FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[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.

[Halloween Maid Service]

Not too shabby of a "straw millionaire"-esque game (aka a game all about chaining item trades to get to the final item you want)! I enjoyed the cute art and humorous characters/events, as well as piecing together the clues needed to get to the end.

While I liked it though, the game did have some jank to it. in particular, while I liked the character art, I did not like the world art/structure as I felt like it was both very bland and difficult to tell where the zone transitions were (and the transitions were also confusing since they could warp you to a new position that isn't relative to where you were standing before). Also I felt like the game was overly easy with no puzzles or challenge to it, with the only actual puzzle being the keypad code which I didn't feel was very intuitive to solve.

[An Ordinary Adventure: Forgotten]

Very weird game! When I play it I keep getting confused on whether I'm missing something, like as if everything is supposed to make sense but I just didn't read some back story materials, or if the game just is that intentionally nonsensical. Well, since it did seem like the main character was as confused as I, I just went along for the ride, and it was pretty wild! I do wish the gameplay/cutscene ratio was evened out a bit, as it felt like the game was largely just listening to people talk and the only gameplay was just walking to another place to...listen to people talk. Gameplay only had a few token mechanics here and there that didn't really make for anything interesting. But the cutscenes did have some pizazz to them in terms of comedy and presentation, so it helped. Quite the adventure!

[Drifting Among Worlds]

Pretty interesting game! While I didn't feel like it established enough of an interesting goal or endpoint to strive towards to keep me playing, I did like exploring the wild world you've crafted and the sense of progression in gathering resources was addicting. In particular, I found the act of firing the giant hook to freeze islands that pass-by to be very satisfying, and I loved finding the big island with the boss on it once I got the propeller for the first time. Again, it was cool, but for me I just felt like it was a little too vague and started to get too grindy, along with the mechanics weren't that much to keep me hooked. I enjoyed my time as it lasted though, and I am tempted to revisit to try and beat it.

I did find it funny that the tutorial message for the teleport kept coming up over and over. I feel like there's got to be a more clever and elegant way of making sure the player remembers that instead of just yelling at them, haha. Maybe the game should just let you go back to your island if you fall in the water if that's what your playtesters were naturally doing instead of being so punishing, or maybe the game should have a symbol or something in the corner, similar to the health bar or pause button in other games, to let them know the teleport ability is available. Though I admit I did remember it, so hey, can't argue with results I guess, haha.

[Miriam's Mice]

A solid puzzler! Surprised how tricky it got and how many interesting rules they are to learn about the mechanics. It's not the most graphically impressive game and it sure made me feel dumb at times with how challenging it was, but I never found myself wanting to quit: between the helpful tools such as the guide/undo/speed buttons that help in learning the puzzles, alongside the intriguing weird story, world and mechanics that keeps expanding to keep the pace up, I found myself hooked!