FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[QUETZALCOATL - The Aztec Ride]

It's interesting, quite the unique concept! I love the whole physics aspect of it where your characters fly out of the cars and you can catch them: everything about it felt very intuitive, like how if you don't go fast enough on a loop they'll fall out at the top, and so on, so great work on the simulation with that. However, it was kinda short-lived with only one level to go through, and maybe it's just me being stupid, but I was super confused initially. I thought at first that the whole challenge was ensuring as many customers stay alive as possible at the end, which you can do by driving safely or by catching them, but instead it was rating you on distance, which didn't seem logical to me since it always ran out: basically, the whole aspect of catching customers giving you fuel back wasn't immediately apparent in gameplay or logical to me. Perhaps it would help if there was a little blurb at the beginning to describe the rules/objective to let you know that people flying out of their seats is a good thing (because it usually isn't haha), or if, when you catch a person, you'd see their 'excitement' as a particle that flies over to the fuel gauge and fills it up. Also there were some slight annoyances like sometimes if you just have a slight bump, they'll fly up a bit and then fall straight through the cart, possibly due to some fighting over their seat priorities, not sure. Anyway, very interesting game!

[Roll, Turn, Repeat]

Took forever for the game to load in for some reason, but once it did, I had a lot of fun and wish it went on even longer! I loved working backwards from the end to find the ideal path and then, upon setting everything up, watching the little guy go! Good escalation of mechanics as well: would've loved to see it go even further, especially if it made my backwards strategy not work so easily! Had a few bits of confusion though: one, I thought the whole dark-grey path initially marked was a bit confusing since it makes you think the light-grey areas are walls, but I guess maybe that's the whole 'gotcha' moment of the game when you realize that's not the case. Another bit was that, when I solved the puzzle for one level, my character got blocked by a arrow block that wasn't in their path, but off to the side: maybe weird collision issues? Anyway, a solid, cute little puzzler!

[Hour of the Wolf]

Solid little castlevania-esque game! Felt really neat all-around: good amount of levels with varied design, good amount of variation in enemies and some neat boss battles. Fun presentation as well with the funny story and cool 'fade-in' for the graphics. There were a few confusing aspects I found: one, I thought that the art assets kinda worked against themselves sometimes as you've got so many themes going, you've got the 3d parallax backgrounds, you've got the basic 2d gameboy-esque sprites, and then you've got these weird particle-effecty rotoscoped smoke effects for stuff like the dash and slash, it just kinda looked a bit odd (though pretty neat). Another thing was the hit feedback: when I initially slashed at an enemy I thought I was getting hit because the screen shook and the enemy didn't flash or react in any way; then when I got hit I was surprised because the screen didn't react in any way: I dunno, just felt the player/enemy feedback was reversed? Finally, I really wish the main character had more animation to it for the slash: would love to see a frame of animation for winding up and another frame for leaning forward to slash. Anyway, still, solid game!

[Blue Bayou]

Holy mackerel, this was a hell of a surprise hit for me! I'm obviously a little bias since I love hard boss rush type games like Cuphead and all that (which I assume this was inspired by due to the many similarities) but the combat in this game was so much fun and had a really unique style with the way you have to angle your weapons and catch them, all while dodging projectiles. Boss patterns were very inventive and showed a lot of charm both in their graphics/presentation and the variety of AI/moves. Clarence was real cool too. Hats off!

[Monster Manor]

Overall a really solid experience with a great presentation in all aspects and a cool variety of mechanics, but a little odd in terms of execution. It's like, I had a good time, but I also felt confused and a little empty at the end? It felt kind of odd that the game didn't really build up to the boss fight: during my journey through the house, each time I turned on a light it didn't seem to do jack-diddily-squat to anything so I wasn't sure if I was making any progress at all. But then, suddenly, you get to a boss room which I didn't even realize was a boss room at first which has you start exorcising things by turning on lights? Why did the game not have you exorcising anything before that, like little ghosts, to build up anticipation for the big ghost? Anyway, despite that, the game reached a satisfying emotional climax with the defeat of the big ghost and then...the game doesn't end? The game keeps going and now there is a whole new mechanic out of nowhere where you lead these demons onto buttons? And then the game kinda....ends? Like I say, in a vacuum, you could say that the game has a large variety of cool puzzles and mechanics. But the way they were paced were so haphazard and odd that it just made me feel so confused and unsatisfied at the end, despite me having so much fun, haha! Definitely a weird one for me, but like I say, still technically good.

Oh yeah, other little nitpicks: usually games let you perch at the top of ladders when you reach the top, but this game didn't allow that. Also the jumping was a little bleh at times, but nothing too bad.

[ISLANDER]

It's a little bit repetitive at times, especially at the start with the amount of stone you have to get and how slow it comes, but nevertheless it is still rather addictive and a pretty impressive/intuitive implementation of the crafting gameplay in pico! Was very impressed with the controls: usually I feel pico games struggle to have solid controls for complex games like this, but I found everything in the game to be very intuitive from the mining to the crafting, with little to no confusion. Felt like the game had a good sense of progression with the goals as well: would love to see the goals appear on the main game screen instead of just the menu, but it's all good. Overall nicely done (kinda sucks about the same system though, very unintuitive and a bit of an odd blemish on the game)!

[Phase Shift: Lab Escape]

Hmm, it's an interesting take on the classic infinite runner, but I don't know if it went in the best direction. Most infinite runners have the player run automatically: this turns the game into an exciting test of reactions and quick planning as you try to keep your eyes ahead and pick the best path and have your fingers ready to deal with any obstacles that come. This runner, however, doesn't run at all: the player can move back and forward at their own pace. I suppose it's a unique and different take on the system, but it just doesn't feel as satisfying because of it. I know the game does have the bot chasing you, so technically you do need to keep running, but it just didn't feel the same (especially since the robot cannot be outrun if you do not get upgrades, making it seem like you're not in control of your own success since you can't beat it with your own skills). Also in general the levels seemed very depopulated with not enough obstacles, and the color switching mechanics just felt very odd with there not being an intuitive way to memorize which button does which color.

Pastruvium responds:

The running system was based off of Dino Run and was implemented in response to my designs for future obstacles (particularly later ones). However, I do get your point about it feeling a bit slow, and I probably could have/should have designed the obstacles to function a bit better while moving quickly. I think the movement system works particularly well during the boss battle and later in the game when things get a bit more hectic, but I can see that the feel and especially the early stages feel off. On that note about the speed upgrade, it's a good point and something that Dino Run specifically did well. Maybe if I were to re-do the game, I would remove the speed upgrade and put something in the game to increase the player's acceleration/speed, or even add acceleration and add an upgrade that decreases the time it takes to get to max speed.

On the depopulation of obstacles and such, the early stages are meant to ease the player into the admittedly complicated control scheme, and the game becomes much more dense as the player progresses.

On the note about early game, a lot of decisions were made for late game (hard obstacles), the boss, and endless mode (unlocked after completing story mode). I think they work a bit better in those cases, however as a result, the early game feels neglected and off-putting. I should have gone back and touched up the early game after getting the flow of late game down (at least I think I did!).

On the control scheme itself, I implemented the keys in a way for ease of use and speed in switching. I often think about them as most used to least used from left to right, or forward, up, and down. This was originally set as, from left to right, yellow (air), orange (solid), blue (liquid) for up, forward, down. This was changed as I felt that orange (solid) state would be used most frequently. In addition, through your video, I could see that my tutorial was maybe a bit too sparse, though I like tutorials to let the player figure things out by themselves more and mostly explain controls. In the future, I might include more text or optional explanations to help things along. Also on this note, it seems I failed in explaining the plasma dashes (w, s, and shift) properly. They, especially when upgraded, help the player moved from platform to platform, and to outrun the chaser bot when it gets too close, especially on endless. This is tied to the meter on the left side of the screen and is refilled when defeating enemies that can damage you. Money (Genetic Material) is gained through defeating the running enemies (scientists).

Thanks for your detailed feedback, and I really appreciate the video you put out! It really helped me see how someone else directly interacts with the game and tutorial without me around to explain things when they become a problem. It also really helps to see when mechanics and gameplay becomes frustrating or boring the moment it happens. I particularly liked the moment you figured out how the colored floors (gas and water funnels respectively) worked, though I definitely could have done a better job of explaining everything in the tutorial.

[Sludge and Sorcery]

Pretty goofy game that has a great start, but kinda loses steam as it goes on (though I do still want to go back and beat this eventually!) I really love the quirkiness of the game's story: very charming to pull the rug out from under the player and do a whole character switch, which was great because I really love the slime team. I figured that, because of that, the game wasn't actually an rpg but just playing around with rpg themes and it would be just a nice adventure game. I wish that were the case, but no, unfortunately it does actually remain an rpg and that was my biggest problem with the game: the combat was just so weak for me since it just drags on and on. The dialogue was already becoming an issue because I couldn't advance text with a button press like how most games handle text (not saying I wanted to skip it, I love the dialogue, I just read fast) but the combat is so slow with its slow transitions and slow dice rolls and way too much health for all the enemies and due to the randomness the fights can just drag on. Honestly, I wish the combat was just taken out of the game altogether so the game can focus on the best part: the funny story and quests. Or, at the very least, I wish the combat was replaced with something quicker and more funny to fit the overall unserious themes.

migmoog responds:

Thanks for playing our game and providing feedback! Just a disclaimer I didn't weigh in on the design of the game much, that was Polyducks' field, I was just an artist and the only one of our team with an NG account. The whole point of the game's main characters becoming the slimes was for mainly writing purposes, and it says this game is an RPG in both the genre and description, so we didn't intend on changing that. The speed of the dialogue was a limitation of the engine we were using (GBstudio). However, I do believe that the heavy RNG in the battle system is a bit of a bore, especially in a game like this with so many fights. We're very glad that you took the time to play our game!

['Llama vs. Llamas']

Pretty cute and charming game! Love the concept and I love the charming graphics and animations for all the characters. Game is nice and sweet and simple for the most part and doesn't overstay its welcome. I definitely had a lot of fun with this but its not without its problems as it does have a overall feeling of jankiness, particularly with the hitboxes. Most likely due to the 2.5D perspective, there were tons of times where I swear I shot water at fire but it just whizzes right over it without hitting it, or it ends up hitting another fire I wasn't aiming at. Maybe the hitboxes need to be more generous or something about the graphics needs to change to serve to pointing you towards where the ideal point to aim is at. The aiming/firing is odd too: most games have the crosshair serve as a general direction for the projectile to go, but the projectile continues past the point of aiming, whereas this game has the projectile stop and explode at the point you clicked at. This isn't necessarily bad, but I think if you want the aiming to work like this, the crosshair should be not a flat circle, but tilted as if it was painted on the ground, indicating that it will hit the ground at that point, making it more intuitive. I think I still had an overall good time, but definitely a little clunky in its implementation: luckily it kinda adds to the whole goofy charm, haha!

Butzbo responds:

Glad you liked it!

Yeah the hitboxes ended up being more troublesome than anticipated, in terms of perspective, and also at the time it was hard to find the proper size for them, big enough so that fire would get hit by the water, but not so big so that the llama would get hit if it passed behind it (probably having hitboxes for different purposes would have been a better choice). Also, I didn't put much thought about that crosshair detail, considering the 2.5d perspective I liked making it so that the bullet went right where you aimed, but I get how it can be confusing as its pretty unconventional, having it tilted to match the floor is a pretty good idea!

Thanks for the review! These detailed comments are great to get me thinking more in depth about design and mechanics.