FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Melody Shuffle]

The presentation of this game is incredible and professional: I love the attention to detail with the UI objects in how they highlight and pulse and bounce around, and how the music transitions and everything moves to the beat, and the great victory screen jingle and so on. For a puzzle game, the game is so wonderfully lively! Game really pours on the difficulty though: I gotta admit, I was getting my ass kicked as early as level 2, haha. I felt like there might've needed to be one or two more simple tutorial-ish levels before that to come to terms with the mechanics. However, once you do get over that spike, it felt great to figure out the rest, and you feel compelled to go on just to hear that victory jingle! Game just feels so well put-together in all aspects!

[Keep It Powered]

Cool puzzler! While a lot of your puzzlers share a lot of assets, I'm always impressed at the new mechanics that are built for each game, and this is no exception. Once again, the game has pretty solid level design that introduces new mechanics well and has interesting choices you need to make: for example, you might think a fast path would be the most efficient, but it's really the slow path that works out the best! The game does suffer a little bit sometimes however since it combines precision movement with puzzle mechanics: it can be a real bummer when you figure out the ideal path with your brain, but you miss it by a bit because you just can't pull off pixel-perfect movements to save enough battery. Still, solid experience!

[RED LINE]

Haven't made it all the way through, but it's a pretty cool and atmospheric game! I love the attention to detail, especially with the various animations: I was shocked at how many different animations were created for rummaging through the objects in the apartment when looking for the keys, for example! The story is dark but charming, and it is fun to talk to the various people, though it is kind of hampered by typos and grammatical errors which can take you out of the immersion (there are some graphical issues which cropped up for me as well which hurt immersion). Definitely looking forward to making my way through the rest of this story!

[Candy's Dream Egg]

Very clever puzzler! I feel like the mechanics are a little unintuitive at first: why was an egg of all things, which is fragile and static, chosen for something you would bounce on or call over to you? Once you get over that and get used to it, however, you find that the game impressively uses the mechanics to their fullest, I felt. Definitely had some clever puzzles: a lot of them involve paths were are red herrings that try to make you stray the wrong way if you don't think it all through. Package that altogether with charming graphics and sound and it's surprisingly great!

[Prism Light]

Has a slow and easy start, but this game really becomes fun and challenging once you get far into it! I was initially confused at where the game was going, since a maze where you can only see what's in front of you didn't seem particularly difficult and didn't seem to be using the limited visuals in the best way. But I was wrong: give it a bit of time, and the game kept piling on more and more interesting obstacles to contend with and became a real frenzy! My only suggestions were maybe to get to the real cool levels faster, and to maybe change up the music or graphics/colors every 10 or so levels for some novelty.

[Winter Falling: Price of Life]

Very cool game! Once you get into it, the battles can be great strategic fun, and I love the professional design to the UI not only in the way it looks and feels, but the way it imparts information which really helps in coming to grasp all the various mechanics. I still feel like I was only able to make it far in this game because I had experience with playing the previous one: a game like this plays very differently than any other strategy game I've played (which, to be fair, I don't have much experience with, so I could be talking nonsense) and I feel like the tutorial is still a bit lacking and it just dumps you into the deep end. A bit refreshing not to be babied, but still, there are a lot of potentially unintuitive and frustrating elements that could throw players off: why do I need to rehire units, why does the terrain seem to make no difference except for trenches (rivers and such look to be ignored as if they were flat land), why does 'move' kill enemies (maybe it should be called something more intuitive like charge, but there is a move called charge already and sometimes you do just want to move units?) Still, despite all these issues, the game does have such a sense of confidence to it with the great music, art, and UI that you feel compelled to continue, and are glad when you do, since it can be such a blast to fight to the last, scrape together as much as you can with your little resources, and blast em with dragon fire! Would love if maybe there was a bit more of a story element to it: the game just screams for some little chit-chat with your royals/peasant/outlaw generals between missions to learn how you're doing and working towards.

Rarykos responds:

Oh thank you very much! These are very good points! It's hard not to agree. I'm glad you enjoyed the experience. I feel like the problems will be solved in the full version with some restructuring. Really nice to see you here, in reviews, again! I was wondering what you'd think.

[Coordinator]

Pretty neat game! It's a simple game, but it has a lot of nice juicy elements to it that give it a nice sense of excitement and professionalism, like how the music fades in and out between gameplay and the menu, and how everything has great movement to it with slides and bounces and so on. There were some frustrating aspects to it though: I didn't like how enemies can spawn right on top or directly under me, and I didn't like how I couldn't interact with things when I've been hit (I get the idea, but the invincibility is so short anyway, just let me collect this one point and not have to sit on my thumbs waiting). Was also difficult to tell when I was damaged: could do with a bigger signal to register being hit like a screen shake, a red flash, a time freeze, etc. I also felt like the multiplier bar was a bit lacking: I feel like something that important, since it's a scoring game, should be bigger and flashier and more spelled out to the player so you feel compelled to keep it up. Anyway, it was still some good simple arcade fun!

ToadieTechnika responds:

"could do with a bigger signal to register being hit like a screen shake, a red flash, a time freeze, etc". I like that! I feel like I have to improve more on the UX on the next game. Thank you very much for this comment. :D

[Josh Dumb]

Very quirky and funny game! I do like the concept of it, being a really goofy version of Lemmings/Gyromite and such, but I had a rough time of it despite being fun. I was really confused when I was trying to get into it: I kept thinking I could place elements on the map before Josh starts moving, but instead you can only place elements when he's moving. Maybe gray out the screen so it's obvious you can't interact with the map during that time? I get the idea that it makes it fast-paced and challenging, but it can also make it really difficult and frustrating, especially when the controls are a bit unintuitive and restarting doesn't allow you to freeze the world like it initially was. I think a lot can be done to help with the controls so you can keep the fast pace of the game: certain elements like placing down an arrow tile and rotating it are particularly annoying since you have to use a lot of button taps really fast, whereas instead, I'd prefer it if you were to do it like other games do where you click and hold on a spot, drag the mouse in the direction you want the arrow to rotate towards, and then release to finalize and place it down. A game that has a Josh button in the menu can't be bad: I think this just needs a little bit of love to make it control better and be more intuitive so everyone can understand and be fast enough to beat the fun challenges you've put forth!

[Huerage]

Not too shabby. It's a simple game, but simple doesn't necessarily mean bad, as simple can be addictive and fun, which this game could be. I did like dodging around the enemies, weaving through them and slowly seeing my player upgrade in tune with the music. However, right now, I felt like the game is a bit overly plain and lacking which hurts it's presentation and lasting appeal. First, the controls were a bit odd. I have no idea why the player sprite turns in the direction of the mouse: you'd think it would mean you can shoot in that direction, but I couldn't find a fire button, so why does this exist? Bit weird to use a triangle as well for the player since it would usually mean that W would move you forward, not up, like a rocket in an old Asteroids game. Anyway, the music is cool, but I feel like it's doing all the heavy lifting and without it, the game wouldn't have much. I think the game does have a solid theme going with music since you're already have the player upgrade at certain phases of the song. Because of this, I would change more elements as the song goes on: add new enemy types, make enemies more aggressive, and so on. I think you should make all the visual elements of the game pulse to the beat like other music-based games do. Also, I feel like there should be some more special effects not only to add pizazz, but help communicate elements like enemies spawning in or dying. I recommend looking up a video called 'Juice it or Lose it' which shows how simple games can use cool techniques and effects to make it more exciting.

Tykua responds:

Thanks for the constructive feedback.