FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Rotate]

Wow, I had a lot of fun with this! My favorite part of this game was how effective it was at having each level keep escalating the challenge by introducing either new mechanics or providing fresh combinations or complications with existing mechanics. It was just so addicting as it never allowed the pace to slow down at any point: every time you think you've seen it all, the next level steps it up! I also just really liked the concept in general and with such a good execution, I enjoyed my time with it.

In terms of feedback, the game was a bit wonky at times with physics. Nothing drastic, but occasionally there would be stuff like two green blocks side by side in a pathway clearly big enough for the both of them, but only one of them makes it through while the other gets caught on something for no reason. Also I felt like, while the options menu had great buttons with highlights and such, the main menu screen was lacking in this as the buttons were very basic and unpolished. Finally, I did feel like the game could've introduced the controls a bit better: perhaps put some left/right arrows on the side of the screen that glow when you mouse over them, indicating where to click to rotate the board.

[I want to be popular!]

Pretty cute game, but felt a bit lacking for me. While the art and animations are very cute and adorable, it seemed way too light on content. I was expecting the game to escalate in some way as clicker games tend to do: maybe you keep having to fight bigger and bigger enemies which are so hard you have to multitask on multiple social media platformers to get the followers to fight back. But no, the game didn't seem to move from just sitting on the train, pointlessly mashing post and hitting the cat button occasionally, forever and ever. So unfortunately, it lost appeal to me very quickly as it just became boring. I was really confused: it's so lacking that I almost feel like I missed something, but at least from what I can tell, that really was all it had. As I said, the presentation of the game seemed very charming, so well done on that, but I still would prefer a greater focus on more engaging gameplay.

The best part for me, and I'm not even sure if it was intentional or not, was when I stopped clicking like mad to post and engage in flame wars. Instead I just clicked a few times here and there, and just chilled when getting hated on. I was surprised to see that my character was actually happy all the time now, as they should be! No longer were they getting all angry and exasperated and pressured, instead they were just content and totally zen, smiling all the time. I consider it the secret ending: the only way to win is not to play!

[NextDoor]

I'm not familiar with the story myself (only Junji story I know off-hand is Amigara Fault) but I had a nice time experiencing it the first time through this! Felt like a cool adventure that had a lot of good effective spooks (especially the time where it creeped up during the talk at the soda machine, jeez louise), very neat art and animations, and immersive, atmospheric sound.

The sound was a little hit and miss at times. On one hand, it did do a good job at having really spooky music and sound effects that immersed me into the experience and got me all tense, and if you wear headphones, you can get spooked as the sounds change direction based on your position. On the other hand, the way the sound transitioned from ear to ear based on position was too sudden instead of gradual, and I felt like there were times where, when approaching the loud room for example, there should've been a gradual increase in volume as you get closer and closer. I feel like it kind of ruined the last bit where you hear it stomping away, wasn't sure what was happening since the sound was a bit confusing in the way it was trying to communicate. (I'd admit my headphones aren't that great so it could be an issue on my end, perhaps).

Ending was a bit bleh, in my opinion, though perhaps that's no fault of the game but rather the source material: I wonder if it would be better if I was caught? Wonder if that's what happened in the actual story. Maybe I'll go back and get caught intentionally just to see what happens...

Sijbren responds:

Hey thank you for the kind words and the feedback. A lot of problems with the sound came from a lack of control over Game Maker's 3D sound in combination with html5. We are working on our own sound system to improve the last part a bit.

[GuraQuest(Old)]

Wow, this really impressed me! I'm gonna sound like a jerk for saying this, but based off of the rather plain first impression with no title screen, no fanfare, just basic instructions given with boring flat text, I thought this was just gonna be a really generic and bad platformer using a vtuber to disguise it, to make it seem better than it is.

But boy, was I proven wrong: I loved so much of this! Once I started moving, I loved even the basic movement, especially the jumps with their satisfying shockwaves and bounce sounds. The animations in general were very cute and bouncy, with the standout being how Gura looks like she is being dragged by the trident when dashing. Speaking of, I liked the dash move and it's multi-purpose utility in that it not only carries you a long distance, but it also sticks into walls and lets you spring upwards (and I like the way you can tell if you can still dash by whether the trident is floating nearby). I specially love how challenging the levels got and how fast they did so: it really forces you to be creative and get good quickly at using the various moves effectively (and challenges you to collect the secrets as well)! I also love all of the hidden tech like momentum slingshotting by dashing into springs and gripholds, and how the levels are intentionally designed to force you into learning them in subtle ways. Only complaint I could really think is that it might be good if there was a save system, but nonetheless, well done, well done!

[Autumn Hike]

Cute little adventure! Reminds me a lot of games like Minit where you go on a little scavengers hunt for items, except with an interesting twist as you go deeper and deeper into worlds within worlds! I found this very short and sweet: it's not the most complex game in terms of challenge as it is rather tiny in scope and the items very simple to puzzle out, but I liked my time spent since it was so charming that I found it very endearing, so kudos on a job well done!

I won the first time by giving the cracked nut to the rat, but was curious if the gem would've worked to appease him as well without killing him (as it did seem like you could give some times to different people than intended). So I tried again, and nope, he just takes it. So you have chosen death, rat!

[Pico's School: Love Conquers All]

Oh no! Where's all the cool boss fights? The violence? The edginess? I'm drowning under a flood of sugary wholesomeness, nooooooo! I'm melting, melting! Oh, what a world, what a world, what a world!

[Afraid of the Dark]

Pretty neat game! Felt like a kind of Cuphead-esque game where you go through some side-scrolling levels to get to the bosses which have some cool patterns to deal with. Had some good fun, but I do have some feedback:

I felt like the bosses were the highlight here with them being very interesting and fleshed out in terms of patterns. However, not all of them worked well for me. The first boss was quite nice with both the rush attack and the laser attack having good telegraphs that I could strategize around. However, the next boss being the worm felt like a let down: I got hit a lot of times I felt I shouldn't have as it was difficult to determine when it was safe to jump on him, and I felt there wasn't an effective telegraph to determine what the worm would do when emerging out of the ground, leading to annoyingly unavoidable damage from having to take a gamble.

On the other side, the levels were a bit repetitive. While they do certainly put a token effort into changing as you proceed further, through tweaking the background art and introducing new enemies and obstacles, it still kinda felt like I was going through the same motions in each of them. I appreciated the sentiment, but maybe there had to be more to those sections to make em worthwhile.

This might be a weird complaint since perhaps it's not the intention, but it felt like while the game was trying to push this horror aspect, it was only superficially horror-like: while the game is dark in terms of lighting, the characters moves so zippy, the art is so pixel-y and cartoony, and the sound effects are so chippy, it kinda kills any sort of potential horror mood, haha.

Anyway, despite my complaints I still felt like the game was alright: just a little clunky here and there, but fun for the most part.

[Deeper Devils]

Pretty cool game! Loved the concept and the whole first-person Downwell-esque strategic nature of shooting to either kill or propel yourself up, as well as reloading being handled by bouncing or touching a floor: made for some very interesting split-second reactions and scrambles! Although it was short, the levels had a large variety of interesting traps and obstacles to maneuver around, which were quite impressive. A little bit clunky in some respects: no music, meh sounds and meh feedback in some cases, deceptive hitboxes, and so on, but understandable due to the game jam nature. Visual style was, while quite striking, maybe a bit too striking at times, haha. Would love to see this expanded on: as it is now, it felt like it was over so soon and I'd love to play through even more challenging levels!