FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[NG: Zero Hour Lite]

A little bit conflicted on this one! For the most part, it is serviceable, but pretty lacking in some areas to make a great shooter. First and foremost, the enemies were really lackluster in AI (most can be easily beaten by standing below them and shooting upwards), way too damage-spongy, and devoid of satisfying audio/visual hit feedback or death explosions. I also really wish it had some extra buttons to lock aiming/movement as most modern (like Cuphead) or even old-school (like Hard Corps) shooters do to help the awkwardness of traditional movement/aiming being tied to each other. Game just also had a general sense of jankiness and weird confusing comedy to it all. I'd say it is an ok prototype that can be worked off of.

Now obviously, the caveat of this all is that the game is an April Fools, and probably not representative of what the final product is going to be. So yes, my feedback is probably useless and it's just a big joke I'm not supposed to take seriously. "Haha, we made the bad game, but we made it on purpose, so jokes on you!" That's one way to put it, but at the end of the day, irony and all that aside, you still made a bad game, so I'd prefer you just make a good game instead in the first place (well, I wouldn't say it's BAD per se, just lacking given the legacy behind it). But on the other hand, maybe I am being too serious and you're allowed to do whatever.

Nonetheless, at the end of the day, I am looking forward to Newgrounds Zero Hour, so best of luck! I love me some boss fights and I love me some bullet hell, so I'm hoping it delivers that goodness!

[Pingüino]

Pretty cool game, but a little confusing at times! I quite like the game at its core, as the feeling of speed was nice and the game, while simple, had an addictive nature to it. Also, I love the amount of little touches the game has, such as being able to pick on the penguin at the start and it makes a little noise, along with all the nice visual/audio effects like the death animations, going into tunnels, the speed lines, and so on. Overall it does feel quite smooth and polished.

The main issue I have with it is that the mechanics are a bit confusing. As said, the main mechanics of dashing and jumping through the course to get to the end is fine and feels great. But the additional aspects to the game are weird.

For example, fish are a bit confusing and the game can't quite seem to decide what to do with them: first it tells you not to get them since it makes you fat and slow, but then the game gives you 'points' for getting them which seems like a positive. This made me think I needed to get them for a high score, but just not get too much so as to not be able to finish (aka five of them). But then I noticed that the score numbers were technically getting redder the more I ate, so I figured, ok, I guess it really is a bad thing and I should avoid them. But then I noticed that some courses can't be beat if DON'T eat fish because it needs you to go slower, while other courses can't be beat if you DO eat too many fish since you don't have enough speed to make jumps. It just feels unfair and confusing: do I eat them or not? I just want consistency. Maybe you think it's part of the challenge to figure out whether to eat or not to finish a course, but I hate that kind of trial and error: fish should really just be an extra score thing, I think, and not softlock you into not getting through a course if you don't guess right the first time.

Moving on from fish, there was also weird stuff like the slow-mo. It's a nice addition, but why in the world does the slow-mo bar keep draining even when I'm not holding it down? You'd think that as long as I stop using it, it would recharge or at the very least not keep draining. It takes what could be a fun mechanic you can use sparingly here and there and makes it this ultimate choice where you have to use it all now at once or else waste the whole damn thing.

Finally, there was also some other nitpicks like how I had no idea how to get out of the hat menu once I was in it: how the heck do you exit? I just mashed keys until the game started somehow.

Overall I'd say that this game has a lot of promise: I think the core mechanics of speed and jumping through courses is fun and smooth. It's just that the other mechanics of fish and how the courses are laid out are a bit confusing and unfair at times. Once those are all settled, I think this could be great!

Oh yeah, and I'd love some little sliding sound effects.

[Duck It!]

Not too shabby of a little metroidvania game! I did like the cute graphics/animations which, along with the funny concept and amusing characters, made it quite the charming adventure. There were certainly some rough spots to it: I didn't like the overall slow speed and awkward acceleration/momentum (which differs depends on which direction you switch), the hitboxes were a bit wonky, I wish the bonfires stuck out more/were noticable, the game had a bit of an annoying back and forth aspect to it where you have to keep going back to upgrade instead of finding them out in the wild, and the upgrades were a bit lackluster both in functionality and in the way your character progresses visually (seems like all the character did was get a sepia filter, haha). But despite that, it was fun and the way the level kept looking back on itself and opening up more was nice. Liked moments like going down the pit with the groundpound and trying to find a way back up top (and seeing the rich duck on the spikes if you try to jump there without the upgrade yet).

[Sausage Game]

Wow, cool little adventure you got here! Had a good time exploring this charming world: kept me hooked through the sheer abundance of wacky scenarios (most of them involving that classic edgy/gory Newgrounds humor, haha). All-around the game felt very smooth and well put-together, and presentation was very well-done with the 'movie theatre' aesthetic and stellar animation/art. Loved some of the puzzles as well: felt clever figuring out that gummy bear/dog one before the game even needed to clue me in.

I did have some minor complaints. For one, as charming and goofy as the game was, it felt a little too random to the point of being directionless at times. It's a bit vague to explain, but considering our initial goal was to get out and see the wilderness or whatever, you just end up walking around the movie theatre and getting involved in weird stuff that has nothing to do with that goal. Didn't feel like there were enough puzzles or moments that use your brain either: just felt like you follow a lot of people places instead and events solve themselves without your input, except for rare occasions. Also, I was annoyed at the lack of highlighting for interactable objects: would've loved if the game would indicate what was interactable by making them glow or having text pop-up, instead of making me get carpal tunnel trying to click every pixel to see if I'd missed something. Still, despite all that, I found the game charming enough that I want to keep going.

[Light Push]

Wow, really tricky game! The concept of light paths is pretty cool and led to some challenging puzzles: I got stumped for an embarrassing amount of time as early as level 3, haha! Definitely a solid puzzler as usual, though maybe could've rearranged some of the earlier levels, like having the box/plus level before the plus/plus level (but maybe that's just how my brain works, where I want the new mechanic to be introduced alongside the old instead of by itself first).

Unfortunately, while I think the concept it great, I found myself not wanting to play much because of how tough it was to grasp and how dumb it made me feel, haha. Something about the game just felt so cramped, claustrophobic and boxed-in due to the limited light paths and difficulty of traversal that it kind of made it an unpleasant experience for me: very limited freedom than usual, I suppose. Again, though, that doesn't necessarily think that it's a bad game, per se, but just that it doesn't gel with me.

[Bird On Bird]

Interesting game! Feels well put-together in all aspects with a funny concept, interesting mechanics, and a nice world to get through that provides a lot of mystique with its alternate paths that make you want to go back later once you pick up enough feathers or abilities. Love the polish in that everything feels very smooth, bouncy and animated, with fun little events like the chickens calling you a traitor randomly. Definitely kept me hooked and wanting to see what the new levels brought up next. There were a few times where I got a little confused, like learning the 'stop flying' mechanic has you have to hold the button instead of just press it (I swear there were some strange times where a bird would stop flying without my input as if they got tired, while others would keep flying forever?), and there were some frustration at some obstacles where it feels like you just have to die to see it coming in the first place and just how short your jump is, but overall was solid.

Starblinky responds:

Appreciate the feedback and honesty!

:)

[Bandit RIP [BETA]]

I like what the game is going for, but it's in a pretty rough state at the moment. I know that might be obvious since it's labeled as a beta, but it's because of that I don't want to pull punches since I want this game to get built up into something great. I'll try to just hit on the important stuff to keep it as short as I can.

The controls felt very frustrating and confusing to deal with. Having something as simple as dropping down a platform requiring you to press three keys simultaneously felt pretty crazy considering that most games require you to just press down. Blocking as well had you do a crazy combination of buttons, and getting used to doing those buttons in the heat of battle is nuts. Speaking of blocking, I know you make them press three keys to drop down because block shares buttons and you want them to be able to block without dropping down, but in that case, why didn't you just make block a separate button, like holding F, so it's not an issue in the first place?

Even once you do accept the controls for what the mess they are, the precision required felt very frustrating: there's no input buffering so I found myself dropping combos constantly because the timing required was too tight that even mashing didn't help. Some fighting games do look for you to require precision, but I feel like a party game like this should opt for buffering to reduce the skill floor. Finally, I didn't like having to deal with so many cooldowns on abilities: I don't know why they existed since it slows everything down and it was difficult to tell when you were on cooldowns since you have to look at the way down in the corner (maybe play a sound or flash red or something if you attempt to use an ability on cooldown).

The game is also very dry at the moment. While you do have some slight special effects here and there, like puffs of smoke for running and fancy attack animations, there are no sounds or impact to it all. When fighting, it's very unclear whether you hit or get hit because there's no feedback like a sound or a spark or something: just feels like everything is punching at the air. All in all, it just leads to the game feeling very muted and unsatisfying.

I'd like to say that, despite my criticism, I still think it's very impressive that you created a multiplayer online game: lord knows I wouldn't do that since I don't want to deal with that level of complexity. And while I do think it's impressive you put that together, I still found it very janky. I had plenty of times where I tried to play only to go into some dark void softlock where I could never spawn, or if I did actually get in a game, we would just have out attacks phasing through each other without getting hit (though again, this could just be due to the game having very bad feedback/controls and not necessarily a network issue, it's unclear).

Again, I do think the game is interesting as a concept: you got a lot of potentially cool characters and I love a multiplayer brawler. But it's just very rough and I hope the feedback I provided can help you polish it up.

Zetoman77 responds:

Hi. thank you for your long feedback!
The game is indeed in beta, so things will certainly change, especially the lack of sound effects (which I have tried to add but failed miserably) or more animations. The online play is really what I am trying to make sure works for everyone. It seems like it doesn't work well for you, is it a server in a EU or Asia that is laggy? If possible, could you let me know xD

It seems like ASD to drop down is the major control issue, as suggested by others as well. I will add the option to double down to go down. I think that would fix the issue xD It is fortunate that blocking and going down platforms are generally not really needed that much so i still have time to fix it xD

For the precision, it is actually extremely easy, if one holds down the left click to attack. To me it has always felt intuitive to hold down to spam attacks/shoot, but I have also noticed that it isn't always the case. So the buffering is there, and I made it clearer in the in-game tutorial. I see less players in game clicking one by one. I will try to make it clearer!

So every character's first attack is super spammable. and a secondary that is often stronger and with higher cooldown. The thematic usually works well except for pico where his usual weapons are the uzi so players might want to spam the uzis, but end up not being able to. I will try to fix that in the next update as well xD

Thank u for the feedback xD

[Tenko's Magical Sword Quest]

Pretty neat game! Fun, flashy, fast and challenging gameplay: all-around seems well put-together. Loved the little touches like the way the power-ups swoosh up to the bar (as it both looks cool and subtly lets you know what the power-ups do) and the randomly varied noises for jumps and such (to avoid audio fatigue).

If I were to have any complaints, it would be:
*Game dedicates way too many levels at the start with boring layouts where springs and spikes were the only new obstacles. It was only once like 10 levels went by where the pace picked up and started introducing tons of new stuff at a rapid pace: moving platforms, lava races, sawblades, guns, etc. I would slightly push more of those new obstacles back to the early levels to keep the player hooked as I could see some people dropping off due to early boredom.
*The noise for movement should probably only happen when doing major movement: was silly to hear a big WHOOSH sound when I'm just tapping the character to adjust myself a centimeter.
*Didn't like how some of the obstacles were these off-screen traps that you only know how to dodge once you've died to them before: feels unfair and annoying.
*Springs result in your gravity distorting in a weird way where you float down too slowly.
*Was curious on whether the energy bar should just deplete over time instead of only on movement to push the player to move fast and not wait around. Maybe having it the way you do is best though, where you can have some people focus on just beating the level while others race for records. I think the game works best when you force them to race though, and in fact I think you should die if you run out of energy instead of just...nothing happening? But that's me.
*I also think it's too forgiving with checkpoints, as I think the levels are short enough where checkpoints aren't needed at all. Basically I want this game to be fun and challenging, but right now it's so forgiving with you not dying on energy loss, not losing energy by standing around, and having checkpoints everywhere, that it's too easy to just not be stylish and fast at all. Why bother trying when there is no punishment?
*Didn't like how you had controller input, but for some reason force the controllers to use a virtual mouse cursor.
*Bit confused on the ranking system: felt like I just got random congratulatory messages no matter what I did: good or bad. I'd like to get more fanfare if I do well have them catalogued so I can go back and redo levels I didn't do well.

Anyway, I know that's a lot of negative feedback, but it's still a solid game. Well done!

LVGames responds:

Try level 15 in Pro Mode and let me know what you think about that idea. Also thank you for the other feedback I will look into it. For the gamepad cursor I was going for the Super Smash Bro. That's how they have it for gamepad. You know for the swoosh sound I got so used to it I didn't notice it as much. I think it needs some looking into as well.
You can cancel the float by pressing down to cancel the gravity.
On the ranking system it will make more since on the next update. But overall thank you again for this review. It's good to hear what awesome players like yourself think about my game for playing it for the first time.

[No Passport]

Nice little game! Ultimately a bit short and janky, but I think the game works as a great proof of concept for a fun little detective game.

For the most part, the game was fun: I felt the concept was well executed and I had fun combing through the crowd while under pressure to find the perfect match. It helps that the presentation is very goofy and animated, and was a fun decision to make fingering the suspect revolve around tazering them. But ultimately, it all felt fleeting and ultimately shallow because the game only had the one level to offer and that was it. It was a fun level while it lasted, but I wanted more: the game felt like it was just getting started!

Would've loved to see a little bit of story or progression to this. For example, maybe you have 5 suspects to detain, and you search for each of them through escalating levels. The first level has you find the suspect in a small room with just a few people, the next suspect is in a slighter larger room with more people, and so on until the final level would be like the only level in this game, which is a huge room with tons of people. Maybe there could be twists as well here and there, like the amount of clues increasing/decreasing, multiple suspects in a single room, or maybe have a room where everyone is wearing the same hat.

Maybe my complaints seem a bit odd, given that it's just a game jam game so of course it's short, but take it as a compliment that the intro of the game was so nice that it really made me feel like there was gonna be a lot to this!

In terms of other feedback, I found it frustrating that, despite being focused in the game on the main menu, you had to click once again once you're in the actual game to focus again to get control of the camera. This additional click to get camera focus makes it so you involuntarily zap the tazer once: if an innocent person is passing by in front of you, as it happened to me, you can get unfairly penalized for zapping an innocent! I'd be more frustrated if it wasn't a little funny, haha.

[Immune Defense]

A pretty neat game, but very rough around the edges at the moment (obviously, since it's a demo, but still, more rougher than I would expect even considering that).

I definitely find the concept intriguing and find the two game modes to be nice, though I much prefer the 2nd game mode of protecting a huge cell bundle rather than just surviving. Always love me some educational entertainment! It took me a bit to get used to the controls and all, but I do feel like there is some interesting strategy gameplay in here. Unfortunately, as said before, it is still a bit rough around the edges:

Overall I found the gameplay quite frustrating, as it simultaneously required too much micromanagement and yet also felt too much out of my hands and up to luck. A great example that sums up a lot of the issues is the gatherer nodes: I found it tiresome how much I needed to babysit them, as they would constantly rush out like they're trying to commit suicide and I'd need to pull them back with E so as to get them to bring back the glucose they've gathered before they kill themselves. Constantly I'd fail at bringing them back because I'd either lose my attention on them for a split second or I'd just time it wrong since I don't have control on how deep they dive into a crowd of infection. You'd think that with a game that allows you to select a unit, there would be a way to tell them where to go or what to do more precisely like other strategy games do, but nothing like that was in this. Units like the sentries fared better since they would stay in place, but it was annoying that I couldn't, when switching them to mobile mode, tell them where to position next to redeploy in sentry mode: they'd just wander dumbly about. It's nice that the game tries to reduce stress by automating unit behaviors, but it doesn't help that the units can be so idiotic and you can't help that.

It didn't help that it was difficult to learn the game in the first place since it just gives you an awkwardly scaled/sized pamphlet to read, in that it was scaled/sized down so badly that it corrupted the tiny text and made it very difficult to read.

Furthermore, there was a lack of visual/audio effects to communicate gameplay mechanics in an intuitive and satisfying way. For example, there were no death animations for cells, they just poof out of existence: this made it difficult to keep track of what was going on and also made it feel empty and unsatisfying to kill the infection. Another example was the gatherer cells, which had no effect to signal the transmission of glucose to the control cell, making the process feel hollow and difficult to perceive how much glucose you got.

There were some pretty wonky bugs here and there, such as how if you, the control cell, dies, you get a game over, but if the cell bundle dies, you get a 'you win' screen, when that clearly should be a game over as well.

If I were to have a suggestion to improve the gameplay, it would be two methods:

1) Tranditional micromanagement (more control)

Introduce more traditional control into the game like you'd see in a game like Starcraft or Command and Conquer where you can select units and tell them where to go, what enemy to attack, set patrol routes, and so on. In this way you don't have to deal with your own units acting dumb: it's up to you as the player to order them wisely so as to make the most of them.

2) Spawn and forget (less control)

Focus on the cells automating themselves without player input: the player just needs to focus on spawning the right unit at the right place/time. Get rid of the Q/E modes altogether since it just makes annoying micromanagement. To address the loss of Q/E: split the #3 unit so as to make the #3 unit's chase mode be what the #2 unit is instead, and make the #3 unit as the sentry as default. Additionally, make the #1 gatherer unit go out to gather as much as it can until it dies: upon death, do not delete the cell, instead have it come back and deposit all it could get, and then delete it. You might think this would make gathering too easy, but you'd still need to spawn the gatherer smartly to get the most out of it, like spawning it to attack the sides of enemies that are busy attacking one of your beefier units.

ulsan responds:

Thanks for mentioning our game in the video, really appreciate it! We'll try our best to take this feedback into account for the next version.