FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Chicken Joust!]

Hmm, I'm a bit mixed on this one!

Overall it feels like the game is rather high-quality, particularly in terms of presentation: the interface is clean and intuitive, there are a lot of nice touches like tooltips and transitions that make everything feel stylish, the characters and world are cute and charming, and the gameplay is classic Joust action: simple but fun! There are some rough edges here and there, such as how the characters feel very stiff (no flapping wing animations?) and the game is rather dry in terms of special effects (no sparks for clashes and hits), but overall it is pleasant and appealing.

However, once I got past the surface level presentation and sank my teeth into the game proper, I found myself somewhat unsatisfied. The combat was just a straightforward Joust clone without anything significant added to it beyond the character abilities which are barely noticeable, and I'd say that while it's decent, it wasn't even quite as satisfying or smooth as the classic or derivatives like Balloon Fight. In particular I was really disappointed with the enemies you fight as they all act practically the same and just become tedious and repetitive to fight: with the way it gives them all stylish team names, I was really hoping each enemy team would have a fun gimmick, strengths/weaknesses, or wildly different AI patterns like you'd see in something like Punch-Out.

So yeah, unfortunately it feels like a classic case of style-over-substance. It's competently put-together and not bad per se, so kudos on that, but at the end of the day it just feels like a clone with nothing unique or satisfying to bring to the table, especially with its repetitive and overly-simplistic combat design. For something like this, I was hoping for something more exotic, like Hammerfight, but maybe that's just the quality visuals here really bringing my expectations too high for the gameplay to live up to.

As a minor side-note, my old man hands quickly got tired with all the mashing to flap: would love it if there was an auto-fire, or if maybe the strength of the flap was increased so the amount of presses could be decreased.

[Summer Game]

Bit of an odd duck because...it really isn't much of a game at all? I kept walking around to see if there were any other zones I could get to, and I kept talking to people to see if there was some sort of quest, but I couldn't find anything, leaving me feeling stuck in this purgatory. I guess it's just supposed to be an art showcase? Don't get me wrong, the art is lovely to the point where'd I'd easily want to commission the artist, and there is some amusing flavor text/interactions that can be found, but yeah, just not sure how to grade this as a game! I wanna say that this should be in the art or movie portal, not the game portal, but I guess there is a certain appeal in displaying the art in this integrated way, so...I dunno! Sorry if this reaction is very common and annoying to hear: maybe if there was something in game to let you know it's just a showcase it'd be a bit more clear (sorry but in my experience a lot of people don't read the descriptions).

[Nefarius - The Last Wizard (Updated)]

Hmm, this one is a bit of a mixed bag for me!

It certainly started off very strong with a great first impression. Overall I feel like the graphical presentation of this game is exceptional and very impressive: even aspects that are typically overlooked like menus, death animations, and so on are high quality. Got some fantastic music as well!

Once we start to get into actual gameplay, though, it starts to fall apart, as while it is a somewhat serviceable Survivors-esque game, it feels very bland and dry which is in stark contrast to the beautiful assets used. There's barely any enemy variety and they are easily exploited by running circles around them to corral them together. The weapons/items on offer are tiny, unimaginative, and give no sense of variety between runs. The act of hitting enemies, collecting experience and leveling up is not exciting at all due to a lack of feedback and juice. Frankly, it's just pretty boring to me and feels more like an early alpha or a skeleton to work from: needs a lot more meat on its bones before its actually fun!

Other points of feedback:

*The volume balancing is terrible with the barely existing sound effects being so easily drowned out by the music. I needed to turn the music down to like 1% and the sound to 100% to make it so that it works better.

*Strange that the game teaches you how to dash from the very start, but it doesn't even start you off with a dash since you need to get boots first. By the same token, it's very strange that the laser power requires you to hit a button for it, but the game doesn't teach this at all: I kept waiting for it to activate since I thought it was a passive!

*Weird that the terrain, specifically objects like trees, bushes, and so on, doesn't block the player or the enemies from moving straight through it. I can understand the game allowing enemies to move straight through them, but allowing the player to move through seems weird as they should be obstacles that require the player to strategize and not get stuck: without that, the world feels unexciting and you can just run around without a care in the world.

*Laser is a bit of a death trap in that, while it looks all fancy, it freezes you in place and easily sets you up to be killed right afterwards as the enemies just swarm you. Maybe it needs to freeze time or something else?

*Main menu is inconsistent with control scheme: the main options require you to use the keyboard, but if you go into the options, suddenly the keyboard is unusable and you need to use the mouse instead? Even weirder is that if you try and use the keyboard while in options, it will still keep moving the main menu around.

*Finally, maybe the most important of all, is that even if everything is fixed up, there really isn't anything interesting or unique about the game that grabs me and makes me want to play it. The world is absolutely awash with Survivors-esque games that are competing for attention with all sorts of appealing attributes, and this needs something special to stand out: right now I'm not seeing that.

Hope this helps and you work on it to create a final version which plays as well as it looks!

Snow-Hex responds:

Thanks for your comment, I assure you that the programmer and I will take into account each of the points you mention, thanks again for your review, this kind of comments is really useful in every way. 🦖

[MEATY MAYHEM (The Full Experience)]

Huh, I was pleasantly surprised by this!

I feared the worst when starting out because this game unfortunately feels very similar to the demo that was posted before: while the world and vibes that the game gave off were very goofy and charming, overall the gameplay felt rather generic and bland, controls felt awkward, sound effects were missing, difficulty was simultaneously too easy while also being too punishing, and so on. Basically, it felt like it hadn't taken any of the feedback into account, so it wasn't the best first impression.

Nevertheless, I pressed onwards into the new content, and felt rewarded for my persistence as around the start of world 2, the game started to get quite interesting and cool from there! Levels started to get a lot of new mechanics like the bounce pads and moving platforms, and overall the game became more of an interesting and challenging precision platformer. In addition, there was a lot more novelty to keep things fresh: there were weird secrets like running into the gorilla, and a lot of great setpieces like the weird ghost levels, the crazy boss fights and the clown chase sequence and so on! Really neat stuff!

So yeah, the controls are still a bit awkward, the game is a bit jank and it takes a while for the game to get good, but when it does, I was quite impressed! If I were to guess as to why this is the case, I suppose it's a classic case of the programmer getting more skilled as the game was developed so the quality of game gets better the deeper you go, haha!

BakethedBean responds:

yeah as time went on i found ways to come up with more robust solutions in less time which gave me opportunities to put more stuff in. thank god for the redemption arc!

[Kid Phoenix Demo]

Hmm, it certainly shows some promise as a cool speedrun precision platformer. The art is nice and the obstacle course you've setup is decent and so on and so forth...but man, the controls just felt not only terribly unintuitive, but randomly inconsistent!

Out of all the control issues, walljumping was the biggest issue. Whether it be trying to jump up the wall or jumping away from the wall, nothing seemed to work properly. Trying to jump up the wall was inconsistent: sometimes I'd jump up as expected, but a majority of the time the character would just stutter and not do anything. Jumping away from the wall felt bad because there is no split-second stickiness when you press away from the wall which means you typically lose height from the brief period between inputting the movement and then the jump command: if you try to input them at the same time or too fast to compensate, though, you end up not jumping away from the wall properly.

The only way I could get walljumping to work somewhat to make it through the game was to awkwardly let go of the wall and then try to jump up or away from that neutral aerial position, as jumping from a wallcling position wouldn't work properly, as discussed.

Other than that, there was just a lot of other awkwardness. The character would end up feeling overly sticky where I'm just trying to jump up between platforms and even though I'm practically going to land on top of it, the character keeps stopping and going down to cling to the edge of the platform instead of just getting on top.

As a side note, I totally forgot that diving even existed as a move: I wonder if someone could be done to make that more important or useful? It was also weird how the water cannons only sometimes shoot water? Dunno why they are so inconsistent: it is intentional, or a bug? Also the torch checkpoints should keep your fire bar maxed as long as you're standing next to them instead of draining: I don't think I should have to walk away and back to refill it.

I want to like this game, but it definitely needs some work between this demo and the final version. Hopefully this feedback helps and it is reborn from the flame with new vigor!

[The Test of Insanity]

Cute game! Feels very much like a successor to The Impossible Quiz, what with its wide variety of questions and minigames, and its focus on mind-bending trickery and lateral thinking. As someone who already played The Impossible Quiz back in the day, I was already very familiar with the tricks this game was playing (for example, the math question where the answer is clicking on a number within the question) so I didn't have too much trouble making my way through, but all in all, it was a nice, enjoyable, goofy adventure!

If there were any complaints, it'd be:

*As said, it might just be because I'm already familiar with this kind of game, but I made it through rather quickly and was left hungry for more, so yeah, it's a bit short! Also it is kind of rehashing a lot of stuff that's come before, so I'm not quite sure if it has its own unique voice or appeal yet: in a way, the game kind of makes you want to go back and play the Impossible Quiz instead of seeing this as the superior version.

*The game felt a little bit dry, especially with no music: could maybe stand to have some more aspects to pep it up.

*I feel like it was somewhat awkward to have the scroll-clicking game as the very first thing you encounter. For a quiz game like this, I feel it'd be better to start with something more standard, like the question about fish, then later on you can get into the more action-y minigames. It's not bad, just made the pacing a bit strange, but maybe that's just because it actually took me a while to figure it out and I'm just compensating, haha.

jacklehamster responds:

Thanks, great feedback!

[WOP]

I feel bad reviewing this because I actually have no clue what the whole Drake and Kendrick beef is (sorry I live under a rock) but nevertheless, while I might not understand all the references, I can appreciate the humor and effort put into the game: there's just so much to play around with like different backgrounds, music, and characters all with their own animations, and there's a lot of charming touches like how if you idle, Drake gets a chance to sneak in a cheeky attack. That's quite impressive that the game is so neat despite me not understanding anything! Also this game just really feels like classic Newgrounds Assassin material: topical humor and beating up celebs never gets old!

I gotta admit though, that once you look past all of that (which again is very easy for me to do because I'm not familiar with the source material) the game just feels very shallow and is kind of style-over-substance. While most clicker games have an addicting sense of progression to them with all sorts of unlocks, the unlocks in this game barely feel noticeable and don't feel to be leading anywhere: once you play the game for a few seconds, you've pretty much seen everything it has to offer. In a way, maybe the game is too generous, giving you all the fun toys right from the start: I feel a bit silly holding that against it, haha!

You should get bonus points if you slap him to the beat, and especially to the wop!

[The Newgrounds Bug Collab]

Yowza, what a cool art collab! I love to see art collabs that present the art in a very creative and compelling fashion, and this game delivers that in spades with its wonderful Pokemon-esque world that you explore in! I enjoyed all the people and things you can interact with in the world, and I enjoyed the zoo with all its marvelous bugs and fancy cages, and very much appreciated its plaques that contain links to the artist's profile. I couldn't help but wish the game was full-on Pokemon with being able to collect and battle these critters, but I understand that's a big ask and I already applaud the effort that was put into this: well done!

In terms of feedback:

*I found it very odd how the bugs move around: instead of smoothly transitioning between grid spaces like the player does, they insta-teleport around. It's kinda scary, almost like they're SCP-esque monsters! I'm guessing it was done because it was too much to ask the artists to make walk cycle sprites in addition to all the directional poses, but even then, I wouldn't mind and would prefer a more smooth and slow movement instead of the teleporting, even if it looks a bit odd that the legs don't animate.

*The glass in front of the cages, particularly the thick upper line of them, really bothered me as it is constantly blocking the bugs and not allowing me to see them clearly. Wish it was made thinner or transparent or taller so it doesn't end up occluding them.

*The place is absolutely huge! Wish there was something like a map so I could easily get a read of the museum layout and plan out my trip, and I also wish the map design had more shortcuts and would constantly lead into the lobby instead of having long stretches that lead to dead-ends that you then need to backtrack on. Could stand to have some fast travel checkpoints (I thought this is what these elevator door things were) and maybe change up the colors of some of the rooms to represent different wings and allow you to mental map the facility better.

Frosty responds:

thanks for the good reviews as always!!

[Pumpkin's Sky Tea]

Pretty cute game! Love the presentation and vibes that this game gives off, and as a fan of games like Euro Truck, Elite Dangerous, New Horizons and so on, the trading aspect alongside some SHMUP combat was very compelling and right up my alley! The inclusion of meaningless but amusing aspects like a meow button were very charming, and the goal of the game being to purchase cat pictures was hilarious (and not a bad motivation!)

However, as cute as the cat pictures were and all that, I had to admit that the game quickly became repetitive and just wasn't keeping my attention. The SHMUP gameplay felt very shallow and never seemed to evolve in any interesting way as the game went on, making it end up feeling like annoying filler before long, and the trading was all the same as well. Trading was a bit of a bummer too because while I want to buy cat pictures periodically as I play for a reward, that seems like a dumb idea because it removes my trading power, so its better to just keep trading and buy all the pictures at the end in one fell swoop, which makes it such a slog.

I think what this game really needed was some sense of progression: typically the charm of these trading games is upgrading your ship for bigger cargo loads or faster speed or the ability to utilize new routes, giving it an addicting sense of escalation. In this game, however, your ship remains the same and all routes and goods are open to you immediately, and since all you blow your money on is cat pictures, it feels like a loss and makes everything else feels unchanging as you just run the same loop over and over.

All in all, it's still impressive given its a game jam game, and the cat is very cute, but yeah, just wish it had a bit more meat to its core gameplay loop!

Chris responds:

Thanks! I agree with a lot of what you have said which is why I plan to make another and build on it a bit. The short time frame for the game jam was quite limiting in what I was able to pull off.

[Late Awakening]

Pretty decent puzzle game! It's got that usual brokellusion stylish and smooth presentation and feel, but in a rather unusual and welcome twist, this breaks free from the puzzle-platformer genre and is refreshingly different with its mouse-based controls and puzzles! The game overall has a lot of novelty going for it with many wildly different puzzles: you start out with what you'd expect, being these Irritating Stick/Operation games where you move the mouse through a deadly maze, but later on the game changes up significantly with Flappy Bird clones and all sorts. It feels reminiscient of a warioware game, or one of Bart Bonte's abstract puzzlers. Overall, it is quite fun!

While the game does have a lot of novelty and that does keep things fresh, at the same time it felt like the game didn't have a strong unifying vision: none of the puzzles get time to breath or evolve in interesting or challenging ways before they are put away for some new toy. As such, the game rarely feels compelling: rather it is just distracting me from how little there is. Not the best analogy, but I wanted a big burger I could really sink my teeth into, but all I got was a small pack of trail mix: sure it technically has a lot of flavors in there, but it's just not that satisfying as a meal.

In addition, there were a few bugs and other complications. I had a block-pushing puzzle bug out on me and complete before I was even finished with it for some reason, and the mouse moves very oddly and out-of-sync at times which can be a huge detriment for time trials where precision is key. Speaking of time trials, I probably can't even beat this game because my old man joints just can't deal with the rapid clicking that is needed for the final circle-growing venn diagram puzzle: wish it would allow me to click and hold, or perhaps make each click grow bigger so less are needed (and you could keep the difficulty by increasing the rate at which they shrink, so it still maintains its balancing aspect).