FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Gal-Nin]

Hmm, for me I felt like the game has a pretty cool concept, but didn't quite get its execution off in a satisfying manner. Without a tutorial or anything, it took me awhile to even figure out what was going on. I started off by just utilizing melee attacks, which were surprisingly satisfying to use due to the cool hitfreeze on contact, but also a bit annoying since enemies were so spongy that it took forever to take them down.

Eventually I figured out what was happening: it looks like you've got this system where you throw your shuriken into an enemy and then shoot elemental balls at them, where you want to pick an opposing element to do bonus damage (and in between that you melee to build up a bar so you can keep at it). That's actually pretty cool in my opinion, but everything else about the game kind of compromised that design. Not only was it really hard to grasp the system at first, you aren't even allowed to experience it at its fullest until you pick up all the scrolls (and once you pick up the scrolls, you're technically done and can race to the ending, so what's the point?) Enemies felt way too spongy and way too crowded in number that honestly I wanted to avoid combat since it was such a drag and you could only shuriken one enemy at a time.

I definitely think this elemental concept could work and it could be fun, but the rest of the design needs to synergize with it. For me, the ideal would be to give us all the scrolls quickly so we can engage with the combat and weaknesses in full: then take us through some combat arenas that lock us in and make us engage against some cool enemy formations, where you try and tweak the number of enemies and their amount of health and so on to create more satisfyingly paced fights instead of the haphazard crowds that I just ran past in the game currently. Definitely a lot of potential here!

fxydev responds:

I've made some changes based on your feedback and updated the game. Putting the scrolls closer to the player's path could be interesting so I'll definitely revisit that in the future. I softened up all the enemies and put together a new level so hopefully you give it a shot sometime. Thanks for all that feedback.

[BLOOD MOON]

Hmm, it definitely had me at the start, but then lost me hard unfortunately. I liked the presentation and concept of the game, the combat was a bit brainless and mashy but satisfying nonetheless, the hovering inventory mechanic seemed interesting, and so on. Seemed good! But then...that was all it had. I tried going through several more levels after beating the first, but it never seemed to evolve beyond that initial first level: in fact, sometimes it seemed to devolve by requiring way less resources, so little in fact that I could finish a house before enemies could even spawn! It really weirded me out that it just kept looping without any sense of progression: I seriously thought the game was bugged out in some way and had me stuck in purgatory, haha.

Overall it definitely feels like the game has potential, but its design just felt so confused to me. Why do the levels keep looping with random up-and-down requirements instead of increasing in difficulty by requiring more materials and more structures and such? Why are the enemies so braindead and lacking in variety or escalation as the day goes on, since coupled with the fact that I can attack so fast without getting tired it makes it so easy to just form an impenetrable shield of slashes and never get hurt? Why does it wait so long for enemies to spawn when a level starts when the enemies are what makes it exciting? Why does it take so long for the inventory to burden the player in any significant way when it could be used to make some exciting risky plays (do I go back now or do I risk getting everything for a single trip)? Why isn't the orbiting inventory used in some interesting way, like maybe becoming a shield that can get knocked away, or becoming throwables to take out enemies, so you need to re-pick items up? And so on and so forth. For me, it felt like an ok prototype, but didn't flesh out the design well enough for what it's core conceit should be.

Stepford responds:

The game was a little school prototype between Plufmot and I that we decided to upload to Newgrounds. It wasn't meant to be anything special, but somebody decided it deserves frontpage. 😅

[TRIGGORE]

Love the crazy multi-tasking challenge that this game provides! It's definitely overwhelming to grasp at first with so many things to manage, but I felt like it was a really cool concept and really captured the last stand horror aesthetic it was going for. Love the intensity it provides, but oh man, it is TOUGH: just when I thought I was getting a hang on everything and feeling so pro, then it introduces the mop: who the hell has the time to clean all this up, haha! I don't mind that so much though. What I did mind was a few slight things: for example, I could be wrong, but it felt like enemies were invincible during their transition animations (climbing through windows, etc) which was super annoying since it forced me to wait or waste bullets, both of which are at a premium, making it feel very unfair. I do like a challenge though and definitely want to give this another go: hopefully next time I can make it to day 3!

[Going Down in Fishstory]

Cute little adventure! Made it all the way to the bottom and enjoyed my time making it through the challenging obstacles. The story was a real emotional rollercoaster with all sorts of novel events that kept me glued (dunno if I needed that ass-pull happy ending as I quite liked the grimness, but eh, I can understand haha). There were some minor issues, for example I definitely got a little bit annoyed at the pacing: there were a ton of constant stops and starts to hear the fish talk to each other and I much preferred the few times when it didn't freeze me in place to force me to listen. I also feel like some of the obstacles that came up didn't quite live up to their potential: there was this one cool arena with a thick wall to break through and a chaser which I thought would force me to loop around and take the wall out bit-by-bit, but actually I just kinda brute force bulldozed through it in one go. Overall though, it was a great short and sweet adventure!

[Team Commander]

Pretty fun strategy game! It definitely doesn't make the greatest impression with its very plain graphics and presentation (default system font, asset pack sprites, bland game board, lack of SFX/VFX for actions, etc.) but there is a lot of strategic depth in the game and I found myself getting quite addicted to building up the ideal army and their equipment to make it through these puzzling fights. I especially loved how you could hover over objects for info, especially for both enemy units and their equipment so you could get all the info you need on how they operate and what to look out for. Having said that though, there was still a lot of information I felt like I was lacking and wish I could've found, like what the heck the speed stat does (the other stats seemed self-explanatory). And I definitely would love if the presentation was polished up a bit more, not just to make things look pretty, but for feedback: when I started, it was very difficult for me to parse what was happening in fights since there were no sounds or visuals like slashes or +/- HP and so on to help see what was happening: it all just goes by so fast and very plainly. Graphics aren't everything, but I definitely feel it would help readability to elevate this to live up to its potential!

[>> FWD]

Some fast-paced fun here! I liked the smooth and exciting feeling of speed as I raced through the tracks. Was some confusion on how the whole lock-on rocket mechanic worked at first, but I liked the added combat and strategy it brought to the table. While I had a bunch of fun, there were some frustrating aspects through. For me, this game kind of ran into the old Sonic the Hedgehog problem where you end up going so fast and build up so much unstoppable momentum that you can't really dodge projectiles or drive efficiently. A lot of the time, it felt like I would get through levels on pure luck rather than skill because I just move way too fast and ram into bullets (but maybe I was just impatient and dumb and I got into the flow more than I thought, since I did beat it after all). Definitely a blast overall, and I'd love to see more levels to something like this as I was really bummed out that the line at the end didn't expand to a whole new map!

[Drone Head]

Cool concept, but felt a little undercooked to me! It definitely made a good first impression on me. I like the two separate modes that you have to juggle, and the unique way that both modes operate to move around. Putting that together with having to navigate through tricky terrain and a bunch of enemies while swapping your weapons makes for some manic gameplay with a lot of improvisation. Having said that, I couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed overall: as cool as the character and their abilities was, the game world and content surrounding it just felt very shallow and didn't live up to the potential that I was anticipating when going through the tutorial. For me, the score attack just felt like it wasn't good enough, and I was really hoping for some crazy levels to play through: I'm not sure what the ideal world for this character is, but I could see a lot of potential, like challenging precision platforming levels, maybe some cool coop levels where you need to separate forms to squeeze through some vents as a drone to open up a door to proceed, and so on and so forth. Hopefully you can take that as a compliment, haha, I understand that probably this gameplay was the most that could be made in a game jam timeframe.

[Timedox]

It took a bit for me to learn the concept of the game as it spends a bit too long on simple levels that don't interact with the paradox mechanic at all, but once the game went into full swing with levels were you can crash into your selves without planning, it was quite fun! Definitely a good concept at its core and has a lot of interesting level designs to go through, creating a lot of novelty. Unfortunately for me, the games controls and design were a bit wonky and it made the game a bit overly difficult and unfair. Wall jumping was a bit sketchy at times, and my character would get stuck inbetween "gaps" in blocks a lot (probably didn't place the key blocks close enough to each other so as to create a seamless collision box). In a weird way, this game might actually be a weird case-study of the dangers of being too overly generous: my character was constantly getting stuck to walls I wasn't intending to touch, leading to a lot of frustrating stops. I tested it and I could literally get attached to a wall in mid-air, not even close to it! If the controls and collisions were just a bit polished up, this would be a definite hit for me, but as it is, it's just a bit too frustrating!

[Super Ball & Chain]

For me, THIS is what I think of when I think of game jam! Certainly, the game is a bit rough and not long on content, being just a simple score attack with graphics/sound clearly picked and scaled up haphazardly from asset packs. But gosh, I had so much damn fun with the core combat! Swinging around the flail had such a great feeling of weight and impact to it, and I loved the strategy and improvisation that occurred during gameplay due to the various enemy types, balancing movement for dodging and attacking, as well as having to deal with distances and momentum and bounces and so on and so forth! This is a game which I feel has a solid, satisfying core that could be expanded upon in all sorts of ways: with how good the game already feels, if this had some more polish to it like, for example, the hit freeze impacts from a game like Lethal League, it could be really incredible! My only complaint might be that I feel like the enemies should be a bit more consistent: skeletons went down in one hit, ghosts in two, and giants in three, but if the ball was moving slow, skeletons sometimes took more than one, and while I understand the logic of this, I wish they were more consistent as the game is challenging enough, haha!