FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Neon Souls Demo]

It's certainly visually interesting and has some nice elements to it such as a cool (if a bit suspect) boss fight as well as decent platforming, but it didn't really leave me hungry for more from the full game.

For one, the paint mechanic seemed a bit underbaked. While it was certainly neat to see an invisible world come to light through paint splatters, it rarely added much to the game apart from visual pizazz: for every level, all you need to do is just spam double jump and bam, everything's painted and you're just left with a very basic platformer. It's basically just smoke and mirrors: apart from a few occasions where you need to use paint as a bit of a scouting tool, in the end it just felt like busy work before we can actually play.

Apart from the paint mechanic, I wasn't really seeing any hints of other potential abilities, or anything else for that matter that intrigued me and got me thinking about what the later levels could be, since it already felt like levels were just repeating themselves now in this very demo: just paint everything, jump past few spikes, bounce on a few dudes here and there, repeat ad nauseum with minor token shuffling of those elements to try and make the levels feel different.

I still had an alright time playing it, but for a demo, I just felt like it didn't hook me enough to consider getting the full game.

[Spooky Bat]

Mmm, this one was a bit bleh for me unfortunately. I really like the concept of finding items and such hidden through echolocation, and it provided some interesting strategy to think about. Or at least, it would provide some interesting strategy to think about, but really it just felt like an incredibly simple mechanic that can just be spammed for no consequence. With that, all that was left was just a very bog-standard game with aimless direction, repetitive levels, unsatisfying collectibles and bad, dull controls that led to me constantly getting stuck in walls and just feeling janky as I flew about. I was surprised that the echolocation mechanic wasn't used to more creative lengths, such as maybe having to bounce it or even use it to find the walls of the level in the first place, I dunno, something, but even then I dunno if it could elevate the bad game feel from the weird controls.

[Ringwaves]

Wow, this one really surprised me! It ain't winning any awards for beauty or anything like that, and the concept ain't exactly deep or unique, but something about the game was very addicting, satisfying and just plain ol' fun! A good example of solid level design and core game feel winning out in the end over pretty graphics (though it did still have some nice effects for death and the shockwaves, for example).

If there were any issues I had with the game, it's that I did feel like there was some confusion over how the shockwaves work. Because the shockwave graphic shows the shockwave fading away as it gets larger, a player could easily think that the shockwave loses strength over time. However, it seems like the shockwave, no matter when it hits during its expansion, will always hit the ball with the same initial strength. I didn't mind it when I realized this fact, and I liked the consistency, but there was some initial confusion where I thought I could tweak the power by distancing the shockwave.

If there was something I felt was missing from the game, it mighta been a score system like golf where you get more stars or something if you win a level with minimum strokes, or shockwaves in this case. But I had fun trying to go for minimal strokes on my own terms, haha.

Jordio94 responds:

Glad you had a satisfying experience! Yeah, the graphics certainly didn't get priority, but at least the gameplay kept you hooked.

I've got mixed feelings about having the shockwave lose strength over time. It would make it feel more natural, but it could also make it harder. The player would have to charge the shockwave for exactly the right amount of time AND have it at exactly the right distance. But as it is now, I agree having the shockwave fade is a bit misleading.

I very nearly did add stars, and I still might in the future. It'd definitely be a more rewarding experience for passing levels with minimum shockwaves.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Spiders in my Attic!]

Not too shabby for a short bit of fun. It's a solid little score attack game with a good amount of juice added to it: I liked the way health was represented by my player character getting more visually damaged, and I liked the various effects like blood splatters, spiders skittering about, and the trippy power-up. It ain't the greatest for long-term appeal or anything, but it's good for a couple of rounds. Looking forward to STD!

The music is definitely what I hear when I go up to my attic full of spiders every night. It captures the sense of panic, their skittering little legs.

LeviRamirez responds:

did you like cool song?

[The Last Dog]

An interesting game, but a bit too short for the emotional story to make any impact.

The standout aspect for me with this game was the combat: while pong gameplay was never my jam, I did appreciate the cleverness in designing such a gameplay system that was not only fun and challenging to get good at using, but subtly reinforces the story as well by showcasing the cooperative relationship between the boy/man and their dog. Bosses were fun and interesting to fight in an Undertale-esque way, and the final boss was brutal and standout as a setpiece.

Outside of the combat, however, the story felt very overly sappy and hackneyed, and wasn't presented very well: rather than making me emotional, it more made me laugh at how much it was trying to speedrun through the whole thing, which made it feel all the more flat. I felt way more attached to my dog through combat than any of the cookie-cutter dialogue and cutscenes.

Definitely a good attempt that could be great if it just had more meat on its bones, more time to get the emotional connection it is going for.

Stepford responds:

Thanks for taking the time to play and write out this review. And yeah, you are right! The story elements were a bit rushed for the sake of getting it done for school. I hope you had fun goin through it - stereotypical story clichés aside!!

[Hexagons: Out of Grasp]

I was ok with Money Man in the end. Similar to this, Money Man was a game that had a really goofy and twisted style to it that made for a weird experience where you as a player can't tell if you're playing some sort of avant-garde game with hidden charm to it, or just a bad game that tries to distract you from its badness by being kooky. This felt like the latter instead of the former, unfortunately. There are certainly some funny and interesting aspects to this game, like shooting the boat man, which made me chuckle, so I wanted to like this. However, I found this was just too jank and boring at its core that I just didn't get enraptured. It's definitely very nice to see such a collaborative effort for experiments like this, but it wasn't a winner for me this time, sorry to say. Maybe I'm just too old to find weird screamy voices humorous.

[Pet the capdog!]

Cute game, and maybe I'm being silly for taking it too seriously, but I found the patting in this to be mediocre.

It certainly has a good foundation, being a game that allows you to pat a dog: that deserves a lot of praise straight up. Furthermore, I found the use of mouse controls very clever, as it allows you to fine-tune and customize your patting in a very analog, granular way: allows for a lot of tactile feedback, as it were, and it felt satisfying to see the dog squash and stretch to your hand.

But overall I found the game a bit unsatisfying. For one, I really disliked the way the hand was so sensitive, warping and glitching to absolutely nauseating proportions with the slightest movement. It's as if you heard that every indie game needs squash and stretch animations but went way overkill on it. Second, I was insulted that I could not do a side-to-side pat: what is up with this discrimination where only up-down pats are allowed? And what about chin scratches or belly rubs? Maybe you could argue that those don't count as pats, but even then, why are we not allowed to pat diagonally? Being stuck to the rigid dimensions of only straight up and straight down pats is so stifling and thwarts the sense of feedback. Basically, I want something like the Mario 64 face warping, except for dog patting.

If you're gonna make a patting simulator, I don't want you to be lazy and make something this overly simple, safe behind the shield of treating it like a gag: I want the best patting simulator, damn you, so put some effort into it! The world deserves it!

tscoct responds:

the game's open source, go ahead and add new types of petting if you want

[Nightmare Arena V:1.7.4]

Pretty impressive from a tech-demo perspective, but I found the game a bit dry and boring at the moment. Again, lord knows I couldn't make an online game like this with servers and all that hoo-hah, so kudos on getting that all setup. But looking past that and playing the game, I just found it to be quite boring.

Don't get me wrong, I did think there were some nice touches like the emote system, and there was an attempt to make some cool combat through various levels and an assortment of guns and power-ups. But in the end, combat always just felt like it came down to just shooting at each other in really simple, unexciting ways: there weren't really any fun abilities you could use to outskill your opponents in clever ways, no satisfying explosions or feedback for gunfire, and the levels didn't have any cool environmental hazards, setpieces or unique charm to them. Felt like the game was overall very janky as well, with weird staticy sound effects and such.

It does look like you are still updating it, however, so maybe it'll keep getting improved upon and I'm jumping the gun: best of luck!

GlarkerGames responds:

Thanks for the feedback! :D It helps a lot ill try and make the game more exciting and unique. Im working on new unique guns. I think my game needs a good revamp.

[Falling Fox]

Not too shabby! I thought the gameplay felt smooth and the mechanics were simple yet complex in a fun, addictive way. At its core, it's a pretty decent score attack game. My main complaints would be that I feel it could use a bit more pizazz and polish to it, as the presentation felt a bit lazy. While the art is cute and there are some nice touches like the wind gusts and such, I felt really disappointed that the fox doesn't even move: he just stays stock-still like a t-posing statue as you move him about. C'mon, the game says he's running, so code in a running animation! And while you're at it, put some falling and other animations in: you've made him blink, while not add some more than that, it's so drab without it! And another thing, it'd also be nice if the platforms were a bit spiced up as well: you could make them like floating islands or whatever, no reason to keep them as really boring planks. Basically, it's an alright game, but it's dry and could really use some juice to help pep it up.

[Kobold Siege]

Bit mixed about this one!

For the most part, the game is quite charming: love the cartoony graphics and animations, the goofy story, and the big world to traverse. Definitely does a lot to get me hooked: I wanted to get all them upgrades and make it all the way to end to shoot the heck outta that chef, haha.

But on the other hand, the game did feel rather janky and frustrating to play at times. My issues with the game were never anything major, but it's kind of a death by 100 cuts situation where a lot of little oddities just made it feel unpolished and I couldn't trust it. I didn't like how stiff, laggy and stubby the movement could be, particularly along with shooting and the lag before being allowed to move again. Jumping was weird and inconsistent with how, if you hold the jump button when landing, you'll sometimes end up jumping again and yet sometimes not. If you hold up and shoot, the character will only shoot up on their 2nd shot for some strange reason. I found it odd that you couldn't shoot down when in the air, I didn't like the push back recoil, the checkpoints would sometimes be ignored and teleport me way further back, etc etc.

You get the picture. Along with all that, I also thought the game was a bit overly generic under the charm with no real selling point. But still, I feel it is an admirable attempt at a nice little metroid game with a goofy premise.