FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[ENDHELL]

Hmm, the visuals are certainly quite stylishly weird in that old-school Flash kind of way, the concept of combining an endless runner with a first-person Wolf3D perspective was quite interesting, and I had some good fun trying to master the moveset and build up combos while dodging the enemies...but there were a lot of small annoyances that got in the way of the fun and I just found it a bit too lacking in content to keep my attention long. Still quite memorable, though!

Probably the biggest aspect that got in the way of my enjoyment was how confusing and muted damage feedback is: there were loads of times that I thought I got hit but I actually didn't, or vice versa. I feel like the game is kind of odd in where the collision boxes are, in that they are kind of behind or below the player, which kind of makes sense realistically but that also means you're getting hit by stuff you've already past and can't see so realism is a bad choice here?

Other than that, the game feels rather shallow and without enough content to keep my interest for long: feels like you've seen everything it has to offer in a few seconds. Don't get me wrong, I like a short arcade experience, but the scoring system didn't really excite me either and it felt confusing that coins are separate from score. I was really hoping that those things we unlock with coins were going to be new levels with more obstacles or enemies, but sadly it was just music which, while nice, isn't much in terms of keeping the gameplay fresh.

[The Planetologist DEMO]

Seems like a decent Survivors-esque twin-stick shooter! Certainly showcases some solid fundamentals, but I do have to admit that while the game isn't bad necessarily and provides some grindy shooty fun for a short time, in this world of millions of Survivors-esque games vying for attention, this really isn't exciting me or being memorable and I drop it rather quickly. You're free to make whatever you like, of course, and perhaps it's unfair of me to compare, but I feel like it's inevitable. There are some aspects on which it shows some potential to differentiate itself, such as the diverse cast of characters might allow for a lot of different playstyles, or maybe the story mode will be unique, but I don't have any proof of those yet in this small demo.

I'm spitballing here, but given that the game is named the Planetologist, I thought that there were going to be more planet or science-based mechanics, and that could be a nice way to make this game stand out in a unique way. For example, maybe the planet could have more hazardous weather conditions or natural disasters you need to deal with randomly to keep you on your toes or prepare beforehand. Maybe instead of just shooting hordes of mooks, your primary objective is to gather samples by searching for locations to setup drills you then need to defend, or hunting down unique boss enemies. You could also maybe have to build up turrets or defenses like an engineer.

Some other minor feedback would be that it'd be nice to have some sort of visual HUD element to see our roll cooldown (similar to the reload bar), and to see our EXP progress in a bigger way than tucked in the corner where it's barely visible. I also found it really weird that our gun doesn't fire a bullet but instead seems to be some sort of invisible laser: makes no sense why we get powerups about increasing bullet size or speed. More razzle-dazzle in general would be nice too.

JamesChapp responds:

Thank you so much for playing the game and leaving a review!

This feedback is fantastic because it gives us a lot to think about and work on. Guillermo and I aimed to get the demo out there to test the core mechanics of the game. It's still a work in progress, and we're receiving a ton of valuable feedback on the project.

Since it's published on Newgrounds, we're dealing with a very demanding audience that, at the same time, understands it's a project in development being carried out by just the two of us. =)

[Boss Rush Delivery Demo]

Yowza, this was a really neato game! I might be bias because I love boss-rush games, but this was a very fun twin-stick shooter with a great variety of boss patterns and some decent combat mechanics! Sure, it's not super original or unique or anything, and it might be a bit too long-winded in terms of dialogue and could use a skip button for that, especially when redoing a boss after a loss, but I do appreciate how goofy and charming it is trying to be. Can't believe this got passed over for the Best of June: would've easily been in my top 10 as it is very promising and I look forward to seeing it develop!

EDIT: Looks like there is a skip dialogue option but I just wasn't aware of it over just clicking madly, haha!

[Gods of the Arena Dungeon [DEMO]]

Pretty cool game! Reminds me a lot of games like Realm of the Mad God, or perhaps some competitive form of Risk of Rain. Certainly looks to be a rather charming game in terms of presentation and while it's already quite fun in its single-player state, I'd be very interested to see how the gameplay shifts when you need to deal with other players competing and sabotaging each other. Overall it looks incredibly promising and I'm sure loads of people are gonna love it.

Having said that, though...the game really didn't work for me personally. It's still good, but I felt rather underwhelmed despite what looks like a quality product. It's hard to nail down exactly what it is, but something about it just really didn't gel with me: both the micro minute-to-minute combat gameplay and the macro mechanics of levelling and looting just felt really awkward, confusing and unsatisfying. If it helps, I think it's most likely a personal preference thing, similar to how I don't like The Binding of Isaac that much, but can still see why many others would like it. If I were to offer some feedback, though, it'd be:

*This is a bit vague, but as said, there's something about the combat that just felt really off to me. Maybe it's the slow projectiles, maybe it's the hitboxes being placed or sized oddly, maybe its the way the enemies are placed in the world that doesn't match when viewed in a 3D perspective, maybe it's the hit/death feedback, maybe it's that projectiles can clash, there's just something about it within the nitty-gritty that just didn't work for me. I don't have anything specific, unfortunately, so it's up to y'all.

*I was constantly trying to use my RMB skill and being shocked that it wasn't ready yet. It's ok that abilities have long cooldowns if that's what you want for strategy purposes, but I'd like it if you try to use an ability before its ready, that it notifies the player, like having the cooldown remaining flash above the players head briefly, and their character makes a little noise or shakes about.

*I'd like it if loot on the floor has the little info pop-up when your character goes near/over the item, not just when the mouse hovers over it: would make it a lot more convenient to examine loot as typically I'm trying to fend off enemies and I don't have the luxury to mouse over loot during that.

*For a game that's all about racing to level up, levels come and go with the player barely noticing it. At the very least, I'd like it if there was some more fanfare when you level up to give a sense of gratification, but you could also make gaining exp a bit more exciting by turning it into crystals as they do in Survivors games: this could have the added benefit of making multiplayer a bit more exciting as players could plan to steal the crystals that scatter from another player's kill.

*I found it very confusing to grasp the whole class unlock system: why am I having to jump through all these weird hoops to have fun? I just leveled up, so let me pick whatever one of the two classes on offer I want instead of giving me no choice at all unless I do these quests that I don't even understand: the ones that take honor to unlock are self-explanatory, but I have no idea what the other requirements mean.

*I don't feel like the tutorial prepared me for the game properly. Sure, it goes over the basic controls, but I felt completely unprepared for the actual game as I had no idea I wouldn't be able to start as the fire mage immediately, I didn't know about collecting keys and ascending classes and searching for bosses and competing against other players and moving onto new zones and all of that jazz!

*Loot was a bit boring and devoid of anything really exciting besides minor statistical increases. I also don't know what some of the stats mean, like bullet HP.

*Bit frustrating that you can't pause and read tooltips and such at your leisure. I know it's because it will eventually be a multiplayer game, and eventually I'll learn everything and won't need to pause, but still, it was frustrating, especially since I'm playing it single-player at the moment.

Looking forward to seeing how this shapes up with its final release: as said, I think the multiplayer aspect could be very interesting!

gasgod responds:

Hey man
Just saw your video. I appreciate your feedback and this big review!
This game is essentially if you crossed a .io game (like diep.io) with, as you alluded to it in the video, Realm of the Mad God. It's supposed to be a relatively casual experience you can just kind of zone out to and frag your buddies with abbreviated leveling and RPG-light-light mechanics.
Might make more sense in that context

[HELLFIRE!]

Hmm, it's a little rough around the edges, weird, and doesn't have that much meat on its bones, but the game certainly has an overwhelmingly bombastic sense of style to it that I found quite appealing, and the gameplay does have some slight depth to its mechanics and I enjoyed trying to keep the momentum up and aim for a high score! I think it's a bit style-over-substance for the most part and didn't keep my attention for long, but eh, not too shabby!

[Seeking Peace - Zombeez Jam Winner]

Cute little game! Game has some nice goofy vibes to it, and overall there was a wide variety of obstacles to contend with as you go through the game, so I think it does a decent job at creating an adventure that keeps you going to see what comes up next!

Having said that, the concept of puzzles revolving around zombies, particularly separating your head from your body, was something I was very interested in as a core mechanic, but I don't feel like the game expanded upon it as much as I'd like. It starts off pretty strong and has some other good moments late in the game, but around the middle it felt like it lost steam for me: sure, it was introducing new hazards and mixing it up, but it felt very off-topic and random, basically obstacles you'd see in any other puzzle platformer. It's not bad, but I just felt a bit unsatisfied that I never got a unique and challenging zombie-related puzzle to sink my teeth into, and instead just got a buffet of random simple puzzles. Again, not too shabby overall however!

[Patter]

Cute little game! Reminds me a lot of opening a Highlights magazine or the newspaper and going to the activity center: this game would've been right next to the crossword, spot the difference, and the junior jumble! The title screen was quite novel in introducing the concept, and I had a nice relaxing time going through a few puzzles, curious as to how the generation algorithm works. There's a simple, satisfying, instinctual pleasure that comes when you find that overlap!

Ultimately though it feels like more of a tech demo than a proper game, and I got bored of it quickly since it just kept repeating the same thing over and over. Perhaps if it had some sort of escalation it could bring to the table, like increasing the size or density of the puzzles as you get further, or some other creative twist, it might've kept my interest!

[Gravity Storm - First Mission (DEMO 2)]

Nice little retro game!

It's a little bit basic overall and feels like a 'my first action platformer' game from a first-timer dev, but I don't want to be too down on it because it actually does a lot of things very well in terms of design:

For one, it starts out strong by immediately getting the player into the action and introducing some cool mechanics like gravity switching.

Next, the game kept my interest by having each level add something fresh and distinct to the mix, be it a new mechanic, tileset, obstacles and so on, alongside mixing it all together with tricky combinations.

Finally, it all ends with a good ol' boss fight which has a decent attack pattern and an enrage phase!

So yeah, it's not necessarily anything groundbreaking or truly interesting, but it was a fun short romp and I think it displayed some good design fundamentals that a lot of other games in this ilk get wrong, particularly from first-timers! And yeah, it's nice to see more appreciation for Metal Storm: I was a latecomer to that game myself!

Jampley-Dev responds:

Thanks for the review and the video. Demo 2 is out here, and on Steam if you want to wishlist the full game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3482870/Gravity_Storm__First_Mission/

[the ancient little wizard]

Hah, quite the amusing little game! I quite like the goofy vibes to it and especially enjoy all of the interactions you can have with objects and people. Creating a whole stealth system for these stores was very interesting and livened up the experience above my expectations. There were also a lot of secrets like NPCs that sell special items, recruitments, and the ability to find a pointier hat that upgrades your height stat by 1 which I assume makes no actual difference in anything important, haha! All in all it seemed like a fun little adventure!

While I did enjoy it at the start, I'll admit that around the second trinket I was starting to fall out of love with it. The stealth system seemed buggy and I got seen plenty of times even though I was clearly hiding behind objects that should've blocked their sight. The combat system had no depth to it and could easily be solved by just spamming meteors and meditating with the occasional heal thrown in, turning it into just a hassle (maybe my fault for picking combat mode, but how was I supposed to know without trying?) And every store just felt like more of the same without any sense of progression or escalation, which alongside NPCs repeating lines just made the world lose its allure.

Having said that, morbid curiosity did make me go back and play a bit more, and for some reason I encountered the void walker and was able to go home with only 3 trinkets? Not sure if that was a glitch or maybe I get a better ending if I get all 5?

Would certainly love to see more goofy adventures like this: just needs a little bit more meat on its bones to keep the adventure novel and interesting the whole way through instead of stalling out like it did here!

ArlucGames responds:

Thanks for such an in depth review! It's nice to hear of someone trying to engage with the whole game, which does of course expose its flaws...
The stealth (like most games) was never fully padded out, as the game is so short anyway, but I understand how that can be frustrating.
Combat was also thrown in for variety but not fleshed out, again just wanting to keep the game simple.
You can actually reach Void Walker with just 1 trinket. This was intentional and reading the item descriptions will make it clear which one it is 😉
Did you get the secret ending? If you help out the skeletons, they'll point you in the right direction. Though the secret ending is also simple and more of a gag so you may not want to go through the effort 😅
Thanks so much for playing and hope you'll try out my other games in the future! Which I hope to be a bit more involved than this quick little project 😁

[MEATBALL the MITE (Classic)]

Pretty cool metroid game! In some respects, the game is rather basic and not necessarily anything we haven't seen before, but I still found it to be a very fun adventure: the goofy, highly-animated visuals and 'cells at work' inner-body concept was very charming, and the way the world is constructed has a good balance of generally being linear, small and guided enough to keep the momentum up while still having some sense of being lost and backtracking through a big world. I enjoyed collecting upgrades, finding secrets, and duking it out against bosses: all in all, solid work!

If I were to have any feedback:

*It'd be nice if the map showed you icons next to the teleporters indicating what world they take you to, similar to the signs next to them in the world. There's kind of something like this on the zoom-out map (which took me a while to find, could be more obvious, maybe use a word like 'world map' or something instead) where it creates bridges between them, but this only happens when you manually zoom-in and out for each one-by-one?

*It'd be nice if the pause menu allowed you to look through your upgrades that you've collected: sometimes it can be easy to forget what you've acquired, especially when coming back after a break, and it can be helpful as a hint for where to go next.

*It's probably a big ask, but it'd be great if the map had even more functionality like being able to place icons or notes manually to remember things that the map doesn't naturally keep track of itself.

*Can be frustrating to figure out what blocks are destructible and what blocks look like they are, but aren't for some reason, and what blocks are only destructible from quakes happening and which quakes will cause that and which won't and so on. This caused a lot of unnecessary backtracking and confusion: maybe the map could provide more information?