FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Interstice Academy: Love is Blind]

Cute and funny dating game! While there certainly are a lot of dating games around and this is yet another similar one on that pile, and the game is a bit short without much meat on it, I nevertheless found it very intriguing due to the concept and eligible partners, cute art and presentation, great descriptive writing, and was impressed at the level of choices and effects. It could be smoke and mirrors and the game doesn't have as much consequences to match the levels of choice given, but it certainly has me fooled so far, so well done on setting it all up!

I did have a big gripe with the game in that, with the first choice of date options, it sets a precedent where selecting an option lets you see a description of the date, and then asks for confirmation. Imagine my surprise, then, when I get a similar set of options for gifts and I select an option expecting to see a description of what it is, only for the game to take that as my final answer and proceed! I didn't want to pick that crazy eyeball, I just wanted to see what it was! You ruined my date with Formless Mass of Energy!

Other than that, there were some minor issues like buttons being inconsistent in whether they were highlighted or not to signal interactivity (I at least appreciate that the buttons consistently played a sound on hover to let you know they can be interacted with), gallery interactivity being buggy (before when I tried clicking on blank pictures in the gallery it did nothing, yet later it would boot me to the title screen), a bit disappointed at the range of emotions from characters (why didn't you animate the principal wagging when he says he is wagging) and lack of features like save/load and text speed. But overall, I still found the game very amusing to play and I plan on going back to check out the rest of the endings, good or bad!

immadametal responds:

Thanks for the input. As for most of the bugs, this was made for a project jam of sorts where we only had a single month to work on it. Some minor things have and still might be worked on getting fixed when it is feasible, but I hope that helps with understanding our limitations.

[Bogden, Who Throws Axes]

Seems like a pretty neat little platformer, but at the moment I found it a bit too buggy and confusing to play.

The pieces are all here for a decent game: the character was cute and felt smooth to move around, controls and gameplay were pretty intuitive, and the world/concept was comical and intriguing to explore. Overall I'd say that I had an alright time, though I'll admit that nothing about the gameplay really grabbed me as particularly unique or memorable: just servicable. But still, quite decent.

But the game just felt very wonky in general. In particular, the axe physics were crazy and unpredictable and were no end of frustration to me. So many times I would be throwing the axe out, the same as every other time, except the axe would suddenly behave in a different way, bouncing off of the air for no reason, suddenly ping-ponging around in strange angles, or just not even moving farther than a few inches from me despite flying way farther on previous throws. It may not sound that bad, and indeed, it was a bit funny to see how crazy the axe could be, but when I can't count on the axe returning to me in an expected timeframe, it can really screw me over in combat when I need the axe right that second for another throw. I'd really love it if the axe was more straightforward and consistent as a projectile: ricochets are ok but not necessary if they cause this level of wonkiness.

There were also some other slight annoyances, like how I wish when you hit the button when someone is in the middle of a sentence, it would skip to fill out the end of the sentence, not skip to starting the next sentence. Also I didn't realize I could break apart torches for items since they blended into the background so well I thought they were just decoration. Furthermore, I found it frustrating that there were no checkpoints, especially when I interacted with something that really looked like one.

For a demo, I do think it has a lot of promise, so I hope that this feedback and help get everything ironed out and ready for a full version!

[Ruby Heart Matchmakers]

It's a decent match 3 game with some good potential in the date angle it has, but at the moment I feel like the game is in such a rough state that I would consider this more a prototype or proof of concept. (Hopefully it's not too obvious to say that, given that the game has literal stick figures and MS paint graphics, haha)

As functional as the game is, it is very basic and doesn't stand out in any special way, mostly from how it is lacking in any juice: no pizazz, no pep to it all. Yes, the scenarios were funny and yes, the game did have a little bit of juice to it, in that Agape and Sophia sweep down for a moment if you get a combo or a 4-5 chain, and the date animations alter themselves to be more lively as well, but those were mere droplets in a desert: I was dying for more!

For example, I wish there were several more animations for the date that increase in intensity the bigger the combo/chain you get: you've got the 3 chain make them awkwardly chat, which is good, but anything else bigger played the same animation where they are a bit more lively. I want it so that if you put in the work to get something huge, like a 5-chain or a big combo, you get an even greater animation where the lovers are all over each other! Either that, or it would be nice to see them get closer and closer to each other the more you get closer and closer to meeting the score quota, and even closer if you blast past the quota! And so on and so forth.

Furthermore, the juice isn't just for adding some pizazz to the game, but also making the game more readable and intuitive. For example, I found it really unsatisfying how fast the game deletes my pieces and collapses the board when I make a match: I barely had time to see how many points I got or what was the full effect of my match. I'd prefer if it would slow down, maybe play a short animation of the blocks glowing and disappearing in a shiny explosion or something, and if its a combo, do those for each set in the combo instead of collapsing them all at once: that way I can take my move all in and see the full effect. I'd also love it if there was some sort of alert, like a short sound or the board pieces shaking, when you're on the turn before the board throws the bottom row out.

Again, the code and mechanics seem solid and everything works as expected, so it's good in that respect. But as much as one might say that graphics aren't everything, I'd say they are still very important in making a game lively and fun to play. Still, this is a great prototype!

[isle]

Wow, quite the interesting game! Wasn't sure what was going on, but it was pretty neat to explore the island and fish up all sorts of note tracks to challenge myself with. Was seriously impressed at the system you have in place: the transitions between fishing and rhythm game were seamless and smooth, and the note charts seemed rock solid in terms of timing despite them starting at any time. Whatever trick you used to pull that off was really cool.

That said, I found it difficult for the game to keep my attention for long since it felt so directionless. I mean, it was fun to try fishing in different spots to see what new tracks would appear, but in general I just didn't know what the point was and what was going on. I can understand that maybe it's a mystery that you need to find out yourself by talking to people as the days go on, and maybe it's a bit of a slow burn, but jeez, throw me a little bit of a bone at the beginning to hook me why dontcha, haha. Maybe it's because I'm already pretty proficient at rhythm games so I didn't feel any escalating challenge from certain fish that a novice player would have in their journey? I dunno.

It's definitely a pretty neat and chill game that fuses two genres quite well: just feels like it needs a bit of a hook at the start to keep a player engaged (get it? hook? like fishing? ah? eh...)

[Doors: Paradox Demo]

Wow, really impressive stuff on display here! Loved the game: the dioramas were very pretty and fun to investigate, scavenging around for clues to solve the various puzzles. In particular the controls felt great, especially for spinning the diorama around and doing various click, hold and drag actions for opening chests, flipping books, spinning wheels and so on: that incremental process of slowly opening something or whatnot felt so tactile and satisfying! Everything was just so fluid, smooth and had a professional air to its presentation: solid work all-around!

That being said, I did have a few issues to point out:

One was that I would occasionally click somewhere on the screen, and then the camera would suddenly spin the stage around to focus on something that was obscured from my sight. It was very confusing: basically even though an obstacle was in the way and blocking sight of the interactable, the game treated it as if the obstacle didn't exist and therefore didn't block my raycast of interaction.

Two was that I found the game very inconsistent with what it would want me to just click and what it would want me to click, hold and drag. Most of the time it was fine: click to pick up an item but drag to open a door or a book or what-not. But, there would be times where I would go to, for example, open the lid of a chest, expecting to click, hold and drag the lid open, but this time, for some reason, the game just wanted me to click once and the lid automatically pops open of its own accord. C'mon, the drag actions are the best part of the game and it didn't let me take part for some reason, haha! Just made it quite confusing and annoying to have a double-check what it wants constantly.

Three is a bit of a minor and silly issue: for some reason, I wanted the ability to, say, when flipping the page of a book or anything other drag action, to be able to go back and forth. I don't know why exactly but...I don't mind that once I flip the page completely that I can't flip it back, that's fine, but when I'm in the middle of the action I wanted that ability to go back and forth for some reason: it just felt unsatisfying that I couldn't play around, I guess.

Hoping maybe this feedback can help with the full release of the game, but even without it, I think you got something nice here already, so best of luck with your development and release!

Snapbreak responds:

A huge thank you for the feedback💪🏻✨ We'll discuss these moments with the team!

[360 Degrees]

Pretty rad game! Definitely quite the juicy game with tons of wild music, crazy animations, and all of it with a cool analog control scheme that is unique, intuitive and feels neat to get used to, much like learning how to skateboard. Going for the bonus objectives was a fun challenge as well and brought me back to those Tony Hawk days. All in all, very fun stuff: love the character's totally tubular animations, even as he smashes his balls for the hundredth time!

Now, with that good stuff out of the way, let's get into the problems I had, haha:

The control scheme is a bit frustrating to get used to. Don't get me wrong, I think it is very neat how analog it is, but I found myself many a time doing circles with my mouse, expecting it to do a kickflip, but all he'd do is wiggle the board slightly: it was only then that I noticed my mouse had trailed off to the side and, while it was making circles, it wasn't making them around the player character. I would much prefer if the controls made the mouse locked within a certain radius of the player so that you can't trail off. Or, at the very least, it'd help if I could maintain visibility of my mouse cursor, but I found that really hard without the game providing a virtual cursor. And that brings me to my point below:

I do feel like the game is a bit too loud (color-wise and sound-wise) and overly animated at times: it's juicy, but this is to the point where it is visual and audio chaos and it makes it difficult to parse what the heck is happening at times. A contrast is needed: if everything is loud, it just becomes the norm, a mush where nothing stands out. At the very least, I'd love it if the background was desaturated or blurred, or you only use bold outlines on characters and interactables: any of these changes would help make the critical elements pop and maintain visibility. I also like how you use the pitch shifting sounds and screenshake and other such techniques, but it is used in such over frequency with so many things that it loses any impact.

I didn't like how when you complete a combo, it just disappears instantly: I want the combo I made and the points I earned to stay on screen for a few seconds so I could see what I achieved. The combos disappearing so fast made it feel ultimately pointless: at least maybe have an animation showing the points swooping up to the total score or something.

The tutorial was decent, but I didn't like how I couldn't control the pace of the instructions it gave out: it moving at its own pace meant there were a lot of times where I just had to sit there waiting, or I was frustrated that it went by when I was still practicing.

There's a couple of other minor issues, like how you have an animation for charging up an ollie but it doesn't make any difference on the height you gain, and how some of the rails drop you too early before you'd think they'd end, but I won't harp on about it because at the end of the day it was still a fun game and my issues, such as the control schemes, were possible to get through with practice. Thanks for putting this together and it's cool to see the collab power on display with all the graffiti and such: ingenious!

Oh, by the way, there's a bit of a weird issue where, if you never click on the game to focus it in the first place even if it is already technically loaded, it will just be loading forever: hopefully everyone clicked but I'd hate if someone just left thinking it was taking too long to load, haha, it almost happened to me!

As another side note: this isn't an issue with the game, but rather an issue with me where I had a hard time going for combos in this because I was always against using manuals as a means of extending combos in games like Tony Hawk. I don't know why: something deep in me back in the day always felt it was a bit silly or cheating or inelegant or something to extend combos through manuals, and now I have a weird mental block against them. Wonder if anyone else suffers from this?

Jacob responds:

Excellent review! Can't personally address most of it, but there's an option which draws a line to your cursor's position.
I also struggled before turning it on.

[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.