FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Neon Rhythm]

Now this is my jam! Goddamn, this game really impressed me with how well it's put together in all respects. The art and story is wonderful with all sorts of goofy characters and a real light-hearted charm to it all: even the game over screen is funny with the grumpy ghost. The gameplay is tight and responsive with notes occurring exactly on the beat from what I could tell (so much that all you have to do is follow the beat, not look at the purple pad). The note charts are super challenging and crazy, and of course, are set to some real bumpin' tunes. Heck, even the options menu is great with a variety of well-needed control schemes (I keep going back and forth between liking default and toggle) and the ability to practice them in a safe zone.

Just to throw some more praise on this, I love all of the little touches that were put in, such as little quips at the beginning of a battle, and the variety of dialogue that plays when you retry a stage. Also, I really appreciate that the game tallies up your notes and scores for grades and personal improvement (though I wish there was a way to press a button to fast-forward or skip the tallying process).

If I were to have any complaints on this game, it'd be that man, it can be a bit difficult to get used to the controls (I keep hitting movement on the beat when I need to only hit space on the beat, augh, so used to DDR), the game escalates a bit too quickly in difficulty (I guess to compensate because there are so few songs), and I wish the top screen had a bit more going on, like maybe showing different damage states for the player and enemy as health gets lower, perhaps. And, of course, my number on complaint is that it's over too fast! Gib me more, more, more!

Not to throw shade or start anything, but hell, move over Friday Night Funkin: you got some real competition here!

EDIT: By the way, I found a funny bug. If you start up a song, and then click out of the game and scroll down (say, to write a review, perhaps), when you go back up to the game a bit later...bullet hell!!!

EDIT 2: Woot, finally found the secret boss! Orchid still remains supreme as the most difficult song though.

[Some Robot Game]

I think this game is a great prototype for a future game, but in its current state it is a little lacking (to be fair, though, I understand if this is just a jam game).

It took me a bit to realize how the game even plays without a tutorial or anything, but once I realized that you fight the bots by unscrewing them at key points which causes their bits to fall off, I was really impressed. I really like the boss rush focus, chaining together all sorts of combinations of giant robos to fight, as well as the feeling of progress as the bits get detached. The way slightly unscrewed bolts could serve as a foothold added an extra strategic element to it as well. Fascinating stuff to see work.

Again, though, while the boss battles are cool, there just isn't enough story or variety to them to keep interesting for long: all of them start blending together since, as much as they superficially look different, they all pretty much have the same set of attacks. Speaking of attacks, while some of them are designed well with great telegraphs, others just fire off with no warning leading to sudden deaths you just can't foresee. While it is part of the strategy, battles can also become a bit frustrating at times when bolts just can't be reached because they are on an arm that's overlapping with the chest, for example, and you just need to wait around for it to align itself in a good way. The duck you control can be a bit overly floaty to control at times, leading to mistakes and lost time. Finally, while I like how stylish the respawn mechanic is, with the way you spawn out of a thrown egg, it takes a long time to actually happen and there were a lot of times where it screwed me over and just got me instantly killed on spawn.

Again, this whole boss battle mechanic is something really special, and I would definitely love to see this more fully fleshed out in a bigger game! I will wait for the release with bated breath, though I understand if it doesn't happen.

[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!