FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Anxi's Carnation]

Hmm, this is a tough one! I was definitely pretty intrigued by the game at first because it just gives off this mysterious and artistic vibe. I dunno what it is exactly, but just something about the art and atmospheric music, as well as the little extras like the bonus dialogue on the title screen as well as seeing all of the achievements allude to these endings and bonus modes, makes me think there's a lot cooking here. The gameplay as well was neat in how it keeps adding layers and layers to the basic loop and it becomes this crazy plate-juggling challenge.

In spite of all that, though, I bounced off of this game hard, unfortunately!

*As much as the game tries to help with the tutorial screens before each level, there were a lot of times I was confused as to what I was supposed to do since the pictures can be very vague and easily misinterpreted. Look, if you're gonna tell me what to do on the game over screen, maybe just say that on the tutorial itself so I'm prepared!

*To continue on with the point above, it doesn't help either that the game is incredibly muted and lacking feedback for your actions, leading to further confusion. For example, because your basket doesn't fill up with a flower for each flower you click, I spent a long time confused as to whether I was making progress clicking flowers or whether I was picking the wrong flowers and was only making progress when I got lucky and clicked the right flower. As another example, it'd be helpful too if some sort of effect happens when the red mist reaches the time where it deals damage, otherwise it's like, did anything even happen?

*Being sent all the way back to the start of the game because of an honest mistake is too harsh a punishment for me, especially since the very start of the game is incredibly slow and boring, making it so frustrating to work your way back up to where you left off.

*In general, while the gameplay does add a lot of layers as it goes, it is still at its core just repetitive click-click-clicking, over and over and over, and it wears down not only on my soul, but my old hands as well.

So yeah, the vibes were neat and I wanted to like it, but unfortunately it wasn't to be since the gameplay let me down. A good attempt at least, since to me, you got the game half-right, so next time just make sure the other half is good and you're golden!

Tyhond responds:

Sweet, yeah, It was something I try out for fun xP I'm not really a game designer.

Thanks

[saraOS]

Hmm, an interesting...game? I guess? It kinda sits in a weird spot where it's as much of a game as a DVD chapter select menu is, largely just being a collection of goofy short movies. Sure, it does have those short minigames at the end which were nice, but they were such a small part of the complete package: wish we had more of those! Anyway, as much as I'm ragging on it, I think the presentation is nice and polished, and I had some good chuckles at the content on offer, so yeah, not bad.

Nabella responds:

Pseudo DVD menus with little animations are the next big genre to plague the indie scene like rogue-likes and deck-builders. Just you wait, lolololol.

[The New Job]

Wow, this was certainly quite the adventure! It was already great just playing all of the microgames and interacting with all of the crazy characters in this crazy world you've built, but then that whole complicated business in the end to get the good ending? Wild stuff!

So yeah, quite enjoyed myself with this, even if the ending quest was way more involved than I thought and kinda threw me off at first, and it got a bit annoying to tell whether talking to someone would give me new info or just repeat. If I were to have any big complaints, it's that I was really let-down that there wasn't some sort of bonus arcade mode you unlock after beating the game where you can play a megapack of all the microgames together: it's such a bummer that they are just one-and-done!

[Eyebot VS Scarlet]

Cute little choose-your-own-adventure movie/game hybrid, kinda like Henry Stickmin or Dragon's Lair! It's kinda short and doesn't have much meat on it, but the animation/presentation is very nice and it's got a good sense of humor, so I had a decent time. I imagine it ain't easy to animate all the failure states compared to if this was just a straightforward movie, so kudos on the effort: well done! Looking forward to seeing what the great mind behind Eyebot comes up with next!

TheGuyWhoMadeEyebot responds:

Thanks! Huh, yeah, I guess it is a bit like Dragon’s Lair, I never thought about that. If I ever make another game in this same sort of style it’ll definitely have more to it, assuming I won’t have a deadline to worry about then, but as for what my next project will be, I’ll probably do something a bit different.

[Leaf it to the Yura]

Cute little warioware-esque game! I like the wholesome vibes and there's a decent variety on games on offer which appropriately scale up in difficulty as the game goes on, so the foundation is solid. I love the little special touches like the well-animated uppercut in the contemplation minigame: makes it so tempting to keep losing, haha!

Having said that, I had a bit of a rough first impression over being confused at how certain games work. For example, it took me a few goes to figure out what I was supposed to do during the 'guard' section and what the difference between the white and red ants were, and for some weird reason, the arrow keys don't work for the garbage sorting game (forcing you to use WASD instead) while they do for every other game. Also, the game's appeal just didn't last that long for me due to how easily it becomes repetitive. Still, good while it lasted!

[Contract Rush: Mission Sin]

Listen, I gotta be honest: as much as I love and support you guys, I could never really get into Contract Rush that much as a game. I'm not saying it's bad: it's stylish and cool and I wanna love it, but it just didn't feel good to play for me for some reason, which is a shame because I love me some side-scrolling shooters and wanna be supportive.

But this? Mission Sin? Whoa mama, this is a whole different ball game: playing as Sin goddamn rules! I'm almost baffled at how much better it feels to the point of being unsure of myself on where I stand, but it makes sense in a lot of ways. Being a melee character means you need to get close to enemies with is generally more challenging and engaging since you can't cheese them in safety from a distance, his moveset is way more expressive and allows him to pull off stylish tricks like pogo-ing, the feedback for melee hits feels much more instantaneous and satisfying, and if we're talking about aesthetics, swords are cool and the protagonist story of turning against their race is intriguing.

So yeah, hmm, I guess I'll think about revisiting Contract Rush if Sin is there, haha!

If there was something I wanted to give feedback on, it'd be that I wish the shoot button was on a shoulder button instead of triangle, since holding your thumb on triangle makes it difficult to access the other buttons like jump. Speaking of shooting, I wish that you'd continue to glow/sparkle as long as you're holding charge, since without that serving as a signal, you could be mistaken in thinking that you've lost it.

Figburn responds:

i appreciate you continuing to check it out! sin is the earliest unlockable character in DX and you can play as him for nearly the entire rest of the game after you unlock him if his gameplay suits you better! buttons are also remapable in DX (something we had to forgo in this web game to keep development simple), and we will look into making held charges more clear to the player. thank you for the review!

[Underboard Demo]

Hey, it's fantastic to see this game again! I had a blast with the previous version, and I've now had a blast with this one as well: autobattlers aren't my usual genre, but this one easily tickled my fancy due to how polished and intuitive the experience is, and how addictively fun it can be to build up your army in all sorts of creative and improvisational ways. Great work, and I wish you the best of luck on your Steam release!

As said, the game feels very polished, and what little bits of confusion I had, such as with the Trait system, were easily remedied by a bit of experimentation and reading tooltips, so I don't have much feedback to offer. Having said that, I would very much love if the game had some sort of save/load or checkpoint system, as runs can get pretty long and I don't always have the energy to do it all in one sitting: I was really hoping that my run would autosave when I left, but alas!

Braveado responds:

Hey man, glad you liked the new version, thanks! We're definetely going to add a save/load feature for your runs, as well as a save slot system for your entire progression.

[Spacebar Super Star: Mini Game]

Oh, man, this is a rough one for me, argh!

I really want to love this game: the gameplay reminds me of some of my arcade favorites like Tapper, the music is great, the little dance is adorable, the presentation is very stylish and cute, and I like the concept of single-button games and how deceptively tricky they can get. I thought I was in for a great time!

But man, this game just lost me! The first two levels are painfully easy and dreadfully boring, largely being filled with dead air where you are just waiting, waiting, waiting for the boxes to come. It takes until the third level for it to finally pull off an interesting and challenging trick, where you need to intentionally loop around so you can make yourself ready to go the right direction fast enough to catch a box, but that's it, the game's done right after that, just when it was starting to show potential! Augh, what a tease!

[Based Defense]

Wow, this one really surprised me! The sense of humor and style, while perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, really captures that old-school edgey Newgrounds nostalgia factor, and the gameplay is some good addictive fun where you get to blast away at loads of enemies with an arsenal of crazy weapons and abilities that you're constantly adding to with your gains from battle. I was shocked not only at how easy and intuitive it was to move and place units in defensive positions and leave them to it like a classic RTS, but the game really keeps you on your toes with new units being introduced, different wave patterns, and the interesting risk/reward concept of pushing waves forward for a cash bonus. Basically, the game is a lot smarter and polished under the hood than I expected!

If I were to have any issues, I'd say that it can be rather overwhelming when you're starting out and you want to learn what you can buy in the shop, but since the game doesn't pause, you either panic and make sub-optimal purchases or throw away a match just for learning purposes. Also I found it weird that the game bothers to display health bars over characters since they don't even get attacked, and yet it doesn't bother to display a health bar over the important base (granted, the health bar is in the corner, but still). Also, some of the cooler mechanics like being able to push waves for extra cash are easily missable due to how tiny the message for it is.

Jin responds:

I appreciate that you picked up on details that tend to be taken for granted. A lot of time was spent on that.

Every point of feedback has been noted down. Thank you! My goal is to facilitate more players to get to the ending.

[Sunday Drive 2]

Great arcade game, this! Feels really well put-together, not only in terms of its presentation and vibes, which are fantastic due to its great graphics, juicy special effects and energetic music, but the gameplay is also a treat in how it has a great level of challenge to it due to the varied obstacles and neat risk/reward systems where you get pissed up for higher score. I had a great time!

If I were to have any feedback, it'd mostly be about higher level discussion about the scoring system. I love the idea of the game getting more challenging the more you drink, but I wonder if the ability to drink coffees to reduce the visual penalty without reducing the multiplier, as well as just being able to ignore beer at the cost of playing longer and safer to eventually get the same score, allows the player the ability to lame it out and avoid the fun stuff, whereas they wouldn't if the beer was made necessary through some sort of time limit, perhaps. Ah, whatever, it's all good!

Chris responds:

I also considered this whilst making it but left it as is. I have a few gameplay modifiers in mind that I’ll eventually use in a Sunday Drive 3. I think if I do make this game I’d have something the requires you to drink more. Maybe you could get pulled over for driving sober or something daft like that.