FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[panic]

Rather interesting rhythm game! Once I deciphered what the heck was going on after a brief period of confusion (main menu and gameplay kinda just dumps you in with no explanation or windup), I quite enjoyed listening to the tunes and watching my guy go as I got skilled at using this rather unique control scheme. Could totally see this concept get developed further on with more levels and tunes, but I do feel like it has some questionable parts that need to get ironed out. For one, I was a bit disappointed that there were no scoring in the game to judge my progress and flex on others: no points, no high score table, no miss/ok/good/great note scores, and so on. I also found it very strange that the game just allows you to hold down a button to hit all notes coming from that direction, instead of tapping the button for each note: felt like it went against all natural impulses to do this and completely negates the purpose of having multiple notes with different timing if you can just hold. If you feel like you must keep the holding as an option, perhaps tapping could be a way to get bonus points as it entails more risk?

[DRIFT APOCALYPSE - Drive Over Zombies]

Pretty neat game: any game that promotes smacking enemies with the backend of a car from a sweet drift gets a thumbs up in my book. I will say though that while I like the concept in theory and I do think there's some fun arcade gameplay in here to enjoy getting skilled at, I found it a bit frustrating to play due to the weird controls (it felt so unnatural to press both directions to boost) the overly slow and slippery feel of the car and the lack of variety in enemies/obstacles/etc. Eh, maybe I just suck at it, haha. Also I found it really weird that the tutorial is stuffed away in the options: feel like it should be a main menu option instead given its importance.

Also, and this is a silly pet peeve of mine perhaps, but I really don't like the inclusion of coins and continues and such: it just makes it feel like the game design has been compromised to promote this weird crowbarred-in grinding aspect.

torrydev responds:

First of all, thanks your review, I appreciate a lot this feedback.

I agree the controls are a bit weird, as well as the coins / unlockables / continues system. But that´s because the game is originally designed for Android Play Store and I wanted to have like 2 button gameplay to be comfortable to play on touchscreens. (As well as including some kind of monetization to get a bit of revenue at least)

The main problem the game has is that drifting over zombies it´s kinda hard because of the controls, so a lot of enemy ideas I had to add a bit of variety couldn't be implemented because it´ll be too difficult to deal with them.
I also noticed that most people improve a lot when they play and get used to the controls and told me that the game experience improved a lot for him.
So I prefer to leave the game as it is now; a short, fun with a bit of depth arcade game, and focus on a future project where I´ll apply all of the feedback I'm getting!

[Crazy Cauldron]

Cute little game! Found the concept to be solid with a very charming presentation, and I had a good time making the combinations for the customers, especially when I needed to try and make the certain gradients they were going for in addition to trying to make the color they want out of whatever ingredients I could scrape together.

Only problem I had was that sometimes it was difficult to tell what the customer was looking for: sometimes they'd be overly forgiving and take my bright green despite wanting a dark olive green, and sometimes they'd be overly critical and want something that I swear I gave them but they don't want (usually I feel they'd want a black potion that might have a subtle bit of other color that's impossible to tell since the black overpowers it, I dunno).

That, and while I understand that most likely the idea of not having all possible ingredients available in the garden is to make the user improvise (not seeing the green frog but need green? make green by grabbing the yellow/blue items instead) I just found it very annoying and frustrating since the time between rotating ingredients in the garden is short enough that it makes me not want to improvise, but rather just wait for them to rotate so I can get what I want. Would probably prefer that all color ingredients are always available but the instability comes from them moving about or hiding and being difficult to pin down, perhaps, as it would be less annoying and still add that bit of chaos.

[Uniquackle]

I think it could be a pretty fun and challenging platformer, but right now I found it to be unfortunately too frustrating and buggy to get through. While I was confused that the game was more about jumping around instead of the more obvious maintaining balance on a unicycle, I still thought that the variety of obstacles provided some interesting challenges. Unfortunately, the lack of checkpoints and high level of precision required to make these jumps due to harsh gravity, sensitive movement and small hitboxes made it go from challenging to frustrating. Also, to add to everything else, the game ended up glitching out on me, putting the levels out of sequence in strange ways where the camera and dialogue goes way forward past where I am and tries to backpedal: really odd stuff. Definitely a case where the game seems promising, but just needed more time in the oven.

[Halloween Art Collab [2021]]

I definitely always enjoy these collabs as I like to see all these great artists come together, but I do feel like this collab gallery needs to be improved upon for the benefit of all. For one, I feel like it is missing critical features: why can I not click on a piece of art to see the original art submission page on NG, or more importantly, why can I not click on an artists name to go to their web page? These features are absolutely critical so viewers who get interested in an artist from seeing their work in the gallery can follow them and share the love. Without this ease of use, the chances of a user following up with an artist get lower and lower. Secondly, I wish the art could be displayed in a more creative fashion, such as in a collage that you can click on it to zoom in to individual pieces or something more impressive like a FPS tour through a 3D gallery where the works are displayed like painting on the walls. This would have a double-effect in that it would provide entertainment and improve engagement, as well as fixing the issue where the list format used here kind of makes artists stuffed at the back less likely to be seen. All the artists did great work, so I want to see these galleries to have just as much work put into them to give the artists the props they deserve!

TBerger responds:

although I say that you wrote a lot, I like your ideas and I would also like them to be implemented

[BUMBLING BUILDERS]

Great goofy little puzzler! A little wonky at times in terms of physics and such, but overall I loved the amount of polish the game had, what with all the little touches like the enemy preview ghosts, fluid intuitive controls for placing and removing blocks, and sheer variety of levels, enemies and challenges to go through. All-around well done!

[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