FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Deep Snake]

Cool stuff! I feel like this is a perfect game jam result, in that, while it does have some rough aspects like a lack of music and some confusing design choices like the apple which doesn't change size, the overall concept is very memorable and the gameplay execution of it has resulted in an addictive and trippy arcade experience that I can't help but love and wish I had even more of!

Now excuse me while I chase this 31st apple: I swear I'll catch up to it at some point!

dietzribi responds:

the 31st apple is just very close to the loop point, if you see it disappear go back "away" from it and you'll get close to it again.
I'll leave it to you as homework to think why the apple doesn't change size ;)

[Go Figure]

Neat little puzzler you got here! Mechanics are pretty solid and interesting to work out, there's a nice sense of progression, it's got quality-of-life in that it saves your progress and has an undo button, and the whole glitchy aesthetic is not only an interesting visual style, but it made me compelled to keep playing more than I normally would as I wondered if it would lead up to some sort of interesting twist!

Unfortunately, my dumb brain can't even get past the 'classic' puzzles around level 9, so I'll never see whether the glitchy aesthetic was just a visual style or if it actually does lead somewhere. Oh well! Still a cute little puzzle game nevertheless.

[Clocks of the BBS 2024]

Hmm, this is a rough one for me! Nothing against the artists featured as their work is lovely, and I always appreciate these collabs being put together and fostering the community. Heart's in the right place and all that jazz!

But if I have to be honest, this collab presentation is pretty much the most bare-bones minimal-effort thing you could put together, lacking any sort of charm or energy to make it appealing for the general public to look through and get interested in the cool art. It's just your basic slideshow setup with no bells and whistles, some of the art has been distorted from resizing, and there are no quality-of-life features like a gallery view/table of contents or being able to click on the artists to go to their pages directly. In a way, I suppose it's appropriate for the creators of B, so you got me there, but still, I'd like a bit more, no, a lot more!

[SUPER FREAKING WEIRD FREAKING BOWLING]

Hmm, quite the weird game (obviously)! Reminds me a lot of something like Kitten Cannon, and I liked the steady progression of learning how the heck the game works, getting new wild powers like rockets, bats and divebombs, as well as new obstacles like raised floors and ooze. There were plenty of confusing design choices like the camera that's uncomfortably zoomed-in and the awkward rangefinder that's supposed to balance that out, but I tried my best to roll with it.

However, it didn't take too long for me to become quite disillusioned with the game. It felt like it stalled out quickly and just got really repetitive, what with the pins always lined up the same way and the small amount of obstacles to contend with. Frustrating as well too because there were plenty of times I knocked down all the pins but it only counted some of them as down for some reason. I tried to get all three parts of the whats-it, but I just got bored.

More so than that, though, the game just felt like wasted potential, for I've got all these wacky powers but there isn't really anything that's challenging me to use them all to their fullest. I was hoping the pins would go from their standard bowling lineup to being more scattered, something more like a 'break the targets' course you'd see in Smash Bros, and you'd have to look ahead and strategize how best to approach it and use your powers to zip around and somehow hit them all. Alas!

[OUTSIDE]

Good sliding puzzle game you got here! While the game isn't necessarily the most unique or memorable as it retreads familiar territory that is awash with many other sliding puzzlers, it nevertheless is solidly crafted in all aspects and makes for a pleasing experience: charming presentation, chill vibes, an addictive sense of progression due to the well-paced introduction of new mechanics and complexity, it's got it all down-pat!

[Goblins Revolt]

Pretty neat little mini RPG! It's a bit rough in a lot of aspects which made my first impression not the greatest, but it nevertheless had enough charm to its presentation that I couldn't help but stick with it and before I knew it, I had made it through with a full clear on medium! There are some pretty neat strategic concepts at play here, such as how you can't always use a bunch of turns for a full map clear or constant rests since that would allow the enemy to grow too strong, and how the intuition resource is not just used for map intel but battle intel as well. Another big aspect that I always appreciate is when an RPG makes it so that you can't just attack and heal over and over, but need to use buffs and debuffs in strategic ways, as well as a nice variety of enemies with strengths/weaknesses instead of just punching bags, and that was done here quite well!

As said, despite my enjoyment, I did have a bit of a rough time with it. In particular, the UI/UX wasn't the best: I'll grant you that the game does have some nice tooltips for the most part for stuff like attacks, but there were a lot of other places where I wish I could get tooltips or a log or more information, but I couldn't. For example, the text that pops up for enemy stat increases, as well as plenty of other text, can be very difficult to read due to how fast it can go by with no log to refer to, as well as the text not being outlined so it gets hard-to-read when it's overlapping something else. Some information was also just conveyed in a confusing manner: I don't understand the two totals for goblin assignment, some buttons react on hover to let you know you can use them whereas others don't, and so on. Finally, it's also missing some quality-of-life like an options menu, the ability to save/load, and so on. Still, as said before, it's not too shabby!

Drowsierstone responds:

THANK YOU FOR THE REVIEW :D

I agree with all the things you mentioned and I do plan on remaking the entire game from the ground up somewhere in the future as this was made to a be uni project ,where our deadline was getting closer. So many cool things had to be cut and also the code in this game...could be improved XD and I did want to add the quality of life features you mentioned but construct 3...has wierd way of doing things. But I will keep everything you said along with others as great critiques to keep in mind for the future :D Thank you!

[Beetle Battle]

Not bad for a boss rush prototype! Obviously it's a bit simplistic in terms of presentation and mechanics, and is lacking content, having only one boss in total, but the boss pattern is varied, fun and challenging to battle so you've got decent fundamentals. Looking on the bright side: while overall the package presented here is a bit paltry and only a prototype, all things considered, it did leave me hungry for more instead of outright dismissing it, so I'd say it shows promise and I'd love to see a future enhanced version of this!

litroj responds:

Thanks for playing and feedback! I will sure comeback to this game after I finish my other projects!

[DEAD DETENTION #2 (Rescribbled)]

Nice to see another episode of this! For the most part my feelings are the same as the first, in that this is a pretty neat visual novel with some cute presentation, goofy vibes and unique minigames, but I'm still bummed out at the lack of quality-of-life features like a save/load option, I don't like that you can't fail minigames since it makes it feel so scripted and lacking any sort of interesting choices or branching, and I'm still paranoid and unsure whether the choices have any effect on the story as Max seems to behave the same no matter how I try to shape him. Looking forward to seeing how it all resolves, at least!

[The Lumlings Welcome You]

Huh, not too shabby! For as simplistic as the game is, the world you've constructed here not only has some goofy charm to it with the cartoony artstyle, sound effects and characters, but it's actually enough of an interesting playground with all sorts of secrets and routes to find that I surprisingly got into it more than I would've expected! With a little bit more spice to it, I could see this game being a nice little collectathon in the same vein as something like A Short Hike or Pseduoregalia or whatever!

That being said, the game still didn't keep my attention for too long as once the initial hype dies down, it just can't compete with other exploration games that have more interesting traversal mechanics or incentives. It didn't help either that I got super paranoid that I was gonna miss one or two flowers and not have the patience to look over the whole map again and again, so why bother trying, especially with no save/load. There were also strange issues like how the camera kept suddenly snapping to face another direction: I've heard from other devs the issue is common with these types of games and could be unavoidable, but I've never had it happen so frequently except in this game, so I feel like something is awry.

Certainly quite promising and punches above its weight more than I expected, but still could use a certain je ne sais quoi to really make the gameplay compelling. Keep up the good work!

[Lightning Katana [Demo]]

Didn't expect to see a new demo for this so shortly after the last one, but the progress is nice to see!

Glad to see that some of my previous feedback has been rectified, such as the new foot animation for kicking, and the inclusion of a narrative and other cool effects like the way enemies get chopped in half is pretty cool.

Some of my previous feedback is still present, such as how I don't like these weird auras that deny weapon usage on enemies and would prefer a new enemy type be created instead for those purposes, but I assume either they will be addressed later on or you wish to keep them.

In addition to the above, here are some other feedback I can offer:

*The cooldown between slashes is obvious because of the way the arms go down and don't come back up until it's ready, but the same can't be said for parries: there is a cooldown phase where you can't slash or parry, but it's not obvious because your arms are still up. I'd like it if there was more consistency in this matter.

*Soundscape could be a bit better as apart from the initial alert sounds that enemies make, they are totally silent, which makes it so that they can easily seem to come from nowhere as they make no footsteps or attack sounds. Perhaps it's intended as part of the challenge that you need to be swooshing your camera around constantly to keep an eye on them, but I dunno: I'd like it if I could keep track of them through sounds as well.

*Menus are very inconsistent in terms of control: some of them can be used with the mouse to click the buttons, while others force you to use the keyboard. It's just really confusing and frustrating to figure out what each one wants.

*The new HUD is nice, but I wish it was more clear what power you are currently carrying. Yes, once you get good enough you can memorize the colors that represent each power and look at your arms, but it's very confusing when you're starting out as you can be picking up powers at a rapid pace before you even see what you pick up and have no idea what you're carrying. I'd say that the power icon should not only be somewhere on your HUD to reference, but the icon should also briefly flash in the center of the screen when you pick it up to help acknowledge it.

Keep up the good work as I'm looking forward to hacking and slashing in the full release!

FCPXAV responds:

Glad you enjoyed! I liked the idea of an entirely new enemy for enemies that are immune to weapons, but we don't have the resources right now to add that to the game :(

The flower that represents your health also flashes depending on whether or not you have a powerup/what powerup you have but I'm aiming to add more obvious feedback on picking up an ability in the full game!

I just finished working on/adding a big new level to the game with a fair amount of new mechanics that took up all my dev time for the past couple weeks as they required reworking a lot of the code, so things like some of the menus have fallen to the wayside but that's also on the fix list for the final game!

Thanks for the feedback and glad you enjoyed! (P.S. feel free to take a look at the new level/mechanics and let us know what you think of em :) )