FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Glitcheon]

Very interesting and fun puzzler! The goofy story, premise, and aesthetic were very cool, but the part I loved the most was how interesting the powers/abilities were and how the puzzles and platforming were built around them. They just felt very different from what you get usually in these types of games: instead of a double-jump, you get this wild temporary platform creation ability, and instead of a dash, you get this blast ability which can also serve as a psuedo-dash if you aim it backwards and ride the recoil from it. Combine those abilities together and then throw in some interesting obstacles like those ad windows that you can only stay on temporary, and this ended up being so much fun! Bit of a bummer that it's not complete and it has a bit of an anticlimactic ending, but hey, I'm happy to hear that it is in development since I think it has a lot of promise going for it, and I can't wait to see how it is improved upon! I didn't encounter many issues in the game as it felt pretty smooth for the most part: I think the only confusing part for me was the tutorial in teaching dash jumps as it makes it look like all you need to do is dash and jump to make it all the way across, instead of dash jump, create a platform midway, and then dash jump off of it (but maybe the tutorial is vague so you feel smart figuring that part out? up to you!)

[Dad 'n me 3D]

Pretty goofy and fun brawler! I definitely love a lot of the actions you can take: throwing around propane tanks for big explosions, picking up enemies and going to town on them, comboing the heck out of them while blood flies and big meaty thuds resound, it's great stuff! I also appreciated the enemy design on display, as there were more than just dummies to fight, but also big heavy dudes with slow attacks, jumping ninjas, helmet chargers and so on. Was surprised to see how big the map was as well: I thought the street with cars was actually a barrier, but lo and behold you can leave the park and go beyond. Definitely made for a fun time of just stomping about with reckless abandon.

There were some frustrating aspects to the gameplay however. In particular, I felt like the enemies were very spongy and it was very difficult to determine when they were dead and how much damage I was dealing: I could pick up an enemy and whale on them for so long and they just wouldn't pop (and speaking of that, it was very annoying that there was no way to drop/throw an enemy you've grabbed, leaving you stuck like that). And while I liked the variety of enemies, I only felt like some of them were fun to fight: for example, I appreciated the big-telegraph/windup that the big guys had, but I hated how a lot of the others had no such telegraph at all. Also, as much fun was it was to whale on enemies, it felt a bit directionless and I had no idea if there was a destination or objective to work towards: there was a timer, but I dunno what it was timing. Camera was also a bit wonky and could use some smoothing or more control to it.

I definitely think this has a solid core to it: with maybe a bit more direction/story, ironing out of some of the control issues, polishing up the enemies and balancing health/damage levels, this could become a big beat-em-up hit!

[RUBRIS]

Oh man, this game is as tricky to review as the puzzle gameplay is, haha!

It definitely looks really cool and professionally made from a graphical standpoint, and the gameplay concept is quite interesting and really mind-bending to wrap my head around and get good at. But man, as much as I tried to get used to it, I just ended up getting so damn frustrated at how backwards the design felt! Every second I was playing this, it counteracted every natural instinct I had: every brain cell was crying out to be able to be able to move/rotate the incoming blocks in different ways or be able to fine-adjust the camera to an inbetween angle so I could see more of the cube I'm working with instead of having my visuals blocked by the very pieces I've already placed.

I guess it's partly my fault for coming in expecting it to be like 3D Tetris from Virtual Boy or other puzzlers which are more focused on the controlling the pieces instead of the receptacle and not accepting the game's rules for what it is, but man, it just felt like it was impossible to get good at this, and not just because of my past influencing me (for example, the not being able to see more of the cube because of it being blocked off by placed pieces and the camera only offering straight-on angles with no x-ray vision was a big issue). To me, I can't really decide if this is some sort of avant-garde puzzler that is breaking conventions and really challenging in a brand-new way, or if it's just an experiment that sounded good on paper but just isn't fun or fleshed out enough on execution.

sarnyoger responds:

humanity just wasn't ready

[Skele Magic]

Quite the nice puzzler! I felt like the mechanic was rather simple but fun to utilize, just like how I liked the simple yet fun way the skeleton squished and stretched as I jumped around. Difficulty curve was a little awkward at times where I felt it dipped down to too easy in the later levels after making you go through some head-scratchers in the middle, but overall it felt quite pleasant to play. One thing to note is the fact that the puzzle does not reset upon death is both a blessing and a curse: I found it nice when I made a stupid mistake that I could fix and I didn't have to do everything over again, but when I did make a stupid mistake that I couldn't undo and there wasn't a way to reset from that, well, that was a bit of an annoyance. Definitely not enough of an annoyance to make me stop, however, since I found the game quite addictive to get through: well done.

[ITAZURA MADNESS]

Well, I finally got around to seeing what the fuss was all about, and it seems well-deserved as I really liked this game! In particular I found the game oozing with charm: every new screen (even the death screen) was a delight to witness as they all were so lively, animated, stylish and unique from one another: absolutely a feast for the eyes! Gameplay was fun as well, combat being reminiscent of punch-out with a nice mix of simple mashy fisticuffs alongside some subtle strategy of dodging, feints and comboing. I liked how there were a lot of interesting weapons to get, all with their own sound effects that they bring to the table. All that with a weird story, wacky characters and some groovy bosses make for quite the game!

However, it ain't all sunshine and rainbows. As much as I liked how simple and mashy the combat was, I found a large part of it very repetitive and too overly simple: I imagine it ups the ante as you get farther with more feinting enemies and such, but maybe it should do that faster to keep the pace up. And as much as I liked getting new weapons and seeing/hearing their new effects, they never really made me feel more powerful and I could never tell if they were making a difference: sure, the store SAID they were powerful with bigger numbers, but I never got any satisfying feedback from that in combat. I'd love if maybe the enemies would get more bloody or dented as you hit them as a sign for how low in health they're getting, or maybe damage numbers would appear or make bigger damage sparks/screen shakes/blood splats would happen with the more damage you're doing. Speaking of damage numbers popping up, the game puts a lot of emphasis on the combo meter, but does the combo meter do anything? It might've been in the tutorial but I might've killed the guy before I could read it maybe, and I don't know how to get back to the tutorial, but again, it didn't feel to make a difference. And while we're on damage feedback, I'd love if there was more ways to tell when you as a player are getting damaged, like a red screen flash, since whenever I died it felt like I didn't realize how it happened.

All that does make it a bit rough around the edges for me and miss the mark slightly, but I still had a pleasant time with this and look forward to making it farther up the tower: well done overall and I look forward to future works!

[Pixoul's Tower]

Solid and fun one-button game! Even though it was short, I felt like this was a fun little adventure with some really challenge to it despite the simple controls: the level design really went all-out in creating a crazy obstacle course to run and jump through, and actions like wall-jumping felt very smooth. I felt like the art and animations were rather charming as well, especially the death/respawn animations. I initially thought holding down jump was to charge up a bigger jump, but the strategic purpose was instead to wait so you could dodge turret fire, which added some interesting depth.

It definitely could use a bit more polish: felt like the hitboxes for bullets and spikes were a bit wonky and unforgiving at some times (when a spike and a box are side-by-side and I'm on the box, I don't think I should be hurt by the spike until I've fully stepped off the box completely), my character would float around sometimes instead of using their run cycle animation, the camera would spaz out occasionally when respawning, and I felt like the game went from very easy and forgiving with tons of checkpoints to suddenly way too hard (most likely the product of building such a short game and wanting to stretch it out). Also, and this is just a personal thing: even though I agree with the strategic element of holding jump to wait, I hated doing it because it made me commit to doing a jump after I was done waiting and that made frustrating to contend with.

Overall, I felt like this had a lot of promise and if possible, I'd love to see more of this game expanded upon with even more content to go through!

[Strewn Runes]

Arrgh, I really want to like this, but damn if the game just didn't feel uncomfortable and slightly annoying for me to play, and that ended up ruining the experience for me! At its heart, it seems like a solid Megaman Battle Network/One Step From Eden kind of game: the choice of different decks with certain playstyles was really cool and added a lot of variety, the combat is promising with lots of enemy types and abilities to strategize through, and so on. But man, it just felt really clunky and unsatisfying to play to me: everything just felt so weak and janky and stiff. I hated how weak and slow the basic attack felt (I know it's not supposed to be your main method of attack but jeez I think you overnerfed it), I hated how some of the enemies moved so erratically or stayed at the back the whole time (making it super annoying to get close enough for my sword deck to hit them), I hated how the game wouldn't pause properly for drawing cards, and I hated how unresponsive and stiff movement and abilities felt with long travel times, especially since these games are usually known for their smooth, fast/instant moves and attacks. It definitely shows a lot of promise and I want to try and revisit it, but yeah, but of a bummer on my initial impression.

[GuraQuest(New Characters + F&F B-Side Update)]

As much as I love this game based on my first initial encounter with it and my other encounter with it again in its Tako Takeover update, I had to admit I was little annoyed seeing it pop-up again. I got so many other games to review and this little Lees-pic upstart is trying to triple-dip with the same game three times in a row? Ohhh, they better have a good excuse for this...

But what do you know, this update not only introduced a bunch of cute little characters to play as (though I don't think they always fit as well, like with Ina jabbing a book into a wall, how does that work), but a whole new B-side that introduces all-new challenging mechanics and fun levels to play through, especially for a veteran like me. And the new mechanics actually are designed quite well, built with forgiving inputs, and explored fully in these creative levels. So you got me, you magnificent son of a bitch, you got me! Damn you and your goddamn fun game that just keeps getting better! You can't keep getting away with this!

[Ludicrous Text Adventures: Worthless Dirt Boys]

Rather amusing and charming game! Certainly kept my interest by going through a lot of ridiculous scenarios with all sorts of wacky choices and results (seeing the baseball meter constantly go into the negatives was an amusing twist).

However, I do kind of feel like the game was a lot longer than I expected, especially given that usually these games with multiple endings try to be short to encourage replayability: with such a long game, I don't think I'd have the patience to go back and replay the whole thing for a chance at another ending. Also, another point that I feel damaged the game was the lack of anything to pep up the text, such as visuals or sound effects: maybe I'm overthinking it, but because this isn't a book, rather a game, I wish it would do more with that fact to make it more exciting: doesn't have to be anything extreme, maybe just a background image for each type of event that happens, and maybe a sound effect when stuff happens, like a punch sound if you pick a violence answer, I dunno, just anything rather than nothing as it got really tedious to just keep staring at that same background with the same music over and over.

[Crystal Wizards]

Not too shabby of an idle game! Was interesting to play in a kind of ant farm sort of way where you just put the wizards down and watch them go, occasionally intervening to smite an enemy. It did feel a little repetitive though and lost me after awhile: that could just be down to it being an idle clicker game which just isn't my jam, so that's fair, but it did feel like the game just wasn't that active and engaging (all you can do in the downtime is sacrifice mages which felt kind of silly and weird to do; I would prefer being able to do something else more naturey like summoning clouds to water the plants).

Also there were some confusing aspects like wizards wandering around aimlessly and not doing anything, and wizards not having a good death animation to signal that they've been attacked since they just disappear (would prefer they scream or something, and maybe have a skull or angel float up to signal you of their death). Felt really weird that the game was great at special effects for some actions like summoning wizards, but not so great for other actions like wizards dying or trees getting necro'd. I also wish the game would have a better HUD and title screen: in particular I wish the game would highlight buttons, especially highlighting whatever time button you've hit (pause, 1x, 2x) to let you confirm what you're currently on.