FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Tooth Toss]

Really cool game, with a really neat concept! Felt like you did a pretty decent job at putting the sword mechanic through its paces with some cool bosses to fight against: just wish there was even more bosses and obstacles to fight against as I was just starting to get so stylish when it was all over! I was expecting the sword throw to be able to be controlled with the mouse for more precision, but the keyboard controls still worked alright.

Having said that, I did encounter a lot of issues. First, I was totally lost on the initial level with no way to proceed as I had no idea I had to kill everything to open up the way: I figured it out eventually and maybe I'm just dumb, but maybe some more direction, or some sort of kill counter on the door would help to guide. Second, there were a lot of times where the sword worked against me, like getting stuck in a wall or ground that's right next to me despite me throwing it away from it, or getting stuck in an unreachable spot to reclaim it, leading me to have to just kill myself to restart (maybe there should be a way to recall the sword to you that takes time to do as a last resort?) Finally, the game did seem a bit glitchy at times, with physics and animations just wonking out in weird ways, enemies getting stuck in the air and such, and some crashes.

Despite those complaints and frustrations above that I experienced, the game was charming and fun enough that I stuck with it and enjoyed it a whole bunch in the end, so kudos!

[Underblood]

A rather simple game, but that doesn't make it any less fun or addicting! There's something real trance-like about this game as I just found myself having a blast getting in the zone, struggling for a high score as the game just gets faster and faster and more complex with its pathing. It was tricky to get used to at first, with recovery from a mistake seeming impossible, but I got gud, as they say, haha. I also liked not only the cool horror/gothic aesthetic this game had going for it, but the little touches this game had as well, such as the blood splashing out on a game over. Well done!

As a side note, for some reason, it doesn't look like medals are working? No skin off my nose, just a bit odd that despite getting entered into the high score table, the medal for that score never got unlocked. Ah well, maybe by the time I get good enough to come back and get a really high score it'll be fixed, haha. EDIT: Actually, maybe the medals are working, but it's just still showing as locked on my screen despite me being listed as unlocking it? Strange, and seems to be site-wide, so not an issue with this game...

[Gravisquare]

Really cool puzzle concept, and great execution! Loved playing through this and not only making my way through the levels, but learning how to utilize the gravity mechanic to its fullest. Speaking of that, though, and maybe you think I'm an idiot for this, but man did I get stuck on level 6 for an embarrassingly long time, haha! I felt like this level should be moved to much later on, as the gravity slingshot technique it teaches you felt way too challenging and unnecessary to learn at the time, considering the much simpler levels that followed it with more standard box stacking mechanics and such. Speaking of that, it's kind of a double-edged thing: I thought the gravity slingshot level was a bit too complex and early, but that's only because the majority of the levels didn't rely on tricks like that and instead were more basic, but perhaps that's just a sign that the levels should've used gravity in more interesting ways instead to spice it up? Felt like it did have a good variety of mechanics though, just maybe the difficulty curve was a bit wonky at times.

In terms of controls, maybe it's just me, but I felt like the alternative control scheme (always left/right and up is always jump) made a lot more sense than the default controls. I feel like the controls should be switched, with the alternate being the default. Maybe you think that's silly, since both are available options, so why does it matter which is default, but I do feel like a dev needs to set forward a good default control scheme for a first impression and intended experience, as many players in my experience will not bother trying to try other controls schemes than the default: they'll just complain and move on to another game.

Anyway, glad to see another cool puzzler from you!

Rob1221 responds:

An older game I made called Gravity Arrows had the second control scheme as the only one and that had a bunch of complaints about the controls, so I'm not sure which control scheme is the overall preferred one for games like this.

[‎ BUGGED‎‎‎]

A pretty cool idea, and decent execution, but a little rough for me at the moment! I quite like the idea of being stealthy and taking control of other people's bodies for their powers as a means of compensating for your weak body, and I did feel like it led to some interesting puzzle-esque combat scenarios in my experience where I could improvise in interesting ways.

However, there were plenty of issues I had. The controls were initially a bit confusing to learn: wasn't sure why I have to repeatedly enter and exit a host to kill them, when I felt it might be more straightforward to just kill them when you exit once (and you can even make the infection process take longer to compensate for it only taking one time). Was quite frustrating in the later levels that there was no way to get back from making a mistake: once you get seen, it didn't seem like there was any way to reset back to zero by, for example, outrunning the enemies and hiding from them, or maybe by infecting someone and fooling everyone, and that made me just quit too easily, leading to boring repetition. Also was a bit disappointing that the only power to get from infection is a gun: no other interesting elements to work with.

Also, it's a small complaint, but the kinda weird curved screen, odd moving camera and blurry chromatic aberration or whatever you got going on kinda hurt my eyes and just made the game more difficult to play and aim: maybe lessen those effects and just deliver the game in a more plain manner (or have a toggle to turn those off in options).

Basically, it's a little bare-bones at the moment without much to work with, but I still thought it was an interesting experience!

Frogrammer responds:

Hey, thanks for your feedback. I do agree that all the issues you mentioned could have been done in a better way and that infect/exit process was quite annoying. However killing enemy on exit once may have ruined some strategies where you would especially disable an enemy and then run to others, but idk there def is a way to make this mechanic work more properly. Also yeah the CRT effect is kinda toxic, could have been an option, so thanks again, i'll keep this stuff in mind

[Castle Crashing the Beard HD]

Heckin' sweet game! This game is all that and a bag of chips, well-polished in all aspects. Great art and presentation, charming concept, satisfying beat-em-up combat, bosses with tons of cool patterns and phases, and so on and so on: it's a smash hit to me!

But of course, there were some aspects I'll give some feedback on nonetheless (though they are minor nitpicks considering how well-constructed the game is already and how much fun I had):

The controls were a bit wonky to learn: no tutorial or anything as it just dumps you in combat, and a bit odd that you don't switch the menu prompts from gamepad key icons to keyboard key icons to reflect whatever is used at the moment, and also I feel like Z/X is used more nowadays for actions than A/S for keyboard (and why use A/S for combat but not A/S for menu navigation, instead making it A/B?).

The bosses did feel a bit frustrating at times in many respects. Many times they did not have good enough telegraphs: sure, the big moves like the laser had telegraphs, but moves like the beard poke and skull fireball just come up whenever they feel like it. Speaking of the laser, moves like that and the cat felt way too punishing: once you get hit, there is no recovery from it I could find, you just get your entire health bar destroyed with no way to get out of the combo. Also, a lot of the bosses had weird periods of invincibility which didn't make sense: felt like it was annoying that not only were they invincible when attacking, they were invincible when preparing to attack too. I realize many of these things might be on purpose to capture the old-school beat-em-up feel, which was very mashy and damage was largely unavoidable as to get kids to spend quarters upon quarters. It's just a little strange and unfair to get used to, since a lot of beat-em-ups nowadays highly favor big enemy telegraphs and such to allow for more skillful no-damage runs (though I think it's still possible to beat this game without getting hit, so it's not that unfair or anything).

Again, thank you very much for this wonderful game!

EDIT: Have been able to beat it now without even dying: bosses are definitely a bit more fair than my initial impression of them, just gotta get used to it. Again, well done, and love the classic Ryu 'uah uah uah' defeat scream echo, haha!

[Third Party]

I think it's a pretty cool concept, but the execution felt a bit too wonky for me at the moment. Obviously, it's to be expected for a game jam game, but after all that's more the reason for me to give feedback so the game can become better in a final version.

Again, I do really like the concept: reminds me of games like Hitman, or Hotline Miami where you throw on disguises and such to work your way through these puzzles, utilizing your limited resources and making fight or flight choices. However, in my case, it felt very confusing to play at times. There were so many awkward moments when it seemed like people would see through my disguise despite me pointing it at them: I guess maybe they got a slight peek at the edge of the cone, but there's no suspicion meter or exclamation to let me know they noticed until it's too late. Bumping into someone with a disguise and losing it makes sense, but it happens so instantly with no animation that it just looks bad and made me confused on why I lost my disguise. Controls were annoying at times, especially with the whole swinging your mouse to throw a corpse which never worked consistently for me and would usually end with me swinging my mouse out of the screen and losing focus. Also, in general the graphics were strange with illogically overlapping elements like signs, characters clipping into weird areas, and so on. Many of the puzzles were strange and I couldn't find the ideal solution to them: most of the time I'd just brute force them in weird ways and get a win I didn't feel was intended. I dunno what the point of the elevator waiting sections were: felt like they weren't necessary and the game could've just went straight from level to level to keep the pace up.

Bit of a tangent, and I'm not sure if I'm articulating this properly, but I feel like the game was just so inconsistently designed that I didn't have confidence in playing it. For example, in a strange way, I felt like the way the graphics and music were so good, it almost created too strong a dissonance when you compared them to the illogical layering, programming wonkiness and lack of sound/feedback: if all elements were more equal maybe it wouldn't have felt as disjointed? I dunno, just a weird thought.

Hoping to see more of this game in an improved state as I feel it does have a lot of potential: the grim nature of using corpses as disguises and tools to solve these stealth puzzles is something worthy of exploring!

[Night of the Pigeon Dead]

I quite liked this! I loved how challenging this game was and how fun it felt to get better and better at getting in tune with the controls to deal with the pigeons. At the beginning I could barely make it past one wave, but eventually I was playing like a mad man, whacking pigeons and their crap outta the air, cancelling moves, mop-dashing efficiently, and so on! And to make it through how hard it was in the beginning, I give all the credit to how charming the game was in terms of presentation (graphics, music and the fun little touches like smacking things to interact with them) and the crazy concept: it kept me hooked! I also love the whole 'annoyance' health bar, and thought the 'last chance' moment where you can save yourself led to some great scrambles. While I did have some minor complaints, such as how I wish the inputs for a mop-dash were a bit more lenient, and I wish the game introduced even more enemy types and such to contend with (though maybe it does and I'm just not good enough to see them yet haha), I had a great time overall!

[Until There Was Nothing]

Quite the weird experience! It's not exactly the most complex or fun game or anything like that, being essentially a walking simulator, but it did nevertheless feel intriguing and compelling to be part of this odd adventure. In particular, it felt quite powerful to be part of the process, to be the button, the jumping force that strips him down further and further: as simple as it was, it did feel a bit harrowing. I thought it was a bit odd that the dialogue triggers were visible to the naked eye: usually those are hidden, wasn't sure if it was a glitch or intentional? Nevertheless, as much as it was a bit of a bummer, thanks for the trip!

dietzribi responds:

Thanks for the review!
Regarding the dialogue triggers- originally I didn't plan to have them visible, but it felt better to where they are!

[Fetch Quest]

Pretty cool game! I certainly love the concept and the great presentation on display which really pulled me into the story and gave me the confidence to want to climb up and up this huge tower! I thought the whole aspect of solving puzzles while escorting your ball were pretty clever, and I found it funny that there were so many traps in the tower built to trick impatient players that bark without putting their ball down in a safe place first.

I did have some issues with the controls at times: wall jumping in particular was a bit wonky to get used to, and even jumping in general would act odd due to the momentum and the way you could hit walls/ceilings to stunt your movement. Also as much as I liked the game, the tower did seem to get a bit repetitive at times: with no new enemies/obstacles/mechanics being introduced and the same architecture and music repeating over and over, it became difficult to gauge if I was making any sense of progress.

I haven't made it to the top of the tower yet, but despite my complaints, I do think the game is cool enough that I want to go back and finish it, so wish me luck!

EDIT: Finally beat it. Was definitely cool, but aw, what a bummer ending. Guess I gotta get back in there and do it faster; Kid Kool style!

[Block Rush]

I had a lot of fun with this! It's certainly a concept I've seen done many times before, being a sliding block game, but I felt like this was just so well designed that I couldn't help but get addiected! The game at its core just felt very satisfying to play in terms of feedback and little special effects/animations, the music was dope, and the puzzle designs felt very clever and inspired, with so many hidden tutorials and new mechanics being introduced at a good pace to keep engagement up!

My only minor complaint would be that it was a little bit wonky at times in terms of whether you get the crown or the chest first. Many times I'd actually end up getting the chest first, then have to go back into the level, where when I get the crown, it'd repeat the level despite me not needing to clear it anymore (since it expects you to get the crown first, then the chest). Maybe it should detect if you have both and either exit the level, or put a message at the bottom that you have both and can exit by pressing Z so you don't feel compelled to complete it again (which I thought I had to do initially). Oh, and as much as I like the music, it could maybe stand to change up the music or graphics when you get farther into the game, perhaps, due to the sheer amount of levels.

Again, for me, this was very well done in all aspects!