FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[GOMBI-ACTION]

Short and sweet action-packed game! Love me a good boss fight and this cut to the chase with some decent patterns to fight through and great expressive animations. Wish there was another pattern to contend with but I liked what I got. Started off hard but I liked the challenge and got it down no problem eventually. There was a bit of an exploit with slimes in that if you don't kill any, they stop spawning at two on screen: not sure if that was intentional or not.

While I enjoyed myself, it took me a bit to get used to at first: I didn't even realize there were bounce pads on the sides (for some reason I thought the cogs would hurt me if I got close to the sides so I barely looked over there, and I figured the upper level was just for the slimes to jump in from) and the fact that you don't change direction when holding down fire was good, but confusing initially. Also I don't know what the combo counter at the bottom was? It felt like I was getting life back when I reached a certain combo, but the number felt random and sometimes wouldn't even happen despite going into triple digits (or it would happen when I had full life which wasted it). Would help if that was a bit more intuitive, maybe it should say something like 25/90 or it should just be a bar filling up with a health/plus symbol on it to show its purpose more intuitively.

Just-a-ng-dummy responds:

Thx for the feedback!
I'll try to make a tutorial section for the game and improve on some more of the mechanics!

[Sanatorium]

Feels like it is an interesting tech demo/proof of concept for a bigger game, but as it is, it didn't do much for me. While the game did have some cool effects like the ps1 graphics and the text animations which really gave personality to the characters, and it was certainly an interesting world with said wacky characters, I just felt it was nonsensical without enough actual substance to it, and it was over before I knew it. Would like to see something bigger made from this potentially, and if you do, I'd like it if you could fast-forward/skip text by pressing the button, and I'd like it if characters would say new things if you spoke to them twice instead of just repeating their entire spiel over as if they didn't just say it to you already, since I think it would make them feel more real!

[Grabanakki]

Interesting little game! As usual for a Bugulon game, I felt like the game overall has a very smooth feel to it along with great presentation. I liked the whole concept of needing to strategize how best to use your own safety net (flooring) to protect yourself against the various enemy types. I had a good time, but...

This is maybe a silly complaint, but while I feel like the game was solid, it didn't really blow me away. Again, I like the concept of handling the risk of using your own flooring as a weapon, but just something about the game didn't grab me: kinda just felt like the combat/throwing wasn't exciting or punchy enough, along with being a little slow at introducing new mechanics. I did like how it picked up once I got to world 2, but it just felt so long to get there that I could've easily seen myself quitting. Maybe it would've been best if it was less levels so as to keep the pacing up, instead of stretching the content then over a large amount. Not saying it's a bad game, not at all, but I guess I'm saying it'd just be near the bottom of my Bugulon must-play list.

[Halloween Maid Service]

Not too shabby of a "straw millionaire"-esque game (aka a game all about chaining item trades to get to the final item you want)! I enjoyed the cute art and humorous characters/events, as well as piecing together the clues needed to get to the end.

While I liked it though, the game did have some jank to it. in particular, while I liked the character art, I did not like the world art/structure as I felt like it was both very bland and difficult to tell where the zone transitions were (and the transitions were also confusing since they could warp you to a new position that isn't relative to where you were standing before). Also I felt like the game was overly easy with no puzzles or challenge to it, with the only actual puzzle being the keypad code which I didn't feel was very intuitive to solve.

[An Ordinary Adventure: Forgotten]

Very weird game! When I play it I keep getting confused on whether I'm missing something, like as if everything is supposed to make sense but I just didn't read some back story materials, or if the game just is that intentionally nonsensical. Well, since it did seem like the main character was as confused as I, I just went along for the ride, and it was pretty wild! I do wish the gameplay/cutscene ratio was evened out a bit, as it felt like the game was largely just listening to people talk and the only gameplay was just walking to another place to...listen to people talk. Gameplay only had a few token mechanics here and there that didn't really make for anything interesting. But the cutscenes did have some pizazz to them in terms of comedy and presentation, so it helped. Quite the adventure!

[Drifting Among Worlds]

Pretty interesting game! While I didn't feel like it established enough of an interesting goal or endpoint to strive towards to keep me playing, I did like exploring the wild world you've crafted and the sense of progression in gathering resources was addicting. In particular, I found the act of firing the giant hook to freeze islands that pass-by to be very satisfying, and I loved finding the big island with the boss on it once I got the propeller for the first time. Again, it was cool, but for me I just felt like it was a little too vague and started to get too grindy, along with the mechanics weren't that much to keep me hooked. I enjoyed my time as it lasted though, and I am tempted to revisit to try and beat it.

I did find it funny that the tutorial message for the teleport kept coming up over and over. I feel like there's got to be a more clever and elegant way of making sure the player remembers that instead of just yelling at them, haha. Maybe the game should just let you go back to your island if you fall in the water if that's what your playtesters were naturally doing instead of being so punishing, or maybe the game should have a symbol or something in the corner, similar to the health bar or pause button in other games, to let them know the teleport ability is available. Though I admit I did remember it, so hey, can't argue with results I guess, haha.

[Miriam's Mice]

A solid puzzler! Surprised how tricky it got and how many interesting rules they are to learn about the mechanics. It's not the most graphically impressive game and it sure made me feel dumb at times with how challenging it was, but I never found myself wanting to quit: between the helpful tools such as the guide/undo/speed buttons that help in learning the puzzles, alongside the intriguing weird story, world and mechanics that keeps expanding to keep the pace up, I found myself hooked!

[Forest Shack ( Prototype )]

Hmm, it's a decent game with some intrigue on how it evolves, but I found it to be very drab and boring for the most part, unfortunately.

I found the graphics in particular to be the cause of most of my issues: the crosshair was very difficult to see (consider changing color and thickening the lines), the action was very difficult to parse as there was barely any feedback, sounds or animations to make events like attacks apparent, along with incredibly tiny health/cooldown bars that are difficult to see. In general, menus and various other aspects were just incredibly muted and lifeless (to be fair, some of the mutedness adds to the somber atmosphere, but I feel it is overkill).

I did like that the game had some cool input timing events for recovering health and shooting, and I did like how the story surprisingly evolved with the cool monster transformation, but for the most part the game felt very slow and plodding. A solid attempt though!

HatiValcoran responds:

Edit: To celebrate 10,000 views, I've fed the crosshairs some baby back rat ribs!

Yes, I can see what would make you feel that way. There are very few goals early on, and most of the novelty comes from the new animals you face off against every other night.

For the sequel I plan to ensure the issues with the readability of the user interface are tackled right from the start, and improving the readability of actions is also in my radar.

It's good to hear that there were parts that you did like, I will look forward to seeing if you like the planned changes.

[Valkyrie: Sacred Feathers S]

Interesting game! A little bit confusing because I initially had no idea I could shoot back and thought the game was just about survival and dodging for as long as you could (maybe the first playthrough should introduce controls more, or have a crosshair where the mouse pointer is) but I liked that the game got right to the action quickly, and once I got into it I found that it had a decent variety of enemies, power-ups and strategy to it. Some good ol' arcade action!

That being said, its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. To me, it's very impressive that the game was made in RPG Maker, but if we disregard that context, we're just left with a merely decent twin-stick shooter that is brought down by the various chains that RPG Maker has. This feels like something that would be made for a school project: decent for a first start, but missing various bells and whistles to make it really stand out on its own.

If, for example, this was not a game on its own, but a game within a game, like a replacement to the general combat for a big RPG or adventure game, it could be rather cool, and from what the description says that might be the case, so looking forward to that in that regard!

ByEthanFox responds:

Thanks! Yep, as you read, it started life as R&D for a minigame to feature in a chapter of Nina Aquila: Legal Eagle, and I ended up releasing this version as it just ended up more fun than I expected, and I figured people might enjoy it. It also gave me a testbed to test some features (the version on NG is a later revision; the itch version went through a few iterations).

Thanks for playing!

[Valkyrie Command]

Wow, solid boss rush game! Love how it cuts straight to the chase and gives you what you want, and that's super cool boss fights: no instructions needed as the subtle intuitive touches like flashing the weakpoints as the start guide you the whole way. Gave me real Contra vibes what with the fast pace, high-energy music, explosive action and huge bosses with tons of interesting patterns that increase in difficulty as you go. I don't really have many complaints about the game as I found it to be pretty polished: maybe the only thing I'd like is a louder hit feedback for confirmation, as there were times where I couldn't have my eyes on the boss to confirm when I was hitting it due to needing to focus my eyes on bullets near me, and the hit sounds were too soft to stand out as confirmation that I was aiming right during all that. Oh, maybe one more complaint was that it was too short and I wanted more, but heck, I didn't even mind how short it was because it was such a blast: well done!