FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[FAIR AND FACTUAL FREE PRESS AGENCY]

Pretty decent document checking game! It doesn't quite have enough meat to really sink my teeth into in terms of mechanics and newspaper variety, and there could certainly be some improvements to the presentation, such as actually changing the button symbols when the controls are flipped, but the concept is solid and something I'd love to see expanded upon, and isn't that exactly the result you want from a game jam in the end? Not too shabby at all for being made in such a short time frame!

As a side note, sometimes I would get confused as to whether a headline was good or bad, particularly when it involved celebs that I wasn't sure were on the shit list, so to speak. For example, is the president exploding really a bad thing? What if he was a bad president and so it's something to celebrate?

[Hatsune Miku Bomb Squad!]

Whoa, pipe bomb! So cool! Jokes aside, this game really surprised me!

I gotta admit, my initial impressions weren't that great as I was expecting more varied and elaborate bomb defusal minigames like you'd see in Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes, or perhaps more appropriate, Terminator 2 on the Game Boy. To see that the game was just the same simplistic password entry over and over was quite a let-down. Still, I figured I should give it a shot...for Miku.

However, as the game went on, I started to get really impressed with the way it kept upping the stakes with very creative twists to the hint system and the amount of symbols/colors/spaces you need to juggle! Combine that escalation with the bite-size nature of the puzzles and I was absolutely addicted and couldn't stop playing! And all of this with some delightful chiptune remixes of famous Miku songs playing the whole time!

If I were to have any complaints, it would be that I wish the save system was better: I had to replay a lot of stages because I was under the impression it was autosaving with every puzzle, not that it required my manual input. It was also a bummer that there isn't a cool graphic or animation of the explosion, but perhaps you don't want to reward failure like that, haha!

[Arcane Board]

Hey, this is a pretty solid Slay-The-Spire-like with an interesting tetris block twist! It's certainly an intriguing concept that I had fun learning the strategic ins-and-outs of, all helped along by the the game is designed with all sorts of tooltips, highlights, animations, feedback and other subtle hints to make it all intuitive and easy to learn. Definitely a great first impression!

If I were to have any complaints, it would be that as cool as the game was, I found myself falling off after a short while. It just felt like it takes so long to get to the good stuff of actually launching big attacks since it takes so much prep work and lucking into getting the tiles you want, and when you combine that with spongy enemies and a huge map, it all can really drag out and tire someone as impatient as me. But I don't know whether that's an actual fundamental issue with the game, or just me being the unintended audience: up to you to decide, and for me to maybe give it another try to see if I change my mind once I get good enough!

Other than that, there are some things I would like spruced up a bit, like the very tiny text that's difficult to read even in fullscreen. But for the most part, this is very promising and professional stuff!

FancyReckless responds:

Thanks for the feedback! You're certainly not the only one that feels like the game is quite slow paced at times and I often get that feeling as well. I'm experimenting with stuff that could improve that, hopefully there's some trick I will figure out to make it more dynamic, but meanwhile I will try to reduce health on some earlier minions.

[AGUJERO]

Holy moley, what an absolutely bizarre yet enthralling experience this is!

When you boil it down, it's technically just a quiz or choose-your-own adventure that you can trial-and-error your way through, but the game does so much to create a palpable and intense sense of atmosphere and mystique to it, what with its unique organ-based HUD, strange premise, weird characters and dialogue, and the music, my god, the music! Like the tunnel we're descending, the game just feels like it has so much depth to it: while I've 'beaten' it, I feel like I've only just scratched the surface and haven't even delved into all the possible metaphors and meaning the premise/story might have.

If I were to have any complaints, it would be that the dialogue interface is a bit messed-up with the way it immediately clears the last line of text once it's done being written, instead of waiting for me to finish reading. Other than that, goddamn if this isn't amazing and something I'm going to remember for quite some time!

[Trivia Night at Applebee's]

Hmm, I'm out of the loop with all this clock business, but for the most part, this seems like a charming little quiz with some nice effort put into the presentation!

Ultimately, however, I found it not that enjoyable since it felt like the trivia was way too esoteric, leading to me failing practically every question and needing to redo everything to get back to where I left off every single time. I would've much preferred if the questions were either more sensible trivia that you don't need to be an apple or bee scientist to figure out, or were creative/amusing lateral thinking puzzles that you'd find in games like The Impossible Quiz.

[Lightspeed Hideout]

Whoa, this game has a really cool boss fight! I was blown away by how many phases the boss has and how creative they all are: seriously felt like I was playing a boss straight out of one of the greats, like Contra Hard Corps or Gunstar Heroes. The gameplay also felt super smooth and juicy, and I liked how the boss had multiple difficulty modes that actually change up the attack patterns instead of just lazily bloating its health. Great stuff!

What I find really odd is the rest of the game: all the faffing about with building up the city and needing to go past these locked doors to collect upgrades just felt like so much unnecessary padding, an artificial grind to stretch out the game's length. The city just feels like some sort of pointless trophy or diorama: why isn't it integrated into the combat more meaningfully, like you need to protect it from attacks the way Dome Keeper or the classic Missile Command does? I was really hoping that the doors would lead to new boss fights, not just short bland corridors that give you a part of a trinket.

It sounds silly to say, but to me, less is more, and I think I would've appreciated the game a lot more if it just focused solely on its strengths, being the cool boss fights, and didn't water the experience down with all this metaprogression nonsense. Still gotta give it credit for how cool the boss fight is, though.

[Winsley's Guardian - Demo]

Hmm, I think this game has a pretty good foundation for a Zelda-esque adventure set in contemporary times. All the necessary bits and pieces seems to be in place: you've got your items, your slashy combat, cute art and menus, dungeons, boss fights, and so on...but it unfortunately didn't have any sort of spark or hook that caught my attention and made me want to keep playing, rather, it quickly bored me.

Some of my issues are attributed to aspects that can be fixed, and perhaps are already planned to be fixed in a future release, since this is a beta. For example, the lack of music really made everything feel so dull and without a sense of atmosphere. Even worse, it felt like I wasn't making any progress on my journey since it lacks the excitement of hearing a new track when you transition into a new area. There were also some glitches like how if you walk to the side of the slingshot boss, you can get stuck if he walks into you and get comboed to death with no way out.

Other issues aren't so easily solved. For example, I found the story kinda boring and with an odd sense of motivation: we've got a mysterious dream at the start which is cool and could set up some sort of quest, but then suddenly we're searching for an owner of some blanket we randomly found in the closet? Why is the blanket important? Makes no sense. And the other issue is that this does just seem to be yet another Zelda clone that lacks the smooth and satisfying feeling of the original and isn't bringing anything interesting to the table to set it apart.

As much as I'm being down on it, I do think it has some promise and I'd like to see how it evolves over time. If the game got polished up with some music, a better story/motivation, and some other stuff, I think it could be great.

Elv13s responds:

thanks for the review, the game is already finished and its already out as we speak. physical copies are available at https://guardiangamesstudio.com/. The dream intro issupposed to teach the player the basics of the world, before going into the real story...story revolves around Winsley's life and is much more of a cozy slice of life rather than an action adventure game. Thanks for pointing out issues, I strived and tried to address them in the full release. This is the beta demo that I am allowed to show publicly so some bad reviews might come from it being in early stages. But I assure you, this is a wholesome cute and heart warming experience. its not perfect but its still a good game in my eyes.

[Eat Peanut Butter and Jelly]

Cute game! As much as it is feels like a low-effort joke game that isn't meant to be taken seriously, it still has a certain charming appeal to it, what with its goofy premise and sense of energy and whimsy. Reminds me a lot of games like Papa's Pizzeria, or rather a Warioware microgame, which are both genres I enjoy. I like that two separate modes exist to challenge you in different ways.

Unfortunately, I feel like this game exists in an awkward middle-ground: the premise is good enough to be an actual fun game if effort was put in, but since it's being made as a joke, it can't put in effort for fear of taking it too seriously. Because of that, the game is just too simplistic and filled with loads of undesirable traits, like how unintuitive the hitboxes for spreading jelly or butter on the bread are (feels like I need to put the handle over the bread instead of the blade) and graphical oddities like how the knife illogically goes under the bread.

Basically, I think this concept has merit, but falls short, similar to a sandwich that's mostly bread with no filling. Would love if the act of making the sandwich had more engaging steps to it, as well as more interesting physicality to it, like having to dynamically paint the spreads over the bread like an inkling would paint the floor in Splatoon. If you're going to make a PB&J crafting game, I want you to go full hog with it and make the best one there ever was!

[Death of a Dungslinger]

Whoa, this was pretty dang cool! It definitely feels like a proper game jam game, in that it is certainly very rough with loads of technical issues like stuttering and a lack of general polish due to missing sounds and other effects, but in that it is also incredibly charming and promising with its very creative ball rolling mechanics which were so satisfying to learn and master. Every boss was very creative with its moveset and I loved pulling off tricks like charging up a shot while riding the ball to dodge enemy attacks, eventually getting that sweet and satisfying freeze with pulling off a perfect charge and slamming it home.

It's a bit difficult to give feedback on this because, as said, there is a lot that needs to be polished up, such as the technical performance, and especially in the sound department, which is largely mute. If I were to point out some other aspects, though, it'd be:

*I don't understand why if I fast forward text, it'll wait for me to press again to advance to the next line, whereas if I let text fill out, it'll automatically advance to the next line without my input in a few seconds. I think it should always wait for my input to advance.

*It's not bad, but the second boss is a bit of a bummer in that there is no way to use your skills to make it through faster. While the first boss can be done quickly with proficient charge shots, the second boss is essentially busy work of pushing explosives into the hives over and over and over. Again, it's not bad as it does provide some variety, but I guess I'm not always a fan of these Zelda puzzle-esque bosses.

Again, this is a great example of a game jam for me: sure it's a bit rough, but the core mechanics shine through and just beg to be polished up and expanded upon. Looking forward to seeing future versions of this!

[Maths with D.Va Clock]

Oh wow, usually I'd expect another art or awards presentation, but this is actually a proper game! Very nice for a change of pace, and the quiz ain't too shabby!

I mean, sure, the presentation isn't quite up to snuff, what with its way too tiny text and its lack of pizazz, and the quiz questions are largely recycled from other sources instead of being bespoke (I recognized that bat and ball price question immediately, for example), but hey, I still had a good time!

One aspect I found amusing was that some of the questions were actually quite easy, but so easy in such a way that I'd think I was being tricked, but nope, there were actually that easy. Kept me on my toes, those ones did!

I can't believe I got the first question wrong, but then again, screw people who write formulas like that. When I write computer code, I make liberal use of parentheses to avoid any sort of confusion: no need for PEMDAS there!