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FutureCopLGF
Still working at it, bit-by-bit.

Lucas Gonzalez-Fernandez @FutureCopLGF

Age 36, Male

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UMD

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Best Games of March Review! (with video feedback)

Posted by FutureCopLGF - April 8th, 2021



Every month I see to review all of the games that were nominated as the Best of that month, which you can view in the link above!


As a game developer myself, I know how difficult it can be when you are starting out and how tricky it can be to tell how your game will be received by users. After all, you know how your game is meant to be played, and you can't just wipe that from your memory when you're building and testing it!


Therefore, I record myself playing all of the games for the first time for 10-15 minutes and try to voice how I'm feeling when I'm playing it, so that developers can see how a user might experience their game for the first time, especially for things like tutorials. I also try to provide some advice as well, but it might not always be the best: what I'm really hoping is that developers can draw their own conclusions on what might need work from how I stumble through their game.


Game Devs Reviewed: @KJScott @GabeMalk @Yword @toaster101 @Butzbo @Kultisti @TensionGames @Thetoulousaing @LumpyTouch @Extar @TealRocks @Fortythreesam @afk-mario @TheCarpetBaker @speed8327 @SominStudios @HapPie @TheOlga @D-SuN @ThePeterson @Elastiskalinjen @supernovaig @GuyUngerNL @Yomuchan @MANUNAM @NoaDev @MrNannings @saantonandre @OneThatEatYou @Figburn @brin-o @PsychoGoldfish @Prox276 @Droqen @AxolStudio @Stepford @starBlinky @VasantJ


While all of these games were the best of the month...


MY PERSONAL ARBITRARILY-RANKED TOP 10 GAMES OF MARCH


My top 10 was (in sort-of ranked order and based on my own criteria which is some weird sense of 'memorability' for me personally and totally subject to genres I like though I try not to be too bias blah blah blah):












With honorable mentions to:





Many thanks to all the game devs reviewed: even if you're not listed above, I still had a blast playing all of your games! Hopefully my rambling reviews and clumsy feedback can help you in your future endeavors!


SIDE NOTE: I feel like this month had the most twists and turns for me in awhile: there were some games that I really bounced off hard initially, like AshBelt due to the control difficulties, Cat Burglar & The Magic Museum due to confusion of how to play, and Vending Machine Action 2.0 due to the weird volume issue, but they all had so much charm to them I had to keep playing and wouldn't you know it: they ended up in my top 10! If anyone else bounced off of these games at first: consider giving 'em another try! (and apologies to any whiplash suffered from devs watching my have a bad time only to rate the game highly)


(also friendship ended with Friday Night Funkin', Neon Rhythm is my best friend now, haha)


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Comments

Thanks for playing my game! And yeah, you're right about the feedback. I'm glad you had fun.

ALSO! I didn't name it Gun Knight (by Stepford) to double credit myself... well, that's what happened, but unintentionally! I was going to call it just "Gun Knight" but there's already a game called that; so I just opted for putting my name at the end. Which might've made me look a bit silly. :B

Cheers for the game, and glad that I could help a bit! No worries about the double credit, haha, I figured it was something like that. I'm still working my way through the game and enjoying myself: was happy to see the world change a bit past the 2nd boss. Just you wait, 3rd boss!

Thanks for showcasing my game!
It's always so helpful watching you play through the game as a completely new player, seeing where things could be made a little clearer. I was aiming for an old-school Rogue-like experience, hence the super-swingy difficulty spikes. You were right in thinking you can throw the bad items at the enemies to lower their stats, I wish I had a bit more space on the Pico-8 cart to put in some more tutorial hints like that at the start for new players.
Anyway, glad you enjoyed it and thanks for checking it out! :)

Cheers! It was a pretty interesting and ambitious game, and that's definitely the tricky part with Pico-8 games in that a lot of the games I see are so ambitious but have to contend with the limited space to work in. I do feel bad about my rule to never read descriptions (because I try to emulate the general populace which won't either) since I imagine a lot of Pico-8 games rely on that as a means to fit the instructions that they can't do in game. Also like you say, sometimes I do feel bad commenting about needing tutorials and such when I do like a game that just throws you in at the deep end: it's risky, but sometimes you can get the best adventures that way (and I did for my first adventure!) Haha, I might've gotten more to feedback to think about myself than I gave to you!

Oh, I see where I went wrong.

You can 'go back' after killing her, even once is fine (its actually a medal requirement, and you have to use a specific weapon), but you have to make sure she's dead. Reincarnating her prevents you from leaving and it was a misclick that saved you from an eternity (and earning some secret medals).

Thanks for making this obvious, I'll add in some text.
"Make sure she's dead before you go back."

Yes, my bumbling has paid off and uncovered some good feedback: mission failed successfully, I say! And cheers for the game and its incredible nostalgia blast!

Thanks for playing, I'm really enjoying to see your playthrough. your feedback is also much appreciated. thanks a lot!

Cheers! Sorry if I was a little rough on it: visual novels which require a lot of time to play probably suffer the most from my ten minute time limit. I still had an alright time with the game and plan to revisit it soon, and I hope that maybe my bumbling provided some good feedback. Best of luck with this game and future games! Oh, and as a side note, I enjoyed Night Claw back in the day: wish I recorded it back then, haha!

@Yomuchan @FuturecopLGF I'm still a rank amateur at GUI design. I've been reading up on the subject, though... And I guess the top left and bottom right buttons were too small to be noticed easily, haha...

Thanks for the feedback! I'll use this information to make better, wilder, games!

Thanks man : ). I'm trying to make games that work and feel good just with the essential mechanics; that has its cons, as you said the game lacks the "special sauce" to really stand out; but (aside from that I'm obviously a retro game guy) I think is worth proving that even without things like fancy mechanics or depth narratives you can still make a cool game that others can enjoy.
Regards.

Cheers! Hope I didn't sound too harsh with my comment since I do overall love it. I can definitely agree with that type of goal: it's like how comic writers say to first make the story work with visuals alone, only adding words and such later on, reducing it to just the critical basics first. So many games favor style over substance, devs spending more time putting in fancy lighting and shaders over basic gamefeel. I love a retro game that just gets right to the meat and feels good to play, and your game delivered that for sure. Your game was solid and good which is, in a way, better than AAA development that delivers unpolished broken games. Haha, ok, mini-rant over: I'm looking forward to more games from you!

Thank you very much for playing "Path of Dragon"! Your review was a very pleasant surprise and gave the team invaluable insight on the game!

All the corrections are highly appreciated as the team is conform of non-native speakers and the game was rushed to enter the Flash forward jam.

I really enjoyed seeing how you explored our game and the others!

Great video!

Cheers! Yeah, I thought there might've been a bit of a language issue: sorry if I sounded like a broken record pointing out the grammar and phrasing issues over and over, haha! It was a confusing experience for me at times, but the ambitious nature of it really made it feel so expansive and admirable to me, so kudos on that!

@supernovaig @FuturecopLGF thanks so much for the response as well, I can see you're a really nice and hardworking person with the best intentions for providing critique for the games. I really thank you for the useful feedback you're providing to so many game developers on the platform. appreciate it so much.

The game has a menu that lets you save/load after the (sorry it's so big) introduction. It also auto-saves after each day/night turn. You were close to ending the intro when you stopped, playing on the video. Please don't feel pressured at all to keep playing it, but if you like visual novels/ RPG you're more than welcomed to try it :)

Oh, also great you liked Night Claw! It was a small game we did at a jam some years ago, I'm so glad to see it being played and enjoyed here on NG.