FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[desperatea]

Wow, this was a pretty cool sokoban puzzler! The tea-based mechanics were very inventive and unique, almost to the point I was worried it would feel too overwhelming, but the way the game introduces them was elegant and made it all feel very intuitive and smooth! The game had a very classy and fun sense of presentation, levels all felt very clever and kept introducing new elements, and I got quite addicted! Well done!

If I had any complaints, it'd be that I wish I could read the tutorial prompts at my own pace: I needed to restart the level a few times to read it since it went by too fast and didn't wait for my confirmation. Also it was a bit confusing to learn how to move at first, as well as keep track of all the different movement abilities of the various tableware: might be nice if they had movement previews for them, like seeing the tiles that they can move to highlighted.

[Origin]

Solid puzzle platformer! Presentation was classy, mechanics were intuitive, and it had a smooth difficulty curve that introduced a nice range of new mechanics to keep things interesting all the way to the end: all-around just well-designed and fun to play for a short and sweet time!

In terms of feedback:

*Some of the levels could be rather annoying as they would require a certain level of dexterity, whether it be accurate placement of blocks or jumping from the very edge of platforms, leading to a lot of trial and error. I was fine with this challenge, but it was a bit awkward as typically these games are all about finding the solution, with execution being a foregone conclusion that doesn't get in the way.

*As nice and short as the intro is, it would be nice if we could skip it by pressing a button as it makes replays a bit annoying.

*Game felt like more of the same and I was having serious deja vu, feeling like I was just playing Leap of Life once again but with a different coat of paint. It's still a fun game and it won't matter for newcomers to your catalog, but I would like to see some more significant variety: recycling is fine, but this almost feels like a scam, haha!

[Dead Estate Dress-up 2]

Hah, I'm not much of a dress-up game fan, but it is a NG staple, and I gotta admit that this feels very well-produced with great presentation, lots of nice features and cool touches like the opening cutscene. I quite liked the way you made it so that clothes go to the top layer whenever you select them which helps you customize the layering the way you want. I also liked the way that they 'snap' to certain locations, but at the same time you're still able to freely place them elsewhere to satisfy those creative types: for example, mouths typically snap to the face, but I can still place the mouth on the hat instead if I want to give it a personality of its own, haha.

[Core Breach - CAMERA update]

Not too shabby! For the most part this game feels very well-constructed, both from a presentation and gameplay mechanics standpoint. I enjoyed the combination of snake movement with shooting, and the decision to have your bullets feed from your health as well as have currency left on the ground too long turn into enemies added a lot of strategic depth! Pardon the pun, but this game feels like it has a pretty good 'core' in place, and I got quite addicted to the frantic nature of the battles!

In terms of feedback:

*It's not too bad, but I'm a bit miffed at how the camera moves during combat, as I feel like it is completely unnecessary since the battlefield is already perfectly fit to the view, and moving it only serves to cut off parts of the field or throw off my aiming. I say just keep it static positioned.

*As nice as it is to keep the data bits being spent, it can take too long for them to be spent when costs get high (which can happen as early as the 2nd upgrade). I'd say either speed it up for high costs so that spending always takes around the same amount of time no matter what, or allow us to click to speed it up even further or even skip it.

*I swear there were a few times where the controls would bug out on me, like I'd try to activate an ability and it just wouldn't go off, leading to me dying because I was counting on it to get me out of a jam. Even though I don't think it's because it was still on cooldown and I just didn't see it, I'd argue that if it was the case, I'd like more feedback then, like for it to play a sound and pulse red if I try to use when it isn't available.

*Shop could use a few more niceties, like being able to see our current abilities so we can decide whether we want to get an upgrade before choosing it (and be able to back out of an upgrade and pick something else if desired).

*Was curious whether the upgrade room could have a bit more strategic purpose to it. For example, even if the upgrade room is finally open to you, maybe there could be a bonus for putting it off, like maybe you get a score streak if you stay in the game long and it resets once you go for an upgrade, or maybe the enemies keep getting harder but going into the upgrade room blows them up and you want to save that for when things get too hairy for maximum gains.

*My biggest complaint is that while the game is nice, it ultimately feels a tad bit pointless, lacking a sort of long-term goal and sense of progression/evolution: perhaps if it had a stronger narrative, plot setup or acknowledged ending you're going for, or more interesting checkpoints or changeups like bosses, stronger enemies or different biomes with new mechanics or obstacles and so on.

Looking forward to seeing how it evolves! As said, it definitely has a good core to it, which means you've already got the most important part in place.

EDIT: I'm liking a lot of the recent changes that have been made! I agree that I think the game works better without the overall metaprogression and that it should be run-based, for example.

GamesByLaurence responds:

Wow first of thank you for taking the time to give me this valuable feedback!!

I was super happy to read it as my new update that is coming out later today addresses a lot of your comments!

As for the camera movement I understand what you mean. I have tried to move it less.. It used to be a lot more zoomed in! I find that keeping it static kind makes the game feel very slow. I will experiment a bit more with it!

The spending of the data bits being slow has been resolved! A couple of people have pointed out that it takes far too long and it now takes a fixed amount of time no matter the cost.

I believe you not being able to use your skill was due to not having one body piece. Some attack skills require at least one body piece to use so it could have been due to that. However you are completely right... feedback is needed! I will patch this in today before releasing the new update.

As for your feedback on the shop. I plan to add a way of seeing your current worm stats at a quick glace.. and I also felt that there should be some more strat involved when it comes to passive skills.. The passive buffs are no longer permanent and the data bits no longer carry over from breach to breach. This allows two things as I see it. By not spending your hard earnt data bits on passive buffs you go for higher scores. As spending data bits lowers your score multiplier. It also means that everyone is on the same playing field and the game rewards high skill rather than players that have grinded out the buffs. I believe this adds a little bit more strategy. I am also tihnking about adding a combo system that rewards players who stay out of the upgrade zone for longer.

As for your last point I also understand. At the moment there is no narrative in the game. It's in my head! I need to work on placing more purpose and story into the game so that players get more of a drive to keep playing! Bosses are definitely on the list! I have added new challenge waves and a new wave system to the upcoming patch later today which I hope also adds some flair into the game.

Thanks very much for your feedback.. it is super valuable and I hope you like the changes that are coming in todays patch!

[Resident Evil Ebola 6]

Hmm, review of this one is similar to the last one: in general it is amusing and somewhat charming in a very old-school nostalgic NG Flash kind of way, but it is also very clunky and awkwardly designed with egregious hitboxes and enemies that hit you mid-death, as well as being very overly linear and lacking any sort of survival horror feel to the way you can cheese it.

That's not to say there haven't been some improvements: I feel like the game is a bit more intuitive with better highlighting for interactables, hit feedback was a bit more clear, chapter selection allows for better replay, and so on. I dunno if it's for me, but I can understand plenty of people having fun with the wild trip this game takes you on.

As a side note: what kind of name is Cleon? Couldn't you have just called him, I dunno, Leo?

MetaMike responds:

Edit: I saw your breakdown video and your reaction to Cleon had me hollering lol. I appreciate the feedback!!!

[Hollow Floor - Demo]

This was a very nice short and sweet metroid game you got here, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it evolves!

I really liked the way the game evolved and recontextualized the world with the inventive powerups you've made: going from only clambering on vines to getting the airwalk ability was neat and was a breath of fresh air from the typical double-jump unlocks. Gave me real VVVVVV vibes!

Game also had a decent amount of challenge to it, especially with the gauntlet for the first gem, though having said that, the game also felt very fair with the way you don't deplete airwalk energy if you stay still, and the way you snap to certain height levels with the airwalk which prevents awkward 'off by a pixel' situations.

I also enjoyed discovering the secrets you've put within the world and ended up going back and collecting all of the coins after my first run!

In terms of feedback, I will say that the text is a bit hard to read, with it being overly small and oddly blurred for some reason. I'll also say that, since the game is stated to come out on Steam, I'm not sure whether it has enough going for it in that respect. It's nice, but I don't think it has enough of a hook, a spark, a sense of style yet to make it stand out. Maybe if I knew more about how the adventure and mechanics would evolve, but I'm not seeing anything for that. Again, I had a great time with this, and I don't mean to bring you down, but that was within the context of a bitesize adventure that was free on Newgrounds: not the vast and overwhelming jungle of Steam releases with loads of competition. I need a trailer that shows more gameplay of what's to come, or a bit more of a tease at the end of the demo!

amidos2006 responds:

Thanks a lot :) This game is a small bit size game that has been in production for 2 years :) I originally would put it for free but I thought charging something as small as $3 is enough to cover some of the costs :)

I am glad you enjoyed it and liked it :)

[Scummoner]

Fun little open-world chaos sandbox you got here! Gave me Goat Simulator or Untitled Goose Game vibes with the way you can both just cause chaos by committing genocide, or be more creative and seek out ways to optimally ruin days or interact with the environment to unlock achievements, with the latter being my favorite: going rock fishing, raining on the birthday party, and so on were all very clever! Definitely pretty fun, and I was really impressed with the smooth and professional construction to the game: not only was the gameplay very juicy with funny effects, but the menus and tutorial were very elegantly presented!

If I were to have any complaints, it's that sometimes the world would be less reactive than I wanted. For example, I'd try to set red barrels on fire to cause an explosion only for them to remain static (trying to crush the barrels doesn't do anything either), and sometimes people wouldn't react to my actions, like how I tried to dispense karmic justice on the car scammer but nobody cared and they continued like nothing happened. I suppose it's understandable for a game jam game, but still, it's also understandable that I'd assume it would be there considering what it is!

bobatealee responds:

Super good feedback!! Thank you, looking forward to implementing many more interactions at some point =)

[bergs]

Pretty neat puzzle platformer! I love the goofy vibes it gives off, and the whole berg summoning mechanic is cool, especially because of the way the levels evolve and recontextualize it in new ways, such as how bergs being summoned from the sky can be used to access floors above you. I got really addicted to playing this and kept wanting more!

In terms of feedback:

*While the game does get a certain amount of goofy energy from its animated background and 'berg' shout, the game is a bit dry otherwise. Obviously it's understandable that juice and pizazz is not given top priority in game jam time limits, but at the very least there could be a bit more effects to communicate elements better, such as how buttons should ideally react in some way to let you know when they've been pressed down, such as playing a clicking sound or getting squashed or greyed out, as without that, you could think things like "oh it isn't pressed yet, maybe I need to weigh it down with a different berg, or pile bergs on it?"

*That one level where you need to jump up and over a wall that looks like you couldn't but you can because it doesn't extend out of the screen was very weird: not sure if it was intentional or a glitch. Looking back on it, I think I could've gotten through it a different way if I knew how to use the summoning powers differently.

*I was having fun playing but needed to take a break due to the larger amount of content than I anticipated, and upon returning I was disappointed to see that it didn't save my progress or offer some sort of level select! I like the game, but not quite enough to play through it all over again just to get back where I left off.

*Some of the solutions relying on RNG giving you the berg you want can be a bit annoying at times, though typically I can improvise and find it fun to do so (but that's only because I haven't been unlucky enough to be screwed over yet, haha)

Berg!

[Tales From The Arcade: Fartmania]

Hah, quite the goofy and fun little precision platformer you got here!

It's a bit lackluster in some respects for me: graphics got a bit monotonous with the way they never change as you progress and everything is just constructed from the same copy-pasted blocks, I was really hoping the boss would evolve in a more challenging way in the final phase since the laser guns from the second phase were already a non-issue, it was annoying how I couldn't control the speed of dialogue and would have to wait for it to reset if I accidently interrupt them with a fart, and in general it just didn't have enough to keep me motivated throughout to collect all of the pigs and I instead just rushed to the ending.

But for the most part I still found it to be a nice short and sweet adventure: the game feels progressively more challenging as you go with the introduction of moving blocks and more tight maze-like structures, there were some interesting easter eggs like getting into that area with the ghost, it felt well-constructed and intuitive with a good amount of juice/pizazz to its presentation, and obviously the game has a lot of charm to it with the goofy dialogue and premise, and I loved how it reacted accurately when I farted to taunt the aliens at the end, haha! Well done!

As a side note, I found it a bit weird how it seems like the game should start with you going down the pipe, but that just leads to the easter egg credits room, and instead you're supposed to go to the fart meter? Then again, I wonder if that's intentional as it was only through the easter egg room that I realized I could mid-air fart, since I needed to do that to reach the exit. Was a bit curious about that!

Emptygoddess responds:

Haha, yeah. Pretty sure we wanted people to go check out our silly dev room!

[Stranded on a Raft]

Hmm, bit mixed on this one! I certainly think it has a lot of potential: I mean, you pretty much just copied Raft's homework but hey, it's still a neat little 2D demake, and for the most part it feels intuitive and well put-together for a decent survival experience. I was certainly excited at first to build up my raft and all the various facilities!

However, while it definitely has a solid foundation, my first impression left me feeling hopeless, confused and frustrated. There were a lot of aspects, but the worst was that certain resources like dirt and stone were very annoyingly rare as they only seemed to come from random crates which left me bottlenecked for long periods of time. This meant that, despite me wanting to get simple things like swords, pickaxes or food, all I could do was wait and hope to get lucky, all the while starving to death while getting attacked by frogs and sharks and rocks crashing into my raft erasing huge amounts of progress without anything I could do.

I mean, if I'm being charitable, I'd say it's just trying to be challenging: in theory, there's nothing wrong with a survival game that takes some time to get going and keeps you engaged by threatening to erase some of your stuff and force you to rebuild. I like a lot of hardcore games like this and it could be interesting! But I just think it's not executed well here in my opinion: it just felt a bit too hopeless and pointless, I wasn't sure what I was building towards and it didn't feel like I could do anything to help. I mean, when you've got a game where it's better to commit suicide to refill your hunger meter, you've lost it.

To sum it up, I think it has potential, but could use some considerable tinkering to the variables and design to get a better flow and sense of progression. Best of luck!