FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[LawnMower City]

A decent game, but I found it to be a bit shallow. While it was fun at first going through the levels and mowing the grass, it all just ended up feeling quite boring and couldn't keep my attention. While the levels did advance in complexity somewhat by introducing new enemies like tanks and turrets, I actually thought the levels were randomly generated at first because they all just felt so similar with no progression or style to them. Furthermore, I wish the mowing of grass felt a little bit more satisfying: perhaps if the sound was more similar to that grating hum of an actual mower or electric shaver it'd be better, and also if the mower would slow down when mowing grass to give it a bit of friction feedback, I dunno. I also found the controls a bit weird at first since I expected pressing up to move the mower diagonally up-right because of the isometric angle, but instead it moves directly up. I got used to it though and maybe more people prefer that way, though, so eh, it's understandable.

[Strainge]

Cute little adventure game! Liked the whole timeloop mechanic and using it to solve the various puzzles, such as getting the right answers for the conversation and such. Some of the meta aspects, such as the suitcase code and the inspirational messages were ok, but came across as a bit shallow due to the short length of the game not letting it build up to it at all. Just felt like the whole screen shattering and such wasn't necessarily part of an overall theme and just shoved in there to try to elevate it and and make it fancy-like. If these elements had a bit more time to cook, such as maybe making another puzzle solvable through using outside sources on the computer (like maybe using Google to search for that artist's painting or something) it could've built up to me figuring out the suitcase code myself, instead of just having the game slap me in the face with the solution, I dunno. Anyway, apart from that, there were a bunch of little grammar/language issues here and there, but nothing too serious to make it not understandable: just could do some some proofreading before publishing.

[LeviRamirez NFT Generator]

Whoa, Nice Fuckin' Tits, Levi, dayum! Where's my right click? I need to save these gems!

Anyway, y'all are crazy. But at least you're not as crazy as people into NFTs for real.

LeviRamirez responds:

I want you.

[Blocks Must Fall!]

Pretty chill puzzler! It's not gonna shake the world up or anything, but the game felt like a very smooth and well put-together experience, with a decently paced progression of mechanics and difficulty. The crisp art and relaxing music really gave a calm, professional vibe to it all, so well done in that regard.

Having said that, and it's perhaps a silly complaint, but I did feel like the game was maybe a bit too minimalist and relaxing in terms of feedback and effects. Heck, I actually thought the game didn't even have sound effects at all at first since they were so muted. I wish perhaps there was some more feedback to make blocks fall and progressing through levels more satisfying, as without it, it did make the game slip from chill/relaxing to maybe a bit boring for me as everything started blending together. Again, I understand if it's against the aesthetic you're going for, though.

[Super Misfire or: One Gun To Shoot Them All]

Fun, action-packed game! I quite liked the manic and improvisational nature of having to contend with all sorts of wacky bullets, from classic lethal bullets to more wacky bullets like a party popper or a grapple hook. The ever-increasing arsenal along with a ever-advancing enemy force with new units to combat made it feel great to get further and further, especially since the combat felt very juicy with corpses flying and bodies burning and all that. I do wish there was a bit more of a way to tell what bullet you currently have or are having next, as it's so tucked away in the corner it makes it tricky to keep track of in the heat of an intense firefight, but I just considered it part of the challenge.

While it was fun, I did feel like there are some weird design elements to it that could maybe use some polishing. For example, I feel like the random generation shouldn't allow stairs to generate right next to you, allowing for an effortless floor clear. Furthermore, the whole gathering new bullets from power-ups feels weird, because technically wouldn't a player want and can avoid picking them since they might want to avoid complicating their loadout? That's not ideal because the whole point should be about having a wacky loadout, so avoiding shouldn't be possible. I kinda felt like the game should just start you with all of the bullets loaded already, or maybe just add or give you random loadouts each floor to force the player to contend with the wackiness. But of course, for a game jam, these elements are understandable: maybe revisit the concept in a future enhanced game?

[Heaven's Ring]

On one hand, apart from the lack of sound effects, I thought this was a pretty neat precision platformer with solid presentation and a decent set of mechanics and obstacles to go through, and I always like a challenge.

But on the other hand, I had a really frustrating time with this game in contending with the controls: for some reason I just couldn't get the bounce to work consistently, particularly when trying to go for height, as it just felt random on whether it would get height or not. I tried all sorts of different methods to get it to work but it felt like I had to fight the game every inch of the way just to have it work with me.

Even taking my issues with the bounce away, the game just felt overly slippy/bouncy and too fast all-around, as well as way too short with the levels getting way too hard too fast to make up for that shortness. A good attempt, but precision platformers like this need to be extra solid with their controls to make everything feel fair, and this felt very confusing in that regard.

booplesnoot69 responds:

we might do an expansion in the future, the game was made in two days for a jam so there wasn’t much time for me to make sound effects, sorry for any inconvenience! 💙 i’m glad you enjoyed it at the very least though ^-^

[Pico Snail! : Dream Castle]

Cute little game! It doesn't do anything too crazy or unique, being a mostly basic platformer apart from the interesting Sonic-esque system where star collectables serve both as life points and buffing your jump or wand powers, but I felt like the game was very well done in terms of polish and presentation, so I had a good time going through the levels and making sure to get each hidden collectable. I think the only bummer was that I wish it had more: once I beat that cat I expected a whole second world to open up, only for it to already be over. Hopefully you can take that as a compliment that the game had me hooked and wanting more!

I gotta say I kept waiting for the game to pull the rug out from under me and go full dark: something about the lack of music and those spooky enemies with their scary screams got me thinking that way, but it didn't end up happening haha.

[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.