FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Silly Skateboarding]

Pretty decent arcade fun! Not revolutionary or the most polished thing in the world, but it's good for a game jam game and provides some chaotic scrambles as you race against the clock to gather up all the...uh, whatever you're picking up, haha. I felt the use of the theme was ok, but a little silly as it is a bit of a glorified time trial mechanic: it's fine as I like the great touch of increasing the pace of the music and changing the character animation to reflect the stability loss, but for a game about skateboarding, you'd think stability would be more about trying to avoid obstacles like rocks or walls, or balancing on rails like a Tony Hawk game or something. Still, good fun while it lasts.

[Twilight Web]

Quite the intriguing game! It's not the most complex or fun game at its core, being just a simple platformer, but its chilling, mysterious mood and story hooked me in, so well done in that regard! That hook was strong enough to make me replay the whole game after beating it once to get the secret pacifist ending, which, while I felt was a bit lacking since it was 90% the same, was really fascinating to see how the levels were constructed in such a way to make it possible albeit being so difficult. It's a little lacking and glitchy in some aspects, like how the hitboxes can be a bit wonky and especially in getting past the final 4 marching in front of the door in a pacifist run, which I swear is only possible by taking advantage of how enemies spawn to get them in a favorable pattern with gaps, but it's solid in general. Very cool multi-layered game: definitely appreciate the artistry on display here to get that done!

[Teleport Tower]

Had a really bad first impression with this game, and while I'm definitely never going to beat it...I'll admit it's not all bad.

I'm usually all over games like this, but something about the movement or general feel of the game just feels so stiff, disconnected and unnatural compared to the intuitive jumping of Jump King or the robust tactile feel of the hammer in Getting Over It. The level design didn't help either, as it didn't have any of the iconic landmarking or cleverly-placed platforms serving as checkpoints that other contemporaries have: in this the platforms felt too small and scattershot that any mistake sends you tumbling all the way back to the beginning.

Having said all that, though, with a bit of practice I started to get kind of in-tune with the game, so I can see how real die-hards could have fun. However, it still felt too frustrating and innately stiff overall, so I'm not compelled to beat it like other games. While I can understand the choice to not give more assistance to the player, like having air-control after popping out of a portal, or having a preview arrow from player to destination when they're charging the gun, it did feel lacking without it. I guess I'll just say that it might not be a good game for the general public, but for absolute masochists wanting a challenge, come on down, you've finally got a game for you!

[Pizzio's Pizza (3D)]

Pretty decent game that is held up high by its charming graphics, concept and all-around goofiness, but I felt like the actual gameplay was a bit lacking. Don't get me wrong, it definitely delivers a solid first impression with its quirkiness and it continues that with all sorts of fun bits like the multiple endings, so I really do like it for that. But the gameplay, while decently fun for a bit, felt a bit too overly basic and I couldn't help but feel like it was underutilizing all of its potential strengths.

For one, I found it strange that, for a time trial game where it should be all around risk/reward, about going fast enough to get a high score but being careful and skillful enough to not have that same speed send you careening into a wall, there was no room for player expression to achieve that: no turbo, no brake, none of the fancy techniques you'd see from a game like Crazy Taxi which this game rubs shoulders with show up here. All you can do is peddle forward at one speed, making it feel overly bland and boring to play. Once I got an A rank I couldn't see any fun way to try going for a higher score: all I could do was go straight to whatever customers happen to open up.

What I thought was gonna be a fun mechanic was the wagon of pizzas: I thought that maybe I'd need to watch my balance and strategize turns so as not to tip the tower and have pizzas slide off onto the street, or maybe exploit those same physics to hurl pizzas by swinging the wagon like a flail, launching them like frisbees into customers hands or windows. You know, some sort of fun chaos to mimic the chaotic energy of the concept. But the game had none of that: the only thing it had was some sort of vague 'damage' that occurs when you hit something (or don't hit something because its glitchy) which the player has no feedback on to tell how much damage they've taken, how much it's affecting their tips, whether damage is replenished when picking up a new stack or if it only refreshes new pizzas you've added to the pile but not existing ones, and so on. Yes, there was still some strategy to employ in making sure to, when dodging, account for the pizzas trailing behind you, but it just felt lacking and confusing. Perhaps its my fault for holding it up to my own imagination like that.

Also the endings were really hit or miss: the C rank mission was awesome for its fun audio easter egg and such, but doing all the work to get the A rank ending just gets you a basic quip and jpeg, same as most of the other endings, so what's the point? I shoulda just stuck with C, haha!

Obviously I can still respect and appreciate the game as a charming fun little romp that is impressive for a jam game, but what I can say: when you've wowed me as much as you guys have over and over in the past, my expectations raise higher and higher!

pollyanoid responds:

mucho texto

[Zero time]

A short but fun experience! Definitely made a solid first impression with its cool introduction, and continued to impress with its fun, chaotic gameplay where you scramble to keep your ship in order as you hit the thrusters to dodge ever-approaching death-by-shockwave. While I do wish the game would do a bit more to establish the controls and story in the game a bit further, it was luckily intuitive enough that I didn't suffer too much confusion, and had a pretty good time overall!

Only downside was that I felt like it was way too short and really didn't end well as it just confusingly loops back to the start once you hit the warp gate: c'mon, not even a congratulations screen at all? It was begging for something like that at the very least, though I also would've loved if it continued with an increase in challenge by adding more things to maintain on the ship to escape further shockwaves and such: the game is promising, so maybe future development?

[Plactions]

It's a Rob1221 puzzler, so I knew what I was gonna get: interesting and fun mechanics that are developed and paced well through really clever level designs that feature intuitive ways to teach mechanics to the player and plenty of 'gotcha' moments in them. Basically it was a solid and great experience as usual, and I'll admit to being partial to the more action-platformer puzzles like this one because it doesn't stress my tiny brain as much, haha. As said, I liked the level design and felt there were a lot of cool designs it cycled through: some of them were more linear action-focused while some were more puzzley. For example, I especially liked the levels where they were cleverly setup to have you queue actions in a certain order at the start to overcome a following obstacle course!

[Dogs++]

Cute little game! It didn't exactly blow me away or anything, as I felt like the game ended before it did anything really crazy interesting with the mechanics it introduced, but it was fun while it lasted with some decent puzzles and a cool music tune so I can't complain too much (and I ended up getting really addicted to stacking all of the dogs in the end screen, haha).

[Teeter Hero]

I really want to like this game, and in the end I kind of did, but man, the game overall felt very janky and, if you pardon the pun, unstable.

On one hand, I thought the concept of the game was very interesting, and once I got to terms with the controls, the improvisational combat as you switch back and forth between battling enemies while balancing a bus made for some really chaotic, high-energy fun. All of it leading up to a crazy boss fight at the end was great as well, so overall it was, or could've, been a nice experience.

But man, the game did not make a good first impression on me as I died almost instantly at the start before learning anything. Maybe it's my fault, but I wasted so much time thinking the goal was to balance the bus by distributing weight on both sides by using your own body and punching suitcases/enemies to sides equally (or just eliminating them with punches to reduce variables on the scale, so to speak). I think it makes sense to think that, no? But eventually I learned that it was just about unnaturally punching the bus on the sides to adjust it: simple once I realized it, but I found it very unintuitive to reach that conclusion. And even once I came to terms with the controls and such (in which I didn't realize you could double-jump for a long time), the game still had an overwhelming janky and unpolished feel to it as my character moved about unnaturally, got stuck, got hit when it didn't make sense, pushed the bus when it didn't make sense like landing from a tiny jump or dash, and I had to battle very annoying enemies like those damn birds: ooooh those damn birds!

The game was good enough that I made it through to the end and I'm somewhat glad I did, but I do think that, if I didn't know about previous games from the squad, I probably would've dropped this game from the first impression I got, so I definitely think it could've used a lot more time in the oven.

[Rocky Rhodes and the Cracked Case]

Well, didn't really see that coming! Certainly quite an interesting adventure that goes to a lot of crazy places (but does so in a rather questionable fashion). There were some minor annoyances like not being able to skip text in the first part but then being able to do so later on in a different dialogue sequence, as well as a slow walk and odd glitches like being yelled at for hitting a wall when hitting another driver, but for the most part it felt solid.

The cynic in me is a little wary of where the game went: it felt like maybe it was just relying on shiny nonsensical references and shock to distract the viewer from the fact that they didn't know how to properly guide the story to a satisfying end. But the more positive part of me does think it was a fun, unique experience with some cool presentation and I enjoyed the various transitions through genres (though I was still a little disappointed with the sudden end and the odd pacing). Definitely a bit of an odd duck, but memorable!