FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Nebula Fighter]

Cool little game! While it is a little game, it still has a decent amount of pizazz to it with cool bomb power-ups, explosions, decent enemy variety, and some neat bosses with interesting patterns to fight through.

It does have some annoyances and confusion to it, though, that kinda hampered my experience. The most egregious was the hitbox of the player being incredibly large, or maybe the hitboxes of the enemy bullets being very large: whichever it is, it made so many shots hit me when I swear they didn't, and made it impossible to try and thread the needle between bullets, which is something I love to do in these games, so I was disappointed I couldn't. Couple that with the enemy bullets appearing without telegraphs and traveling so fast and it made for a frustrating time. Also, I kinda wish the power-ups were a bit more explanatory with symbols or something instead of just colored boxes: I eventually grasped some of the colors, like yellow being speed and green being fire rate, but I had no idea what the black color boxes were, as well as many others.

In the end, though, the game sessions were short and sweet enough that it encouraged me to keep coming back to finish the boss once and for all, so well done!

KJScott responds:

Hit boxes fixed now, minor menu page explanation of drops (think i have a bug there though).

[Randy Learns Science]

Pretty neat game! Really captures the style of those old-school edutainment games with frightening accuracy, down to the glitching hourglass loading! I really enjoyed going through the various games and slowly having the hidden, surreal nature of the game start to creep out, bit-by-bit. My only complaint is that, and maybe I'm just impatient, is whether the juice was worth the squeeze, so to speak. Like I said, I enjoyed playing through and getting subtle hints at the lurking horror, but some aspects of it seemed repetitive to the point of making me want to quit before getting to the conclusion. I felt like the quiz dragged on a bit too long without giving enough variety in creepy responses, and I was stuck in a nigh infinite loop that I just wanted to quit out of, but I couldn't, with the whole sorting game. Would've loved if the game got really meta and recognized how bad I was doing at the sorting game and chastised me or altered the game with a glitch or something, but no, it just kept looping without doing anything, so I felt it was a missed opportunity for some spooks. The periodic game too was really difficult to read and tedious to do, well, until I realized I could just cheese it by clicking haphazardly and I wasn't penalized for that. Speaking of the periodic game, it was weird that it kept playing the 'answer the question' theme when...that only makes sense for the quiz segment. I also wish the periodic game made the pictures you were filling out turn out to be spooky images. Overall, I still consider the game quite memorable and interesting: just would've loved to see more reactivity and variety in the horror aspect of it.

Also a bit confused on the ending: I thought I lost the final challenge by losing all my health, but it still let me continue?

Dungeonation responds:

Got a lot to think about for a sequel now that it’s not for a jam, yeah! Thanks for the feedback! :D

[Seven]

Pretty cool game, but a little bit of a mixed bag for me! On one hand, I thought the movement of the character was very smooth which made platforming fun, and I enjoyed the hidden tech of using the third jump as a booster. Graphics and animations were pleasant as well, especially the character's slow-mo victory o-face (wish he made a sound as well, haha!)

On the other hand, there were a lot of confusing elements to the game. I wasn't sure of the purpose of the rings: at first I thought they were critical otherwise you suffer a time penalty or something, but that didn't seem to be the case? The rings seemed to add so much more to the stages than just the fruits, making you take all sorts of interesting paths, so I felt not making them important was a missed opportunity. If the rings aren't counted, doesn't that just end up confusing the speedrunners? Like, someone's time might look long, but maybe that's because it was an all ring run. But from a glance, the boards don't factor that in, so how could people tell? If the purpose is that you only want rings in zen mode, why then put them in the speedrunning mode as well?

Some other minor feedback was that my final time wasn't what I expected it to be, wasn't sure if it factored in level deaths, so it'd be good to display not only a timer for the level you're on, but what your running total is as well. Also, for a speedrunning game, I was hoping for a bit more tech to it: while the triple jump kick was cool, running was barely noticeable, and I would like to see other parkour moves like wall jumping and such that players could use to their advantage with skill. Still, as said before, game had a good core to it: just a little bit confusing with its execution.

[Midnight Cartridge]

Rather than "headphones recommended," I'd almost suggest "headphones required," because this game does some great things with directional audio to create a really spooky experience! Loved using my ears to listen for both the hum of the item I needed to collect, and the horrifying distortion of the thing hunting me. Also liked the level design and how it peppered around this roundabouts here and there to let you give the hunter the slip. Definitely did a good job at nailing that horror atmosphere through the visuals and especially, the sound. My only complaint was that it did overstay its welcome a bit for me: maybe I'm just impatient or bad, but having to collect 9 whole items in the same drab maze over and over, with some trips being very long as I need to dodge around and such, only to fail with a dead-end and have to restart, kind of ruined it for me, just a bit. Still, overall had a great time, and that's coming from someone who tries to avoid spooky games whenever possible!

[Basically Warzone 3D (CoD Warzone Parody)]

Nice remaster! My only complaints are that, if you don't open your parachute the first time and hit the ground, you don't crater in a satisfying way: it just immediately cuts to the gulag. Also, I would've loved to see some bonus content, more funny audio clips, and so on. But all in all, I've think you've successfully captured the Warzone experience in even greater detail thanks to the transition to 3D, from the satisfying hit markers when you shoot something, to the endless pointless cycle of war and violence. Move over, Last of Us 2!

[Spinny Discs]

Pretty nice game that I can appreciate, despite it kicking my butt constantly, haha! Overall it feels very smooth and polished: menus transition well, fun to move and dash around, satisfying to whack discs! Combine that with a good variety of enemy types, levels and obstacles and yeah, good times ahoy! I don't even mind death that much because it comes with a nice gory explosion and goofy monkey screams, so when I can enjoy a game that kicks my ass, you know you've got a winner! The only confusion I had was at the very start, where I wasn't actually sure on the game's objective: I actually thought, since I had a bat, that my objective was to fight against the discs, break all of them, instead of whacking being a defensive move and the objective just being survival (maybe that could be a separate mode?) Was also curious whether the game might be better with just a whack move, no dash, in order to have the player utilize it more and amplify it as the primary mechanic: it's fine as is, but could be a fun experiment.

jontopielski responds:

Thank you for the nice review! :-) Experimenting with bat-based goals (like whack discs X amount of times) would have been an interesting direction.

[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!