FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Mad Pirate Skeleton Bomber]

I wasn't a big fan of the way the bombs switched back and forth, but once I got used to it and saw how the levels were constructed to work with it, I ended up loving what a cool design decision it was! Love how satisfying and fun it is to get through the challenging levels by getting better and better at utilizing the bombs in all sorts of ways: you start off easy with simple bomb jumps, but later on you're chaining together complex combos like jump into wall-bounce into bounce and so on. It's a bit silly in a way, but the bomb switching did add a necessary complexity and rhythm to the game that felt good to get under control and tame with skill.

The game did have a few wonky aspects. I kinda hated how the player has a bit of a momentum to their movement and ends up drifting: this made me end up going into a lot of spike walls which had bigger hitboxes than I expected. (I understand it's most likely necessary because of wall bounces and such though). Speaking of hitboxes, the hitbox from a bomb explosion also lasted a bit longer than I felt necessary, creating weird scenarios where you run into a dying explosion and well, die. I wish the game had a cursor lock so I wouldn't click off the edge of the screen and end up losing control. A minor nitpick, but I didn't like how when you're looking at the notes it doesn't pause the game. But really, I feel all my complaints are quite minor compared to the fun I had.

Anyway, well done on this! I had a blast, bombing along through the levels, all to an addictive jaunty pirate tune that's still stuck in my head!

EDIT: Woohoo, Galleon Bertha is complete! What a wild ride and amazing ending: didn't think the game would escalate that much!

saantonandre responds:

Thanks once again for your well thought reviews Futurecop! glad you're on newgrounds satisfying devs hunger for feedback.
I've already watched your gameplay on twitch, I just couldn't wait for the March video :)
I've gotta say, while I failed at showing what were supposed to be the "main solutions" on most levels, my players never cease to amaze me by planning the most complex uncontemplated routes, hahah.

I'm glad you enjoyed the main mechanics! switching was in fact a necessary ingredient for the design of this game, not just to add complexity but in order to keep freedom of movement and being able to shoot unlimited bombs at your pace, with no cooldowns or ammo system, yet having to give a purpose to your inputs. Not having to switch would have so many not-obvious implications.
Yet, I know how it's bold to expect players to adapt to it. I'm happy whenever I see players like you putting effort to slowly find some entertainment.

I agree on the wonky aspects, which I may have subconsciously ignored as I got used to them. I can fix some right away. (EDIT: just implemented cursor lock and adjusted some hitboxes)

I also agree on the tunes, Tim really did an amazing job!

[Synth Drift]

This game has a pretty cool concept, but it felt a little drab in execution for me. I did like the feeling of driving the car: pulling off drifts and cool maneuvers were really fun to do, especially when the levels started putting interesting sets of obstacles to weave through.

But that's the core of my issue: the sense of challenge felt really lacking and bored me. I felt like I had to go through practically half of the game until I got to a level that showcased any semblance of challenge, and even then, the levels were just repeats of old levels with a death wall tacked on. The spike wall that closes in takes way too long to appear, making most of the levels easy to complete without pushing yourself to drive in cool, risky, drifty ways. I did have some fun at the very end with some of the challenging courses, but it took so long to get to that point, and then it was over.

I wouldn't mind the lack of challenging levels if, at the very least, the game ranked you against some par times that you try to beat by retrying the stage and optimizing your movements. But ideally, I would like a combination of both: challenging levels and a ranking system. Again, it seems like a game with a decent core, but it doesn't have systems in place to promote a cool way to play.

[FireBlob]

Very nice little puzzle platformer! Felt like this was solid on all fronts: decent music and sounds, cute art, and very nice level design that both introduced mechanics in a great psuedo-tutorial way and also expounded on them bit-by-bit to create a nice sense of escalating challenge. Don't have much complaints except for a few nitpicks here and there: my only real complaint is that I wish there was even more levels as I couldn't help but get addicted and blast through all of them, haha!

[Path Of Dragon]

I feel like this started out well and seemed to be shaping up to be a decent RPG, but I just ended up getting lost and confused. The plot and gameplay was simple enough, wandering around completing quests and building up the world. I liked how the game allowed you to click to fast-forward the text. It then introduced this weird slot machine search action which I didn't know what the purpose for was, and didn't see any tutorial for. Ignoring that, I continued onto the cave and met the dragon, which was good, and then suddenly the script just went bananas with Erwin/Vine Monster (I'm not even sure if they are 100% the same), piling on so much stuff with no room to breathe. I just didn't know what to think as the game started to descend into madness, both in terms of the plot and in terms of the amount of errors in the script.

Part of the issues revolve around the script. At the beginning, it seemed to be fine, but later on, it read more and more like a weird google translation gone wrong: tons of weird phrasing and words out of order, so much that I couldn't tell what they meant. As if that wasn't enough, the game mixed up the name tags for who was talking a lot, and the portraits and name tags were also confusing for the Vine Monster/Erwin who switched back and forth in both respects constantly for no reason. And finally, while it's a minor nitpick, there were tons of weird capitalization and punctuation issues, as well as misspelled words that started to litter the script and various menus as well.

I ended up getting stuck at the fight with the Vine Monster (Erwin?): I thought it was just a scripted battle where you have to lose, based on all the cutscenes, but then it started over when I died and I wasn't sure what to do since there aren't many options. I did think it was cool how the battle had a bit of a story to it with neat cutscene interruptions, but then I lost and it all came crashing down. Again, just another aspect that felt really strangely executed.

[Kill Lola Bunny]

Christ almighty, this really brought me back to those old days! Every single aspect of this game is well constructed to deliver nostalgia from all parts of Newgrounds, most notably to the old favorite 'how many celebrities can we torture' Assassin series. I'd complain that I think the game overstays its welcome by requiring you to kill Lola more times than you have variations for, so you just end up repeating a bunch to get to the ending, but I think that does capture the old overindulgent spirit accurately, so I'll let it go, haha.

By the way, why are we attacking Lola Bunny? Based on the controversy I barely know of, wouldn't the one we want to punch out and torture be the people who authorized the changes to Lola, not Lola herself? Unless that's the joke? I'm old now, I can't keep up with this stuff.

Yomuchan responds:

That is the joke. You're pretty fast on the uptake, fellow old one!

Anyway, read the opening dialog carefully.

[Pico's Sç̕h͊͜ọ̊ő̥l̨̉]

A wonderful little trip with a wonderful message! My only complaint, and maybe this is being a bit unfair, is that I felt a little let-down in how criminally short it was. It started off well with a nice little auto-running challenge with Madness guy, but after that, most of the levels were just blink-and-you'll-miss-it references, and then the final level just crams a bunch of references into one. It was like the equivalent of writing text on a banner, but you start too big and end up smushing the rest of the letters to fit at the end, haha. I would've absolutely loved to see every game referenced get its own platformer level to go through with obstacles based on it. For example, the Kitty Cannon stage could be like a Donkey Kong Country barrel stage, Super Meat Boy stage could have wall jumps, etc. Or at the very least, maybe the challenges can be kept simple, but showcase more backgrounds and elements from the games.

Still, at the end of the day, it was a very cool and enjoyable trip down memory lane with a powerful message at the end, so hearts in the right place, and I understand if I'm missing the point in wanting it to be more gamey. And I did get to rock out to some Vivaldi, so thanks for that.

[💘Cupid Simulator: Humans Story (spin-off)]

Seems to be a fun and goofy story, but at the moment, it just felt a bit too lacking for me to fully enjoy. While a bit cliche, I thought the initial premise was funny and charming enough to keep me going with it. And I do like that it has a lot of variation to the gameplay as well: I was surprised to see a battle system pop-up in this game, let alone a battle system that does seem to utilize weaknesses and interesting passive effects for strategizing! But as I kept going, the game just ended up feeling quite bland and lifeless to me, unfortunately, and it lost me.

One thing that I felt was especially lacking was the character sprites. I'd go through so much dialogue that has the characters go through so many emotions, but I wouldn't know it from their poses, which remain in the same happy stock idle pose. It's weird because I felt like at least Aelia had a few poses at the start, but then I encountered no new poses for anyone for the rest of the time I played. At a bare minimum, I think each character should have at least a few primary sprites to switch between for primary emotions like joy, anger and sadness, in addition to the idle pose. I'd like to see this for combat as well: ideally, I'd like an attack sprite for each type of action while they do it, but at a minimum, there should be at least a single attack pose, like a punch, for them to switch to during the action. Another thing, if possible, is little quips from the characters: I like when a game does, in lieu of voice acting, little voice lines to help denote their emotions for certain times. I feel all of these would really help to elevate the text and endear players to the characters more.

I'd like to see if the story gets good, but I'm not able to play it all in one sitting and I wasn't able to figure out how to access the save menu, if it even exists. Usually you'd press right click or click a button in the corner to access a menu for saving and other options, but I'm not seeing one here. Auto-save didn't work either when I quit out, so unfortunately I don't think I can see the rest of this. Hopefully it does get good, and I hope my feedback can help this become even better!

[I Demand Coffee]

Fun little mini-metroid platformer! At its core, I liked the game's traversal techniques in being able to attach to the wall and jump all over the place. Story was a little goofy, but hey, I'll collect all the coffee the little dude wants since it's so fun to move around these challenging levels. I also like how the game keeps enhancing the traversal techniques constantly to keep things exciting: first you're just moving around, then there are buttons, then timed buttons, keys, hovering, hover platforms, hover pinball thingies, hover rails, and so on, it never gets boring!

Getting used to the controls was a bit tricky at first: for example, I didn't expect pressing up when you're attached on a wall to detach you from the wall, as I thought it would just make you climb up and stay attached. This issue had a knock-on effect of screwing over wall jumps if you move up, and then quickly press up+left expecting to wall jump, but you won't, since you're technically airborne. Was a bit weird that you couldn't press down to detach from a wall, or to climb down it either. The game also had some problems with unclear boundaries: most of the time you can clearly see a wall denoting a boundary, but there were a ton of places where it looks like it's an open boundary where you can move to transition to the next screen, but nope, there's a wall there just out of visible range blocking you! Bit confusing, that.

Only real problem I have with the game is that I quite liked it, but it doesn't seem to have a save feature: maybe it's not that long in total, but I felt it was still long enough to justify a continue option. Well, I'll try and come back to finish it at some point!

[Street Hugger]

This is clearly a Double Dragon parody, not a Street Fighter parody! And what about social distancing!?

Haha, but jokes aside, while I was ready to just write this game off as a one-note gag game, it actually did have some complexities to it that made it fun to play strategically as a beat em up (or hug em up, more accurately)! You can't just go up and hug anybody: you need to make sure to watch for their telegraphs to dodge their attacks first and ensure nobody sneaks up behind you while giving a hug. And move over Doom glory kills, now we have hugs that give back health, which encourages us to not run away, but keep loving to keep going! And of course, the references to various old-school games (Street Fighter, Double Dragon, TMNT, etc) were numerous and all done very well.

I do think the game is a little wonky in execution in some respects. I didn't like that you could get hit by an enemy projectile being charged up, as I felt you should only be hit if they've actually fired it off. The way enemies attack with awkward timing could also lead to annoying sunlocks at times. The voiced audio was difficult to parse, and it'd be helpful if some subtitles or a speech bubble would pop up to read. And there was also some weird times where I'd have someone in a hug with nobody else around, and I'd get hit for some reason: not sure if it was a glitch or maybe the enemy needed to be hugged twice. Anyway, once I got used to the jank, I had a cute, fun time with this game!

[AshBelt]

Oh god, I really want to love this game, I really, really do! The look and feel of this game is amazing: the animation is so smooth and fluid, the combat is so stylish and impactful with great feedback, the enemies are varied in interesting and challenging ways, and the presentation is so adrenaline pumping. I also like the mechanics that force you to switch between ranged and melee combat, giving it an even more stylish and strategic feel. I found myself getting addicting playing this over and over!

But god, the controls were so frustrating to deal with. I don't think I had a single actual fair death in all of my gameplay: it always came down to the game screwing me over. The number one cause of death was lost inputs: so many times I'd be set up for a sick combo, like to turn around, jump, slash, double jump, slash, and then arrow, only for the jump input to be lost and I get killed. It didn't matter whether I entered it fast or tried to be slow and deliberate with my inputs: no matter what, an input would inevitably be lost and screw me over. The second cause of death was hitboxes acting odd: I'd have a bunch of times where I'd slash an enemy and I'd see my sword slash overlap with them, only to have the enemy ignore it and kill me.

I will still say that, despite my frustrations, I felt like I had a lot of fun and got addicted to playing it. But that's also why I'm giving such harsh feedback: it deserves better, this game could be incredible and I want it to be incredible! A game as stylish and fast as this needs controls solid enough to allow for consistency of player expression.