FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[NEO:YORK:KNIGHTS]

I really want to like this game because it seems to ooze style with its cool art and aesthetic, and I love robots. It really makes me feel like I'm missing something, because at the moment it doesn't feel like you can do much in terms of combat. If you try to hit the enemies, they seem to hit back at you no matter how hard you try to hit before them. I try and outrange their swing with a backstep or whatever and they still hit me. Throwing your sword, while cool, just seems to lead to you getting dogpiled with no weapon. If you manage to survive and upgrade to a gun, then it's just a mindless slaughter as you gun them down without any challenge. If the combat system was reworked to have a bit more style and allow the player to control the situation more, maybe add some levels or something, this could be a robo Katana Zero in the making. I think this game has a lot of potential and I would love to see this worked on and come back in a more extended form!

MoeAnguish responds:

Thanks for your input! I'll keep this in mind if i work on this or any other platformer/fighter kinda game!

[Blooming]

Holy moley, you expect a lot out of your players! This game was super confusing, unintuitive and frustrating: a lot of the time when concepts were explained to the user, they were done with vague graphics, and those graphics weren't even visible at the moment you needed them! However, once you wrap your head around how the game works, this game had some crazy mind-bending puzzles that really challenged me and blew me away! Can't get over what a unique and interesting experience this was, and I'm glad to say I was able to beat it. It's not all sunshine and rainbows though: I felt like the dogs were a bit annoying to deal with due to their weird AI, and the boss was a bit of a letdown after the initial thrill due to how much health it had and how little time you had to pick a flower to strategize through the obstacles it sent your way. I bet a lot of people will bounce off this game, and you should work on that, because I want more people to see how great this game can really be!

HealliesGames responds:

No matter how hard I try, it seems that creating an easily understandable game is really against my nature.

I think it is partly due to my experience with videogames;
games like Another World or Contra took me hours, if not days, to figure out how to get through a part.
I want to convey this, apparently failing.

The dog AI is actually simple: they follow the linear path until the character is inside of their range. Then start following you. A circle showing how much distance to keep should solve the problem!

As for the boss instead, I should be able to resolve simply by removing the possibility of making consecutive attacks, since the moment you are dead you don't have the physical time to collect the flower.

I really hope I can improve this aspect in my production. This thanks mainly to user feedback, as well as thanks to your work of reviewing complete with gameplay.
I wait to see how you played it!

[Fish Canon (Prototype)]

Pretty cool prototype that I'd love to see more from! At the moment, the game seems a bit too slow to get going: takes a long time to build-up money to be able to actually have some control over your flight with power-ups, and then they are only one-use and gone, leaving you to build up more, unfortunately slowly and randomly. I like the goal system, but they didn't seem to reward anything at the moment once completed: if they did, that'd be a great way to give the player some orbs and get them to the fun stuff quicker. Having said that, it would be nice to have the player control their experience a bit better all the time: maybe a more zoom-ed out camera when going fast so you see ahead and plan manuevers, along with the ability to always slightly manipulate your movement even without items by rotating in certain ways (or maybe just replenish items for free)? There's a lot of ways this could be built on and I'm looking forward to it: hopefully my suggestions help but it could be the core idea that the game is intentionally supposed to be a bit random and not player skill-based, in which case you can disregard my rambling!

[Dr. John Black Smith]

Great game! Loved the concept and the goofy visuals/sounds, especially the people "talking", and I especially liked the clever multi-choice ending on how to deal with the final customer (though the small, odd font did make it difficult to read). As much as I liked it, there were some awkward elements to the game, such as how you have to make yourself wait for the gauge area to jump around after a hit so you can safely hit again: I think it should move right after you raise the hammer for another hit so you're ready immediately. The money in the bottom left seemed arbitrary as well: perhaps a discarded left-over from the jam for a potential score-attack/endless mode? Would love to see this game expanded upon, with maybe a new mechanic being that you have to apply an oil to the sword based on what type of monster the warrior says they are hunting!

[Closing In]

Takes a bit to get going, but it has some creative gameplay to it! Very confusing start to the game as everything is a square and the game is a bit too minimalist. The concept is alright, but it could definitely use some polish to add some pizazz to it, as well as some more obstacles or other elements as the game is very drab at the moment. The game does have some cool polish to it, such as the transitions between levels: would love to see similar things applied to the game over screen. All in all, in the later levels the difficulty ramps up and its fun and challenging to make calculated and efficient jumps to get everything you need and escape, so not too shabby.

[Broken heart's technical service]

Very creative idea and well-executed! I loved the difficulty progression as lots of interesting variations of obstacles were added as you got close to the end: did not expect to see that much from a game jam game. The art in the game is very cute as well: gives me a bit of a Leisure Suit Larry vibe at first, haha. The HUD is cool and stylish, but maybe a bit too busy: not sure what the girl in the upper right is doing (besides being well-animated and cute), and the main screen background might want to be faded a bit to increase visibility of the actual gameplay elements. I like how the guy slowly gains his composure as you make progress though, which is a clever way to represent the heart meter and keep it centered on the main screen!

[Bat Outa Dot Dot]

Pretty neat game! I like the chase gameplay, and felt like the music and Satan chasing you really accentuated the panic and tension! At the moment, I feel like the difficulty curve as you go through could use a little tweaking, and I feel like it doesn't pick up fast enough and doesn't vary the obstacles enough. It does eventually get hard suddenly, but then just as suddenly gives you a lot of blank rooms before the exit (I guess as a cool-down period). Basically, I like the idea and would just like to see and be challenged more! It might feel like cheating, but maybe Satan should rubberband to never be too far behind you in each room: that will really make the chase feel more fun as Satan would have a chance to interject more goofy lines like in the beginning.

[Gimme Meow]

I feel like this game has a lot of impressive polish to it, especially for a game jam game! The goofy, cartoony nature of it is so cute and every single design element is tuned to make the most of it: music, sound effects, art and design all work in tandem to accentuate it. While it works well for the most part, there were a few times when the cats judged an object good when it was really bad, and bad when it was really good. I also wish I could rotate the object before scaling it, but maybe that would make it too easy. Well done making this cute mini-game: the polished nature of it must've been due to excellent planning and not overextending yourselves.

[Trail Smash]

Pretty neat game! For a simple game, it had a good, explosive feel to it, and it was fun to go for a high score, especially when you hear the score tick upwards at the end. A little confusing to figure out how the game works since it doesn't give many hints in the game (and some of the colors are a bit un-intuitive, such as why there needs to be red and yellow spikes, and odd that red aren't the insta-kill variety), and I dunno if you have to lock away the modes at the start. Once you get going though, it's fun!

[interFerence]

Very interesting game! While some of the backtracking was a little tedious, and the way the fuzzy-static obstacles changed directions haphazardly was a bit frustrating to navigate, the game had a really neat story that was great to experience. I made it to the boss battle, won, and had the scene where he turns off the screen. Was surprised to see it continue after that, but needed to take a quick break. Unfortunately it doesn't look like it saved so I'm not able to continue on. Still, I felt like the game could've ended right there on a high note, so I feel like I got a satisfying ending nonetheless.