FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[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.

[Blaster Hazard]

Pretty interesting game! Had a wild mix of first impressions with this one, haha! In terms of presentation through the title screen and menus, it was stellar: loved the attention to detail and pizazz with all sorts of animations, pop-ups and so on. It really put its best foot forward! In terms of the gameplay, though, I found it frustrating at first: felt like the screen was way too cramped and the enemies way too spongy. However, thanks to the game's professional design and overall energetic feel, I kept giving it a shot and ended up really enjoying myself with the incredible variety of enemies with all sorts of crazy attacks, interesting patterns/waves to fight through, and crazy boss fights! Definitely a really neat experience I'm glad I stuck with!

[Last Slice]

Haha, I came in expecting a driving game with maybe some pizza cooking mechanics, but instead I was bludgeoning gamers with a keyboard Hotline Miami style: quite the surprise, but a welcome one to be sure!

Gameplay was pretty cool: maybe a little basic and fiddly/floaty at the moment in terms of feedback/impact for both you and enemies, but it's a work in progress and I think it has a decent core to it that allowed for some fast-paced smackdowns. I did especially love that certain weapons had different effects like how the guitar actually makes a musical sound when you hit people with it: I'd love to see this expanded upon with all weapons making unique sounds and effects (and vary it for whiff, hit and throw hit), like for example have the keyboard make a plastic-y impact sound and scatter keys around the floor. You could also maybe bloody/marinara up or damage the weapons as you use them as well just for even more feedback. Also as a side note, I liked how you made the text fast-forward if you click it midway during dialogue.

In terms of feedback, I only have a few complaints. The title screen is a bit confusing because it asks you to press something and doesn't count mouse click, despite the thing you actually need for the main menu is the mouse, not the keyboard. I also wish the menu of receipts for the level select would actually show you what is coming up next on the button itself: I should see the lock icon on the next button, not when I actually page over to it. I found the game a bit frustrating to play since the actual gameplay was in such small bites between long dialogue segments (could just be because it's the beginning of the game, but still I just want to let it breathe a bit more). And of course, there was some slight jankiness to the gameplay that could be polished up: I had weird enemy detections through walls they shouldn't see through (and they can hit you through walls as well!), and I found it weird that the wrench plays the stun sound effect that you'd expect from throwing a controller despite it outright knocking enemies out in one hit like the bigger weapons (basically if they get knocked out, don't bother playing the stun sound effect). And in general I'd like a bit more impact and strategy to the combat as it progresses, the amount of damage the player takes from hits seemed difficult to determine (maybe just make it one hit deaths?) and I found the powerups you get between missions silly and unnecessary and could be removed or reworked (sorry that's vague).

Looking forward to see this get improved on: overall it was quite charming with an amusing concept, along with some great core gameplay, so I think it could be a real grand slam!

[Game and Watch: Madness]

Hmm, not bad, but not great either! The Game-and-Watch or Tiger Electronic aesthetic is pretty amusing to look at: I like that authentic look where you can see all the possible sprite positions at all times, though I was a little disappointed that there were so few, as usually these games will have their screen jam-packed with all sorts of sprites, like you could've had some for enemies getting smacked to the side, or for game over with the clown crying, or something. The gameplay was alright, but it got repetitive rather quickly and wasn't anything to write home about, being a simple timing game.

I do have to give you credit though: a lot of these 'game and watch' games seem to be quite lazy and just use the graphics/aesthetic to carry it, but for this one, I actually liked that there was a decent amount of challenge in the patterns and waves you gotta deal with. It still wasn't that deep or addicting in the long-term, but it was more than I thought was gonna get, so not too shabby.

Taka responds:

Thanks for the feedback :3

[Dark Light Swap]

Wow, really interesting concept at play here! It's one of those cool ideas that is rather simple to grasp, but really mind-bending and deep as it keeps going. To be honest, I almost think it's too mind-bendy at times, haha: I made my own system that I think works for making it through the puzzles, but really having difficulty coming to terms with the mechanics at play here, especially when it came to the 'gray' areas that were introduced later on. That's not to say I don't like it, though: this is a doozy that I'm looking forward to coming back fresh and committing all my brain power to (though who knows if that'll make a difference, haha).

[Blind Man Escape]

Uhhhhhhh....not sure how to feel about this one, haha! My initial impression was one of frustration: I had no idea how to control anything and any attempts to walk away from the monster or something with WASD or arrow keys didn't seem to work as I couldn't hear any footsteps or anything to make me feel like I was having any effect. I was just really confused and figured, "ok, it's one of those joke games, haha, very funny, moving on."

Once I learned that you are only supposed to use the space bar, I gave it a few more goes to see if I could figure out how to control anything. Unfortunately, I still don't really have a grip on what's going on, but at the very least, I guess I can appreciate the weirdness of its design? It's still just a little too trial-and-errory and way too confusing, though: part of me wants to write this off as a really stupid game that misses the point of blindness just like games like "The Quiet Man" missed the point of deafness as a device. I would much prefer if this did something interesting with its system like many other games have done insteda of just reveling in its joke, but... I guess it's a weird experiment that can be fun for some and hey, some people will gel with that and some won't, that's just part of the experimental game life.

[MADFPS 2]

Bit of a mixed bag on this one! Feels like it has what could be a very nice core gameplay structure, but it's just encased in jankiness and blandness.

Like I say, I think the core gameplay is quite solid. I like how weighty and satisfying the melee weapons feel: they're slow, but it adds a strategic element and satisfaction to the impacts, which are so crunchy. I also liked how it had some hidden depth with the Morrowind melee system where moving side-to-side when swinging does a horizontal swing and moving forward-back does a vertical swing. Gunplay was cool as well: loved seeing how enemies gibbed when blasted with a shotgun and I thought the system of no ammo display expect when you check your magazine was rather neat. All in all, combat felt pretty cool.

Everything surrounding the combat, however, was really janky and unprofessional. The title screen, HUD, buttons and so on were super lazy and terrible looking, especially with the way the health meter goes into negatives instead of stopping at zero, c'mon! The game doesn't have a working pause menu, where dying while you're in options can end up having the death screen overlap it. There was a lot of confusion with interactables: you don't get any prompts that appear when you can interact with something which leads to confusion on whether it is interactable at all. I didn't like the way the game kept teleporting me constantly to transition levels and it would always face me the wrong way, the durability prompts for weapons don't appear if you drop and re-pick up a damaged weapon (they only appear if you attack someone with it), the block feels really bad and unsatisfying given how much you need to time it (I'd love if it stunned the enemy on a successful block like a parry), and so on and so forth: it's a mess!

Would love to see this polished up to really make it shine as it should: like I say, I think there is something cool in there, but it can be very hard to see at times!

[Madness Roulette]

Not too shabby, but rather shallow in long-term appeal. I know it's silly to complain about it, but at the end of the day it is just a game of rock/paper/scissors and it doesn't really bring or add anything interesting to the formula. For example, it'd be kind of cool if we could customize our own character avatar like I thought we could (especially since it's online), but the rewards are only characters and you need to play for an inordinate amount of time to get anything, so there's no hook there. The game could've been enhanced with some interactivity, but I was really disappointed that we don't even have to click the trigger to make the shot ourselves as it just goes off automatically in a canned animation: I think having that extra click to actually pull would add so much more intensity and immersion to it. The menus and such are also very bland with stock text and minimal animations that could've added some pizazz, and finally, the death animations aren't gory at all: was really expecting some serious brain matter spilling out of cracked skulls: it's Madness after all!

However, that's not to say it's all bad. I do think the game is rather stylish and charming with a lot of nice touches to it. I like that the music gets more and more intense as the odds get more and more risky with empty chambers being depleted, and I like seeing the characters sweat (though I wish they would also increase in shakiness and sweatiness more as the game goes on as well). I also like that there are unique animations for each of the characters in how they take their turn. And of course, it is rather impressive that it has a whole online feature and lots of prizes to get, even if they do require way too much commitment to get since it's all based on luck after all.

spazgunk responds:

yo thank you so much for the insightful review!!! very much appreciated. 100% takin' this stuff into consideration for the next update :]