FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Phantom Feast]

A decent game, but it fell a little flat to me personally. It's got a good core to it and I liked the way it escalated the challenge every level by introducing new enemies and such, but even with that, I felt it just couldn't keep my engagement and ended up boring me, mostly due to the levels being overly large and empty, being without a mini-map to keep track of the remaining items you might've missed leading to potentially large and frustrating backtracking over empty terrain, most enemies being very simple to avoid, and the levels being very similar and repetitive in basic structure and visual appeal. It certainly did have some parts where it kicked it up a notch: I liked some of the mini-puzzles I encountered where I needed to lure a sliding enemy around so I could get to an item they were guarding, but overall those engaging moments were few and far between and too little too late. Some of the controls were a little frustrating as well: felt like it wouldn't respond to my turns some times. As I say, though, I can understand it might just be me being an action junky and this just ain't my cup of tea, and I still think it has some good construction to it.

[Money Man: Classic]

Quite the interesting game! Definitely has a wild aesthetic to the whole thing and gave me quite the experience with all its weird meta layers to it: the tutorial with the goofy voice-over, the game being within a PC within the game, the strange way the levels are built, and so on. It's like a double adventure, where not only am I having an adventure as the character within the game, but I'm also having an adventure myself figuring out what this game is all about.

I'm a little conflicted though: on one hand, I'm certainly intrigued by the game due to its weird, goofy and janky presentation that gives it a mysterious and amusing quality to it, but on the other hand, I feel like a jank game is still a jank game, and the frustration I felt from the controls and such might be too much for me to get used to. In essence, I'm a bit worried the game is kind of hiding, using goofy visuals and a sense of irony to excuse its sub-par execution of gameplay mechanics. At least a game like Sexy Hiking (which this game says it is inspired by) had a very unique gameplay challenge behind its jank, but this is just a basic platforming game with unresponsive controls at its core. I might be overthinking it though: I plan to continue playing to see how it all ends up anyway, and I still give it points for the wild ride it took me on. Cheers for this!

Also, that was the most blursed rendition of Wood Man I've ever heard, haha

[Rewire]

Neat puzzler! Reminds me a lot of Gunpoint, but I definitely don't mean to call this a clone or anything as I felt it has its own unique mechanics and twists it brought to the formula that really made it stand on its own feet. I got really addicted to playing this thanks to the constant escalation of difficulty and the introduction of all-new mechanics through the well-designed levels. Solid experience all around!

[Fairyland Datura: Egg]

Pretty funny adventure! The dialogue was a bit rough and tricky to understand at times (likely due to the usage of google translate as stated in the description) but I felt like I got the gist of it and found it very entertaining and goofy. Despite most of the game being just dialogue, I was nevertheless hooked as I liked seeing the various antics the hero got up to and the crazy tangents and twists and turns the story went off on. I also liked the way the game would pull the rug out from under you with some surprises like the sword fight with the child: I knew I shouldn't have pressed the button, haha! Anyway, looking forward to seeing the conclusion in the future!

Vonka responds:

Thank you, I will fix everything in the future, I will add it, and there will be a good translation into English)

[L-Egg Hunt]

Oh man, I felt really mixed and conflicted on this one. It didn't start with a good first impression as I was getting really frustrated with the 3D perspective as it made it really confusing to tell where your character was at times. I was definitely of the impression that the game would be better served in a 2d perspective where you don't need to worry about the physics pushing you to the foreground/background when you didn't want that. However, as I played more and got the powers for running and grappling, I ended up really getting hooked: something about switching between the various movement modes to fit the situation, and the sheer fun of the grappling movement was so satisfying. If I could have that same grappling movement in a 2d game instead, I think it'd be awesome, but then again, part of the fun of the grapple is being in a 3d environment, but then that brings forth the other issues so...I dunno, this is a really weird one where I don't know if I like it intentionally or unintentionally, if that makes any sense, haha!

[Wizard, Archer and Egg]

Hah, nice little adventure! While the main character controls weren't anything that special, being just a very simple spammy shooter (cmon, how you gonna make a bow without the ability to charge a shot for more damage or piercing?), I liked the goofy and charming story progression, as well as the unique subversion of upgrading your egg instead of your character. With all that, the game did a great job of keeping me hooked, and boy did I love how it all kept escalating to a great ending! I was a little disappointed that the egg ends up with the same build no matter what due to the way the upgrades get capped: would've loved if maybe certain builds that players go for end up screwing them over in the end when the final boss gets those powers, but I understand that you probably wanted it balanced so everyone gets a fair fight. Cheers for this!

WanZai responds:

Very insightful. In the beginning, I really wanted to make a different but challenging boss battle. It needs a lot of tests. I finally chose to make it more steady and fluent this time.

[Hen in the Foxhouse (Jam Version)]

Huh, bit of an odd egg. On one hand, it's got some interesting mechanics what with the limited ammo that trails behind you, some satisfying feedback for hitting foxes and the various obstacles scattered around, and some potential depth with the armored foxes that take multiple hits. But as it stands, the game feels directionless: I had no idea what the controls were, and I had no idea what I was doing or if there was even anything to do! I was getting points of shooting foxes, sure, but with the limited ammo and no clear direction I wasn't sure what the point was. I ended up making an interesting game for myself where I held down the right button and tried to see how far I could get, all while dodging foxes, trying to only shoot when necessary to conserve ammo: it was kind of fun...but that was just a game I made up myself! I'd really like if the game had, well, something interesting to it, like rules or an objective, as right now it just feels like a weird alpha/prototype: for all I know, maybe there was some sort of objective, but I didn't have any confidence in the game to think there was.

VerilyFine responds:

- First and most importantly, this is a jam game made quickly for the July Jam. So any seemingly unfinished parts are actually unfinished. There are so many ways to improve this, so I appreciate your feedback. I want to update the game later.
-There actually isn't limited ammo. There originally was, but managing ammo ruined the feeling of the game, taking it from 'rampaging', to 'careful'. I made it so the eggs represent how much x2 Fire Rate you have left.
-The directionless feeling is because I made the sandbox I had built into a game only a couple hours before the jam ended. There were no points or respawning until then, and they were quickly slapped on. The game has barely any progression or objectives because of this.

[A Date with Death]

Haha, this game really sent me for a ride! I gotta say, I was really ready to quit this game and move on when what I thought was going to be a cool dating sim game was instead a very bland and boring top-down shooter. But then what do you know, there was a whole hidden aspect to the game which ended up really hooking me and I just couldn't stop till I got to the ending! I will say that, as much as I liked the goofy dialogue, it was riddled with tons of typos and grammatical issues, and could use some proofreading (luckily it didn't detract from the experience too much).

I definitely feel like you were playing a dangerous game here: I'm unsure if I should take off points for how bland the gameplay was despite it not being the focus, and I'm curious if there was a lot of people who never considered to say no to death and just moved on, never knowing the real allure of the game. For me, it was a fun, goofy little adventure, so well done in that regard!

[Yu Jammin]

Pretty cool experience! I thought this was a great example of a fun little education tool, something of a middle man that lets people experience a small taste of the process of music production and the fun of it, without the hassle of going all in and purchasing a full music production application that can cost a bunch and has so much to set up to get started. It's not so simple to prevent me from still getting a little confused during my process (didn't know how to change the pitch for notes, didn't know what cull did, etc) but I made it thru in the end and really enjoyed when the game took my dumb beats and made a cool little final arrangement with it all. Cheers for this!

Stepford responds:

I'm glad you had fun! And I appreciate the kind words.


If you are curious, when you are placing down notes, you can DRAG it up and down while holding left click to change the pitch. And CULL will stop a sound effect from continuing to play if another note is played, so if you have a super long sound they wont layer over each other and make an awful noise.

[Trigger Chicken]

Not too shabby! It's a rather simple game in many aspects, with its simple graphics, bland sounds, dumb AI that runs into walls, and so on, but I nevertheless had a good time. I think the key that kept me hooked was the sheer amount of enemy variety that kept getting introduced which had all special attacks and behaviors that you needed to juggle: it made the combat very exciting and action-packed despite its deceptive simplicity, and all that to some cool bumpin' tunes. It's not the prettiest or most innovative game, but it hits where it counts and delivers a short and sweet adventure that kept me hooked. Well done!

As a side note, I thought the 'mash' mechanic to revive was a bit confusing, as I expected it to be clicking the fire button constantly instead of mashing the movement keys: maybe change the graphic so it's a bit more intuitive.