Ynek's Reviews

[The Theodore Hour]

Whilst I rather enjoyed this animation, I felt that it wasn't half as good as it really could have been.

It seems as if the main joke that you're trying to get across here is the sudden drop of his accent to a more "lower class" accent after the hypnosis part. It's as if you made the animation expecting that sudden change in his voice to get some laughs, but really, it wasn't that funny. I certainly didn't laugh. Perhaps it was just poorly executed, but I get the impression that this sudden drop implies that Theodore is not who he seems. He seemed up until this point to be a bizzare, eccentric, and extremely creepy man with a dracula complex. Characters who are as extreme and wacky as this are often seen as being funny. However, the sudden drop of his accent to something else implies that it is all an act, which is no longer wacky and unworldly, because people do put on accents and answer phone calls in real life. Hell, you did it for the entire length of this video, so I think you'll agree that it plants the whole experience firmly in the "mundane" and stops it from having that whole "twilight zone" weirdness that you were doing such a good job of establishing in the earlier portions of the video.

The other joke that you try to get across is the whole hypnotism thing. To be honest, it felt to me as if you had simply run out of things to say by that point and were trying to insert some padding to your prank call. Did you never have a childhood? There are a thousand better ways to stretch out a prank call than going off on a bizzare monologue such as a hypnotism sequence, which only actually tells the person on the other end of the phone that you are trolling them. It's too obvious, and at that point it loses all humour because you KNOW that the person on the other side of the phone is no longer convinced. It's like any other practical joke of this type - when the 'victim' no longer believes the joke, it is no longer funny, and you might as well just stop. The 'hypnotism' portion of this just wasn't very funny and reeked of poor scripting.

However, the first few seconds of the animation are very good and your choice of music is a perfect fit. The "Yeeees, this is Theodore. Who rings?" line was just excellent and the delivery actually raised a smile on this end. The way how he calls it a "telephone system" instead of just a "phone" is the sort of creepy, slightly unusual character trait that you should have built on more heavily, instead of the Jeckyll and Cockney Joe voice change that you did at the end. His low, lazy, drawling voice is excellent and gives an impression of him being in control the whole time. However, as the animation goes on, it gets less funny with each passing moment, sadly. It appears to peak early.

However, it was still, overall, a good piece with something original to it that was well worth watching, and I wouldn't have written this lengthy review if I didn't think it was worth my time or yours.

TL:DR version - Music good. Character good. Voice good. Animation passable. Sudden accent change bad. Hypnotism bad. Brock bad.

GORGON-The-Mighty responds:

Just in case you didnt read the description or the end credits, i'll state here that I didnt record the audio. This is something I took from someones podcast and animated. As such, I didnt have any real control over what he said.

Secondly, this 'reverse prank' call was completely spontaneous. Mike David (the man doing the voice of Theodore) had no idea the woman was going to call. A fan of the show, without him knowing, put his details up on Craigslist giving away free items that he didnt actually own. He didn't know who she was, or what she was going to inquire about. He simply put on a voice he thought sounded like the name 'Theodore', and then through some very clever questioning, was able to come up with some material so he wasn't left to say nothing. You have to give the guy credit for being able to do that.

I can definitely see how some people wouldn't find this as funny as others. Especially if they're a stranger to the podcast. In context (like most things) it's much more humorous.

Cheers for spending a chunk of your time writing that essay, makes me feel important :D

[Cloud Soft]

Amusing, but there's room for improvement.

An overall amusing advert, with crisp, clean animation, good audio, and a clear, coherent direction. However, I still feel that there is plenty of room for improvement.

For example, there is no audio or voiceover until the very end, where a voice says: "Cloud soft. Wipe with a sheet of heaven." The fact that there are no voices up until this point makes it feel out of place, as if it doesn't really fit. Perhaps just a picture of the toilet roll package, with the line: "Wipe with a sheet of heaven" appearing underneath... Possibly written in poo across an unravelled section of toilet roll, if you wanted to really take the 'toilet humour' direction to the extreme.

Also, I felt that a shot of the guy actually wiping his ass on a cloud would have added a little more humour to the piece. You've already shown him having his butt wiped by a vicious mechanical toilet, so it's not as if this would be an enormous leap. Additionally, without a shot of him actually having his butt wiped by 'heaven' means that there is no real comparison drawn between the razor-robot-toilet and wiping his butt on a cloud. This makes the razor-robot-toilet shot seem a little bit needless and redundant....

Perhaps just a shot of him flying across a cloud, wings flapping madly, dragging his ass across the cloud like a dog wiping it's butt on the carpet.... leaving a stinky brown trail behind him as he goes.... You could even have had his poop-smears spell out: "wipe your ass with a piece of heaven," if you really wanted to. And from there, there are limitless directions in which you could take the humour.

For example, people looking up and seeing the cloud criss-crossed by brown lines, and being confused, or something more extreme, such as brown rain which smells bad, and someone who gets caught in the rain finds a bit of corn in their hair. Parachute jumpers, birds, aeroplanes, flying saucers, angels, God, etc could also have poopsmear related jokes made about them....

Overall, though, the animation isn't all that bad. I just feel as if the writing could have been pushed further, and you could have gotten a lot more comedy into the piece. At the moment, it feels as if the humour is being downplayed for some reason.

So, seven stars / four picos seems like an appropriate score.

[Villainy - P.I. #2]

A solid demonstration of writing and acting skills

If nothing else, this animation is an example of voice acting at it's finest. The animation was also smooth and crisp, with the vivid and clear facial expressions being a definite highlight.

The writing is excellent, and even in the short time we observe these characters, we get a very strong feeling of their personalities and personal traits. (The inflated sense of self-importance, idiocy and general unneccessary aggressiveness of the police officer, and the bored, wisecracking, smartassery of the supervillain, for instance.) Conveying a strong sense of personality in such a short time is not easy, so kudos to your writing skills here.

You also managed to crowbar in some comedy, which is always, particularly on the internet, a very strong plus.

However, as this video is only truly intended as an introduction to a character, and is only a minute or so long, I feel that it doesn't quite deserve a full ten star rating. However, if you keep up this high standard in the eventual full animation series, I would be very surprised if ANYONE would dare give you anything less than a ten star and five Pico rating.

I look forward to seeing more of your work in future.

[Reimagine :The Game:]

Great game, but....

... did anyone else notice the irony in Steve Jobs dying 40+ times?

This game has prophetic powers. Next to die will be Facebook and Lady Gaga.

Nutcasenightmare responds:

The jokes were too soon.
Five-months-before-he-died too soon.

But yeah, after hearing the news, the realization I had included him dying in this game slapped me, and then I slapped me, and now everyone's going to slap me.

[Flying Fun]

Acceptable, but not great.

I think that with some tweaks, this game could be quite interesting. However, as it stands, it doesn't really have anything that sets it apart from other games of the genre, and really, it's not really an easy game to play or enjoy.

However, due to the fact that the hard part (Getting the programming/art etc all done and working) is finished and acceptable, I'm giving you four stars. With some improvements to the gameplay it could go up to seven or maybe eight stars.

[D-Day Defender]

A little historically inaccurate, but still great!

A little correction here, Xeptic... At the Normandy landings, Americans were in the minority. The majority of soldiers at the landings came from the British Empire and it's colonies. China, India, Africa, Canada and Australia were all British colonies at this time, and as such, they provided so many soldiers for the D day landings that the number of American soldiers was paltry in comparison.

That's just me having a little bit of historian-nazism, kind of ironic, considering that nazism is what the whole game is about. Anyway, the visuals are pleasing and the silhouette style is very pretty and iconic. It's got a similar visual appearance to the propaganda posters that were plastered all over the world during the second world war, and I think that this is most appropriate.

Gameplay wise, it's a simple game, but a very challenging one. Knowing when to powerup and mortar is a skill that must be mastered to survive, and this adds a whole level of tactical thinking to the game which is very challenging. The controls are comfortable and quick to master, which is good, as it gets the player into the game with the minimum of "oh, what button was it to reload?..." and related fuss.

All in all a very enjoyable game, and aside from a few errors in your history, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Nine stars. Well done.

[** Tunnels Of Melting Ice **]

spectres?

A nice piece of ambient music. Certainly one for the movie-makers and animators out there to download...
It's got a certain ethereal, spectral quality to it that I think makes it perfect for scenes such as army of ghosts, or possibly zombies.... And the more obvious ones like espionage etc.

Anyway, I'm going to go have a lookie at your other entries, now... you've got me intrigued...

eight stars.

[Ravalishious]

Not half bad....

I'm not really a fan of this kind of music, but I still thought this piece showed some good skill. With it's strong, thudding bass, it goes brilliantly with the 'badgers' animation.
Now for the difficult part.... How many stars to give.
I'm gonna say seven.

[Evil Nocturne]

niiiiiiice.

Nice piece of music here. It really gives the impression of a dark, lingering evil. If I have a complaint, it's just that it's too short, it kinda vanishes just as I'm getting into it.
But nonetheless, a really nice piece, and I really enjoyed it. Eight stars.

SilentTakedown responds:

yeah, if it were longer, it were really better. I'm planning to make a 2. version of it.
Thanks for reviewing!