FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[SNEK: The Game]

Decent game! An interesting take on an old concept: it was fun to race to get pickups in time as you get faster and faster and get longer and longer! I think my only real gripe with the game, as superficial as it sounds, is with its presentation and polish, or rather the lack thereof. It feels like the game has a solid core to it, but doesn't have any pizazz or juice to make it exciting. I feel like it could really stand to have some more special effects not only to amp up certain elements but also help the player learn important mechanics. For example, you could make it so that when you get a potion, you don't just shrink instantly, but a piece of your tail sheds off or explodes or fades away: looks good and shows the player how potions work without even needing text instructions. You could make a cauldron spawn more exciting by announcing it with an explosion and then having a clock tick down sound so the player knows they should get to it quickly, where then you would reward the player with a cool slow-mo blur effect and power-up sound when they do collect it. Again, I know a lot of this might sound superficial, and graphics aren't everything, but I think this game could really benefit from some juice: watch 'Juice It or Lose It' for a more visual example of what I'm talking about! Nonetheless, I felt this game was pretty decent!

Aprime responds:

Thanks! I'll bear those in mind for a future game. Was just trying to keep this one simple given the pixelated graphics.

[NEWGROUNDS AIR FORCE]

Pretty crazy game! Might be a little too hard for its own good (I think I usually can't even last a minute, let alone 30 seconds) but I do like a challenge. It took a bit, but I really liked how fast and crazy it would get, and occasionally it did feel good to unfocus my eyes and get a little bit in the zone and blast away (though to be honest, it probably wasn't me getting the zone and just the letting me breath enough through RNG spawns, haha). Speaking of RNG, its a bit annoying that you can't tell what the power-ups do until you get them (would be nice if the health pickups would look like health icons) and it's annoying how little invincibility the player gets and how varied enemy damage can be. The meme-y humor was a bit out-of-place: just felt like you were flinging internet jokes everywhere and not even bothering to make them fit with the game at all. Anyway, complaints aside, would love to see the game escalate into cool boss fights and such, like a whole campaign/story mode, but at it is, its still a pretty fun arcade shooter.

Also, not to sound like a dick, but the whole guilt-trip donation might be a little...the wrong way to go about it. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that it's for a good cause and such, but it might not go down well for a lot of people and leave a negative impression (I know, I know, I do think indie devs need more support and I understand its an annoying situation where its like damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-dont ask for donations)

MoeAnguish responds:

Thanks for the review, what you said was fair and all, however, the part about the jokes was just me making the game making process more enjoyable for myself. after all, i'm just an indie dev trying to have some fun just like everyone playing my games. and I'm not guilt tripping anyone. if you consider yourself generous enough and have a spare buck to donate to me, that's very much appreciated, if you don't, then that's fine too. i didn't intend for this to seem like a "do it or you're a scum bag" kinda thing.

[Princess Squirrel]

Hmm, not too shabby, but for me, it might be a bit too chill for its own good, haha! Game definitely has a lot going for it: seems to have pretty good controls, very nice graphics and animations, decent presentation and variety of obstacles and so on. But, the lack of music, bog-standard run-n-jump mechanics, and levels that pretty much feel like they are repeating themselves really made it start to lose my interest. It didn't help either that there didn't seem to be any story or motive or impetus to the game: I don't even know why the whole 'pay bill' mechanic exists, nor what the heck it does to enhance the game in any way. Maybe it's just me being an adrenaline junky, but while I think the game has a decent core to it, I feel like it could introduce some more story direction to it and increase the pacing to ramp up the challenge and level variety faster. Also, it could really use a save/load system as well. Still, nice job so far with it.

[STOP and MOVE]

Pretty fun! Not too shabby of an idea and it feels very addictive and fun to go through all of the levels. It can get a little annoying when you have to retry: many of the levels have such a slow start that I wished I could have a fast-forward button to complement the stop button so I could get back to where I left off quicker. It's not too much of a problem as the levels are kept small and bite-size, but still, could help keep the pacing up. Also, some of the levels did feel a little out-of-order in terms of escalation, or seem to just be clones of already existing levels with minor things added on, so there could be some improvement there. Anyway, its a simple game, but the sense of speed and timing were really fun to play through, and I really liked the touch to turrets where it shows a bar to indicate when they are going to attack (I think that really helps reduce player frustration as they can know better how to time their stops and starts).

[Dungeon and Puzzles Final Demo]

Didn't have the best start with the intro, which was riddled with text problems (grammar, spelling, etc), but once I got into the game, I found it to be very fun! Something about the game and how smooth it transitions between each level, watching your map slowly complete itself with crowns: it's like eating a bag of popcorn, I just couldn't stop once I got going! It helped that the levels seemed to be escalating bit-by-bit with new mechanics, getting a little bit harder each time, so nice work on that. I was pleasantly surprised: despite the game looking a bit generic and similar to other puzzlers made, it nevertheless just had a sense of smoothness and professionalism to its presentation, especially with the HUD and UI, that escalated it for me.

[Save the Princess Gayme!]

I actually really enjoyed myself with this one! It's a real bummer that the game doesn't seem to have a save/load system so I could continue: hopefully one can be included for future games of this nature. I loved the sheer amount of interactivity this game offered: so many objects to interact with, tons of fun little games and puzzles to work through, and so much amusing flavor text and dialogue. Game just felt so charming and addicting: loved going around the world and seeing what I could do next. I haven't gotten too far in the game to see everything, but so far the dialogue and jokes seem to be the right amount of funny without overdoing it, so nice job on the balance (well ok, tree-son might be taking it too far haha). There are a couple issues with the controls but nothing major: while most objects display a title when you walk up to them to let you know you can interact with them, doors didn't (I know its probably obvious you can interact with doors, but still, consistency would be nice) and also it'd be nice if the sentence 'use object with...' would fill with whatever you're trying to use it on when you hover it over something. Still, all in all very nice job!

[Discwheel]

Simple but fun! There's something so nice about the game having analog controls: scrolling to control has a really smooth and slick feel to it, and the overall presentation, especially the graphics and animations, are so polished that they make the game feel even smoother on top of that. Game doesn't have much to it in terms of variety and long-term progression, but it escalates nicely and just feels so good with so many little touches to it that I couldn't help but try again and again. Only potential balancing niggle I could see is that, due to the widescreen resolution, discs coming at you from directly above or below don't allow equal reaction time which can feel frustrating. Nonetheless, nice work!

Thank god a gold medal is for getting above a minute: I could barely get above 30 seconds and was questioning whether I was good at games anymore, haha! I swear some of those discs were cheating by curving! I'm not crazy!

[Medieval Chronicles 11]

Not too shabby! Obviously I feel a little out of the loop and unable to get all of the inside jokes since I haven't played all of the games, nor am I not part of the discord, but nonetheless I felt like the game was pretty funny overall and it had a nice hook at the start with Santa stumbling upon that dead body. Sometimes I feel like the jokes might be punched up a bit too much at times where it hurts the pacing: for example, I felt like Santa didn't need to mention the DUI as it was already wacky enough with the whole chasing bit, nor did the chicken history need to be expounded upon because I feel it's funnier without explanation why chickens are roaming about (but that's just me, of course). Very interesting to see the story cut loose and go in all sorts of directions!

[Squid! Escape! Fight!]

Pretty cool and charming little game! Certainly had a good impression on the presentation side with some great graphics, animation and game feel. I enjoyed my time with it eventually, but it did take some time to warm up to it. A lot of the design felt very confusing to me. The game starts off very slow: I could understand the first level being a safe level, but there's several levels without any form of challenge: you can just swim your way to the top no problem. Eventually you get puffer fish and eels and such (oh my) which increased the fun, but it felt like forever till then. Making it level-based in the first place seemed a bit odd to me as well, paced it weirdly: felt like this could be the kind of game where instead you just swim up and up either to an incredibly high goal, or forever to see how far you can go for a score, where the higher you go the harder it gets, with more and more enemies and less and less fish to eat. Text at the top would be a bit frustrating at times: I never felt like I needed the instructions or fish info, but if I did, it was a bit annoying that it could be interrupted by me finishing too fast, or it telling me my ink move was ready for the hundredth time, haha. Also, the invincibility frames felt a bit too short since you could get stuck in an eel and get comboed to death if you were unlucky (maybe prevent same enemy hurting you till you leave and reenter its hurtbox?) Anyway, despite my gripes, it still was a pretty solid, cute lil' game and I look forward to more from ya!

Omael responds:

Thanks a lot for the feedback. Next one will be better.