FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Rat Game: Roaming of the Wretched Rat]

Pretty neat game! Has some interesting and impressive old-school presentation and gameplay that, while simple and not very long, does have some decent strategy to it in the character classes. In my warrior run, the strategy just involved whittling the enemy down while timing my blocks. However, in my witch run, it was more about trying to utilize the magic wand as little as possible so I could save it up to burn the ogre boss down at the end (since I had no defenses).

While I had fun on my runs, and I do think there is some strategy, I do still feel like the gameplay is a bit shallow with very few decisions to make, and I'm a little bit worried that it's too overly reliant on RNG. I feel like the only reason I was able to make some runs work is completely down to whether I got some drops I needed from chests, and whether I didn't get overly unlucky from potions. I always prefer games to be more skill-based than luck-based, and this felt a bit more on the luck side, unfortunately. Perhaps there is some systems in that try to always give you the items you need? It's difficult to tell though because it can be tricky to tell what an item even is, since you don't get any descriptions or names when they drop from chests.

There are some elements to the HUD that are a bit confusing to parse, especially because of all the blur and scanlines making things difficult to read. For example, I had no idea there was a turn counter for the enemies because it's so tiny, dark, and crammed in the corner: something that strategically important should really be made more prominent, I think.

LeviRamirez responds:

Thanks for the feedback!

I'm meaning to do a semi-large update for this game that'll fix most, if not all of these problems, but I'm busy with finals weeks and moving rn. Come back and try it again in like a few weeks hopefully!

Glad you liked it for what it is right now!

[Gun Orphan]

Nice one! I love me some fast-paced chaotic action, and this definitely delivered! The game felt very fluid to control and very satisfying to dash and dodge through bullets while grabbing guns and blasting away. There were a few occasions where I started to get a little bored of the repetition, but whenever that happened, the game was well-paced to introduce a new enemy type, like the cool tethered enemies. A highlight for me was definitely the boss fight at the end which had a lot to its patterns.

In terms of feedback, it's not really problems per se, but just really wanting even more to the game. I would've loved to see some more enemy variants to fight. For example, I felt like the mind ray power was really underutilized, which I felt was a shame because it makes fights that much harder and intense when you use it instead of guns. Would've been cool if there was an enemy type that's bulletproof so you have to mind explode it instead of using guns. Maybe there could even be a difficulty where you only have the mind ray and no guns: could be a fun challenge! Would've loved to see more phases to the boss as well: it was definitely fun, but I was also disappointed when it died because I thought it was over too quick. Again, I hope you take this as a compliment: I just want more more more!

[Don't Get the Job]

Pretty cool game! Reminds me of stuff like Shin Megami demon negotiations where you have to get a grasp on the person's likes and dislikes and then answer appropriately. The three interviewers were set up cleverly in terms of difficulty, with the first being easy (just answer badly), the second being medium (reverse it and answer correctly instead), and the third being a more difficult wild card. I liked how you could gather a lot of clues on their personality not just from the questions and dialogue, but the posters and such around them as well. Definitely was a lot of fun to figure it all out!

For minor feedback, I did find it odd that, for the actual gameplay, the buttons were nice in the way they get highlighted and react when you hover over and press them, yet the buttons on the main menu are static and boring.

I must admit, my first playthrough was a bit confusing, despite me liking the game overall. I felt like I grasped exactly what needed to be done in terms of answers, and I think I only had like one question go wrong for Angelo and two for Greg, and yet I still had them head over heels for me. On my second playthrough I did the same general approach but did it more perfectly and that worked out as it should: I dunno, just felt confusing that the game is so overly difficult it pushes you to be completely perfect for a good ending: might be better to have some wiggle room or a middle ground to let the player get a few wrong without outright failing, or know they're on the right track. For example, instead of Angelo loving me despite getting 99% of the questions wrong, maybe have him say 'well, you did pretty bad, but eh, there's something about you I liked in the end, so I say we hire you'. More gradient variations in dialogue, essentially.

YaenGames responds:

Thanks for the in-depth feedback! I agree with you, we accidentally made it too hard: Reason being a slip-up when changing it from the game jam version. Originally we had 12 questions per interviewer and since people said it was too long and repetitive, we decided to reduce it to 10. However, we accidentally reduced it to 8, giving you fewer chances to get your score low enough.
More gradual ending statements would surely have been great but would have required more poses and we had no time to do more when we made the updated version. But I agree, that would have improved the game further for sure!

Thanks again and have a great day!

[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!