIMAKER

DSecure

Concept 9/10
Gives you the liberty password your ds, so that others may not use it without your permission. A great way to guard your ds and private stuffs. Hehe.. Private.. A lot will find the idea useful.

Presentation  6/10
Based from the snapshot. A static image is found in the top screen, which is pretty much useless. While there is a keyboard in the button screen, which is also where you input your password.

Execution x/10
Its either not working or its incompatible with all the carts I have.

Overall x/10 Sneak Peek
Although the concept is pretty nice, the program doesn't start. So right now, I give this program a Not Working. If you want to try hopefully it would work.

Not Motion Supported
Original Entry  .5

Final Score  x/11 Sneak Peek

http://tinyurl.com/NEODSECURE

[samel]

Can i ask a question soulanger ? Don't take it as a flame, because it doesn't want to be that.

you say:

Execution 7/10
It's still not complete, the program is full of glitches, but do take note that this is obviously a Tech Demo/Proof of Concept. If you look at it as a Proof of Concept, it's pretty awesome to see and feel what's to come.

Overall 7/10 Too early.
The program isn't incomplete, by estimation it is more likely 2% of the actual product. An amazing demo, but currently a really bad program.

How can you assign a score of 7.5/11 to a project that you say it's at 2%, it's a tech demo etc. ?
You assign the same score to MorseDS and Sound Board which are complete.

I can say the same think about the nds game review about DawnSeekers.

Anyway, i've already say this [and got no replay], but i'd like to understand why all do souch think.

Thanks && bye

[soulanger]

I do understand, why you find it questionable samel. Lets see, if you read my review system. You might understand why. It doesnt mean that if a program is incomplete others are complete programs are alot better. For example, do you think an incomplete RPG that only has a battle system is worse than a complete Pong game? I dont think so.
Its similar to what I feel about DawnSeekers and  WintenDoS. They arent complete yet, but concept  and innovation of what was already done is quite impressive in my opinion. Some may not notice but Dawnseekers, is quite complete but only its engine. It only needs a few polish to be better. WintenDos would get a 6.5, but ideas that the author had, are quite unique. Things that I have havent seen made in another homebrew project.

Sorry for the dizzy sentences im quite sleepy right now. Anyway I hope that clears it up. ^^"

[samel]

Ok, nice you made me understand that. many thanks!

edit

Anyway ... i don't like very  much your method.

[BassAceGold]

Seriously? Anti-aliasing is needed in a PIXEL art app? O_o That would screw up and add too many colors if people are trying to keep track of their color usage. Too many useless features eh? May be useless to you, but useful to others, gotta keep that in mind  

You do have valid reasons for some things, but the other reasons are just ridiculous. :/

Thanks for the feed back, I'll be sure to fix/improve what I can.

[soulanger]

@samel: I understand. ^^" But if its okay may I ask why?

@bassacegold: I never said the anti-aliasing is for doing pixel arts. Parts of the review was actually me searching what art style the program is good for. I checked if the program is good for digital painting, the answer was no. Because there was no antialiasing. As for some of the tools, I didnt think I said they were useless. I think I said they were rather unnecessary.  The eraser is merely the pencil tool with only one color, which is white. And the spraypaint, im sure its a tool in MSpaint, but I really cant see the point of it. I'm not sure when I shall use the stamp tool, I know it is fun to use, but for creating pixel arts im really not sure. It's not quite good as a tile map editor also, because it doesnt snaps into a grid. These and other few features arent useless. Some of the tools function can be done even without using the particular tool. (erase, spray, etc) While other features are just rarely used. (stamp, etc) I really like UApaint, if I hate it I wouldnt give it such a hiscore.

[BassAceGold]

Regardless if there are tools that you deem unnecessary for yourself, I would hardly consider it a fault as you have because it gives the user a choice whether they want to use them or not and are all accessible when needed.

I'm perfectly happy with the score i received here, but by the way you've described the faults and such, it seems almost like unnecessary bashing (which only seems to be found in the UA Paints review) and doesn't seem to match up with the scores correctly from that perspective.

I'm sorry if I may have come across angry as it was not my intention.

[samel]

@samel: I understand. ^^" But if its okay may I ask why?

Because my tought are at the opposite side of yours.
I like very much the effeort spent in DawnSeekers and i feel that it will be one of the best homebrew game, but for now it's only a demo, and a demo cannot compete with a full game.
Let me explain why: the effort spent in a complete game it's much more than the effeort spent in creating a great demo. This because doing the demo gives you more and more satisfaction. Doing game menu, credits screen, help, save game and other thing it's not a big challenge and don't give you much satisfaction.

Hope we understand each other 

got to go sorry

[soulanger]

I do understand what you mean samel.
But I really dont believe that a game has more effort (and even skills and talent) just because its complete.  Like my previous reviews. Do you think all of those complete Pong games, had more effort than DawnSeekers?

Regardless if there are tools that you deem unnecessary for yourself, I would hardly consider it a fault as you have because it gives the user a choice whether they want to use them or not and are all accessible when needed.

I'm perfectly happy with the score i received here, but by the way you've described the faults and such, it seems almost like unnecessary bashing (which only seems to be found in the UA Paints review) and doesn't seem to match up with the scores correctly from that perspective.

I'm sorry if I may have come across angry as it was not my intention.

I do understand what you mean about the tools. I know some will do use them. I wasnt that clear with my review, as I expected. ^^" The idea of having too many tools, not having to use them all, is more in the interface and comfortability of the artist to be able to easily click the tools on what he wants. Why is it important? Well for example if you a large music collection with tons of rock, hiphop, classic, country, techno, reggae, and more. Its a really big collection but you only like metal and listens to the other genres casually. Wouldnt it be tedious to search for your metal songs, each time you listen to music? I forgot to write it on the review but my idea was for to give users options on what tools to be removed, give them options to activate antialiasing (The Wu algorithm is quite optimize and is fast for the DS), and/or maybe a themeing/scripting system.  Having those will certainly make artists begging for your program.

Hmm, I would like to confess something. I know its quite unprofessional but,  I was a little frustrated when I did that review. I did it after I read your reviews. When you reviewed the other drawing apps, you kept on saying that the number of tools are important. So I tried to be tough on you, and reviewed your program as an artist, but I promise you it isnt biased, and it what I actually feel about it. I didnt have the time to proof read my reviews. It was just now that I read it again, and  it does feel quite hostile. Hence, I even asked other people what they think about my review. They did agree on the review, but they said it was quite hostile. They say it was due to my choice of words. I dont think alot of coders would like to hear that his application is a toy. I know it may misleading, but I meant to say its as fun as Mario Paint. There are also some miswritten parts, just like the subtraction thing.. It was supposed to be average, etc. ^^" In short I really like UAPaint, but choice of words, lack of certain details, made me sound hostile. If you guys want to know why I reviewed it like that, the best place to start to read bassacegold's review, about the paint apps.

I am also sorry that of how I acted. Please forgive me.

[Prince Gohan]

Soulanger, I like that cat(atleast it looks like a cat sorry if i'm wrong) you drew in UA Paint!

[soulanger]

Haha, thanks prince gohan!
Its actually chibiterasu from capcom's incoming game Okamigaiden.
I was very hyped when it was announced.
Oh and I'm not sure why that snapshot isnt high quality. >_>
It got those dithers which are kinda like from MSPaint, which i didnt use to save this. o_o I'll might reupload it when i got the chance.  ^^" Sorry about that. :3

[samel]

I do understand what you mean samel.
But I really dont believe that a game has more effort (and even skills and talent) just because its complete.  Like my previous reviews. Do you think all of those complete Pong games, had more effort than DawnSeekers?

Ok ok, you are right, but i don't mean that every complete game is harder then an incomplete one.
I just mean that if the gamee is incomplete than it has not to come at first place ... nor second ... nor third.
If you compare Downseekers to a pong game ... let me say: compliments to the person ho did pong, but there is no innovation anyway the gfx and the sfx could be great so you can reach a good place but also in this case not the first, nor the second and nor the third.

I think DownSeekers could get to the fourth place cause it's not a game, for now it's a tech demo. Something like "We have this tecnology, we can make a 3d fps on the ds, we have a level editor and it rocks. Try it"
Don't you feel that?

[soulanger]

I feel what you feel! ^^
But heres my defense, "We have this tecnology, we can make a 3d fps on the ds, we have a level editor and it rocks. Try it", out of context sounds very one sided and makes it sound that I gave it a higher score just for because of its technology.  But like i said on the review system. I dont just review on the game it self but even on its concept, he says its a techdemo, and an old school shoot em up. Yes, I did talk a lot about the engine, and what its going to be. Even just being a techdemo its execution was superb enough to make me enjoy it for its entire gameplay. Try it you might understand what I meant.

[samel]

Even just being a techdemo its execution was superb

you are right 200% !

i've tryed it, it's great.

I think we cannot reach a common tought 8p