FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pinball Breaker]

A pretty decent pinball game! The mechanics felt pretty solid, intuitive and responsive (apart from a little jankiness where you can see the ball phase into the paddles for a frame or two when you hit it), the break the targets gameplay is a decent combination for the genre, and while it was a little superfluous, the inclusion of a character select that influences the chatter you hear in game was a nice little addition to add some pep to the game.

That all being said, to me, this felt more like a prototype or a proof of concept instead of a full game. For the most part, the basic gameplay mechanics are there, but there wasn't any juice to the game (as in, no pizazz, no satisfying gamefeel or special effects and what-not) to really set it apart or make me want to play it.

When I think pinball, I think of a board that has all sorts of tunnels to go down and secret paddles to hit and flashing lights to roll over to trigger all sorts of crazy events that play out on the screen and bedazzle the user with its radiant, juicy chaos. There's so much to explore and challenge yourself to go for on a pinball table, and that's why I love them. In comparison, this board felt absolutely plain and dry, devoid of juice, and didn't take long at all for it to start cycling the same easy layouts of targets over and over, ultimately boring me rather quickly. Yes, as said before, it did have a bit of juice in that you get the chatter from the characters, but other than that, it was dry as a desert. I mean jeez, the bonus round where you get coins was incredibly bland: no fanfare, no transition, no multiplier or timer or fast-paced music fitting of a bonus round, not even a satisfying effect that happens when you collide with a coin, they just vanish!

Now, I'm not saying it has to exactly be like pinball or anything: obviously you're doing a bit of a twist on it with this break the targets gameplay. But again, the problem was twofold: the game has a very lacking array of target layouts that began recycling way too early, and the game severely lacks special effects and pizazz that make it exciting to break the targets and go for combos and a high score and such. If these issues were rectified and put into your already solid engine, I think you might have something great on your hands! But whatever you go with, it was still a nice bit of fun while it lasted nonetheless.

[Bulb Boy]

Very nice game! Great concept, cute design, solid puzzles and sense of progression/difficulty, all in all this feels very well put-together in all aspects and I found myself getting addicted to making my way through.

Having said that, I did have a lot of issues with it. First, the game was a little wonky in some aspects. In terms of the controls I found myself initially wishing that I could click to pick up something and click to put it down, instead of holding and letting go. Not major and I got over that rather quickly, but speaking of plugs, interacting on a plug and seeing no reaction until you walk away to rip it out from it was a bit odd: I'd prefer if the plug got immediately ripped out when you interact. Plugs in general were wonky as well where I had plenty of times where I had difficulty keeping them plugged in: they'd pop out randomly for some reason, and this wasn't even a case where they were on a short tether or something like that.

Second, I found the game rather unclear on some of its aspects. I actually spent a long time thinking that my character charged up as long as I stood next to a light source, or more specifically a lightning bolt symbol: it was only until way later that I realized that I was recharging because I was standing on these charge-up floor things. I had no idea that was the case as the floor chargers seemed like they just blended into the environment: maybe make them pop more by coloring them differently or giving them some sort of effect. Secondly, I really wished that the direction and flow of power through circuits was a bit more obvious, in that I wish it would not only light up the lightning bolt at the end, but it'd be great if the whole wire would light up as well, maybe with a little flow animation for the power surging through: it'd be so much more intuitive to grasp and satisfying to see.

Third, I really don't agree with the design decision of having the main character run out of power when moving outside of charging areas. Yes, I get what you're going for and I think it works for some of the puzzles in the beginning, but once I got to the later puzzles which were very complex, I found myself dying constantly because I'd get so into solving the puzzle that I'd lose track of my power. It just felt like recharging myself was unnecessary, annoying busywork that got in the way of me having fun solving the puzzles: really ruined my flow. It was also annoying how some movements, like hanging from a cord and swinging drained energy even though I technically wasn't expending energy in a literal movement method, if that makes sense.

Now I know I just wrote a giant spiel of negative feedback, but still, I do like the game for the most part: I'm having fun and certainly plan on continuing the rest of the way through. Kudos on this!

STANNco responds:

It is very valid feedback, we'll try to think of if/when we continue on this

[ZemmiPhobia]

Ah man, I appreciate what this was going for, and I think the concept is decent and certainly could work, but man, it felt so rough and jank that I ended up quitting rather quickly.

First off, the game is riddled with tons of bugs, glitches and jank: they're all minor things, but they add up to give it a really unprofessional feel. For example, the "how to play" screen in just a boring wall of text that isn't even sized properly so the text is bleeding off of the sides. The score counter in the upper right is barely readable since it's just a drab system font that's gets lost in the weird spotted background. The 'retry' button doesn't have a proper hitbox: instead the hitbox is the font itself so if you click within the retry area but not exactly on one of the letters, it doesn't register. And so on and so forth.

The gameplay seems alright in what it was going for in theory, but I found it incredibly frustrating: hitboxes felt really wonky and undefined with clashes happening for bizarre, unexpected reasons. The ceiling stalactites were confusing in that some of them seemed to just be decoration while others actually blocked you from going forward, but it was unclear which were which. The randomization of obstacles sometimes made it so that there could be a stalactite and a skull pile perfectly aligned so you have no way out. It was also very vague and unclear how fast you were going or how much distance you had left before getting eaten and such. And I hated how you can lose so much light that you can't see what's above you and need to blindly jump to get whatever you can, most likely leading to death. All around an absolutely confusing mess.

Powerups were very unintuitive because whether they were positive or negative, they just displayed the same type of boring text pop-up. There really needs to be more juice to let you know what the effects of this pickups are doing, like using green text for good effects and red text for bad effects, as well as maybe a positive/negative sound effect: it'd make it way more satisfying to pick them up as well.

Again, I like what it was going for here and I did find the art and premise very comical and amusing, but I feel like this game definitely feels like it needs more time in the oven.

[Crystal Ball of Firmament]

Pretty neat game! Quite the interesting concept, and I felt like the game was very professionally put-together as it looked great: loved the smooth transition of day/night, the juicy effects for jumping and seeing your cloak flap about, the animated HUD and the way the heart bounces around and the tokens spin when you transition day/night. So much good stuff in this!

Unfortunately, while I do think it is well put together, I did find myself losing patience and dropping off around level 3 or 4 or so. The game was nice, but up to then, it seemed like it just kept cycling the same type of stuff over and over: the same boring desert tileset, the same music, the same enemies, the same day/night tiles, the same tokens that seemed to have no greater purpose, the lack of some sort of story or goal to strive for, and so on. It did introduce the lock mechanic around there, which was nice, but it felt like so little when I was dying for something more substantial to keep me hooked and interested.

To add to that, I did find it frustrating to get used to the day/night transition controls: as nice and slick and smooth as the transitions are, I'd prefer, from a control perspective, if I could just insta-snap to day/night, as I found myself frustrated at how delayed the transition could be, or if I accidently held the button down for a bit too long and the momentum carried it past the time period I wanted. Really screwed me over on some jumps and traps here and there.

Still, despite my gripes with the game and the feeling it kind of stretched too small an amount of content over too many levels, I do still want to keep playing it because it just feels charming and well put-together, so kudos on that.

[BlastoBlitz]

Wow, very cool game! All around very impressive craftmanship in all aspects and a great, fun concept: always enjoy seeing these one button games and I found this very addictive to get good at balancing attacking and movement since they all come from the same action and create some frantic fun. I felt like some aspects were a little unneeded, like weapon drops and cards as the game already felt great without them, but they were an alright addition for people who want a bit of RNG to help replayability, so I understand.

I definitely did have a bit of a rough start though: it was intuitive for the most part, but I didn't like how the game didn't have a 'how to play' as some aspects like the filling up of the blood gauge being how you make the exit portal was unclear. I also got tricked into thinking that charge up shots were the way to go since the game seemed to put emphasis on that, combined with the fact that uncharged shots were so weak: that led to me only relying on charged shots which was a frustrating period of getting screwed over while waiting for a charge up and not realizing that you can still move fast by mashing rapid fire weak shots.

I also hated some aspects of the gameplay such as the random spawns which can screw you over, the camera being too zoomed in which, when combined with the large distance you can travel, means you can constantly screw yourself over by zooming into unknown space, and the fact that the timer doesn't stop when you're in that intermission period between levels where you pick the next difficulty, meaning you're forced to just fire at whatever is closest and not knowing what you picked.

[Action Packed Adventure]

Hmm, a little bit torn on this one! On one hand, I find the game's concept really cool and strategic: being conservative with your moves to keep your heartrate down, while also balancing eating veggies and candy to help your heartrate and health pulling in opposite directions keeps you on your toes constantly. And all of this combines with the crazy levels filled with all manner of enemy types and obstacles to create a really crazy challenge! Trying to puzzle my way through the car level (while getting annoyed at the hidden "important tip") was frustrating, but an interesting challenge that will stay with me for some time, haha.

On the other hand, it did feel difficult to take the game seriously at times due to its wacky design: every time a challenge came up, I couldn't decide whether to take it seriously or just shrug and say "eh, just some shitpost troll game screwing with me" and turn it off. Additionally, the camera was so zoomed in and enemies/bullets were so fast at times that it felt impossible to react and control the situation in an intentional manner, making it feel like its all up to luck or just rushing through facetanking things to get to the end of the level before you die (which I did a few times). Still an intriguing game nonetheless that I want to revisit to see if I can beat it, so kudos on that.

Nomron responds:

Hey, thank you for the feedback! I honestly can't disagree with a lot of your points here lol, for most of the game I was just kind of messing around and doing whatever I found funny. It is absolutely not fair haha. Thank you again!

[Michaelsoft Binbows '97]

Nice, goofy little adventure! Was a bit disappointed that there wasn't any sort of underlying story or narrative to it all, at least from what I can find. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my time digging around and seeing all of the wacky stuff you setup (and goddamn was some of it wacky as hell, what the heck was that tinfoil OS), but seeing that log hidden in the documents really made me think there might be something deeper in there that we can search for, like playing the games and looking around in other programs might unlock more logs to lead up to some grand ending, ala Hypnospace Outlaw or TIS-100 or Randy Learns Science. Oh well, was still quite the adventure nonetheless!

AtreyuGilbert responds:

thank me for tinfoil os

[Medieval Mirrors : Episode 2]

Not too shabby! I always admire a game that allows you to kill your character right from the very start, and this game delivers on that, haha! Overall an interesting parallel universe jaunt with a solid "in medias res" intro that made me really want to keep playing and see how everything ended up like that. Felt like it was pretty standalone as well, which helps people like me who aren't too familiar with the lore jump in and have fun.

As usual with these types of games, I do feel like the dialogue can be a bit overly quippy at times. I do like how comical, jokey and light-hearted it can be, but sometimes I think it just overdoes it. For example, when Dregg is asking them to sign and they hold up a sword to him, saying "you can't sign with a sword" is good. Adding on "who do you think you are? zorro?" is also good and amplifies it (though it does call to attention whether Zorro exists in this world). But then also adding on "the pen is mightier than the sword" just feels incredibly unnecessary and dumb, like you're just trying to stack on as many pen/sword related puns as possible despite not making any sense. It just doesn't flow well and this seems to be a constant issue with the game, where it delivers a joke, but then goes a bit too far and either beats you over the head with it or runs it into the ground, ruining it. However, considering Dregg is intentionally supposed to be incredibly annoying in this instance, I suppose I can concede and accept it, at least for this, haha.

[Jumping Clones]

Wow, very nice stuff here! I thought the concept was a bit cliche but I was surprised at the amount of unique mechanics and puzzles that were derived from it. Once again, everything you'd expect from a Rob1221 game: great concept, great puzzles, intuitive design that subtly teaches you mechanics, great 'gotcha' and 'eureka' moments in the puzzles that make sure you're not just autopiloting but using your noggin, a great variety of mechanics that are paced well to keep the player hooked and increase the difficulty smoothly, and so on and so forth! It took some effort to pull myself away from this!

My only gripe, if you could call it that, is that I felt like the game does have a pretty big difficulty spike early on, particularly with the stacking double jump mechanic. I liked the challenge and felt like you provided enough hints to figure it out, but even with that, it could be quite tricky to pull off at times. I also found it a bit unintuitive in that you needed to have both stacked at the start to pull off the double jump: you couldn't create the stack midjump to double jump off of it even if they aligned perfectly, unfortunately. You also introduced it only for it to disappear from the levels later on, so perhaps that mechanic could've been left till later levels for the player to be more comfortable with a challenge like that. Anyway, great stuff overall!

[Inside you are two wolves or something]

Wow! Solid game with a fun little concept and a goofy yet catchy title! For the most part, I had a fun time going through this: felt challenging but fun to try and race against the rising lava by simultaneously controlling both wolves when I could. I am also really surprised at the level of content on display here: for a game jam game, I had a few times where I thought that the game was going to end on me beating a level that felt like a finisher, only for it to keep going and keep introducing brand new types of obstacles!

That being said, there was a lot of wonkiness with that game here and there. I would have times where my wolf would stop running even though they were running across a flat floor: I had to jump to get them unstuck, must've been a misaligned floor tile that was sticking up a pixel or two and creating a stopper, I guess. I would also have times where a wolf would get stuck in a falling animation above an inactive spring for some weird reason. Also, apart from those glitchy moments, I also found the buttons really unintuitive and lazy because they don't provide any feedback, like animating them to depress, to let you know you interacted with them. Finally, there were some levels where the obstacles that were put into place were totally skippable by utilizing wall jumping instead of buttons or springs or whatever: felt like you forgot you gave the player that option sometimes, haha. Still, putting those parts aside which is understandable for a game jam game, I had a good time overall!