FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Trophy Collab]

Not too shabby! A very creative way to show off a bunch of neat art and artists, and I love the physical interaction of actually picking up the coin, putting it in, and watching it tumble on down! Only complaints I have is that it can be a little clunky and glitchy with weird parts of the interface not working well (sometimes the text pop-ups for hovering on a trophy would stop working or just act strangely, for example) and that I feel it misses the point of the thrill of a gacha by letting you skip the act of putting in a coin and watching the ball roll down once you do it a single time: that's the best part and acts so much thrill and interactivity to it!

[Acend]

Wow, this one really surprised me! First impression was a bit mixed: the title screen/main menu was definitely very cool and smooth with the way it swishes around and transitions to levels and other menus, but the simple graphics, stubby movement of the character, and lack of challenge made me a bit worried as it gave off the impression of a way too basic asset-flip game. However, as the game went on, I was impressed at how quickly it upped the pace and started introducing new mechanics and challenges, along with story elements like the rival character: turned what seemed like a boring game into something that kept me hooked! I also love the subtle, professional design touches here and there, like the way the camera slickly moves to frame the level, and how the sound for the jetpack peters out to clue the player in on the fact that it has limited fuel that peters out: very clever!

EDIT: Made it all the way through! The story was, uh, wacky with a bit of a nonsensical letdown ending if I were to be kind, but it was funny enough in that nonsense and it didn't hurt my experience because the gameplay itself just kept delivering more and more excellent powers, obstacles and setpieces, especially the boss fights! Again, well done with this: definitely a hidden gem!

GreenGoatGaming responds:

Thank you so much, I'm very excited for your next video!

[Mr. Final Boss]

It's a bit rough since it's a game jam game, but I feel like it's a great prototype for a solid concept! Definitely very impressive from a presentation perspective with the stylish tilted perspective, the snazzy way heroes get introduced and chit-chat, and the cool ending screen where you get to see how many bodies you piled up. Did some great things with the concept like changing your abilities up as you get lower on life to mimic boss phases: very funny and clever!

As said, it is pretty rough. The combat was generally a bit wonky where all of the attacks had vague, confusing hitboxes and lackluster power/feedback, and the tilted 3D perspective, while cool looking, did make it confusing to aim, dodge and judge distance. I was a bit annoyed that the attacks you get are randomly generated: I'd much prefer if you would get to pick and choose your own loadout from all possible abilities, and then it could become a fun game of trial and error, or adaption, to get your favorite loadout, instead of it just being a chaos where you can get stuck with abilities you don't like, forcing a restart to get the ones you want. I'd also love if you get MORE abilities on different buttons when you upgrade due to low life, instead of having to replace abilities. Would also love more variety and difficulty with the hero AI to combat against: felt like they just won by stats and numbers rather than clever moves (but maybe that's the point, haha).

Definitely a game that, while I felt it was a bit too wonky and shallow to keep me hooked, I'm still impressed with it and feel like its a great, ambitious idea that I'd love to see fleshed out and polished up into a full version if there is interest in it! If not, then I await whatever cool other idea you all come up with!

[NG Tarot Card Collab]

Solid art collab! Love it when an art collab creatively displays the art in a unique way to hook viewers, and I think this did a great job! Presentation of the art felt great: loved the animations of the cards coming up and flipping around, and seeing little podchan react to it all. Loved the nice feedback of hovering around the cards and seeing/hearing them flip up: so satisfying to just brush the mouse over 'em, haha. All around super stuff here!

The only big demerit against it for me is that I was surprised that there were no links to the artist's profiles when you hover over their art or name (I know you can find them in the credits, but it'd just be so convenient if, when I see a cool piece of art, I could click on it right there to see the hot creator that made it). That and I felt like the 3-card tarot reading could maybe get put a bit more front-and-center and guide you through the cards you get, or maybe highlight the cards you got in the pile so you can read 'em and remember what you got without having to go back and get your reading done again.

Taka responds:

Hey future cop glad you like the Collab. I did blockhead. Looking forward to your video. Look out this pico day for my game. No bribes *slides dogecoin on the table*.

[Comet]

Hmm, this was a rough one for me. Initial impressions were very strong: I think the concept is cool and the graphics/music/sound and so on felt very polished and professional. Love the cool touches like how the glow of the comet gets closer and closer. I really wanted to love it based on how good it looks and feels to just move around and shoot stuff at a basic level, but the way the rules of the game are designed brings it down, I think.

It just feels way too passive and up to random chance as to whether you can progress: all you can do is wait for pieces to fall down and then break them, hoping you get an orb from them instead of a slime. I would've loved if I could have more of a hand in creating pieces by shooting at the comet to have them come down faster or something, but all I can do is wait. Just didn't feel challenging or tense at all, as it was very easy to dodge the rocks coming down and the occasional flies that would come around were way too easy to dispatch. And then even when you get enough orbs to power the cannon to fire back, it doesn't feel satisfying: all that happens is it fires up and the bar fills up a bit with no satisfying flash or explosion or feedback of any sort to make you feel like you're fighting back.

I definitely think this has some solid and professional construction to it, but the game itself just didn't keep me hooked or excited. This one wasn't for me, but I'm looking forward to seeing what else you come out with in future as this looked like it had a lot of promise and technical know-how!

EduSilvArt responds:

Thank you so much for the nice feedback! I keep making those small games in order to develop myself as I'm very amateur to gamedev. This one I made for Ludum Dare, after the jam I kept updating to make the game cool enough until I realised... the game isn't that cool. No matter what I do I don't think it could get that much fun, I could add lots of visuals feedback, new machanics and such but to make the game fun as a whole I would've to redo everything so I decided to just let it like that and move for my next projects. I learned a lot with it tho and I hope I can make some good games in the future!

[NECROMICIDE]

Hmm, this was a bit of a rough one for me! On initial viewing, I think the game looks really cool and has a lot going for it. I love a good beat-em-up, and this delivers some crazy action with some very stylish and cool art/animations all-around that remind me of something like Alien Hominid.

But in the end, the gameplay didn't feel great. The feedback of hitting enemies and getting hit by enemies felt really vague and unsatisfying due to the lack of effects, the enemies were dumb and the bosses way too spongy, and overall the game just felt like a clusterfuck where you're crammed into a cramped corridor where you barely have enough room to maneuver and time to react as enemies glitch-spawn right on top of you or on top of furniture or clipping under the floor and fire zero-telegraph attacks with wonky undefined hitboxes. It felt chaotic, but not in a good way, but rather a glitchy, wonky, confusing way, unfortunately.

Sorry, I think I'm just really harsh on beat-em-ups because I love 'em so much! But I think it's very understandable that the game isn't as fleshed out as I'd like since it's a game jam game (rather, it's impressive how much was done considering it's a game jam game!) I just want to give as much feedback as I can since I'd love to see the continuation of this, hopefully with some changes to make it feel even more satisfying. Looking forward to it!

[VOLTARMS]

Hmm, bit mixed on this one. I think it does have some cool stuff going for it. I didn't get enough into it, but it did seem to have a bit of a story going for it, and the combat did have some flashy moves and slight tactical options to it: most importantly to me it seemed like the enemies had 'tells' for when they would attack, allowing you the opportunity to cleverly notice the tell and get your defense move ready, similar to a Super Mario RPG game, which are a favorite of mine.

Unfortunately, I felt like in most respects, this feels like a repeat, but instead of being an improved sequel, it actually was a bit of a step down from your other games, like Arcane Maiden. At least in that, from what I remember, there was some slight strategy in moves where you need to decide whether to go for damage, or go for a status debuff like slow, or heal, and other type of stuff, depending on the situation. In this, it seems like all you could do was attack, or rather wait a long time to charge up and then attack. The waiting to charge up could be an interesting strategy element, similar to the Bravely Default system where you need to decide whether its worth the risk to blow all your turns and not suffer repercussions, but in this game it feels like the only thing to do is charge as the benefits are too great to ignore, making it not an option at all. While the fancy animations are cool at first, they get kinda boring when it's literally all you can do, over and over.

There is the chance that perhaps I'm missing something: maybe the game really opens up in terms of strategy later on in some way, or maybe I missed something because the game frontload dump a lot of information on you right at the start without being able to see examples in action. But for me, that game didn't hook me long enough to want to get to that stage. I can understand if it's just not for me: might be the type of game where you're just suppose to grind and level up past problems, instead of employing tactics or reactions. Still, seems like it has a lot of potential and from your previous games, I feel like you can definitely get something going here.

MidNightMaren responds:

Arcane Maiden was designed to be a full throttle game from the get go; it was designed for several years, thought out skill sets and balanced between countless hours of testing. A full paper notebook I still have to this day is scribbled with damage equations, descriptions, menu designs, level layouts etc. It was a shelfed game until Flash Jam was a thing.

Sure, you look at this game and it seems a downgraded version of it. But it was supposed to be a completely different thing and evaluated as such. The dungeon crawler aspect of it is carbon copy, but the game mechanics are much different. This is much more of a hack n' slash type of thing, where you make different combinations and enjoy the flashy visuals.

It´s much simpler and repetitive regardless, I was aware of it from the sketch phase of the game, so I tried to spice it up as much as I could with aesthetics, animation, music, sfx and even a full plotline and world building.
Believe it or not I included the Defense action on the enemy's turn because of your input on Arcane Maiden from your youtube video on the monthly winners from last year; Mario RPG style.

A lot could be done to improve this, but I'm short on hands and time so what you see is what you get. It's always an amazing experience to be able to work on Flash games for fun again, and interactions like this it's what this is all about.

P.S. Your entry is super clever and fun to play. Good job!

[Exhibit of Sorrows]

Wow, quite the spooky adventure! Very powerful visuals and audio that delivered some great spooks despite the simple, technically low nature of the presentation. That's not to say that it was that simple, as again the game impressed with the cool analog interactions on all sorts of objects. Love the way it built up the experience bit-by-bit in the initial loop and then turned it on its head in the next loop: really let the tension and dread set in when the realization hits. I'm sure a few people will be bummed out that the game kind of forces their hand to do evil stuff (even I was a bit annoyed) but it was still very cool stuff. Again, some great stuff here (and it didn't even rely on blasting my speakers out with jump scares, so thanks for that!)

The only thing I was a little bummed out about was that I felt like it didn't lead to an effective climax. It almost felt like I got off too easy when I got out at the end. Maybe there were multiple endings, or subtle lore I missed? I did notice the paintings/pictures change here and there but I wasn't sure if there was something specific it was doing. I really felt like it was building up to something, like some sort of revenge, or abuse, or whatever, but then it was over before I knew it. Still, it's not like it ruined the experience or anything, just a little bit of a bummer that there wasn't some sort of, I dunno, center or theme to it all beyond 'whoa, spooky clowns" (to be fair, though, they were pretty spooky clowns).

[My First KAMIKAZE]

Bit of mixed feelings on this one! For the most part, it is a rather cute and amusing game which, while not having the best first impression in the way that its a bit overly simple and crude in terms of graphics and mechanics, it does pick up the pace in the later levels with some interesting challenges and variety. Also, I did like the little touches the game had, such as the amusing way the bird would react when the rocket would get close. Cute stuff!

Unfortunately, I did find myself that, the longer I played it, the longer I didn't want to play it again because of the life system and the fact that you need to start all over. I understand what you're getting at with the way it is designed, where you fight to see how long you can last until you run out of lives, but I wish the game was just a standard level progression with no lives or anything like that. Basically I'd like to just be able to go through all the levels and continue where I left off without needing to worry about starting all over and going through all the boring no-challenge early levels to get back to the good challenging stuff at the end. Perhaps I'm wrong in wishing for this as it might make it too easy, I dunno.

Apart from that, there were also some other minor nitpicks like how I felt the spaceship was a little too simple (I really expected it to have more analog turning controls instead of angle snapping, though I guess that wouldn't work with the cramped levels) and that I felt you should say that you are able to hold the jump button when you hit the springs to jump high (the controls say press which implies you have to time it, which you don't have to luckily since the game is nice).

CubePunks responds:

I tried making the rockets work like they did in Asteroids but it was more difficult than fun, after further testing the simple snapping was the best solution.

The tutorial text is written the way it was because originally the Mario styled “timing the jump button to get the bounce”. Even after widening the margin of error people were still getting frustrated with it so I changed it to hold (read old reviews it’s pretty much what all of them were talking about). I may get around to changing the wording in a patch.

I have plans on making a deluxe version that adds additional features and difficulties. I may add a casual mode that gives you infinite lives but also won’t submit to a leaderboard.

I did the shotgun level challenge approach because I assumed the audience playing would prefer a more hardcore experience. I wanted to make a game that encourages speed running, making it more than just another simple indi platformer. Also for this beginning faze of my game dev process, im trying to build more arcade styled experiences before moving onto something with a larger scope. better to experiment with the medium while I develop my skills, before committing to something that’s more expansive. I’d be surprised if I make anything more complicated than the original Alien Homined NG game before 2023.

[Yu Dragoon]

Pretty neat game! Definitely quite impressed at the systems on display here such as the 3D map navigation along with the battle system. Love the lighthearted story with all sorts of little touches like how it skips over the generic story to get straight to gameplay (my kinda game, haha!) And to top it all off, it's done in that classic genesis graphic style. As said, pretty impressive stuff!

Unfortunately, while I do think it is kinda cool from a technical standpoint, I did find the game itself a bit repetitive and boring. Not bad or anything: I was still hooked enough that I wanted to keep playing thanks to the story, but the combat was way too old-school for my tastes in that it just featured repetitive 'taking turns attacking' style combat with cool moves locked behind a resource that I didn't know how rare it was (so I never wanted to risk using it) and the map was lacking in interesting design, mostly just featuring a bunch of wrong turn dead-ends (would be nice if there was at least some optional rewards or treasures around). Also, the jokes did tend to get a little too fourth-wall breaky and overly jokey so much that it as well got repetitive. There were also some other minor nitpicks such as random combat encounters (even in town!) and typos/script confusion.

Again, quite the impressive and cute game at first glance and I do think it has a lot of potential, but the core gameplay itself didn't end up being that much fun for me due to the lack of combat depth, lack of exploration and a bit too overly jokey (but that's personal taste). A good attempt, however!