FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Where's The Cheat?]

Short and sweet game! I'm a Homestar Runner fan, so the nostalgia is strong with me for this one and I liked seeing the various references. Loved the Atari-style graphics, explosions and sound effects. I had a good time with it, but I did have a few complaints. One, the navigation is a bit odd: I kept thinking that the down arrow was to go 'backwards' instead of going 'down' on the map, and similarily I through right and left were to turn 90 degrees, not just go left or right on the map. Bit confusing since it kinda clashes with how these 3d puzzle mazes usually work. Two, I wish the game was even longer with more levels that had more funny references to experience! Still, it was a nice time, and I got to kill a freakin' duck.

[SKIM THAT PROFILE!]

Really fun and charming game! It's like a rapid-fire Papers Please type of game where you really gotta flex your speed reading skills. I loved how you had 'gotcha' elements in there, like 'murder...mystery movies' and 'assassin...'s creed' that could trick the player into passing on a viable cutie. I have to admit, though, this double tricked me at first since I thought I recognized this trick but then didn't see another mention of murder, leading to me misinterpreting it, haha. I really loved this as it is and would love to see it expanded even further: maybe harder difficulties make you have to additionally look at their picture, or flip through a multi-page bio? Nice work!

[Together Alone - The RPG]

It's alright and I think it has a lot of potential, but it needs a lot more time in the oven before it can become something great, I think. A lot of the text has typos and grammatical mistakes in it which lead to the story not being taken seriously. The battle screen, while cool looking, goes too fast, lacks damage feedback/numbers when players or enemies are attacked, and lacks item/ability descriptions, making it frustrating to tell what's going on. Buttons are all over the place and inconsistent as well: why is the backspace button used for backing out of menus instead of the go back/cancel button? Also why does the menu not actually display the correct amount of health that the players have? And to top it all off, the first level is a sewer level, which is a cardinal sin of levels, haha (I'll allow it for this though). Would like to see more of this if these elements get ironed out.

[Interstate Drifter 1999]

Love this game! Love the feeling of getting better and better at grasping the drifting controls. At first, I might have to turn 180 degrees to slow myself by starting the drift too late on a turn, but later on you can get better and more efficient at turning only 90 degrees. Feels like it really rewards skillful play and player expression, and it's all put-together with cool graphics and music. I liked how you're given a free infinite space to drive around in a tutorial as well. My only complaint might be that I don't really like the energy system: it feels so bad to lose by running out of gas/energy. I would much prefer a standard lives system instead where you lose a life by damaging yourself or falling off and so on. If you want to keep energy, I would put that in an alternate hard/pro mode or something. Nice work on this!

UltimoGames responds:

yeah I hear it sometimes, that people don't like the energy bar.. Some do.. Thanks for the review FuturecopLGF! Glad you like it !

[Creep Away]

Not too shabby! I do like the gameplay and while I was initially a little confused by the tutorial info text dump, I was impressed at the attention of detail you've given to the HUD and UI elements, as well as general presentation, since it really allows the player to soak in the mechanics and learn everything in a visual way. That being said, I did dislike how despite being able to hover over a player to see how far they can move, you can't also see how far their attack/spirits can spread as well like how games like Fire Emblem do. Also, I felt like the game was really slow: instead of being short and sweet puzzles, it was long, tedious chase sequences where you need to keep waiting and waiting for way too many turns, watching the enemies move and their spirits spread in, and out, several times. When I lost, I couldn't convince myself to continue because I would have to wait for so long to finish a level. Basically, I just felt like the difficulty spiked too early and levels go on too long, but otherwise, the game seems very well put together.

drewby-games responds:

Thanks for playing, and i appreciate such a well written review/cricism. Totally agree that levels are too long and the game is too slow. adding spirit on hover when not moving them makes a lot of sense too! Id love to have levels as short and interesting as Into the Breach, for example.

I hope to continue to work on the level design, speed, and difficulty in the future!

[Can You Save the World ?]

This was a really charming game that really hits everything for me! Very cute music and graphics, nice story and concept, solid, smooth and intuitive gameplay with varied and challenging mechanics, and to top it all off, it's educational! I think my only complaint was that there was a bit of a boring middle part, where you have already seen everything the game has to offer and the difficulty isn't ramping up anymore, but you haven't saved enough people to see that you're making meaningful progress. Because of this, I was tempted to end the game since I thought it was just going to loop forever without any more progress. However, I did eventually get a big boost of lives saved which drew my attention to the top-right bar making significant progress, which bolstered me to make it to the end. Nice work!

MartinJacob responds:

Thank you so much !

The game is meant for all age groups so we had to cap the difficulty eventually.
In future releases we'll be including difficulty levels to challenge skillful players such as you !

[Worm Protect Egg]

Solid arcade action! I like how colorful and explosive everything is: it makes the entire game a delight as even a game over is a cool and fun event where stuff explodes! I was initially confused by a few elements, especially since the instruction screen went by so fast without waiting for my input to confirm. Dropping segments of yourself is actually pretty cool, like laying mines, but initially I did not get how to do it effectively and was scared since I thought it was hurting myself. I didn't know I could finish off spinning/stunned enemies by bumping into them again either: I just figured I could only stun them and that was it and I'd need to keep stunning them to keep them away. If these elements and more were explained a bit more clearly or something with a better tutorial or demo, I think more and more people could appreciate how fun this can be once you get the hang of it!

[Larcin Lazer]

Very charming game! I actually had a lot of fun trying to make my way through the lasers, all helped by the goofy visuals and sounds of the thief dancing around like Kronk. I do kinda wish I could choose when to start moving instead of the game deciding, both in terms of making it go faster if I want to skip it and in terms of making it go slower if people want a few more seconds to memorize the pattern, but I do understand the design in escalating difficulty by only allowing a very short time to see the pattern. Also kinda wish it would show the entire laser pattern on death, like how Minesweeper shows all the mines when you trigger a mine, and I don't like how you can kinda move off-screen on the right side. Still, solid game!

DrGeraud responds:

Thank you for your time and for this in depth feedback. A lot of great stuff here. I'll sure think about that if I decide to do a full game out of this!

[ShapeMaze]

A bit confusing at first, but this is actually a really fun and challenging platformer with a good variety of obstacles to contend with! I like the cool way the levels transition by reassembling themselves. I don't like the way you can run off-screen: not only did it confuse me at first since I though it was going to take me to another level or the other side of the screen or something, but there's a weird puzzle later on where you need to jump into the off-screen zone to make it upwards??? I think the game should stop you from going off-screen and that puzzle should be removed: it made it seem really clunky and I almost dropped the game there. Thank goodness I didn't quit though because I do like how much more complicated and cool the obstacles kept getting!

[Ninja Suffering]

Not too shabby, but I feel like it's a bit bare-bones and way too simple at the moment in many aspects. I think the core is pretty decent: running to the right, strategically jumping/double-jumping to grab burgers to keep your stamina up while trying to get a high score is pretty fun. The music is great, and the game even has some nice touches like a bit of shake when you land.

However, I feel like the gameplay and progression is very minimal: once you've played it for a few seconds you've seen everything. The platforms are incredibly bland: I would much prefer the platforms to be something more colorful like floating islands with grass that have actual edges to them instead of just bland tiled brick squares. Would be nice if the platforms changed as you progress as well: maybe they get smaller or maybe some icey platforms or spike platforms get thrown in the mix for variety. Would be nice if there were more power-ups to spice things up or obstacles to contend with: maybe you have to throw your shuriken or slice through enemies while you're running. Furthermore, while the title screen is presented well with the text dropping in, all of the other events like speed up and game over are presented very blandly with no fanfare: it'd be a lot cooler if speed up was put front and center and had some confetti go off to celebrate you making it farther.

Basically, I think this game needs a lot more to it since Azumi deserves it.