FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Stupid House]

Quite the interesting adventure! Definitely was very weird and surreal and that served as an effective hook to keep me going. I felt like the puzzles were balanced quite well: difficult enough to make me feel clever for figuring them out, but with enough clues and not too difficult to cause annoyance. Well, that's not quite true: I was annoyed by the fact that there was no way to speed up the intro for watching the TV to memorize the pattern, making repeats annoying. Also, I felt like the piano puzzle was too difficult because it didn't use all distinct sounds, but rather it used, for some sounds, different pitches for the same horn sound: it can be really difficult for a normal person to discern those and memorize the exact pitch they need. Still, overall I had a good time figuring my way out of this stupid house! Also, as a side note, I'm glad the game was just eerie horror, and not jumpscare stuff: I woulda shut the game off immediately if that was the case, haha!

[Match-Off]

Really interesting concept! Imagine my surprise when I was just trying to get any match I could find, when I suddenly realized that a match actually does an action according to what's on the card. Makes it so that there is an interesting strategy to making matches, and I thought that the fact there are some logistics to think about, like collecting bullets before being able to fire, was quite unique. Having said that, though, I didn't have the greatest time: felt like the match just dragged on and on due to the high health bars and sheer amount of cards, many of which are boring actions (bullets and shields). My time was split between me and the CPU just loading bullets or using/wasting shields which didn't make any progress in killing each other, and the rest of the time was the CPU constantly unloading on me since it was always finding the shooting cards. I dunno if I just got unlucky, wasn't playing smart or the CPU cheats, but yeah, this might be one of those games where it's a cool idea in theory, but not in practice (but maybe I'm just impatient). Still, kudos!

[ROBO-GO!]

Nice, short and sweet puzzle platformer! Had a good time with my only major complaint being that I felt it was over too quick! I really liked how it kept escalating the challenge and adding new mechanics: was expecting it to go on a bit longer to combine 'em all in more interesting ways. Overall it was nice, but I do have a few minor complaints. I felt like the jumping was a bit wonky at times, with it being weirdly delayed or not coming out. Furthermore, some of the jumps were way too tight in terms of timing: I felt like you wanted us to always be going for those jumps on the absolute edges of platforms and it got a little exhausting/frustrating at times due to the speed of the game and the previously mentioned wonkiness. Oh, and also the brick collapsing noise was really jarring and hurtful to my ears. Still, solidly designed with a good difficulty curve and evolution to the mechanics!

[Super Raft Boat Classic]

Had a ton of fun with this one! It started off a little slow, with the game being a little wonky with how it puts the cooldown meters all the way in the corner so you can't read em in the action and how you can't see highlight targetting for your building, but that's just minor stuff: once the game got going it delivered some great arcade fun! Loved how fast the game escalated in terms of difficulty and I loved the variety of creative enemies you have to blast through and obstacles you need to look out for, all while managing your boat the best you can: made for some really dynamic and hectic multitasking scenarios which were so fun to get through by the skin of my teeth! I may have made it all the way to relaxation, but I'm definitely looking forward to trying the game with some more characters and looping: a nice short and sweet game!

I will say, though, my GOD was that default screenshake waaaaaay too much, haha! I usually love screenshake with the more the better, but this was a rare occasion where it was absolutely nauseating for me. Not only should you consider lowering the default, but maybe only utilize screenshake for hitting enemies, or maybe enemies dying, instead of for every shot you make (since that means you are constantly shaking, augh!)

[Drop Cannon]

Fantastic stuff on display here! Overall it's a very charming game with excellent assets in all areas. But even if you're the big cheese, I do have a few complaints to make (though nothing big enough to kill it for me, haha).

I found it a bit odd that, while the main menu buttons highlight when you hover over them, the world map destination buttons were very lifeless with no highlight (they do have an animation when you click on them, sure, but I'm a strong proponent in button feedback of all sorts, especially highlights). Also, I found that the transitions between phases were very jarring, especially the transition between finishing the assembly and going to the battlefield: would love if there was a fade transition like the great gears transition on the main menu, maybe with a banner that says "Job Complete! To the Battlefield!" or something.

Finally, while I don't mind shooting the drones during the battle scene, I didn't quite like shooting the drones during the assembly scene: specifically, I didn't like how it interrupted the flow to go to a turret section. Instead, I'd much prefer if you would have to shoot stray drones during the assembly: obviously the number of drones would be less than in the turret section lest it be too difficult, but I think it would be a lot more fun to deal with as it gives you even more to juggle. Also, I wish there was a crosshair for the shooting segments, I kept easily losing my mouse during those.

At the end of the day, however, despite my nitpicks, I felt like the game did have a great level of professionalism to it, and I loved how it kept escalating with new mechanics and difficulty to contend with for each level, so nice work all!

[Tricky Keys]

Very nice game! Definitely knocks it out of the park in terms of graphics and overall aesthetic/concept: feels very high quality all-around. Definitely was a delight to play and I enjoyed how the game kept evolving in terms of difficulty and mechanics: had some great, clever puzzles to get through. In terms of gripes, I only have a few minor ones. I felt like the wall jumps were awkward and I had to get used to how they work specifically in this. For one, when you're running into a wall on the ground and you hit jump, it'll immediately walljump, which I felt was really weird as in other games, it will typically do a neutral jump (aka if you were next to the wall and just hit jump with no movement). Additionally, to jump off a wall, you can't hit the opposite direction and then jump as you would expect, because you get detached from the wall too quickly and it eats your jump input, so you end up having to keep the direction held pointed at the wall when you hit jump, which makes your momentum once you're in the air very awkward to control since you're influencing it to go backward in the direction you want. On another side, I like how the virus is animated, but I wish they had some anticipation frames for their attacks, like a telegraph for their punch: the visuals would make it easier to time certain elements like when it forces you to jump, instead of having to rely solely on innate rhythm. Anyway, solid work here!

[Jaded Slasher]

Hmm, it's decent, I suppose, but not my kinda jam. Controls were very awkward to figure out at the start with the way you just teleport around to objects instead of moving around. Feedback was awkward as well: if you don't get damaged at all when you attack it'll play the slash animation, which is nice, but when you get hurt when you attack, even if you hurt them back, it plays the pain animation (I guess it kinda makes sense to have the pain animation take precedence but it makes me think I didn't even hurt the enemy when I did, would love to see damage numbers pop up so it's more clear). Anyway, I can go on with a lot of nitpicky stuff that made the game feel bland, but in the end, it felt like the game unfortunately devolved into endless grinding and boring kill quests where there is no real strategy, just kill until you can get enough defense (which is odd because you need 4 defense to negate 1 damage, dunno why you don't just make it equal numbers so it's more logical for a player) to not take damage and then keep going ad nauseum. Probably an audience for this as there are people who are fans of clickers/idlers/grindy games, but I'm not, so sorry. However, I would like to see more fully fleshed out projects in the future though: all gotta start somewhere!

[Super Mumtaz Bros.]

Cute little game! I like the way it introduced mechanics subtly, like teaching you jumps and movements on the title screen and introducing the story along with the mechanics in one. While the movement was a little weird to get used to due to the fact that you can't jump, it was fun in a puzzle-like way to figure out how best to traverse the levels considering this limitation, so it's like two puzzles in one, what value! I enjoyed my time, but there was definitely some little confusions here and there but nothing major. For example, I thought the geiger counter circle pulse was actually the game just trying to let me know where my character was all the time: I was getting so annoyed until I realized it was trying to let me know a chicken was near, haha! Also, I was expecting that I'd need to pick up the chickens and deposit them at home as well: a bit strange to just have them continue to run around: makes it feel like I'm not done. Furthermore, I was so confused when, after collecting all of the chickens, which was given so much importance that I thought it was the only goal, to suddenly realize that I needed to fix the leaks as well (and the leaks weren't the places where water is leaking like I thought, but rather the missing patches in pipes). All in all, though, I figured it all out and I had a great time!

Extar responds:

Thanks! I didn't want to just make another platformer that wouldn't stand out so I went with the idea of a platformer with no jumping*. Pico-8 only has limited map space so it encourages you to make the levels more dense and puzzle-like. Again, to try and make the game stand out, I thought adding a little story would give it a bit more personality.
I started with the idea of having the player also collect the chickens in too, but I thought it would be more keeping in with the 'but they're actually plumbers' gimmick and say no, they're plumbers, not pest control. Maybe that can be a sequel XD

[NG BBS Awards 2020]

I dunno much about the BBS, but it's always neat to see a nice little community-based thing like this pop-up! Glad to see it survived the transition from Flash. Overall, it's a decent presentation overall with a nice and very interesting pseudo-BBS feel to it. My only complaints would be that it's a bit difficult to read at times (the button text is gold on gold and very small, a dangerous combination for old man eyes like mine haha) and that it could maybe stand to have a little pizazz (perhaps some neat animations for unveiling the winners one-by-one, you know, a little drumroll for suspense and all that? though for people that just want the names immediately, a button to skip the animation would be nice as well). Also maybe make the Menu button say Back instead: think that gels a bit more with common design.

[Kitty in the City]

Decent start, but definitely needs a bit of extra work to make it special! The overall art and music are quite good and the game started off well for me with a nice quirky intro (though it was a little confusing why the intro kept looping until you skip it, instead of just starting once the intro is over). The gameplay is a little rough and overly simplistic though: not bad, but just a little basic at the moment with nothing cool to do beyond jump around slowly. Was a little confusing that you had to jump on the buildings: if the intro didn't tell me I had to I wouldn't, because while the platforms at the start look very defined as something you can jump on, the buildings look like they are background elements and it looks like you shouldn't be able to jump on them (maybe give them a different artistic style so it looks more obvious?). Would love if you made the jumping more satisfying by giving the player not only a cool jumping animation, but also give it a sound... and not a sound just for jumping, but also a sound for squashing mice. As for the physics and such: the rounded edges for the platformers felt very weird in how they could make you slip off a platform if you're at its edges. Speaking of edges, the game would eat my jump input a lot when I'd try to jump from the edge: might help to input coyote time in the game code. Anyway, despite complaints I think there is potential here: would love to see you come back with something bigger by using this as practice!