FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pixel Detective]

Cool game! Starts on a bit of a downer with the initial tutorial case, but once you get into your first actual case, it's fun to go around gathering everything up and piecing it together! I especially liked how the game was good at throwing in a lot of red herrings that could lead you astray: cases would bounce between different witnesses constantly as you uncover more and more and it was very exciting!

It did have some frustrating aspects, though. I wish the game would give you an error if you try to 'check' without actually selecting a suspect and enough evidence, instead of just failing you. Clues were a bit confusing in how they were logged: some clues count as evidence which is good to look at since it is listed out front and center with a picture and description, but some clues just get written down in the log which is both tucked away in a small button. Furthermore, the clue log is annoying since sometimes a clue might involve a picture that you can't see unless you go back and find it in the world. I felt like cases could actually use different sets of evidence to logically solve it, but the game would only accept a certain set. Also, in a different vein, I thought it was silly that the game didn't use a pixel font for text: really clashed with the rest of the pixel-based graphics.

Even though that is a lot of annoyances written up there, I did have a good time and felt like the cases were very interesting. Nice job on their design and I'd love to see more of them!

[Diaphanous 0]

I want to like this game: the weird potentially capitalist commentary weaved into platformer mechanics is a unique concept, and the presentation and aesthetic of the game has an interesting charm to it. On the other hand, however, the game's difficulty curve is absolutely ridiculous. Maybe the difficulty is intentional as part of some sort of subtle message? Maybe it's supposed to frustrate you to make you behave more callously to the men you trod on as springboards? I can understand if it's all intentional and just not for me, but I dunno, if this was football, I think this game would get called for unnecessary roughness.

I've played a lot of difficult games in my time and had a blast. Doom Eternal, Super Meat Boy, Celeste, etc, all of them great experiences. The difference with this game is that it just throws you in the deep end immediately and expects you to make crazy pixel-perfect maneuvers that the controls are not built well enough to achieve reliably. Without all of the subtle touches that other games provide to enhance controls like hitbox forgiveness, input buffering, coyote time, and so on, this game just became so frustrating. So many lost jump inputs! I'm sure someone out there can beat it, and I'm sure I could too in time, but it would not be fun at all in my opinion: it wouldn't involve getting skilled at the game, it would involve getting used to the jank. Couple that with having to play on a tiny screen and yeah, I don't need both eye and hand strain from one game.

I was tempted to go all the way with this game in spite of it all, just because of the weird concept, the actually clever (though sadistic) level and obstacle design, and desire to see how it ends, but unfortunately, it lost my save file after I finally beat V and quit to take a break, and I didn't want to go through all that again. I suppose it's fine anyway: feels like the game was just building up to guilt trip me in the end, so I'll just claim a moral victory by opting out.

HapPie responds:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, if you don't ever find the will to come back to it you still got the gist of what I was trying to accomplish and that's what matters to me, so thanks! And also you're not wrong about the ending.

[Sticky Slimes]

Quite the impressive puzzle game! I really like the mechanic of sticking slimes together to make shapes, and dealing with both the positives and negatives consequences of that. I felt the level design was very impressive here: not only did it introduce mechanics and teach the player some tips in a subtle clever way, it also had genuinely challenging and fun levels that escalated in a good difficulty curve! It was a little lacking in some respects: would love some little touches added here and there, like a little sticky sound effect to play when you attach yourself to another slime. Also, while it did tell the user the input for undo, it never told the user the input for restart, and I think that's even more important to let the player know exists. Overall, I felt this was a fantastic puzzler with a great concept: nice work here!

[Ruffle:Another Mission]

It's a little bit clunky in some respects, but I gotta admit, I actually had a lot of fun with this! I liked the animation of the character and general movement mechanics: gave me some Prince of Persia vibes with how he traverses jumps and such. While it was a bit awkward to only be able to see lasers through the snipe scope, I felt it did lead to some cool gameplay where you have to be cautious and scout ahead, memorizing patterns, and then execute your plan quickly in between patrol gaps.

My only real frustrations with the game was that there were some stupid death traps and unfair enemy placement in a few locations. Also, the animations for some of the ways the enemy lasers travelled the level were really awkward: most of them did a smooth trail you could memorize, but some of them would just suddenly appear and disappear as they move up and down for no reason. Created some annoying trial and error situations.

In the end, despite the little frustrations here and there, it hooked me and I made it all the way through. To me, this was like a cool fusion of Silent Scope and Mark of the Ninja: well done! I hope we do see another chapter of this with some further improvements and features!

[Pack a Block]

This one was a weird one for me! In the end, I think I liked it, but boy, did it take quite a while to understand the rules!

I think the biggest cause for my confusion was that I was led a bit astray at the start: the story alluded to the boat sinking under the weight or something to that effect, so I was under the impression the game was gonna to be more physics-based, something akin to stacking blocks for points, but balancing the load of blocks on the ship so it doesn't sink or tip over.

Once I grasped that I was wrong about that, then came the confusion over the usage of the hammer: it was just a bit too confusing on how easily it could undo everything. The tutorial made it seem like the game was about trying to make efficient use of space in regards to successful combos creating blank blocks, which would be permanent obstacles you'd have to try and work around. But then comes the hammer with it's ability to reduce everything to zero and even be rewarded with time by doing so. I get that smashing blank blocks does work against you since it reduces score, but it felt like the game might've worked better if maybe the hammer could only destroy colored blocks: having the blank blocks be permanent might create more scenarios where you need to improvise by building around them or moving the boat around to create more space, and so on. Maybe there shouldn't even be a way to get time back: might be more exciting that way and create a more strict timeline to work for score comparisons.

I dunno, I'm probably being unfair and judging a game on what I think it could be instead of what it was. But, I thought it would be interesting to go over what my mind process was in trying to learn the game. Again, once I grasped it, it was fun, but I couldn't help thinking that maybe it could've worked better another way.

[I'm Outta Here (Game Jam Edition)]

Funny little adventure! Concept is very amusing and the animation is very impressive. I especially loved all of the crazy objects you can click on, and the funny character reaction flavor text that comes with it. Speaking of that, though, it was a little bit confusing at times on what gets to be a clickable object. Felt like you can have one hallway filled with stuff to click on, then go to another hallway filled with objects, yet with nothing to click. Feels bad: I love to click on things and read the flavor text, so why are you trying to stiff me, haha!

The interface was a bit annoying at times: for example, when I tried to use an item on another item, it wasn't even sure if I actually made a valid attempt, since I can't be sure whether I had appropriately targetted the item I wanted to use it on since the hover text doesn't appear, and there is no speech from the character or error sound to let me know the attempt failed.

The game is challenging, and since I haven't beaten it yet, I'm not 100% sure if it's a valid challenge or if it's just crazy cat mustache logic, but I'ma try to beat this game one of these days, so just you wait!

[The lost night]

Pretty neat game! I was a little lost in what the heck was going on and what my character was even doing: as far as I could tell, maybe I needed to go to the pumpkin house, but wasn't sure. However, while I think it would help to establish the objective a bit more, the game was charming enough with all sorts of funny interactions with the people around that I nevertheless was hooked and wanted to explore around nonetheless. Game felt like it had a lot of polish and neat touches to it's presentation that made it feel very smooth, such as the combat transitions. Speaking of, combat itself being an Undertale-esque bullet hell game was very cool and fun to play (though maybe a bit too easy at first and without enough variation in the way different enemies attack). Nice work on this fun little adventure!

Also, what the heck, it clearly says "My House" at the beginning, so why are they all shoving me out like I don't live there! Unless, did someone else literally write "My House"? This mystery might never be solved...

[Distraught Ground]

Very short game, but I felt it had enough decent elements to it that I'd like to see more added to it! Highlights for me were the animations (both sprites and background), enemy variations, neat overall aesthetic and the feedback for hits: the explosive effect and seeing the enemies get knocked back was quite satisfying. Also, I felt like the boss was pretty good for a first boss: decent pattern that is balanced quite well to be a little tricky, but not overly complex to start out, with some cool little touches like being able to reflect its shots with your whip (note that until I realized I could reflect shots, though, I was having a frustrating time fighting it in melee range, so perhaps something should teach the player they can do this in the first place). Gameplay as it stands right now is a little repetitive, but I think a lot could be added to this, and the gorgeous background with all sorts of little touches in it does help to elevate it. It takes a lot to make me play a game that dares to utilize the incredibly heinous jumping physics from Castlevania (no air control), so kudos on that, haha!

[Chez Bernie]

This one's an odd duck for me! I like these kind of 'smithing' type games where you manage shops and craft items, and this one was pretty neat. Lots of interesting complexities to the job like getting coal and ingots ready, timing your bellows only when the coals are hot, hammering the iron dead center for perfects, and so on, were quite fun to get good at managing. While it only has one item to craft at the moment and simple deliveries, it's fun to build up your renown while running around and listening to the goblin moan and groan, haha.

The crux of my mixed impression was in regards to the tutorial/instructions. On one hand, while the game does help out somewhat with environmental storytelling, like symbols next to the stations and little feedback touches like the coal spitting out fire if you time the bellows, it was really confusing to figure out how everything worked. For example, I still don't know if there is a way to keep the fire going, or if you just need to have it run out and resupply with coal. I didn't even notice that there was a very tiny 'instructions' billboard in the corner that was trying to help, and even when I did notice it, it wasn't much of a help at all as it was way too small and vague. But on the other hand...I kind of ended up liking figuring everything out on my own through experimentation and making good guesses so...it might actually be the game's strength, in a way? I dunno: that's the tricky part of game design! But it's definitely something I thought you might want to consider.

I do think, at the end of the day, while this is currently lacking, this is a pretty neat proof of concept that I had fun with, and I would love to see this expanded on: stuff like more recipes, more orders, quests, and so on. We need more of this goblin smithy!

TealRocks responds:

Big Big Thanks for this detailed feedbacks :D!

We're really conscious about the repetitiveness of the gameplay over time,. Complexify orders (add new weapons), add several kinds metals, add customers and fidelity system, complexify the inventory, add a reputation system for weapon, and others. This is a sample of ways we want to upgrade the game. We heard and took seriously and constructively your comment :).

Also we've a very cool idea that is create a "Weapon Test Zone". The purpose of this zone will be : You will be able to test weapon on "victime" (like humans ^^) in a mini game to increase its reputation. Really love this idea ^^.

So, when we started, we didn't think to continue the game but we received a lot of good feedbacks and we've many ideas to improve the game. So be sure we will continue to develop it :).

[TOYROGUE]

Once I figured out how this game works, especially in regards to the interesting design choice of having cursed items still be useful since they can be thrown at enemies to reduce their stats, it became somewhat fun. But for me initially, it was way too confusing since it lacked any way to learn of these concepts in-game. Couple that with the drab environments and repetitive gameplay both for picking up so much junk and fighting being overly simple stats bonking against stats with odd randomization and I can't imagine many people getting to the point of having fun with it.

I think the biggest oddity is the random maps. I had an interesting experience on my first playthrough. The first map was just a simple room with an exit and one warrior. I thought the warrior was my friend, a fellow campmate, but suddenly I ended up fighting him, and realizing I didn't have a weapon, I ran. Exiting the level and moving on, the next level was much larger with tons of monsters which blocked access to the exit and the only weapon. I tried to be clever and 'ran' through the monsters to get the weapon, and upon finally getting equipped, began my quest. I died shortly after though, but despite that, I thought that was actually a bit of a cool 'story' experience, very rough and survivalist with tons of improvisation, teaching me certain mechanics. However, on my next playthrough, the first map was huge with tons of easily accessible loot, upon which I was immediately geared up and clobbering enemies. It left me confused on what the intended experience was, and I think it would be better if you either constructed some maps manually to help serve as tutorial sections or guide the player in a general way, or at least reigned in the randomization so maps aren't quite so...well...random. As random as roguelikes can be, they are still generally built to tell some sort of story, but this didn't seem to have that.

Like I say, I think there are some nice ideas in here, and I did like a lot of the presentation in regards to the menus, transitions, and so on, but the gameplay execution is a little lacking for me at the moment: too confusing and random to get the intended experience.

Extar responds:

Thanks for the detailed response! Your first playthrough sounds rad, having to run the gauntlet of enemies without a weapon sounds pretty cool. :)

I think a problem of making small games, especially that people are just going to play casually for fifteen minutes or so in a browser is that the further you stray from conventions (and it feels like RPGs are made up almost entirely of conventions at this point) the more you're going to either have to explain things to the player or drip-feed things into them, or you're just going to throw them in at the deep end and leave it up to them. My general experience of rogue-likes like Nethack, Zangband and such was that they tended to go more for the 'in at the deep end' approach. I was hesitant to even put the game onto Newgrounds because of the fact 'steep learning curve' and 'casual fifteen minute games' are a difficult match. :)

Like you suggested, it would be best to put a tutorial into the game, and I did think about making some constructed maps, however there really wasn't much in the way of token space or time once I'd got the 'core' parts of the game actually working. Pico-8 limits projects to a certain size, so all the code has to come in under a token limit for it to run. The last time I made a proper tutorial for a game it was easily 10-15% of the total code, and as it stands now the game is basically using 100% of the token space, so I'd be looking at making the code a heck of a lot more efficient, or just cutting bits out.

I'm glad you appreciated the menus and transitions, because it felt like that's all I ever worked on during the project. The inventory alone took absolutely ages! :)

Thanks again for the detailed review!