FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Jiminy]

Cool escape room game! I really liked the atmosphere that the game had with the ambient sounds and the gorgeous (in a spooky way) art design. Puzzles felt nice as well for the most part: I felt clever figuring out ones like the door handle turning, but other ones like the mast cutting seemed weird since it didn't seem logically possible. I liked how the items moved around, like how you actually look through the magnifying glass, instead of just clicking a magnifying glass icon on an object like most point n clicks do (though there seems to be a bug when I try to use the stick since it doesn't appear).

[Slime Rider]

Great, professionally designed and charming little puzzler! Game just oozes style everything, even at the very start with its animated intro that shows the basic functionality of the game and the cool transitions between levels. Puzzles were great, with excellent level design that let you practice new mechanics in a safe level, and then escalates it with challenging levels afterwards that have a good variety of 'gotchas' to teach you good habits. I liked the inclusion of a speed-up button (I guess I got lucky by getting to play the updated version, judging by the comments, haha): I nearly forgot it existed since I didn't need it for awhile, but luckily you put the icon in the upper-right as a friendly reminder just when I started to get a little frustrated by having to wait, haha. Top shelf stuff, this!

Criobite responds:

Thank you, it's good to hear you like the game! Been working a lot on learning how to make better games in general and I'm glad it's working out.

[Fields of Sagebrushes]

Pretty neat experience that had a lot of cool atmosphere to it helped by the graphics and sound. Unfortunately the experience for me was killed a lot by the UI design, which when you have a visual novel should be your bread and butter. Events were really confusing at first as it was difficult to tell which choice I had highlighted and what element to click, and I had no idea why I also had to highlight a character to choose them or anything like that. At first I thought the white markers on the status bars indicated what our current level was within the black bar, but then the black bars moved and I realized that they were the actual status indicator themselves. Many times there were interactable elements on the screen that could still be clicked and highlighted despite no longer being interactable, like the town choices when you have no choices left, or the other confirm button on screen when you're traveling. Another thing that hurt the game for me was the lack of event variety (I was already getting repeats very early on before barely even leaving the coast) and the fact that there were long stretches without any actual story tidbits to keep me hooked. It's still a pretty neat game, but I just wish it had a bit more polish to it: would love to see an updated version!

danidre14 responds:

I appreciate your review whole heartedly, and thanks for playing my game again! :D

This was a lot of first times for me, but I'll make no excuses, I understand your critiques on the UI; like we left it there for the user to figure out, seemingly by intuition.

With the encounters, we've nearly 50; it's really odd that you got so many reoccurring, the algorithms weren't in our favour in this one time you took a run through with it.

But definitely, it would've been amazing to polish the story and expand; other than the few we whipped up last minute. I too would love to see an updated version!

Again, thanks for playing, and I appreciate the critiques and feedbacks :)

[Laser Dames]

Another interesting concept! I definitely do like me some stylish games, and this was an interesting fusion where it felt good to lure out enemies to build a super-combo-chain finish on them. UI design is a bit drab though and made it difficult to track things with text overlapping power bars and such. At the moment the game does feel a bit too quick and can be beaten by just spamming and such, but I love the concept and would love to see this fleshed out more with a tighter design. Music was cool as well: as usual I like how it escalates by building on itself more and more as you progress.

adriendittrick responds:

thanks again for the review :)
Eventually you'll have reviewed my entire catalog lul.
Also yeh this would benefit by some quality of life improvements, but I only had 9 hours.

[Grim Pawn]

Pretty neat puzzler! Graphics are a bit drab at times (especially the player character, which I can't tell what the heck they are), but it still works to build a grim atmosphere. Levels felt really well put-together with a good escalation of difficulty, and I loved the aspect of poems serving as good hints for new mechanics. Was a bummer that the game doesn't seem to save progress at all: I was really hoping to continue where I left off!

TheMikirog responds:

The game is fairly short, so I didn't bother adding the save feature in. It's still possible to beat earlier levels in seconds to get back to where you left off.

[Waterworks!]

I'm not one for these card games typically, but that makes it all the more impressive that I ended up getting addicted to this game! I attribute this to its incredibly professional graphics and UI design: every element on the screen is so intuitively put-together so that, even by ignoring the tutorial info dumps at the beginning, its easy to figure out how the game works nonetheless. I love how every element can be hovered over for an info pop-up so you can learn and remind yourself of all of the elements of the game at your own pace. Definitely a great example of juicy UI design that games should aspire for!

[Complex]

Pretty cool game, but it is (ironically, given the title) a bit too complex that makes it very confusing at first, and given the extremely punishing gameplay with no checkpoints or continues, very easy to give up on, unfortunately. Firing has a weird input issue where it would ignore my inputs most of the time, and the interact button was weird since it makes it look like you could unlock a door from a distance by hovering over it, but it only works if you're right next to it. Graphics and animations are really cool, but the lack of music and any major art differences between levels really makes it feel like you're making little progress. Once you get into the game and figure out how everything works, its great, but until then it can be really confusing.

[Flail Fall]

Haha, pretty funny concept! It's an interesting take on ragdoll mechanics in a 2d environment, and using them in a strategic manner to figure out the ideal route for each puzzle setup was pretty fun! Was a little annoying to have to wait for the stun to wear off after each jump, and also dying respawns you a bit too fast which can lead to another immediate death if you were holding a button and run into some spikes. Some of the controls were also a bit counter-intuitive, like how you don't have even the slightest air-control at all and it wants you to dash before jumping when it is so often the other way around in games: can feel a bit frustrating because of this. Nonetheless, I had fun, and I wish there was more to this game to get through as it ended just as it was starting to get really in the groove!

[Rescue in Faraway Fields]

Really charming retro game! Feel like it really nailed both the retro style in terms of graphics, sound, music and gameplay for an all-together solid package. The gameplay is nice and fun, though I did feel like it was too simple and easy at times where you could just go forward and throw rocks at everything (maybe rock throwing shouldn't even be a thing so you can have to skillfully jump over and avoid enemies instead?) I did eat my words when the challenge ramped up and I got crushed by a boulder later on, haha. I'm not sure what the purpose of the whole slot machine is, but I do like the game allows you to speed things up and advance through text and such by hitting buttons, so thanks for that. Wish the game saved since I got really far but had to temporarily stop: I'll try and get back to finish it!

EDIT: Made it through and had a great time (didn't even need the debug tools to skip)! Gotta admit, I sure ate my words calling the game easy: level 12 is going to be in my nightmares for some time, haha. Definitely a very nicely done game: the polish is something else. I did have beef with the apples though: not sure if it's intended, but if you get an apple in a level and then die, the dragonfly doesn't come back so you will forever have missed the apple, argh!

gatod responds:

Thank you! The slot machine was a very, very hasty addition because I added some powerups but didn't want to change the gameplay too much hahaha there's an option to disable them if you like! Alongside other stuff like giving yourself more starting lives and continues, disabling the "do you want to skip this stage?" screen and sother stuff. If you really, really want to play through any level at any moment you can press F1 while the game's on the boot screen until you hear the "perfect!" sound, then go to the service menu and select the level on the "get ready" screen. Just don't go for it before you've properly completed one game loop tough, otherwise you'll spoil the fun! Thank you for playing :)

[Ex4ce Beginnings]

Hmm, I'm in two minds about this game.

On one hand, the actual gameplay is really cool with excellent effects, graphics and exciting gameplay. Love to fly around blowing the heck out of stuff and dodging all of the interesting bullet patterns, and its fun to get more and more upgraded. It's just so juicy and explosive! It is a bit annoying to deal with the controls, however, where your mouse can easily leave the screen and cause you to lose control: would really prefer you lock the mouse into the game screen.

On the other hand, the menus and text outside of the gameplay are painfully static and boring in comparison. The text is difficult to read with its odd font and bright highlights on a bright background, and I don't know how to interpret that word dump in the beginning. The ending screen for a level is really dull with just text that isn't stylized in any way to help the results be more readable. The menus and buttons aren't animated in any way, and upgrading is an annoying process where, instead of just clicking on the segment of the bar and seeing it light up, you have to click on the bar, go to another pop-up to confirm the upgrade, and then go back (repeat over and over for multiple upgrades to the same power), and there's no exciting sound or light-up to make you feel like you've gotten more powerful. Would love to see the balance restored between menus and gameplay: both should be exciting to make the experience equally great!