FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Tonight we hunt Revenge]

Not too shabby! There were some oddities to get used to, like the overall jankiness of movement and attack animations, the overly generous combo timing which would let me continue where I left off in my combo even if I haven't attacked for way too long a time, as well as the oddness of using combat abilities to do basic actions like jumping and sliding, but once I got used to everything, I had a pretty good time in the end! The levels were a bit of a mixed bag: on one hand, I felt like they were super boring, just fighting the same one enemy over and over with bland platforming, but on the other hand, I felt like they did a good job at introducing you to new moves that you would need for the level boss. Speaking of the bosses, I felt like they were the best part, to the point where I wouldn't mind if the entire game was just the boss fights: cool moves, clever ways to dodge their attacks, and multiple phases, oh my! I've still got some complaints with it, but I feel like this was the best entry into the "Tonight We Hunt" series yet, so nice work!

[Push The Box]

Solid game! Game was simple, but really made good work of the simple mechanics in various ways. I really loved the feeling of progression: it starts out simple, designing levels in clever ways to introduce concepts, starts stacking up the complexity level-by-level, adding traps here and there, and ends up going crazy complex near the end! Only real complaint I had was that the game felt a bit dry, lacking in feedback: there wasn't even a splash effect and sound for dropping a box in the water. Also felt like the victory screen was very plain, and it didn't even give a par score to challenge yourself against for satisfaction. All in all, though, those are just small complaints: solid work overall!

[Ostrich Run]

Decent game, but felt a little undercooked. While the concept of gathering up your ostrich pals seemed pretty fun and goofy in theory, it didn't seem to do much with the concept. I was expecting to have to do some cooperative actions, like having the whole gang attack something simultaneously to bring it down fast, you know, the whole "stronger together" aspect, but that never came. Escorting the ostriches, which I though could lead to some fun scenarios where I have to help them dodge obstacles, was a non-issue as well. The obstacles were barely a threat at all, with practically all of them being able to be solved by just running past them in the straight line: cameras took way too long to lock on, drones only stun you, mines take way too long, you can just leave the ostriches stuck in a wall and go to the exit yourself for full credit, etc etc. Would like to see more with this concept, as right now, without any challenge or interesting mechanics, it's just a game where you move around and don't need to do much else.

[Bullet Heaven 3 [Prototype]]

Hmm, it was alright, but compared to previous games from you, it felt a little underwhelming, though I understand that it might be due to it being a prototype, so perhaps I'm being a bit unfair. But in that same vein, it is a prototype, so I feel like I should try to give as much feedback as possible to make it become a great game.

First off is the controls: they default to mouse-only controls, which I, and it looks like many other people, get very confused by since it creates a very awkward way where you need to move in weird ways just to aim at the enemies. I thought maybe the weird control scheme was on purpose to make it more challenging or something, like a fumblecore game, but luckily I was able to switch it to control scheme number 4, keyboard and mouse, which I highly recommend you make become the default since it seems smooth and logical for a shoot em up like this.

The general gameplay, while functional and smooth, seemed a bit overly basic. Unless I was mistaken, it seemed like all I could do was move around and shoot. No special abilities, no bombs, no grazing, no excitement derived from trying for a higher multiplier, nothing. Don't get me wrong, the enemies did seem to have a good variety to them and the levels progressed well in terms of difficulty, but it was just a bit bland. The levels were just static images grayed out, and the waves were just teleporting in scattershot: nothing like the excitement of scrolling shooters that take you through all sorts of animated backgrounds and waves entering in all sorts of interesting patterns (again, though, perhaps this is just missing because it is a prototype).

Finally, and this isn't a big one and only my personal inclination, but I don't really like it when shooters utilize an upgrade system: I prefer for the experience to be balanced around a standard loadout, it being solely the players own skill and style that gets them the victory, instead of having victory chained behind bullet sponges that you need to grind to level up just to be allowed to win against.

There is certainly a lot of good about this game: the menus were nice and animated, (albeit a bit overly black in terms of palette), the enemies and bullets were easy to see and had tons of variety, and the core gameplay, while basic, seemed solid and smooth. While I had plenty of nitpicks, the number one thing is that I just feel like it needs some sort of special something to add to it, some sort of unique hook. A prototype is usually created to sell a unique gameplay mechanic or loop to see if it's got legs: this didn't seem to have any of that, just the boring basics. The game's like a plain scoop of ice cream at the moment, I just need some sprinkles and a cherry on top now, and I do have faith that you can deliver it based on your repertoire, so I'll be looking forward to the future!

[SELF]

Had a blast with this! It was a bit awkward getting used to the controls at first (tank/rotate controls for the soul instead of just pressing the direction you want the soul to go, and toggling the soul instead of holding the key down) but eventually, I was in full control and loving it: dunno what the story was about, but it just felt so satisfying to move and engage with the core gameplay! My only real complaint was that I felt it was over too quickly, and when I wanted to play more, all I had was endless mode which wasn't enough, and I couldn't even redo story mode. Bit of a letdown compared to other games you've done that have either fleshed out the mechanic more with big challenges or have had bonus levels, but hey, it was great while it lasted nonetheless, so nice work! Oh, and before I forget to mention: the music was absolute dynamite, heck yeah!

EDIT: Bonus levels were awesome! You guys spoil me, haha!

devdwarf responds:

Adding bonus levels tomorrow!

[Fateless]

I didn't have the greatest impression of the game at first, but something about it ended up hooking me and made me want to not only keep playing, but replay for other endings, so nice work! Like I said, part of the game does seem a bit bad: movement and general presentation just seems really low-brow, stealth mechanics are a bit awkward, the script is riddled with weird phrases and confusing grammar, and there are some weird designs like, for such a keyboard focused game, why use the mouse for making choices? Also, it looks like the game doesn't save properly as my save file got corrupted, meaning I wasn't able to continue my game. But nevertheless, for what I did play, I ended up enjoying myself. I just really liked how it was doing this really goofy horror film with all sorts of fun escape events and crazy decisions, and I really liked how the game seemed to roll with whatever happens, even if that's death: no resetting, it just continues the story. In fact, the awkward english in the script actually kind of added to the humor and campiness, really selling the B-grade horror feel. I think there are definitely some neat ideas with some decent execution here: just needs some more polish to make it shine!

[hunter with a top hat]

Hmm, a little too short for my tastes, but it was fairly interesting and it hooked me, so not too shabby (plus, you did say it was 5 minutes, so can I really blame it for being short, haha)! I liked the atmosphere and the little touches in the interactions that added to the storytelling: kicking the door down, turning on the lighter in the tunnel, seeing the mysterious people show up late, and so on. And while it was a bit short, the boss fight was pretty cool with multiple phases to fight through (though phase 2 was a bit confusing because I wasn't sure if I was making any progress with the shield, was it just a waiting phase?) I think there is a pretty decent core here to work from for neat storytelling and combat, and I'm intrigued to see more!

[Polarity Switch]

It's come to the point now that whenever I check out a Rob1221 puzzler, I think "they can't all be good: he can't keep getting away with consistently making solid puzzlers. This, this will finally be the one where it's bad and I can give some feedback to improve." But nope! It is yet another great puzzler that takes a concept that I thought I would hate (magnets) and makes me fall in love with it by not only using the concept in clever ways, but also having greatly designed levels that intuitively teach the game mechanics and ramp up the difficulty bit-by-bit in an addictive way. It's good, damn you, it's good! You can't keep getting away with it!

(but seriously good work as always)

[Souls Rest]

Pretty decent game! I liked wandering around the house and examining everything: had a good amount of flavor text and some spooky events like looking through the windows (the difference cutting the music makes!) My personal favorite: I really liked the search for the flashlight part, where if you're paying attention, you can see the box/board trap coming: I felt really clever there, and it felt a lot better designed than most of these horror games where you can't see traps coming and you just die: trial and error crap. Having said all that positive stuff, there was a bit of jankiness to the game: the slider lock was really unintuitive and unresponsive for me, as I dunno why it had this weird arrow/mouse control scheme. While I liked the flashlight event, there weren't many other events like it: I expected washing the gem to be a trap where you need to avoid the kitchen sink (toaster electrocution), but nope, the character will avoid that automatically, and the basement ghost scene was just tedious and annoying to wait for the ghost to get outta the damn way (especially since it can still attack you by just being kinda near it for some reason). Also, I didn't like how when you get a key and use it on a door, it doesn't say you unlocked it: by just opening with no message, I wasn't even sure if I remember correctly on whether it was locked in the first place. Also, there were some bugs, like at one point when I was in the graveyard, I accidently hit the X key and for some reason it teleported me back to the slider lock chest? Weird stuff. Anyway, while it had some confusing parts and I didn't feel like it had enough standout events, it was still a decent romp, so nice work!

LynxIeles responds:

The slider puzzle was iffy due to my program I use to make it. the new beta of it is going to make me fully rebuild the slider puzzles or replace them in the full game.
Thank you for the very helpful feedback. I plan to add more events to make it easier to figure out where to go as well as add interest.

[Spot & Click]

Quite the nice surprise! Game was a nice twist on an old classic concept, and I felt it took the animated element and made it more than just a token addition: by having some of the differences be animation related (such as a bird subtly being more active in one than the other and such) it really elevated it into its own thing. Also, I liked how there was a nice spread of differences: some easy to spot, some very hard to spot, some static, some animated. The variety really helped hook me into it (well, if the beautiful art and animation hadn't hooked me already, haha!) Only downside I could say is that it was a bit weird that there wasn't any scoring or penalty as without those, you could easily resort to just clicking like mad to find practically everything. Oh, and maybe that the animation was so good that sometimes I'd just be watching it instead of playing. Anyway, I had a lot of fun criss-crossing my eyes between the two pictures to spot everything, though I only got as high as 24, argh!