FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[MÆRE II: Hypnagogia]

Very cool horror game! I was a fan of the first Maere, and I'm a fan of this one as well: the concept of trying to sleep while strategically scanning the area for safety while risking your sanity by doing so is very clever and nostalgic. My favorite part was definitely the sound design, not just in how it creates a creepy atmosphere, but in how it intuitively gives feedback and teaches how to play the game: hearing your heartbeat pound from seeing a ghost, turning away, eventually looking back, and having your heartbeat return to normal upon seeing it's gone is so cool and communicates how the game works incredibly well. I also liked the inclusion of a scoring system as it naturally incentivizes replays and makes the short length less of a problem. Cool stuff all-around!

While I do like it, I did still find myself a bit letdown by how easy and short it is. I was able to get an S rank without any sort of problem on my second try, and I couldn't help but wish the game had more meat to it. Would love if it was more like Five Nights at Freddys, where it slowly builds up the difficulty over the days, both in how punishing it can be and in new mechanics and obstacles to contend with. Right now I can't even see how a player could ever fail, but maybe if you introduced more ghost types that need to be handled in different ways, like having to look at them instead of away, that'd be neat. Couldn't help but want more, and I hope you can take that as a compliment, because it means you've got me hooked!

Chris responds:

Thanks! I think there will be a third game next year so there will be more. I like that idea about having certain ghosts that you have to look at, it would be an interesting twist to keep it interesting. It might make it into the third and final entry next year if I can figure out a way to make it immediately obvious which ghosts you need to look at and which you need to avoid.

[Pokettohiro!]

Pretty nice classic adventure game you got here! Reminds me a lot of games like Zelda II, Faxanadu, Castlevania II, and so on. It's got some great old-school retro appeal, not just in its cute and charming presentation aspects, but with its game design as well, like in how it doesn't hold your hand and allows you a lot of freedom to get lost in exploring, grinding up gear, and so on. I was a bit disappointed it wasn't exactly the Zelda/Pokemon fusion I expected it to be from the thumbnail, but still, nice stuff!

If I were to have any feedback, it would be thus:

*There's a lot of technical annoyances with the game, such as how your slash attacks won't connect with anything right after you get hit for some reason, how there is no coyote time which makes jumping from edges quite frustrating, and I couldn't get over the confusing decision to have jump, not slash, serve as the interact button, as it seems to go against common sense.

*There's certain effects that feel a bit awkward with the way they are implemented, such as how slash effects don't inherit the players momentum so you can kind of out-run them if you're moving forward while slashing, and how when you die you just freeze in place as if you're still alive for a few seconds before the game fades out, instead of doing a death animation that flops you to the ground.

*I feel like the game takes too long to finally unlock a character for you to engage in character swapping, as before then the game is rather generic. It'd be nice if perhaps you get a partner immediately when you transport to the new world, just to hook the player in with something interesting.

*Speaking of character swapping, I wish you could just quickswap between them without having to open up a menu which takes so long and subtly dissuades the player from swapping because of that annoying pause.

*While I do enjoy that the game doesn't hold your hand and allows you to explore as you like, I do wish there were a few more hints or guidance to start out with: I ran into a couple of dead ends when starting out and got close to quitting since I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere.

[Clickery Hexagon]

Clicker games aren't really my thing, especially since my old hands just aren't up to the task nowadays, but I'll give this game credit that it did a lot to try to win me over with its stylish cold-open, tons of unlocks with satisfying blips and bloops, slick presentation, combo meter, addictive sense of progression as you keep quickly catching up to wherever you left off after buying an upgrade, and so on. Clickers live and die on how stylish and juicy they are since that's where the sense of addiction can be grown, and this is one of the first ones I've played in a long time that does good work in that regard, so kudos!

In terms of feedback: as a person with old hands, it was a bit rough that the game locks the auto-clicks behind a long initial commitment. Also, the music player didn't seem to work for me and it was a gamble whether a song that I switched over to would play or not: sometimes a song that was playing before wouldn't work when I went back to it, even!

amyspark-ng responds:

im glad you liked the game! i tried to make it as juicy as possible since it's one of my favorite aspects in games :3

it's kinda weird the music player doesn't work for you, if you can please PM me with more details about your browser maybe?

[Necrowave 5.0 (Old version)]

Oof, this was a rough one for me!

Credit where its due, this game does have a lot going for it: the graphics, particularly the animations, are absolutely gorgeous, and the game experiments with a lot of different mechanics, be it old-school Prince of Persia ledge-grab platforming, pogo jumping off enemies, and some puzzle elements like the invisible mime block and the fire extinguishing. A lot of potential on display here!

Unfortunately, it felt like a very style-over-substance experience to me. The world is so repetitive and bland, almost like a grey-box prototype, in the way it is constructed out of these blocks, and it takes so long for the game to introduce any sort of interesting mechanic or challenge, and when it finally does, it almost immediately discards it to introduce something else, meaning that nothing gets time to breathe and evolve into something complex and interesting. I really wanted to see some sort of final exam platforming challenge that combines the mime blocks, ledge climbing, pogoing and all of that, but it never came and I was left with a bunch of discordant one-offs!

Bit nitpicky here, but the world's also filled with a bunch of these goofy out-of-character backer statues that remind me of those weirdo self-inserts in Pillars of Eternity: I understand it's part of the Patreon grind, but it's just not my thing as it detracts from the world and immersion for me.

Clearly there are some great artistic chops on display here, but not so for everything else quite yet. For me, I would say find a designer and programmer to team up with here on Newgrounds to delegate those tasks to while you stick with just handling the art: I'm sure you could make something great that way! If you wanna stick with it solo that's fine too, because as harsh as I am on this, I would like to see it evolve into something great!

Arfhis responds:

You some really fine and valid points honestly. I'm gonna listen to this closely and apply it as best as I can. Thank you <3

[Olivia The Demon Slayer]

Not too shabby! It's a bit simple and generic, particularly in terms of mechanics, but the fundamentals of enemy variety, wave structure, boss patterns, effects/feedback and so on are solid and make for a decently entertaining experience! The inclusion of badges and hard mode add a nice bit of extra incentive to encourage replays and dipping your toes into a more difficult challenge that some people might unfortunately pass up otherwise. Solid work!

For feedback, I'd say:

*I feel like the backgrounds are a bit too detailed and defined to the point of hurting visual clarity, as the foreground elements of enemies/bullets/player don't pop as much as they should. If I were to suggest a quick fix, I'd do something like remove the black contours/outlines from the background, or maybe just darken/brighten it to make it fade somewhat.

*The challenge and scoring of the game is a bit weird in how you get checkpoints for bosses, meaning that it doesn't matter how well you played in the stage to conserve your bombs for the boss or rack up points because you can get a full stock back with no penalty. Just feels a bit pointless to try and play skillfully if the game is not going to recognize or record it in any meaningful way.

*My biggest gripe with the game is how repetitive it can feel, what with how long levels can be, repeating the same waves over and over in different levels, recycling the same background and enemies, and so on. Seriously, I was about to quit thinking that I had already seen everything the game had to offer until I got to level 4 and suddenly encountered all-new backgrounds and enemies: why the hell did you hold that stuff back for so long! It feels like you have about 2-3 levels worth of content and you tried to streeetch it out as much as possible to artificially extend the games length. I much prefer a short and sweet experience that can leave you hungry for more than something so padded you get sick of it before you've even finished.

*For me, it felt like the game didn't really engage me until I switched over to hard mode, so if I had my way, that would actually be the default to ensure that no one gets too bored, but I can understand that everyone has their own skill level, so maybe your approach of making hard mode enticing because it offers badges might be the best compromise.

[Dessertster]

Cute little arcade game you got here! Feels very much like a fusion of Mappyland and Burger Time, and as a fan of both, I was excited to play!

While there is certainly a lot to enjoy about this game, such as the cute presentation with great character animations for falling, as well as the peppy music, I didn't find myself playing for that long. I think this is because the game is crucially lacking juice/pizazz which is so critical for arcade games like this to function: without any points popping up, some fanfare for finishing a cake, or the level changing up as you progress, I just felt so unmotivated.

In terms of other feedback, it was super unsatisfying as well that you couldn't get anything substantial for hitting an enemy with a falling cake: all they do is freeze for a few seconds...whoo-hoo. I also feel a bit bad for anyone playing this that doesn't know about Burger Time: without any sort of demonstration or tutorial, having to flatten down the cake slices can be very unintuitive.

In its current state, it's pretty impressive as a prototype and a foundation to work from, but as a complete game, I'd say it still needs more time in the oven. Not too shabby for a jam game though!

[Touhou Fake Invitation]

Wow, didn't expect to see Touhou on Newgrounds, but this was a welcome surprise! While the rather amateurish presentation didn't give off the best first impression, the game certainly seemed to boast some solid SHMUP fundamentals with fun gameplay and a lot of interesting waves and bosses to battle against, and I was really impressed at all of the content the game has, what with lots of characters each with their own movesets and goofy stories, a comprehensive manual, loads of modes like practice for not just levels but individual spellcards, and so on! Great stuff!

In terms of feedback:

While graphics aren't everything, I will admit that the game just exudes a rather amateurish vibe to it that makes me less inclined to play. For example, when the game can't even format the text properly without it getting cut-off or overlapping everywhere, it makes me fear that the game is barely holding itself together and could crash at any moment. The sprites and characters also feel like a child drew them (no offense, my skills aren't much to sneeze at either) and I wish you could've commissioned someone on Newgrounds to draw for you. More so than any of that, though, is that the gameplay feels rather bland due to lacking fancy effects that can add satisfaction, most notably the lack of any sort of hitspark or blinking from an enemy when they get hit, making me feel like I'm not even hitting them at all.

There are also other technical issues to go alongside the text being badly formatted as mentioned before, such as medals and profiles not saving properly, dialogue skipping to the next line instead of finishing filling out the line when you press a button, and the manual stating that the bomb key is C when in actuality it is X.

It's definitely quite impressive in a lot of respects, but some minor yet crucial aspects like lacking damage feedback for hitting enemies and inability to save progress, among other things, pull it back from achieving greatness! Still, be proud of what you've put together here, and maybe you can patch it!

As another piece of minor feedback, I was a bit disappointed that the manual didn't contain a Cirno=9=Baka joke within there just like how it's always been done in Touhou games: how could you miss that, haha!

[ERASER]

Pretty neat little arcade game! It's rather simple when you boil it all down, but the concept of having to erase lines while avoiding the ones that are drawing is unique and interesting, and the minimalist yet stylish presentation does a lot to draw my attention. Cleaning up a mess can always be a rather satisfying and addictive activity as seen in games like Splatoon and Powerwash Sim, and this delivers those same vibes!

I will admit, though, that while it's neat, it didn't appeal to me for that long due to only being one short level with no other variations or escalation, feeling somewhat luck-based, and a general lack of motivation due to lack of scoring goals. In retrospect to the last item, the game does have achievements and utilizes the hi-score table, so I'm not saying they aren't there, but I wish those aspects were more integrated into the game front-and-center to draw attention to them: for example, if the game had some sort of bronze/silver/gold/etc grading system with par scores for each being given at the end of each run, I feel like I'd be much more motivated to keep playing to go for the gold.

[Groblin Survivors PLUS]

Hmm, pretty cute game! The combination of tower defense mechanics with a survivors game is pretty novel, and I enjoyed trying to setup my turrets to form some sort of killzone that I would then try to herd enemies into. For the most part, the game had some decent fundamentals along with the neat concept, such as a good variety of enemies to fight and some neat upgrades.

I have to admit, though, that I didn't have much motivation to continue playing this beyond a few attempts. Usually when it comes to survivors games, I'm not only addicted to the primal satisfaction of killing enemies and getting loot, but I'm very motivated to make it to 30 minutes, get past a hard part of a level I failed at like a boss, unlock the next level, upgrade my powers, and so on and so forth, but I didn't have any of those goals in this to strive for. What little upgrades I could get, such as the turrets, were unlocked rather quickly, and the rest felt superfluous. I'm not sure if the 'waves' upgrades are supposed to be the motivation to continue? I thought those were like difficulty upgrades, but I don't really know.

There's also some slightly confusing aspects with the interface, like how it's easy to think that 'LV2' upgrade cards will give you an upgraded turret to plant, not upgrade an existing turret somewhere on the map (which I have no idea how it chooses which one to upgrade). Maybe it'd be more clear if the upgrade cards were a different color or something?

Again, it's a cute game with a neat concept, but whereas before it felt unfinished at the microlevel, now I'd say it needs some work at the macrolevel. Good progress though!

[PAGER (Demo)]

Whoa, quite the interesting game! Reminds me a lot of other weird and trippy first-person adventures such as The Stanley Parable and Superliminal, at least somewhat. The game definitely did its job at getting me immersed and intrigued while always a bit tense as to what the heck is going to happen next, and overall it just felt very polished and eye-catching. I'm not always one for this 'walking sim' kind of games, but it clearly did enough to catch my interest, so this is definitely some very promising stuff!