FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Last Slice]

Haha, I came in expecting a driving game with maybe some pizza cooking mechanics, but instead I was bludgeoning gamers with a keyboard Hotline Miami style: quite the surprise, but a welcome one to be sure!

Gameplay was pretty cool: maybe a little basic and fiddly/floaty at the moment in terms of feedback/impact for both you and enemies, but it's a work in progress and I think it has a decent core to it that allowed for some fast-paced smackdowns. I did especially love that certain weapons had different effects like how the guitar actually makes a musical sound when you hit people with it: I'd love to see this expanded upon with all weapons making unique sounds and effects (and vary it for whiff, hit and throw hit), like for example have the keyboard make a plastic-y impact sound and scatter keys around the floor. You could also maybe bloody/marinara up or damage the weapons as you use them as well just for even more feedback. Also as a side note, I liked how you made the text fast-forward if you click it midway during dialogue.

In terms of feedback, I only have a few complaints. The title screen is a bit confusing because it asks you to press something and doesn't count mouse click, despite the thing you actually need for the main menu is the mouse, not the keyboard. I also wish the menu of receipts for the level select would actually show you what is coming up next on the button itself: I should see the lock icon on the next button, not when I actually page over to it. I found the game a bit frustrating to play since the actual gameplay was in such small bites between long dialogue segments (could just be because it's the beginning of the game, but still I just want to let it breathe a bit more). And of course, there was some slight jankiness to the gameplay that could be polished up: I had weird enemy detections through walls they shouldn't see through (and they can hit you through walls as well!), and I found it weird that the wrench plays the stun sound effect that you'd expect from throwing a controller despite it outright knocking enemies out in one hit like the bigger weapons (basically if they get knocked out, don't bother playing the stun sound effect). And in general I'd like a bit more impact and strategy to the combat as it progresses, the amount of damage the player takes from hits seemed difficult to determine (maybe just make it one hit deaths?) and I found the powerups you get between missions silly and unnecessary and could be removed or reworked (sorry that's vague).

Looking forward to see this get improved on: overall it was quite charming with an amusing concept, along with some great core gameplay, so I think it could be a real grand slam!

[Game and Watch: Madness]

Hmm, not bad, but not great either! The Game-and-Watch or Tiger Electronic aesthetic is pretty amusing to look at: I like that authentic look where you can see all the possible sprite positions at all times, though I was a little disappointed that there were so few, as usually these games will have their screen jam-packed with all sorts of sprites, like you could've had some for enemies getting smacked to the side, or for game over with the clown crying, or something. The gameplay was alright, but it got repetitive rather quickly and wasn't anything to write home about, being a simple timing game.

I do have to give you credit though: a lot of these 'game and watch' games seem to be quite lazy and just use the graphics/aesthetic to carry it, but for this one, I actually liked that there was a decent amount of challenge in the patterns and waves you gotta deal with. It still wasn't that deep or addicting in the long-term, but it was more than I thought was gonna get, so not too shabby.

Taka responds:

Thanks for the feedback :3

[Dark Light Swap]

Wow, really interesting concept at play here! It's one of those cool ideas that is rather simple to grasp, but really mind-bending and deep as it keeps going. To be honest, I almost think it's too mind-bendy at times, haha: I made my own system that I think works for making it through the puzzles, but really having difficulty coming to terms with the mechanics at play here, especially when it came to the 'gray' areas that were introduced later on. That's not to say I don't like it, though: this is a doozy that I'm looking forward to coming back fresh and committing all my brain power to (though who knows if that'll make a difference, haha).

[Blind Man Escape]

Uhhhhhhh....not sure how to feel about this one, haha! My initial impression was one of frustration: I had no idea how to control anything and any attempts to walk away from the monster or something with WASD or arrow keys didn't seem to work as I couldn't hear any footsteps or anything to make me feel like I was having any effect. I was just really confused and figured, "ok, it's one of those joke games, haha, very funny, moving on."

Once I learned that you are only supposed to use the space bar, I gave it a few more goes to see if I could figure out how to control anything. Unfortunately, I still don't really have a grip on what's going on, but at the very least, I guess I can appreciate the weirdness of its design? It's still just a little too trial-and-errory and way too confusing, though: part of me wants to write this off as a really stupid game that misses the point of blindness just like games like "The Quiet Man" missed the point of deafness as a device. I would much prefer if this did something interesting with its system like many other games have done insteda of just reveling in its joke, but... I guess it's a weird experiment that can be fun for some and hey, some people will gel with that and some won't, that's just part of the experimental game life.

[MADFPS 2]

Bit of a mixed bag on this one! Feels like it has what could be a very nice core gameplay structure, but it's just encased in jankiness and blandness.

Like I say, I think the core gameplay is quite solid. I like how weighty and satisfying the melee weapons feel: they're slow, but it adds a strategic element and satisfaction to the impacts, which are so crunchy. I also liked how it had some hidden depth with the Morrowind melee system where moving side-to-side when swinging does a horizontal swing and moving forward-back does a vertical swing. Gunplay was cool as well: loved seeing how enemies gibbed when blasted with a shotgun and I thought the system of no ammo display expect when you check your magazine was rather neat. All in all, combat felt pretty cool.

Everything surrounding the combat, however, was really janky and unprofessional. The title screen, HUD, buttons and so on were super lazy and terrible looking, especially with the way the health meter goes into negatives instead of stopping at zero, c'mon! The game doesn't have a working pause menu, where dying while you're in options can end up having the death screen overlap it. There was a lot of confusion with interactables: you don't get any prompts that appear when you can interact with something which leads to confusion on whether it is interactable at all. I didn't like the way the game kept teleporting me constantly to transition levels and it would always face me the wrong way, the durability prompts for weapons don't appear if you drop and re-pick up a damaged weapon (they only appear if you attack someone with it), the block feels really bad and unsatisfying given how much you need to time it (I'd love if it stunned the enemy on a successful block like a parry), and so on and so forth: it's a mess!

Would love to see this polished up to really make it shine as it should: like I say, I think there is something cool in there, but it can be very hard to see at times!

[Madness Roulette]

Not too shabby, but rather shallow in long-term appeal. I know it's silly to complain about it, but at the end of the day it is just a game of rock/paper/scissors and it doesn't really bring or add anything interesting to the formula. For example, it'd be kind of cool if we could customize our own character avatar like I thought we could (especially since it's online), but the rewards are only characters and you need to play for an inordinate amount of time to get anything, so there's no hook there. The game could've been enhanced with some interactivity, but I was really disappointed that we don't even have to click the trigger to make the shot ourselves as it just goes off automatically in a canned animation: I think having that extra click to actually pull would add so much more intensity and immersion to it. The menus and such are also very bland with stock text and minimal animations that could've added some pizazz, and finally, the death animations aren't gory at all: was really expecting some serious brain matter spilling out of cracked skulls: it's Madness after all!

However, that's not to say it's all bad. I do think the game is rather stylish and charming with a lot of nice touches to it. I like that the music gets more and more intense as the odds get more and more risky with empty chambers being depleted, and I like seeing the characters sweat (though I wish they would also increase in shakiness and sweatiness more as the game goes on as well). I also like that there are unique animations for each of the characters in how they take their turn. And of course, it is rather impressive that it has a whole online feature and lots of prizes to get, even if they do require way too much commitment to get since it's all based on luck after all.

spazgunk responds:

yo thank you so much for the insightful review!!! very much appreciated. 100% takin' this stuff into consideration for the next update :]

[Gardengage]

Really cool concept for a game that felt like a bit of a mixed bag for me!

On one hand, I do think that the concept and mechanics for the game were quite interesting: switching back and forth between side-scrolling and top-down mechanics to find the right path were really fun and mind-bendy at times, and then piling on other mechanics like removing breakable tiles by walking over them in top-down to create a staircase you can jump up in side-scroll mode made me feel really clever. I'm only through world 1 right now and I definitely want to continue onwards to see how it shakes out.

It does have a bit of jankiness to it, though, that kind of made it confusing/frustrating to play. To start, the graphics sometimes remind me of a NES game that is glitching out, or maybe a weird kaizo mario maker level or something: just really slapdash and kind of difficult to parse and look at sometimes. Second, the gameplay felt very awkward at times: my character would get stuck or glitch into platforms, I wasn't sure how to attack enemies in top-down mode, I felt like I was forced to make these really tight jumps that the game isn't flexible enough for, and it felt weird being hit by enemies that are in tiles below me that shouldn't be able to hit me (and even then, I feel like I should kill them because I'm above them even if I'm not jumping). And finally, I wish the map screen was a bit better: would love to move around in it like Super Mario World or something instead of just messing with the menus in the bottom corner.

It's definitely a neat game I think: for me, it just needs something like a polishing pass to make it feel more smooth and not so janky. But I suppose, given the kind of glitchy nature of the concept/theme, it kind of fits in a weird way, haha. I plan on trying to make it further in the game nonetheless!

[Epolevne]

Solid puzzle game! Had a bit of a difficulty spike here and there, but overall it felt like a very smooth and fun ride that kept escalating in interesting ways thanks to new, intuitive mechanics being introduced at a good pace. Some initial confusion was there over the jumping distance at times, but later on it felt like all of the puzzles worked well with it so it was just me trying to jump in unintended ways. Before I knew it, I had gotten the envelope...I mean, the epolevne!

[Surviving the Snowstorm]

A nice attempt and I think the heart is in the right place, but I'd say it unfortunately falls short of being a good fangame by missing some critical aspects.

For one, the great thing about Henry Stickman games I find is how animated and lively everything is, and that includes the buttons which would usually play out an animation or a sound when you hover over them: the buttons in this, unfortunately, were very lifeless and stiff with no such pizazz or life to them.

The scenarios that played out weren't that unique or inventive either, most just being a silly one-note gag that didn't really use the whole winter situation to enhance it or have the craziness and escalation that most Henry Stickman gags did. Heck, you had two jack-in-the-box scenarios that were practically identical, and then two phone scenarios that were literally identical as they were just copy-paste!

All this just made the game feel rather lazy: just felt like the list of options was bloated with a lot of fluff: I'd say the only ones I really liked were the the jacket, the load save, the teleporter, the go deeper, and maybe the cheese/bomb/radio. It's not all bad: like I said, there were some decent options in there and I liked the stickman animations and such as they looked very authentic, so I think the heart is in the right place: hopefully I don't sound like too much of a jerk, just want to point out some of the hidden aspects that really could help enhance the experience if you revisit.

BioPlant responds:

Thank you for the thoughtful review! I’m currently working on a remake of this game, so your review is much appreciated.

[An Ordinary Adventure]

Goofy little adventure! Part of me wish it had a bit more gameplay besides just walking around (and the one token puzzle) but for the most part, the dialogue and animations were quite charming and amusing and it kept me wanting to see what oddities happened next, so I'll let it slide, haha. What I might not let slide was the constant janky issues where my character would get stuck walking backwards and I'd need to reset it with a jump: I know you put a warning in the description and all that, but at the end of the day, there's gotta be a better way to actually solve the issue than just making an excuse and expecting everyone to roll with it. Anyway, it wasn't the worst issue to tangle with, so again, I'll let it slide, but just a warning for future since it did hurt the presentation and believe me, you cannot count on people reading the description.

midgetsausage responds:

Yeah, it's a pretty bitter pill to swallow that some people just don't read the description and that the bug... thing is hard to fix.
I wish I could go out of my way to fix em, but my Scratch skills are rudimentary at best, and I don't know if Zach can even fix them thanks to Scratch's limitations...

We're still genuinely happy you enjoy the game, really sorry for the constant sudden moonwalking every now and then. But we're glad (and relieved) that you love the bigger picture!
And yeah, the lack of gameplay was something we were real unsure players on Newgrounds would roll along with, but we were tremendously shocked that they did LMAO