Dino Shift

Nice game. The difficulty level was just right; not enough to make me rage quit, but enough for me to keep trying different approaches. I do think the controls feel a little sluggish, though.

Unfortunately, Level 25 is where I have quit. I'm not sure this is even possible. Even watching the walkthrough, I can't get the little guy to jump that fast.

The most annoying thing, though, even more than level 25, is that HUGE BILLBOARD that appears and says HEY! YOU'VE DIED A FEW TIMES! CLICK HERE AND WE'LL SHOW YOU HOW TO DO IT! It's condescending. If I wanted to look at a walkthrough, I would. If it showed up once, I wouldn't mind, but showing up in *every* *single* *level* where you die more than a couple of times is a little ridiculous.

The farther I go into this game, the more I feel like the later, more "difficult" levels just weren't thought out very well. It feels as if they had an idea of what would make a level hard, and then just threw that idea in as a level without all that much testing to see whether it was genuinely any fun, or indeed actually a puzzle and not just a test-your-luck-a-thon. Doing that is just fine for brainstorming, I think, but a little more refinement so the player doesn't feel simply cheated by deaths on later levels would be appreciated. For a specific instance: Randomizing blocks, at least the ones that are pre-placed, was a terrible idea.

I am addicted to this game. If you're having trouble with it, just tell yourself, "If a 55 year old spazz can finish it, anyone can." I like the randomization of the blocks; it keeps me from just memorizing a sequence of moves. Level 25 just about killed me; sometimes the little dino still won't jump when I think he should, but that might be because of the amount of cat hair in my keyboard. What I still find annoying is the cursor, if I forget to slide it all the way to one side, but that's my own fault.