FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Tracie's Pursuit]

Nice point n' click adventure! It's a bit short and doesn't have as much meat to it that I'd like (based on the tutorial prompt, I thought it was going to get very complex with all sorts of routes and order of operations and such, like some Majora's Mask-level planning), but it's still very cute, funny, and a great nostalgia trip! Characters were great and I got to flex some science knowledge (or rather lack thereof).

Wasn't sure, but are the two endings just the bad one being the various ways you can blow it (intrusive thoughts, talking about kickball) and the good one being that Pico is fine being just friends? I was trying to do stuff like close the locker, or avoid the locker altogether and just get the kickball knowledge from Darnell, or see if not scissoring that girl would have a positive effect, but couldn't get anything else to happen.

[Windowz XP 2012 Professional]

Hah, this was an amusing little trip! Like a toybox, it was fun to poke and prod at everything I could find in the fake OS interface, watching what happens, catching all of the references and seeing how deep it goes. Sometimes it wasn't as interactive as I'd like (a recycle bin with no empty button?) but then other times I'd be surprised at how interactive it was (clicking on that file within the recycle bin). Heck of a nostalgia trip to go through the various Flash files as well: reminds me so much of the little sketches I used to do back in the day. So yeah, it was nice and all, but c'mon, why you gotta remind me that we're never getting Half Life 3?

Kolumbo responds:

thank you for the review!

i really wanted it to have more to the windows aspect of it, but i started way too late to be able to pull it off in time for the deadline. maybe if i actually knew how to code or something, but even this took some effort.
there is a substantially expanded version coming soon, in order to remedy that, though!

hahaha sorry about half life! if its any better, it hurts me too.
but hey, a half life 3 joke is peak 2012

[Earth Day Collab 2024]

Wow, this is a solid art collab! Hits a lot of the right spots that I desire from these and avoids the typical, dull slideshow presentation. The corkboard gallery is a very cute way to present the art and is such a display of variety at once that you can't help but get enticed to click em all. Love how convenient it is that you can easily get to the artist's page by clicking on their piece (though this is absent for the side poetry for some reason) and it's awesome that you can pop the image into another window so you can zoom in for higher detail, which is crucial to be able to read the comics. This also has a nice bit of polish to it, like the cool way the picture swooshes in when you click on it. Well done! Could always aspire to be even fancier, but as said, I'd consider this to be a great ideal baseline example for an art collab.

JYGame responds:

Thanks bro

[Orphanarium]

Cool little metroid adventure you got here! Got quite addicted to finding all the various tools and weaving my way through nuns by climbing around on cupboards: really captured that 'Home Alone' vibe of being a little kid avoiding scary adults!

Really shocked me with the amount of depth the game has in terms of endings: I beat it the first time with the bad ending but couldn't see how the game could be anything but that, but then ended up getting the good ending after realizing how many other tools and routes there were to find! Also thought it was great that the routes all led to big moments, like terrorizing the nuns or having a huge boss fight. Really cool stuff and I can't believe there's even more potential endings I could get beyond those two!

It had a few rough spots here and there but nothing too major: if you stop crawling through a gap it should keep you in crawl mode instead of standing you up and glitching into the geometry, and speaking of crawling, I would've loved the ability to peek downwards if I crawl as there were a few times I jumped and ended up getting hit by something I couldn't see below. Also the game could be a bit plain when it comes to special effects: having the same death animation for everything, certain actions not having any sounds or particles, that kind of stuff.

Veinom responds:

Crawling is underused. It only occurs in the basement for gameplay variety. It would be easier to just remove it!

I do agree about the special effects. I wanted to add some visual and sound effects for the Mirrors, but I kept failing, so I left it as it is.

Thank you for your input and I'm glad you enjoyed this little adventure!

Edit: Thank you for playing the game! Your video was very well made :)
https://youtu.be/of8wxqPhZpw?t=17852

[Kwing VS Cyberdevil]

Hah, this certainly gave me a few laughs and a lot of nostalgia, though for the latter, not exactly in a good way, as it was reminding me of the many terrible Flash-based 2D fighters I've played back in the day, and this unfortunately was just as an awkward mashfest as those were, lacking any sort of coherent feedback or sense of strategy despite my best attempts. Would've loved to have something simple yet deep like Divekick or Footsies, but this ain't it.

Looking past it as a fighting game, however, it was still an amusing experience: the raps were very cool, I loved the goofy animations (those speed lines for walking back and forth, omg), the menus and presentation were neat, and so on. The concept of having more power when it's your turn to rap is neat too. Could definitely be neat, but in its current state, probably better as an audio portal entry instead.

Cyberdevil responds:

Tough critique man, though I do appreciate the honesty. After testing battle mechanics again and again you probably do go a bit blind as to the optimal experience...

The difficulty curve seemed pretty balanced to me in how you wouldn't win all too easily as either one or the other character here, though victory does probably require more so finding and abusing shortcomings in AI response than actually combining moves in as thought-out and rewarding a way as possible, and with limited moves the tactics required are bound to seem a bit repetitive. Valid point on the need for more coherent visual feedback too.

I do think the strategy basis is here, but probably not ideally presented, or balanced, or timed, whatever most impedes the sense of intentional progress... the difference between attacks and block responses could definitely be clearer. Maybe you need more visible openings and lapses in enemy attacks for which you'd best time your own to give a clearer sense of strategy, or more visible forewarning with attacks, so you can dodge or counter accordingly... though personally I do enjoy that more aimless classic button masher battle variety too. :)

Ah well, glad you had some fun with this anyhow, and that the speed lines at least delivered! If there do be more fighting Flashes for the future: good points to consider here.

[Hell's On Hold]

Hah, this was quite a cute and challenging job sim you got here! Love the stylish presentation you got here with cute touches like the brochure tutorial and such (though the colors can be a bit too loud and hide elements at times), and the gameplay was quite addictive and fun to puzzle out! It certainly was a bit confusing and intimidating at first to figure out where to start with the client and how to figure out where they went wrong when it could be anything, but surprisingly I was able to make it through somehow!

It's nice and I probably shouldn't expect more considering its a game jam game, but I had such fun that I couldn't help but be a bit letdown at the low amount of dialogue variations and the lack of any sort of concrete end goal or sense of progression and escalation, as it did make it quite repetitive and made me eventually leave bored. There were also some clunky aspects like how there was no way to fast-forward text. But hey, for a game jam game, I think it did what it had to do: provided a nice concept that I'd love to see a more fleshed-out version of!

OblivionCreator responds:

Thanks for the feedback! To be honest, a lot of the issues with it getting boring over time were kind of known by our team shortly before release, but there wasn't much time to fix things, especially as I was working alone (on the coding side) on the final day trying to piece everything together.

Honestly the reception has been incredible so far and everyone on the team is definitely considering a full release with actually fleshed out dialogue/characters - (Though I'll make no promises on anything!) - At the very least I'd like to get a version released that matches the original vision we had for the game.

[Gacha Panic]

Pretty fun little autobattler gacha game! For as mindless and dumb as it can be, I had a surprisingly good time with this and ended up getting addicted to building up my army and watching them eviscerate enemies like a pack of piranhas. And as much as I say it's dumb, there is still a method to the madness where you need to decide how best to plan your gacha purchases around the rent time limits and so on. So yeah, nice stuff!

Having said that, there will a few rough spots I encountered:

*On my first playthrough, I kept just encountering slimes over and over until it got to the point where I couldn't earn enough money for rent. It wasn't until my second playthrough that suddenly I started encountering coffee cups and other higher tier enemies that could give me enough money to stay competitive. Maybe the spawn system could be better reworked to avoid this, or better yet, the spawn system could be removed and instead have different areas on the map where different tiers of enemies congregate that the player should move to as they get stronger? Might give it a bit of a journey/adventure feel where you're moving forward instead of running circles in the city: maybe you even need to pay to unlock the doors to these new biomes like COD Zombies to add more strategic elements.

*The game started to feel rather monotonous and unsatisfying as it went on as I don't think it delivered the sense of progression/evolution effectively. Compared to something like Vampire Survivors where you go from small stuff to thousands of bullets covering the screen later on, this game feels rather stagnant: the enemies change shape and the numbers are technically increasing, but everything "looks" the same. One change that I think would help would be the way money is handled: I was surprised when I started to get so much money later on because it didn't "look" like I was. Instead of only increasing the coin sizes like you do, maybe you should keep the size the same, but just spawn more coins: an explosion of 100 pennies looks more appealing than 4 quarters, if you catch my drift.

[Affordable Healthcare ALPHA Ver.]

Hmm, seems like it could be a decent idle fishtank game akin to Insaniquarium, but I'm not getting hooked in anyway currently. Yes, it is in alpha so I shouldn't expect too much, but still, there should be some sort of core appeal that shines through even early on that intrigues me, but I can't see it as the game just feels rather monotonous, lacking that addictive progression and evolution that these games typically deliver.

A big source of confusion and disappointment for me is the way that the game makes you purchase DNA: you need to purchase 3 to complete a level, with each purchase increasing the difficulty. Ideally, this should be a source of gripping tension and risk/reward: like maybe the user is a on a time limit and would never get enough in time, but purchasing DNA makes it so your blood cells produce more money, so you're pressured into increasing the difficulty to get that benefit to beat the level. But no, you can just play it safe and save up money to purchase all 3 DNA at once: how boring! You can just skip seeing all of the interesting enemies!

Also something to look out for was that by requiring the user to mash-click on enemies, that could lead to misclicks which lead to spending money on oxygen that you didn't mean to: yes it's a minor amount, but it still feels bad to have to be so cautious to avoid misspending.

gheedu responds:

I understand and agree with all your points. I actually kinda regret posting the game so early. I should've waited until it was more complete.
All the things you mentioned are going to be fixed in the following updates.

EDIT: just watched you play the game on your YT channel. Here is the comment I left, for anyone curious:

"Hey! thanks for playing and reviewing my game (Affordable Healthcare)! Watching someone actually play the game has given me a lot of ideas (as well as poked alot of holes in my game design principles for the game lol). Valuable stuff.

I fully admit the game is unbalanced right now, I kind threw a bunch of balancing numbers togheter cause I didn't expect to get frontpaged and so many people to play it at all, haha.
Regarding the difficulty, there are a couple things that increases it besides buying DNA: Buying Red Blood Cells (and not feeding them) and, as you mentioned, idling. For every fever you beat, the difficulty increases a little. One solution I have in mind to fix your issue with buying all DNA at once is just adding a cooldown timer to the button, but I also like the idea of having a time limit for some levels. Thanks again for the feedback."

[Jim Brimstone: Devil Advocate]

Heh, a rather amusing Pheonix Wright parody! Cute references, funny dialogue, nice text-controls: all in all a short and sweet adventure that gave me a chuckle or two!

In terms of feedback:

*Would be nice if there was some more music to it to help highlight the moments where you're on the ropes, and when you turnabout. Gets kind of dull to listen to the same atmospheric droning the whole time.

*Speaking of sounds, I also think that it should play a different sound effect, like a fanfare, if you get the not guilty verdict: playing the same sound made me think that I failed until I read the result, which made it feel rather unsatisfying.

*Wish there was some sort of prevention system when choices come up as if you're spamming keys to fast-forward to catch up to where you left off on a previous run, you can accidently end up selecting a response you don't want. Perhaps it shouldn't default to a choice until you use the arrow keys first, or use a different key for confirmation, for example.

*Speaking of having to re-do runs, I have no idea why it's possible to get a guilty verdict if you've made it to the end of a case after choosing all the right answers. At best as I can tell, this happens if you make it to the end but made mistakes on the way? Seems like the game expects you to do it all perfectly without losing any hearts to get the not guilty verdict: what's the goddamn point?

[APOLLO]

Hey, this was a cute little metroid game! Not exactly blowing me out of the water with anything unique or creative, but it looked good, felt good, sounded good, had a nice sense of progression and challenge, and ran smoothly without any significant bugs or glitches. Even had some cute touches like the hidden dev room and the fact that the game infinitely loops. Just a nice short and sweet adventure! It also had an absolutely banging soundtrack!