FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Frame Game - Gif Maker]

Cool application! Not only is the presentation stylish as all get-out, I feel this serves a great purpose of being a solid animation program with just the right amount of options to let even a newbie make some neat gifs, but not so much as to overload the user and frustrate them as a more traditional application would. In that respect, it's a great stepping stone program, a way for a person to get introduced or have some quick animation fun while being able to slap their gif on their social medias and share: very cool stuff. Thanks for letting an oldie like me have the chance to animate for a bit like I did in my youth, hoho!

CaperCube responds:

Thanks for the heartfelt review dude! A big part of our goal with the game was to make it easy to use for new animators and not frustratingly simple for experienced ones, so I'm super happy to know that our intent wasn't lost in development! Cheers yo, glad we could make your day!

[Eggsolotl]

A bit of a rocky start, but a cool game! It was a bit frustrating to learn everything without a tutorial or anything: it's somewhat intuitive, but there were some aspects that I didn't realize for quite some time, like being able to run up columns, or being able to match on diagonals or by holding an orb without placing it down either, and I wish there were some sort of targetting icon to let you know what orb you're about to pick up since there were plenty of times where it picked up one I didn't expect it to (like picking the one next to me instead of the one below me). Once I got past all that, I felt like it was pretty solid! Has a lot of charm to it, especially with the cute transition animation. Only thing lacking for me was the progression: felt like it just gets a bit monotonous and takes way too long to start introducing significant differences, but it wasn't too bad as the gameplay was decent at its core to compensate.

AxolStudio responds:

Great feedback!
This was made in < a week. So many things were rushed.
We are in the process of developing this further, and have added some new game modes, and 'special' eggs, etc. Hopefully you'll come back and give the new version a play when we release it.
A 'target reticule' is a pretty good idea, actually... I hadn't thought about it...
One of the improvements we have already added (but not released yet) is that if you hold down you pickup the egg you are standing on, instead of one next to you.

Thanks!

[Xin's Commission Campaign]

Move over Breath of the Wild, we got a brand-new exploration game here! Found myself having a lot of fun exploring the map, finding all the treasures and chuckling at all the various dialogues that pop-up. The game can be a little monotonous at times as the landscape can be quite barren and overly bumpy making treasures tricky to find, but the NPCs made it up enough for me. Speaking of that, it is pretty inside-jokey so I dunno if it has mass appeal, but hey, it's Newgrounds and I recognize most of the people mentioned, so hey, it's all good for me! Also to note is that the game is a little wonky in some aspects, such as the water acting oddly, the bike being able to go straight up mountains Skyrim style, and the treasure chest spreading the gems so far you need to pick em all up one-by-one, but I felt like they didn't detract, but rather just add to the goofy nature of the game (for example picking up the gems is fun thanks to the pitch-shifted noises). There were a couple of weird bugs here and there: Corey's commission lines were doubled up in a strange way with a line being written twice despite it being said only once, for example, but nothing too bad. Anyway, cheers for this!

plufmot responds:

Ahaha I'm glad you enjoyed it! This is definitely a game for the culture! Also the Skyrim bike thing was intentional. Was too much fun just being able to drive up anything. Keep it real!

[Cog Owl]

Not too shabby for some score-attack arcade action! Found it very easy to pick up and play, presentation is solid, has just enough polish to it to make it feel satisfying to play despite its simplicity, and it has some interesting hidden mechanics like being able to save yourself from death (though I'm still confused how it works and I had no idea it was possible). A classic short and sweet game!

[Voiceless (Legacy version)]

Oh man, I really wanted to love this game, but boy was it a cruel mistress to me, haha! I'm a huge fan of rhythm games and such, and I like seeing combinations like Necrodancer and the like, so I thought I'd be a huge fan of this game. But gosh, I could barely make it past level two before I just left in frustration. I gave it a good go and tried to be patient, but I think it's a combination of platformers in particular not gelling well with rhythm-based controls (it felt so weird having to specifically time my double-jump for example, especially since the rhythm timing makes you fall a bit before hitting it which felt so unnatural), the game starting out very hard with spikes everywhere and complex mega-man disappearing platforms straight outta the gate, with practically no checkpoints to compensate for the difficulty. It's a shame! I really want to come back and beat this because it seems like it's such a good idea on paper and I feel like the game has a lot of polish to it and potential to make it work: I love the general presentation, I love the cool mechanics like failing a jump timing on purpose to get a boost out of it, and heck, I even love the goofy death animation (and thank god because boy did I see it alot). But damn, this game just beat me down, haha! Will have to work up the nerve to challenge this again.

[Thermal Trail]

Interesting concept: it's almost a double game jam game, borrowing both the 'linked together' and 'egg' themes from GMTK and NG jams respectively, haha! The whole escort gameplay and juggling (quite literally at times) of temperatures was pretty interesting: took awhile to get used to the mechanics, but I liked puzzling out how to get past the various traps. Felt smart figuring out the aforementioned juggling of the egg, throwing it into hot zones to avoid the walk I'm walking through, and other such things.

Definitely got a little frustrated with the game though: controls felt very inconsistent with maneuvers like wall jumps, I kept being confused on how to aim the egg to throw it (kept expecting it to go where I'm moving, not where my mouse is aiming), and I hated the feel of the jump where you don't have full control over it but have to commit to the initial momentum. Also I don't know if it's me, but I dunno, it just feels like it's a bit laggy or clunky? Some sorta vague feeling about it, though maybe it's just my computer crapping out. Anyway, I haven't beaten it yet, but I am intrigued enough with the concept that, despite my complaints about the clunkiness, I want to go back and see what else it has to offer, so take that as a positive note.

[Pandora's Egg]

Pretty neat game! Certainly makes a solid first impression with the great graphics used throughout, but particularly in title screen/intro bit. It's a simple game, but I like that it is quite challenging and has a lot of cool level arrangements and enemies to work with and figure out how to get around. It was definitely a bit frustrating and clunky at times though: hit boxes felt way more wide than necessary leading to a few deaths that felt a bit unfair as I thought I dodged them, and I didn't like the way the patrol patterns of the knights were random, leading to inconsistent patterns in this game which needs consistency for its puzzle-like nature (at least that's how I feel about it). It's a bit glitchy at times as well: had a case where I fell off the edge of a platform and immediately moved to the side, lodging me into the platform where I shouldn't be able to be, and also a level that I beat despite my character being dead, where he just died while still passing the finish line, haha. Also it's just a preference thing, but I wish gliding could be achieved from a jump just by holding space, instead of having to press it twice, one to jump and another to glide. Overall I felt like I had a good time with it, despite the little bit of jank here or there.

JJGamez64 responds:

Many of these issues are already fixed, including an extra control scheme for left handed players, but I'm not allowed to update this build with the fixes till the Game Jam judging has ended :(

Edit: Game just received a big update that addresses many of these points. Give it a second look and if you're happy with it, tell us with an extra half or full star ;)

[Matchkey]

Another solid puzzler! Challenging as usual, though maybe with an odd difficulty curve: I could be wrong, but I swear the first five or so levels had some pretty big difficulty spikes, and then it dips back down to normal/easy difficulty. Could just be a case of me overthinking it: maybe I played so many puzzlers from you I try to guess what the solution is from previous habits before actually finding it and screw my train of thought over, haha.

[Meow Merchants]

Pretty cute game! I certainly like the graphics and the simple but addictive gameplay of rapid-fire trading: it's a decent concept! However, I didn't quite agree with the execution. I feel like the game would better be served if your time meter only got refreshed when you actually make a trade for money: in that way, you would need to be strategic by scanning the field to be on the lookout for the fastest way to trade to get the coins and keep your streak up. As it stands currently, though, you get a time refresh for every trade you make, which makes the game trivially easy to keep going forever as you can just keep no-brain juggling any trade you want with no clear goal. Felt like a missed opportunity for me, and I just ended up bored unfortunately. Also, I was really bummed out that, after getting a bunch of money, I still got a depressing ending with a dead cat in the rain: why you gotta do me like that, haha!

[Lines On Sides]

This one was a tricky one for me to review: it really didn't make the best first impression as it started off slow. Really slow. Waaaaaay too slow. Seriously, a huge amount of levels are dedicated to brain-dead puzzles that practically solve themselves: while the levels keep increasing in size, the difficulty or mechanics involved do not, making it feel pointless. I was so close to just quitting the game thinking this wasn't my jam, but then finally the game actually started to introduce some cool mechanics: being able to move around tiles to different locations, having to ensure there are matches for tile to tile instead of just worrying about the edges, and so on. I ended up really having a lot of fun! I like the minimalist design where you figure stuff out not by 'how to play' controller instructions, but intuition and signals the game gives off, and I love the satisfying subtle sounds as everything clicks into place. It gave me a real sudoku feel where you gotta really think ahead, as while a tile might seem good in one location, it actually fits elsewhere better. So yeah, bit of an odd egg where it's good, but takes way too long to actually get good.

Mandigondo responds:

Thanks for the feedback. I wrote down your observations and I will use them in future projects. :)