FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Piconjo Sp33ch]

Not really so much a game, but it is a funny little translator application that's good for a few laughs. One thing I noticed is that it was a bit inconsistent with its translations at times. While it was very impressive with converting phrases like 'portal' into 'pr0tal' and 'to' into '2' as you type it, I wasn't quite sure how it should handle 'too' and 'tomorrow' and such: in the case of 'too' it greedily converts it to '2' as well, and 'tomorrow' is translated as 't0m0rr0w' but I'm not sure if that should be different ('2m0rr0w'?) Wonder if it would be safer to have it only translate once you type in the entire phrase instead of trying to translate as you go since there could be further issues, but I understand why you made it the way you did because it does look quite cool to see it go as you type.

[Delivery Madness]

A goofy, challenging platformer which is fun, but can feel quite unfair and janky at times. I liked the concept of the game and the challenging levels you constructed, but even though I got through it eventually, I felt like it got way too hard way too fast, and most of the difficulty came from jank instead of the actual obstacles. A difficult platformer needs to work hard to have tight controls, consistent physics and logical hitboxes so as to make the experience fair and down to the player's own skill, but this game felt very wonky and unfair at times, especially due to some of the wonkiness with going down through platforms (why do I need to hold it for an awkward amount of time instead of just tapping to go down), weird hitboxes (why do I get hurt by acid or spikes when I'm standing on the edge of a platform above it) and inconsistent physics for springs and such. If all of that got ironed out, I'd say this is a wonderful short and sweet challenge, but as it is, I'd say player beware, since you are fighting not only the game itself, but its controls as well.

[AstralBirds]

A little bit bland in terms of presentation and concept, but I found it to still be a nice and chill experience overall. Took a bit for it to get going, but once it does, I thought it did a good job at introducing new mechanics (like the wind fields and green bubble fields) and escalating the complexity as levels went onwards. Some of the levels were a bit trial-and-error dead-endy at times which was a bit frustrating, but never anything too bad, with overall every level being great. The game was a bit glitchy at times however: had some weird collisions and funky physics at times, and a particular recurring annoyance was trying to phase through a field with blue powers, but some of my followers not going through fully and getting trapped despite me timing everything to the best of my abilities.

[aqua]

Very neat game! Cool puzzle concept, well-designed levels that both introduce the mechanics intuitively and escalate smoothly in difficulty, and cute presentation: it's got it all! The only thing missing for me would be more levels, haha, but I still enjoyed my short but sweet trip with this game.

[Lotus Armageddon]

Wow, this really blew me away! This game had so many layers to it that made it such an exciting journey to get through it all: to be honest, I think the shooting gameplay by itself would've already been enough for me to call this great (super fun abilities to use, tons of cool enemies and bosses with varied moves, great levels and enemy formations to contend with, etc), but to have everything else on top of that was a real treat. I loved all of the little touches within the game that made it ooze so much charm and attention to detail, like the fact that the DOS prompt accepts other commands like DIR, and the way the game changes to reflect Gargul's taunts, and so on.

If I were to have any complaints, it would be that the rhythm gameplay felt a little sketchy/patchwork and out-of-sync with the music (though it was just a throwaway gag so it's forgivable) and that for me, personally, it kinda suffered from the SUPERHOT issue where I just wanted everyone to shut the hell up about their weird story that doesn't make sense and stop interrupting me from playing the damn game! Haha, I do like the story though, and hopefully you can just take that as a compliment to how addictive and fun your shooting gameplay was!

[Piconjo: AFK]

Pretty neat game! I'm not much for idlers myself, but I found this quite enjoyable and addictive due to how animated and lively the game was! Felt like a lot of polish was put into this with all sorts of subtle touches, like how the HUD is animated and lights up when you reach the price point for a new item, and the way the sound when you hook something gets progressively pitch-shifted the more you hook in one go, adding some satisfying excitement to an otherwise idle gameplay. I also felt like the game was good at keeping engagement up by not only having clickable boosts (hope people realize that those can be clicked) and pacing all of the upgrades appropriately so you're always unlocking new aspects and new venues at a good clip (and it was always a delight to see what each new venue brings). Very well done!

[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!