FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[9111]

Quite the interesting concept! I like the goofy nature of this world you've set up, along with the goofy gameplay mechanic of controlling multiple cars simultaneously, all with their own strategic purposes. Trying to play the game cross-eyed keeping track of all the cars and the chaos going on was quite amusing and challenging!

I'm a little conflicted on the execution though. Part of me thinks that I just need to accept the fact that failure is inevitable and that's it's just seeing how long you can prolong that inevitability: the deck is intentionally stacked against you and there's no real way to 'get good' at it. But another part of me feels like maybe there should be some way to win, like maybe the game could have a series of levels that escalate in difficulty, in terms of how many vehicles you're controlling, how long you need to survive, how large the part of the city you're covering for that day is, etc. Like you're the new mayor and you're trying to help your city survive long enough by manually controlling the cars until the programmers patch the AI bug for the vehicles. That might be a bit more satisfying to play and progress through, and allow people to get better at experiencing this very interesting world you've constructed. At it is, though, it's still a very interesting prototype that could be iterated and expanded upon.

[Frogeiner]

Hmm, definitely a bit rough to play. I don't mind a challenge, and this game doesn't wait a second in giving you a challenge by starting off with cars going so fast that you have to really time your movement and be quick about it. Unfortunately, the bigger part of the challenge is fighting against the controls itself: so many times I'd be trying to do quick maneuvers that the game requires me to do to live, but the game did not have enough input buffering or forgiveness, making it discard my input and causing me to stand there like a fool and die. For me, the harder a game is, the more refined the controls need to be so that it feels fair, and this missed the mark for me. It also didn't help that the game had a lot of mechanics like the bottles being thrown from cars, which the only practical way to get through is by dying from it and remembering to dodge next time; felt very cheap and unfair. Again, seems like a decent idea and concept at its core, but needs a lot more smoothness to its controls.

[On Being Undermined.]

Really goofy and fun adventure! The world you've crafted is very charming with all sorts of wacky characters and fun twists and turns on the usual puzzles: this game keeps the novelty up by constantly flipping the player's expectations (maybe too much that it becomes normal, haha)! I love the attention to detail, such as how, instead of a catch-all 'that didn't work' response for using the wrong item on something, there are unique responses for all the times of objects: I love that amount of flavor text! Definitely a really neat game: the introduction was well done to pique my interest and teach the controls, and while the gameplay mechanics are simple at their core, I felt like the feeling of jumping around was satisfying due to the squash and stretch, among other things. I was only been able to get one orb for the gate so far, and unfortunately it didn't save my progress, but the game is so fun I'm definitely going back in to finish it.

[Neon Amazing Dasher]

Decent, but a little bare-bones at the moment. The content on display at the moment reminded me of a developer room or something like that, where it's just a simple room with some obstacles to test collisions and basic mechanics. Now, the game being so short and light on content, essentially being just a speed-run isn't as much of an issue for me, though. What is an issue is that the gameplay itself wasn't that fun or innovative in anyway: the controls were awkward to get used to with lots of weird issues with walljumping in particular, the camera was too zoomed compared to the speed you could move and the distance of the platforms that it was difficult to navigate, making me rely on a lot of 'leap of faiths', and the gameplay didn't really have anything neat to it beyond bog-standard platforming. With something like rollerblading, I was expecting maybe the character to make some fun momentum and sliding to play around with, some sort of gameplay with an emphasis on flow or style, but it and anything else wasn't there. Basically, I wouldn't have a problem if it was just a prototype, but this prototype was only a prototype of the bare essentials instead of some new and fun mechanics. Obviously all of this is quite understandable since it's from a game jam, but still, just felt like I should describe my impression without as bias as much as possible.

[Monitor Maze]

Maybe I'm being unfair, but I felt like this game's execution was a bit strange. With the game's theme centered around hacking and monitors, and with enemies with visibility mechanics, I really felt like it was going to be a stealth game where you try and avoid enemy contact. You know, you try and rearrange monitors in a way that you can either avoid or lure enemies away in clever ways, like trapping them into a monitor that you shove to a corner as you collect the keys. But with the melee slash, there's no need for any clever strategy: you can easily go through every level with the same strategy of mindlessly collecting keys, easily slashing any of the slow-moving non-threatening enemies. The levels might get bigger in terms of monitors on-screen, but they never advance in any meaningful way. I actually tried playing the game a few times pretending I didn't have the slash and had a good time! Well anyway, perhaps I'm being unfair judging the game on what I think it should've been. As much as I had gripes on how overly simplistic the game was, I still did think it had solid presentation and a good aesthetic, and still had a decently fun time making my way through.

(oh yeah and there is a slight bug where if you stand inside an enemy, an enemy can only hurt you once since it seems they are coded to only hurt on initial collision, but not if you remain within collision. i've also had some slight bugs where enemies ignore walls, mostly after a quick monitor switch)

kypello responds:

Thank you! Yeah I think you're right, it definitely is too straightforward with being able to kill enemies so easily.

I guess I was so focused on making the game that was in my head (which wasn't really a stealth game), that I didn't notice when the mechanics I had created would be more interesting for a stealth game. That and, I was worried it would be too challenging without the ability to attack, but that doesn't seem to be the case as you and a few others have said it works better that way.

Thank you for playing and for the feedback!

[Paw Pals]

Cute game that surprised me with how addictive it could get! Tutorial at the start was a bit annoying: I'd prefer that it only move forward when I click, as a lot of the time when I was still reading it jumped forward without me clicking and I had to restart so I could read it all. The way the game presents information could be a bit better as well: could really stand to have some sort of event feed to give reports, especially balloon reports which I could never read because I was always working on other stuff and they're tucked away from sight and disappear so fast. I also didn't really know what fish did and why/how it was depleting and how that had an effect? Would love to see feedback/reports from the game on what is happening (if it's supposed to be food, maybe if I'm out it should play a stomach growling and put status symbols over cats to show they are hungry or stressed or whatever). Basically there was a lot of confusion over many aspects of the game for me. Despite all that, though, I found myself wanting to play more and more as I tried to build up a good set of teams that worked well with each other based on their personality traits and such. I liked their little pop-ups that told you if they were enjoying each others company: that's exactly the type of fun feedback I wanted for all the other stuff I was confused about in the game, haha! Overall, it was definitely a little half-baked due to confusion and repetition, but I still had a decent time, so kudos!

[Gemini Blast]

Interesting idea, but a little lacking in terms of execution. It definitely has a rather interesting control scheme for a shooter, but as fun as it was to learn how to control and shoot effectively, once I was as good as I felt I could get, there wasn't much left of the game besides it: the game seemed to just loop forever with the same few enemies. It did seem to be upping the difficulty as I went by increasing the enemy density, but in such a slow, incremental manner it just felt arduous. The guns were kind of fun to switch between, but at the end of the day it felt that, instead of switching guns to fit various scenarios, it was more that I was forced to switch to laser to deal with the blue balls that can't be dealt with any other way, and then I can go back to using whatever gun besides laser. Again, not necessarily bad, but it just felt a little half-baked (which is obviously understandable for a game jam game, so no worries).

[Coming Back]

Decent horror game! Definitely had some solid spooks to it: I liked the way you cleverly used the special effects to blur crucial information from readability, and the chase scene and such were neat set pieces. I also appreciated the multiple endings as a nice hidden touch. Overall, though, I did feel like the game was a bit goofy which did kill the horror aspect: it was just so short and simplistic in both graphics and story it was difficult for me to take seriously and get immersed. The goofy way my character walks around, the speech bubbles with very plain text that doesn't even change to show other people talking, the cliche-ridden story, etc. I do like it when games are short and sweet, but I felt like I was speedrunning this game with how fast it went through all the plot elements so bluntly, haha! Could definitely be helped with some more polish to the presentation and maybe some more interesting story elements, but still, it's a good attempt!

Primajin responds:

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate you taking time to write your honest opinion!

To be entirely honest I just don't agree with some of it, it is super short no doubt but that was deliberate and the same goes for the very simple but stylised artwork, I really like how it looks and feels personally and love how the atmosphere turned out, the story is somewhat cliche I guess but it's also not as simple as "angry ghost chasing ex who murdered her" it was more meant to be about people feeling trapped in their own life, her for hanging on to a broken relationship because she's made a life with him and him for not accepting the guilt of what he did and blaming her instead, this is why he gets trapped forever in the alternate ending if he doesn't accept what he did.

Thanks though, I do appreciate good feedback!

[As one against our end]

Bit of a mixed bag for me! I like the whole concept of building up your party, strategizing an ideal formation, and dealing with the issues that the geometry brings in having to improvise new formations as you move through it all, among other things. Quite the goofy adventure with a lot of interesting characters to deal with!

But on the other hand, it felt like it was just really weird to play. I kept expecting to attack immediately when I cross my targets over something instead of having to wait an extra turn, and I keep losing track of everything as my targets flip-flop as I turn around and there's so much overlap. Considering the theme as well, I found it odd that you could totally leave behind party members as they go off-screen, and you only need one party member to reach the end gate instead of requiring to gather them all up. In general, the game felt strangely executed to me and unrealized, like it was just really haphazardly designed with the bare minimum, leaving it up to RNG to do all the heavy-lifting, instead of designing interesting levels with cool enemy formations and clever geometry obstacles to wiggle your party through. Part of me wants it to be more like a puzzle game, almost like a Sokoban game or something where your party members can be both helpers and obstacles to your progress, but maybe that's me wanting it to be something it's not.

I guess I was a little confused, and maybe I'm being unfair. It's like I was at odds with myself: part of me felt like it could work if I was just patient and took the time to keep rearranging my party into optimal formations by running into walls and such, but another part of me just felt like the game was too chaotic, difficult to parse, and annoying that I just gave up and went with a more reckless approach where I kept pushing forward and operating off instinct (which worked for awhile but eventually led to my death). Maybe it's just not my cup of tea at the end of the day. Still, quite the interesting one that I'll most likely go back to and give it another go, despite my gripes and confusion.

adriendittrick responds:

thanks for the well thought out review!
The RNG does do a lot of the heavy lifting and I really didn't design this as a puzzle game, more as a roguelike with a core movement premise.

I initially wanted this to be a game about interesting formations but really it became a game about levelling up and growing with various characters hhaving to micro manage them all!

[MOLE]

Had a blast playing this! Felt like a very smooth and challenging one-button version of Super Meat Boy! Definitely a very interesting approach to the game: I always enjoy seeing these minimal-input experiments and I felt this was a great example of them at their best. Level design was quite varied with lots of fun obstacles, and I loved the little touches to the game, such as the way the mole belly-flops on death: with a game as tough as this, it's good that even death is fun, haha!

My only complaint was that, as smooth as the game was in general, there were a few annoying parts where the time-freeze from collecting keys threw me off my jump timing, and sometimes the game would eat my jump inputs for some fast-paced jumps, requiring me to input way earlier than I expected. All in all, though, very solid job!

It's not necessary, but if you make some bonus levels for this, I'm down to play 'em because I really want more of this!