FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Timber Trail: Prologue]

Hey, this was pretty cool!

The introduction sequence of figuring out you're chained to the wall, and then having to try and find items within arms reach really blew me away with how novel it was and got me hooked and immersed into the horror experience you've cooked up! Yeah, I'll admit that everything beyond that intro was a bit cliche and I could easily tell how it was going to go: I kept saying "welcome to the family, son" whenever I walked to the front door and sure enough, it happened, haha! But still, being able to sneak through the house and look through drawers and everything was neat and it all felt well-crafted overall.

If I was to offer some feedback, it'd be:

*I examined the soda and the character suggested to drug it. This is fine, but in my current state where I was still looking for exits, you'd think the character would just be focused on running away, and it'd only be after they realize there's no way out to try something else like that. Just a bit of a sequencing issue, I suppose.

*The place where you'd put the mouse to interact with an object could be really awkward sometimes in its placement. Like, I'd be pointing at a door knob and nothing would come up, but if I point at the center of the door, now I can interact with it. I did play it in Firefox, so maybe this was the bug that was mentioned? I didn't have any other problems, though.

*I wish the game had more interactions to not only give the environment more life, but also explain some odd behaviors. For example, I'm trying to interact with the open windows to escape, only for nothing to come up. It'd be nice if maybe the character would say something like "I'm too weak: I don't wanna risk jumping out and breaking my neck" or something like that.

Very promising stuff!

[Guns and Nuns: Storming Hell]

Hmm, while I can certainly see how blasting demons with big Desert Eagles as some crazy nun would make for some mindless fun, it unfortunately didn't take long for the game to feel just plain mindless for me.

As mentioned, there is some potential for a good shooter in here. The big bloody explosions when enemies die is nice, there's an attempt at a scoring system where you need to keep your combo going, and the main character is, well, quite a character.

But with only one weapon type and one enemy type who is not threatening in the slightest, the game quickly descends into mindless repetition of, quite figuratively, shooting fish in a barrel. The scoring system is not only uncompelling due to how simplistic it is and how easy it is to keep up your combo due to the unthreatening enemies, but it also feels pointless because there is no high score table integration to compete with friends, nor are there any graded scores to let you measure your progress.

There's a foundation here that can be worked upon, but it's such a plain canvas at the moment that I'm unsure of what I could suggest to improve it. Best I could say is to play arcade games like Devil Daggers or Resident Evil Mercenaries to get some ideas for how you'd like to direct it.

[Helmet Hood Hat]

Wow, this is pretty cool! It's not the prettiest or juiciest game (though I do like the cartoony graphics) but I was very impressed at how intuitive the mechanics were thanks to good symbols, language and tooltips, and how puzzle-like combat could be thanks to all the varied enemies you encounter. I liked being able to customize my party with abilities and potions, the combat hits the sweet spot between simple and difficult which makes it move at a good pace, and I love a good boss fight at the end of each zone: it all makes for a really fun and challenging adventure that reminds me a lot of the greats like Darkest Dungeon!

A few notes:

*While the game is rather intuitive, there were times I really wish the game had damage numbers pop-up to let me know exactly what's going on with all the attacks being thrown, and a combat log to keep track and review what went on would help too.

*One thing I wish the combat did was invoke some sort of pressure to have you finish fights as quickly as possible, or to wipe any buffs when you go to the next round. Currently you can cheese the fights by leaving one enemy left and stalling as you buff and heal up your party for the next fight, and it feels exploitative and adds a lot of unnecessary bloat to fights, killing the pace. With how tough fights can get later on, it kind of starts to avoid this naturally, but still, it's something to consider.

*I appreciate that the game has saving! A lot of games neglect to have such a basic feature, so it's very nice to see here, even if the game can technically be short if you know what you're doing.

AlkalinePineapples responds:

Thanks for the feedback!
I'm not sure about adding a combat log, but I'm definitely adding the damage numbers.
I'll try to keep the rest in mind for any future RPGs I make.

[Unmortis]

Neat little game! The world and characters have some cool mysterious vibes to them, and the concept of collecting intel on people's RPS strategies and then using that to beat them was quite novel and made me feel clever!

A few notes on the experience:

*I made it out with the minimum 4 souls, not bothering to defeat the rest of the opponents. I wonder if the game has a different ending if you get everyone? Would be nice if it did.

*I feel like the dialogue system needs some work. Sometimes I'd visit people after having already completed the quest they would've assigned to me if I talked to them earlier, and it treats it as if I have talked to them before despite not doing so. Just makes it feel a bit inelegant and takes me out of the experience.

*It's a nice game, but I can't help but feel like it's more of a prototype or proof-of-concept. The act of acquiring intel and such just felt stupidly simplistic at times, like picking up a note out of nowhere which apparently teaches you all about the knight's strategy. Ideally, I'd like there to be a bit more puzzle-solving, experimentation and mystery about learning their tics.

filgreen3 responds:

Thanks for the feedback! You're right, it's definitely still not a full game. I kept things simple since I wasn't sure if the concept would work.

Did you fight the samurai? That note tells you their strategy but they're still the hardest enemy. That's more like what I want the full game to be. Good to know the main idea is working!

[The Pharaoh's Tomb]

Solid short-and-sweet puzzle game! Took me a brief moment to understand the controls at first since they weren't explained in-game, and my eyes hurt from the CRT-filters and tiny screen, but once I got into it, I was hooked and had a nice time overall! Well done with the whole remote box movement mechanic and the way you evolved it in interesting ways over time!

One thing that really caught me off-guard was the puzzle design:

*There were early levels which have a lot of elements scattered about that make you think the puzzle is going to be complicated, only for the exit to be immediately reachable through simple means. Sometimes I couldn't tell whether these were intentional red herrings to lead me astray, or the puzzle wasn't constructed properly to avoid exploits!

*Some of the later puzzles seemed to rely on the player moving the box from two locations rapidly to try and catch the player or something like that. I enjoyed the challenge, but typically puzzle games don't have dexterity-based challenges, so I again wasn't quite sure if it was intentional or I was exploiting the mechanics in some way.

I think it's just that I've gotten used to puzzles being so focus-tested and having elegant/pure design that something a bit 'messy' like this is actually quite refreshing and makes you think!

Necryn1 responds:

The puzzles definitely arent as elegant as I would have liked :/ but the red herrings were intentional. The dexterity challenges were also intentional! I couldn't think of level progressions so I just went with that

[Back and Forth]

Hey, this was a nice short and sweet game! I'm always fond of these one-button platformers and how creative they can be in building a challenge around that limitation: this game felt pretty solid with a decent variety of mechanics like spikes, on/off blocks, and the ghost. I had a good time, finishing it with all coins collected (though it didn't give me the achievements because the login didn't work, oh well)!

It was nice, but I were to have some feedback, it'd be:

*There were some crazy difficulty spikes in the way the levels are sequenced, so I would've reordered them to make a better gradual curve. For example, level 8 is a big sudden step-up in challenge, only for level 9 and 10 to plummet down back into being incredibly easy tutorial-esque levels: level 8 totally should've came after them, or even later on in the game.

*Some of the early coin placement was a bit annoying, forcing you to have to rerun the entire course over, sometimes even twice in a row for three full runs. It's only a few instances, though, and for the early, easier levels, so it's not that bad: I just would've been annoyed if it kept doing it over and over.

burningmagma responds:

Thank you for the great feedback!

[Island Of Mine]

Wow, this is some pretty impressive stuff! It can't be overstated how high-quality and professionally crafted this game feels in all aspects, including often neglected aspects like menus, and it does a good job recreating that classic addictive loop of endless progression through technological advancements that feed into each other.

It's great, but I have to admit that I found the pace a bit slow and the game rather grindy. I know grind is part of the appeal, of course, but I just hated waiting on timers, feeling stymied by certain resources, and chopping down trees and actions like it just felt like they took too many hits for too little payoff. It was to the point where, after a few upgrades, it felt like I reached the level of speed I should've started at in the first place, instead of having to work up to it. Maybe I'm just impatient and everyone is totally fine though.

Another point of contention is that, while there's nothing wrong with imitating your favorites (heck, I do it), this game does just feel like yet another clone of Forager or games like it, and while that's fine for some who just want more, I'm just not seeing any sort of innovation or interesting twist to sell me on this over the rest of the competition. I don't mean to harp on it, but considering if you're trying to launch on Steam, I figure it's important to consider. Basically, it's good, but would I slap some money down for it when I can buy many other games that have had a bunch of content added to them since their launch long ago? Probably not.

Oh, and I was annoyed how complicated it was to swap spots on the quickbar. I'm trying to drag an item over to an occupied slot, expecting it would just swap when I do so. But no, I have to take the item out of the destination slot to make it empty before I can move my item into it: feels like an unnecessary step!

As a small aside, I wasn't quite sure about the necessity of food. Outside of true hardcore survival games like Subnautica or The Long Dark where it makes sense to have hunger mechanics to add pressure, it felt very vestigial in something as casual and friendly as this, like it was just thrown in for no reason but to have another grind.

Sorry there's so much more text dedicated to feedback than praise: I do still think the game is very impressive and neat overall!

[Sokobird 2]

Hey, nice collection of puzzles you got here! It reminds me going to the bookstore and buying a puzzle book and making my way through them, one by one. It isn't much more than that, but hey, the puzzles are fun and many, there are badges to collect for meeting par scores, and the overall craftsmanship and presentation feel high-quality, so how much more could you want?

If I were to have any feedback, I'd like it if the boxes would be colored differently when they are on top of the target points. It took me awhile to realize they were actually doing this already, but it's very subtle since it's just a different shade of brown instead of something very noticeable like green.

[A Walk in the Woods]

Hmm, decent little walking sim horror game, I suppose! It's pretty small, simplistic and kinda rough in some aspects, like how you can see the seams of the game when it doesn't fluidly loop you back around to the convenience store, for example. But it does enough to build tension and provide a somewhat immersive experience, and I like the extra touches of being able to drink beer, even if there's no point to it. Not bad.

One thing I'm curious about is whether there was actually any threat at all. Would be interesting if all the spooky noises and 'press shift to run' were just trickery to make you think something was chasing you when you were totally fine the whole time. If so, well played. Either that or I just got lucky, especially considering I was trying to get myself killed at one point.

Octopus9000 responds:

Thank you!! My main goal with this game was to build a spooky atmosphere so I'm glad it came across! As for whether there's anything out there I cannot say, you never can be sure with all that fog.

[Kity Builder Advance]

Cute little game! I like the overall presentation, and the idea of exploring this island and using buildings not just as decor, but as makeshift ladders to reach new areas, is an interesting idea.

Unfortunately, it didn't take too long for me to lose interest though. Exploring was interesting at first, but the lack of a concrete goal, repetitive recolored rewards, and no new systems made it all feel kinda pointless. The game not saving and letting me continue after a break didn't help either.

Was kinda hoping it would be more like Sim City or Animal Crossing where people start to move in and I make sure it's all balanced for them to live comfortably. It just felt like such an empty world. I could be wrong, but maybe the point is just to build a nice little city and snap photos of it, and if that's the case, I feel like the game might just not be for me.

Sambero responds:

I agree with all you're saying and invite you to try the Steam version!! We added pretty much everything you ask for, but sadly we couldn't make it work in a web build :_)