FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[T.O.F.U]

Hrmmm, this one is a bit tricky. I like what it's going for in terms of being a challenging precision platformer with a cool concept of building off of corpses, but as it is right now, I found the game a bit too janky for me to have confidence in it.

A particular sticking point for me was the fact that corpses ragdoll, meaning that the gameplay has an inherit feeling of randomness and luck to it, which I feel should be the antithesis of: it should all be about player skill and consistency. Considering that the game said it would 'skewer' corpses on spikes, I found it frustrating that corpses were more keen to bounce off of spikes and roll around: 'skewering' should imply that they should get stabbed and staying stiffly in place at the point of impact, no? Because of this ragdolly and slipperiness to everything, it just made the game a bit of trial and error annoyance at times.

Apart from that, I found the game to be a bit boring in terms of graphics, with many levels looking the same and being overly brown. There were plenty of cases where the ragdolls would screw me over, my character would just get really glitchy, wonky or stuttery when colliding with corpses or turning away from walls and in general the slipperiness of the character got in the way, and so on. That's the real crux of the issue: while I think the game has some cool levels and such, a difficult platformer needs to ensure that its controls are buttery smooth and consistent so that every mistake feels like it is the player's fault, not the game, and with this, I just couldn't have confidence in the game, and that makes it not challenging, but unfair. But that's just how it is now: with some polishing up and potential changes to the mechanics, I think this game with its alright well-designed levels could end up being quite the fun game!

[PixelGrounds]

Very cute game! I'm not too familiar with Picross, but I easily found myself getting addicted to this game and going through puzzle after puzzle. I did find it a little silly how some of the puzzles would resolve (really, those two dots and a line is Pico? it could be anyone!) but it was all in good fun. And what a huge amount of content to go through! It's almost intimidating how much there is, haha!

My only major complaint would be that the controls can be a bit confusing. For example, I want to use the mouse because it's more intuitive to not only click squares, but click the big buttons on the right to change forms. However, using the mouse can be bad because it doesn't let you do tricks like being able to hold the button to paint in succession like keyboard allows: you need to click each time, and that doesn't help my carpal tunnel. So, I use the keyboard, but then I have no idea how to change forms because the shortcuts are difficult to remember: call me dumb if you like, but it'd be nice if maybe the keyboard shortcut letters could be right next to the form buttons as a reminder.

Other minor complaint would be that I feel like it could use a tad bit more juice: you know, make the title screen a bit more animated and so on, and that there were some typos here and there, but overall it feels good. Well done with this one!

EDIT: yayyy i finished my puzzle at Hard #44, thank you very much for that

Pomegranite responds:

you can pause anytime to be reminded of the controls

check out level 44 on hard--you might be like it ;)

edit: the original version was animated, but caused performance issues for weak hardware

[Olive's Art-Venture]

Wow, super impressive game on display here! Hell, even if it wasn't a game, I'd already have to give this game massive props for the amount of charm through overall presentation: the game is a wonderous display of great, expressive and animated characters (like how Olive scribbles in her book when you're drawing, and how the lobbyman always has a new quip to deliver and keeps track of your stats) and just tons of little touches that give the world so much life and feedback to it.

The gameplay was a blast as well though, equal if not better than the charming presentation! I not only loved how fun and unique the concept of drawing attacks was, I liked how it also had a lot of good strategy to it, like the various enemies and their diverse attack patterns, and how you might think that using the square spell is always the best so you're shielded, but that ends up locking you out of your most powerful attack spell, the diamond: I love being rewarded for playing risky and aggressive like that! Top-notch stuff that I wouldn't expect from a game made for a jam, essentially!

If I was to have any complaints, there'd be the obvious big one: the image recognition logic used for the drawings. Now, as a programmer, I understand it's probably super hard to do something like this, and lord knows I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole, so much props to you for even attempting something like this, as it is a secret genre I've always loved: drawing sigils and shit like that. But I found it disappointing that I couldn't draw freeform and had to use the strict outlines: bit of a shame as it made it so I always had to be focused on that side instead of the combat and felt so limited in expression to do shorthand or something like that (ironic for an artist, no?) Even accepting the outlines as the way to do it, though, I still had tons of problems where a circle would be treated as a triangle or a diamond, and that could be the difference between life and death, as I would be trying to do a cheap spell like circle instead of an expensive spell like diamond but not have enough mana, and it'd unfairly cancel it. Luckily the game is good and fun enough that I treat it as part of the challenge to get good instead of unfairness, but it's a tight rope that maybe some other people won't be as forgiving.

Other than that, there would some minor quibbles like I don't like how the intro cutscene and the tutorial proceeds at its own pace without waiting for my confirmation: I missed a lot of tutorial text on my first visit because I was experimenting and didn't notice the guy kept gabbing onward, and it's a pain that the only way I could see what I'd missed again would be to start all over and wait for that part to come up again.

Again, epic stuff on display here!

Stepford responds:

I'm glad that you enjoyed your experience with the game, Futurecop! All of that charm has to go to Andyland for his wonderful animation skills and Milkypossum for creating the perfect OST for every highlight and moment.

Hearing that you found the gameplay exciting and addicting just makes me so happy. I know the shape recognition isn't the best, since I have never attempted anything like it before - and I was very scared of trying to develop it; but knowing what I know now, I think I could program a much better system than is currently in place. Hearing that you are equally as intimidated as I was just thinking about the implementation of the mechanic makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs, "YES!!!" because it was a very intimidating undertaking, but I am so glad that I tried it.

Even if it works 90% of the time, instead of 100%, I went into it knowing that it wouldn't be perfect. Just thinking about other games that do it, none of them are very complex or they are also known for not being the most accurate. Realizing that, I gave myself a bit of a break and just swung the best I could. I am super happy with the final product and this will be a project I will show to people as my primary portfolio piece.

It's one thing to gain appreciation from players, who see assets go into one hole of game development and an entire game come out the other, but it's another to hear such praise from someone who understands the intricacies of what's happening behind the screen.

I hope playing all my joke and birthday games to tide the release of THIS game was worth the wait. <3

[PARALLEL PAN!C]

I can spot a Tombdude game from a mile away, and it ain't because of that iconic 'uh-hee' sound effect neither. It's because the game exudes charm from every pore of its existence: while most games focus on just the gameplay itself and leave stuff like menus, title screens, transitions and so on as an afterthought, a Tombdude game makes sure to put its best foot forward and has menus, touches, and concepts as wacky as the gameplay itself.

And speaking of the gameplay: it's very addictive and fun! Quite the combination of genres, and it can definitely be a bit tricky at times, trying to park cars perfectly while dodging bullets and watching them drift out of place, but it never felt unfair or frustrating: I loved the challenge and all the various bonus scores to go for, like watching out for cones or grazing bullets. Levels were good as well in that they kept escalating the challenge with more complex bullet patterns and parking spaces.

Only complaint I can really think of is that I have no idea what the focus button did: expected it to be bullet-time or something but it never seemed to do anything. Oh well! Oh, and I felt like getting damaged should be a bit more pronounced: I didn't even realize I was getting hurt at times, despite the little 'hoot'. Also I thought the game could be a little too forgiving with parking spots, allowing me to park huge cars in spots clearly meant for the tiny cars. Also that there's not a cute little story or ending, just levels. But eh, its all no-biggie: all-around solid work!

Tombdude responds:

love your reviews, man! You're totally right about the focus, it's never really explained in game: if you hold it, it makes you move slower.

[Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion Demo]

Nice, goofy little adventure! It ain't the most complex or ground-breaking or anything like that, so it can be a little unexciting at times, but the world is so charming, animated and endearing, filled with all sorts of crazy characters to talk to and papers to rip for questionable reasons and things to explore and piece together, that I found it kept the pace up and kept me wanting to see what the heck would happen next. Definitely a solid top-down adventure game all-around.

If I was to give it some guff, it would mostly be for minor things, like how the graphics can be a bit wonky at times: for one example, I found it weird that I was clipping behind a poster nailed to a tree that I was standing in front off, and for another example, I didn't like how some of the graphics were just crudely scaled up, like the water droplets from the watering can or the first pig boss (which was also a bit lazy as well, essentially being a scaled up normal pig enemy with no big differences).

Looking forward to playing the full version!

[Newgrounds Winter Worm 2021]

Pretty cool art collab! I definitely appreciate the unique presentation: as compared to more basic collabs, I think this one, due to its looping, continuous nature, really hooks in the viewer and makes them want to view the entire piece, which has the side effect of giving all of the artists their due attention! Also appreciate the small touch of being able to click on an artist's name to see their profile.

As nice as this was, and I hate to be a stickler, but I did feel like it wasn't as interesting of a loop as I'd like. When I see a long art piece, I like to see the adventure, the story it creates from how it transitions and flows slowly like a gradient, but here it felt like, while not all of them, there were plenty of pieces where they didn't flow smoothly into each other: they were just jarring, being separated by hard lines or illogical blurs. Basically, it made me question if this started as a loop collab at all, or if this was just a bunch of different pieces, and then someone just used the blur/smudge tool inbetween each piece and went 'see? it loops!', haha! But hearts in the right place and it was nice to see this anyway, so well done.

DieterTheuns responds:

worm

[Shal's Game]

Haha, kinda torn on this game, for what I hope is obvious reasons.

Basically, the game...isn't that good: it's incredibly basic and plain in terms of graphics, mechanics, and so on. The controls are wonky and unexplained (had no idea how to use magic to the point where I thought it was a joke) and the levels go back and forth between being incredibly boring, to either having a bit of fun challenge to them (that part where you jump up into safe spots while the enemy patrols below) or a bit of bullshit challenge to them (those pixel perfect jumping sections where the coyote time, which is supposed to help, can actually screw you over since it lets you fall slightly which makes it impossible to reach the height needed).

However, it does have a bit of intriguing charm to it with the goofy narrator: I had to admit that I wanted to keep playing to see what would happen next, and I liked how variable the narrator was in that, for example, it had a lot of different voice lines it would play when you die, for example. However, even the narrator wasn't that great in the end as I didn't like how it would repeat lines, overlap lines, or not have lines for what I thought were significant events, since it kills the illusion and just makes it feel as badly programmed as the rest.

At the end of the day, I still think it's not that good despite the narrator hook, but, I think it's a good example of making the most out of something small, and is very clever, so I gotta give a little credit and say it's not too shabby in that regard.

[FLUCTUOID]

I feel like the game has a lot going for it, both in what I played and what I'm seeing on the gifs: the shrink and grow mechanics look to be used in a lot of interesting ways for tons of cool puzzles. While that may be the case, however, I feel like I had a real tough time staying with this game, as it felt so incredibly slow at times, especially in the beginning.

Where in the time most games would introduce multiple mechanics and expand on them through its levels, this game just kept having overly simple puzzles with one mechanic over and over. The beginning levels felt like such a slog to get through, and could definitely stand to be quicker or shortened, in my opinion. It didn't help either that the game felt a bit janky in some respects, like having unresponsive controls (though credit where its due, there are nice control touches like coyote time jumps) and that weird way you fall off the map when transitioning between levels.

That being said, I did feel like the game did a good job at, without words, subtly introducing new mechanics and teaching them in intuitive ways. I also liked the way you would return to the hub and see how much the water has drained: was a nice way to show progress and get excited for the levels to come.

Again, I feel like this game does have a lot of smart design and potential to it: I just feel like it might've lost a lot of people due to some of the slowness and repetitiveness of it all at times, as well as being perhaps too chill and minimalistic to the point of being confusing, especially in the beginning, where hooking people by exciting them is most important. I like where the game is going now that I've gotten to at least world three, but I'm surprised I got there in the first place with my short patience, haha!

[Shake Art DELUXE]

Cute little art app! I like how intuitive it is thanks to the tooltip pop-ups when you hover over, as well as the preview of the line intensity and color based on the current selected settings. Placement of lines and such felt good as well and I didn't feel like I suffered any confusion in making some fun shaky art, apart from a few instances where I couldn't erase a line for some reason (dunno why the eraser just couldn't target some lines on rare occasions) and sometimes the undo wouldn't work properly (I accidently paint bucketed the entire canvas and couldn't undo it). Record output functionality worked well for me as well. Well done all around!

[Terramino]

I think the game has a really neat concept on display here with some great puzzles to think through, but the execution did feel very rough to me. Not too bad once I got used to it, but I feel like it definitely could've used a bit more smoothness to it.

Just learning the games rules at first was pretty tough. The game does teach you to use the arrow keys and space bar, but it never teaches you the existence of the restart key, which is critical because if you mess up block placement, you might never know that you can restart to place them again. You'd think that dying would restart you from the block placement segment, but for some reason it starts you from after you placed the blocks: I understand why, as perhaps you just died from a bad jump while placing the blocks correctly, but it just felt so unintuitive to me to not restart from block placement automatically.

Once I got over that hump, the game was going pretty well for me. But there were still slight annoyances here and there that hurt my experience:

While I appreciated that you could see a queue of blocks you'd be able to place, it annoyed me that I could only see a few at a time, instead of all of them, as it made it so that I'd always need to place the blocks twice, with the first time being a sacrifice so I could learn the full pattern they'd come in for my second attempt.

Learning the purposes of new blocks was tricky as well, as the graphics weren't always intuitive. Additionally, I found the mechanic of rotating a block to destroy parts of it to be confusing and difficult to pull off consistently.

This might just be me, but I also found it kind of unnecessary to have the placement of blocks so rushed by having the blocks fall automatically: feels like the game could work just fine by allowing you to manually control the blocks, and that would reduce stress and trial and error. I understand its emulating Tetris blocks, but it just sometimes felt like an unnecessary hassle that got in the way.

Overall, I also found the game very muted and lifeless. While the character and other graphics were very cute, I wish the game had a bit more special effects, visual and audio wise, to it all to make elements like victory and block placement feel more satisfying.

Again, it's definitely a really neat concept, and if possible, I'd love to see a more polished and expanded version of this!