FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Maze Slider]

Pretty cool game that has a lot of interesting pieces to it, but is kinda haphazard and all over the place! The game introduces so many elements at the beginning that every level is a very easy tutorial for a new mechanic, until suddenly there is a huge difficulty spike near the end where the puzzles get really hard. If possible, I feel like the order for the levels should be changed to flow better in terms of letting each new puzzle mechanic breathe and slowly crank the difficulty up bit-by-bit. I do appreciate the challenge and the variety of mechanics, however!

[The Goodest Boy]

Cute story! Short and sweet, and it reminds me a lot of those old adventure games like Heart of Darkness or Out of this World. Had some issues with jumping from edges, and felt like the rising lava at the end should be a bit slower as it felt like you were guaranteed to die a few times, and I feel with a story like this, actually dying takes you out of it: you should have the fear of dying, but it shouldn't be hard enough to actually kill you unless you really mess up, as retrying takes you out of the 'movie-like' action flow and replaces it with frustration of trying again and again. Then again, that can depend on a lot of factors, and I felt like it did a good job delivering the story nonetheless. Loved the way the bird saves you at the very end: nice setup!

[Rush Grotto]

Kinda split on this one! On one side, the presentation is super polished: graphics, sound, music, animations...everything has a really smooth and professional feel to it! The gameplay itself though, I feel, is kinda working against itself, and it leads to some boring and repetitive segments over time. If I were to address it in a quick way without reworking the whole game, I would suggest either:

1) Get rid of the randomness of the cards and just keep the four actions available at all times. Then, speed up the game really fast to make it so that the player has to make really quick and reactive choices to stay alive for as long as they can. Basically, it would give it a kind of 'Crypt of the Necrodancer' vibe to it!

2) Get rid of the randomness of the level creation and instead make a series of hand-crafted levels, intentionally designed with a puzzle in each that the player should think through. This would help avoid the scenario where the randomness currently has a chance to create boring, empty levels, or levels with nigh-impossible scenarios to get through. You could also script the cards in such a way so that the player always has an 'ideal' way to get through the level without being hurt, and reward them with gold if they do so, but they can always get hurt and just get a bronze/silver instead.

[Spore Wars]

Short and sweet! Has a very interesting, goofy and unique aesthetic to the whole thing that kinda reminds me of games like "Let It Die". The combat was a bit of a bummer, however. It felt like there wasn't any meaningful way to flex on enemies: the bullets they fire are too fast and they stay locked on to you so tightly that you can't dodge or anything fancy, so it just devolves into them draining your health and you trying to drain their health a bit faster than they can. Movement was a bit awkward as well, with me getting stuck on geometry a lot. The boss was pretty cool though: with that fight you could actually strategize and feel smart understanding his pattern, but in the end he was such a bullet sponge. The game looks like it has a lot of heart though and I'd like to see future projects!

[Dying In Dungeon]

Slayed my way through to the end and had a lot of fun! Felt like it almost put too much emphasis on the whole dying mechanic when really that's just a side objective you utilize when you don't think you'll make it through the primary objective, which is getting to the end. But then again, it's natural to want to get to the end and it's a bit funny as an unspoken objective, so maybe it's really good like that. Felt like the bonus moves for each weapon were actually worse than the default, and I wish the dungeon changed in some way as you go deeper, or kept track of how far you've gone. Anyway, nice work on this!

[TRACTRON 2020]

Really nailed the aesthetic and delivered a clever twist to an old-school game! I feel like it's a bit too difficult too fast with no real difference as you go up in levels (then again I didn't make it that far), but I did appreciate the challenge. Cool design as you are compelled to blast through to the enemies in the back to get the powerful guns. Tractor was a little confusing as I thought it was something you'd hold the button to keep going, but it all got sorted.

[Economical]

Wow, really impressive on all fronts! Great music, graphics, animations and sound, all polished with a staggering amount of levels to go through! I enjoy the concept and the use of dynamic difficulty by letting the player decide how much they want to optimize each level. I did feel like some of the levels were a little out-of-order in terms of difficulty, as well as some levels repeating themselves with similar geography/concepts, but all-in-all I had a blast!

[Where in Space is Baby Hitler?]

Wow, wasn't expecting something this expansive after the previous Hitler game! Really impressive amount of content to cover, and I always love a game that features many glorious ways to die (all with their own animations!) I appreciate the little touches like in-between frames on rotations as well. Felt really clever making my ways through the puzzles, especially the prison shoot-out, and wasn't expecting the game to change so much with the rpg/brawler elements: almost feels like too much and it gets a little boring-mazey but I appreciate the variety. Game does have some awkward controls but nothing too bad: was confused by how text will pop-up if you hover over something without clicking it, and sometimes the slide-out menus were a little finicky. Really cool though!

EDIT: Made it through and picked something very "noble", wink wink nudge nudge. I'll try and make some other choices later, but it was a great experience. I liked how much little details and touches that weren't exactly necessary, but made it feel all the more better, such as the shaving minigame. I know how difficult it must be to develop stuff like that which could be easily missed, but the effect is very much appreciated!

[Scarred - Demo]

Pretty spooky! I think both the graphics and sound design create a nice creepy atmosphere, particularly the ambient/background track. Feels like it needs some adjustments to really nail it though. For example, I think there are a lot of events that missed a chance to be spooky, such as grabbing the item in the darkness, or pulling the item outta the well: some creepy sounds and other shocking effects or cutscenes could help punch those events up! Text also needs some help to eliminate the typos and weird formatting as they can take you out of the experience. Also for areas like the kitchen which is said to be gross by the cop, actually doesn't look that bad: maybe add some more color or other artistic elements to increase the grossness. Story is intriguing, however, and I look forward to more.

[9 Life Party]

Cute little game! I think having to utilize your limited roster of cats, each with their own unique skills, to build a way through the level, is a pretty cool concept. Unfortunately, it feels like it doesn't fully utilize the concept to the fullest, as it both gets hard and ends very quickly. Also there are some slight control annoyances, such as the flying carpet cat drifting to the side despite letting go of the movement keys. I'd love to see more interesting levels to go through; you can't leave me hanging like this, haha!