FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Gauntlet]

Hmm, for the most part I liked what this game was trying to do! The whole death-gameshow aspect reminds me of something like Smash TV or The Running Man, and I liked trying to react quickly to make it through these randomly-generated deadly obstacle courses while also grabbing any bonus cash that I could, which usually requires taking an extra risk. As frustrating as it was that I could barely make a dent into my debt, I can begrudgingly appreciate that it's probably the point, haha!

That being said, the game didn't keep my attention for long as I started seeing the same room layouts over and over only a short bit into the game, many of them quite sparse and not that exciting, making it all feel rather repetitive. The controls were also rather frustrating with me constantly accidently activating the dash when I didn't want to because I'm trying to move back and forth quickly to stay on a platform, for example.

The worst part of the game for me was the whole metaprogression and daily login stuff: it felt completely unnecessary and threw off the balance of the game. I had no idea that revives were a limited item that you can only recover once every 24 hours, and so I blew all five on my first run, thinking that it would be like any other game where I'd get them back on a new run, and now I need to wait five days just so I can have a fair chance at playing again? Why on earth would you incentivize players to stay away from your game and be so unfair and punishing?

Also a small nitpick: the music in the intro is so loud that it drowns out the voice actor. There could definitely be some audio balancing here and there.

blit-blat responds:

Starting with the revives - it’s to incentive people to download the app, where they can buy more revives. Yes, in-app purchases are scummy, but I’ve got bills to pay! Think I’ve tried to get the balance right, this game is no means pay to win!

There’s 100 rooms (101 if you include the start screen), so you shouldn’t see too many repeats early on. That said there’s no restriction on the rooms, so it possible to see level A, B, A, B, etc back to back, depending on how RNGesus is feeling! Something to look into, along with the Audi balancing.

And yeah, it’s definitely meant to be hard (but still possible!) to pay off your debt! No one escapes the gauntlet!

[Up and Away]

This game was pretty interesting! I really liked how chill the world felt and liked all of the charming interactions it had. Learning how to fly the balloon was a lot of fun as well, both in terms of learning how to catch wind currents and figuring out how to hit the buttons. There were certainly some points of confusion for me at the start: took a long time for the balloon to start lifting off so I thought I was missing a step to unhook anchor or whatever, I didn't realize there was a cooldown button at first and initially thought the cooldown button was actually forward jets, and so on, but it was all part of the fun!

That being said, while it's very novel in the beginning, it turns quite tedious and boring later on as the gameplay doesn't evolve in anyway and it just has you repeat similar steps for each leg of the journey. Was really hoping that, I dunno, we might have to dodge thunderclouds, or maybe the balloon would get another extra step of maintenance we'd have to do like repairs, or maybe the wind currents would become more complex and maze-like.

Another aspect I was a bit disappointed in was that there was no save/checkpoint feature when you make it to an island rest stop. To be fair, it turned out to be a rather short journey overall, so it actually wasn't that necessary, but still, it'd be nice.

Overall I quite like the chill journey aspect of this game: reminds me of a simpler version of something like Far Lone Sails.

[One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy]

Huh, quite the interesting game! It's certainly a very lively, stylish and animated game, and I was really impressed at the sheer amount of variety that the game has for chapter titles, dialogue, and so on: it's even got a bunch of hidden/rare animations for pushing the rock or getting knocked down! Can certainly keep you playing for quite some time just to see what happens next!

Unfortunately, compared to other Sisyphean-esque games like Jump King and Getting Over It, this lacks compelling gameplay as it just keeps recycling the same minigames in the same order over and over, and the time limit quickly caps out at 2 seconds in just 3 cycles with no other evolution or progression beyond that. I just couldn't imagine myself happy to play this for very long at all. In a way, though, that pointless and repetitive feeling that the game gives off accurately portrays the task more so than other games, so I guess this might be the best game in that regard?

squidly responds:

its not Sisyphean-esque, it's Sisypunk 🚹🪨

[Capybaradise]

Cute little game! Stacking up the capybaras was quite nice, I like the way that it gives you feedback on the accuracy of your placement, and I was surprised at how difficult the game could be with the way ducks can speed by from any side of the screen randomly. Overall it's simple but fun, and the game's so cute, even failure doesn't feel bad as you watch them tumble and squeak, haha!

That being said, the game didn't keep my attention for that long as it was just so overly simplistic and you see everything the game is going to offer in mere seconds. It just gets rather repetitive rather quickly, especially due to the fact that you don't seem to need to worry about the balance of the tower as a whole: you only need to worry about placing a new capybara close to the center of the last capybara you placed. Was also a bummer that you get the same amount of points whether you place a capy perfectly, good, or slightly off: might've been better to get rewarded more points for perfects, otherwise it's like why put in effort?

[Bug Off!]

Pretty cute rhythm game! For the most part, I really like what this game is going for: the story is wholesome, the characters and dialogue are very cute and charming, and the rhythm gameplay is interesting in how you need to try and mimic your partner by observing their telegraphed poses and reacting quickly.

I have to admit, though, I had a really rough time! I love rhythm games and I understood what the game was putting down quickly, but I find myself barely able to keep up once the game finishes introduces all of the characters and their associated moves on easy. With such a wide array of moves to look for, the amount of time to react being so low, and the way that they can throw you off your timing by holding the pose for longer or shorter amounts of time: it's really hard!

I know the game is trying to help with subtle hints like modulating the pitch of the sound to indicate whether the pose is going to be held shorter or longer, but still, the reaction time and decision-making it is demanding is too much for me! There's a reason a lot of rhythm games use note charts where you can see ahead, and we're seeing an example of why that works and this doesn't right here, unfortunately!

So yeah, lovely little game, but damn if it doesn't have some serious claws hidden under that cute facade! Wonder if the high difficulty is a case of the developers getting too used to their game from working on it so soon and mistakenly thinking it's going to be just as easy for new players.

Mezix responds:

Thanks for the detailed and honest feedback! I'll keep it real, it definitely is partially the case that we got used to our own game. In fairness, it isn't a problem to restart the levels you are having trouble with, but I can see where you're coming from!

We also intended for the game to be challenging given it's limited run time, and maybe that's something that doesn't come across super clear when you open what ostensibly is a cute rhythm game. We've received some feedback pertaining to helping the player figure out the moves that we plan to implement in the future.

Thanks for your feedback!

[REALISE]

Hmm...I'm really torn on this one!

On one hand, I think it's pretty cool. Certainly starts off with a good first impression with the very stylish main menu that pans around the car wreck to display the various options. The music is nice, and the game's overall journey is quite interesting with a very fancy tunnel interlude, car crash pileup ending, and the general sense that there's nothing you can do to win. It's like an interactive music video, which is quite experimental and interesting, almost like a piece of outsider art!

On the other hand, the game just didn't feel good or well-put-together on a technical level. First impression was terrible as the game couldn't even format the tutorial menu to keep the instructions within the box, making them sloppily spill out and become hard to read. The gameplay felt dull and lifeless with the way that there was an absolute lack of feedback, such as there being no sound or physical reaction from the car when it plows into money or obstacles. Power-ups felt worthless as well: what's the point of getting tank treads if you can't even plow through pebbles in your way without losing money? Everything just felt bad and pointless and finally, I feel like the game tries to excuse its problems but making everything feel 'deep' and intentional by delivering a bunch of fancy-dancy philosophical quote wankery: ohhh it's feels bad because its supposed to, sod off, if you pardon my harshness.

I know there's a lot of concessions I could make here and there: for example, maybe there was a lack of sound effects because you didn't want them to drown out the music. Maybe the power-ups feel bad because you're being conned by the salesmen or whatever. But overall if I had to pick a side between finding it stylish or shoddy, I just wasn't feeling this one. At the very least it was quite memorable and I like what it was attempting to pull off: perhaps if it just had a bit more construction put into it I would be cheering for it instead.

HearsePileup responds:

One guy worked for four years on this - I wrote the music too.

I'll consider doing an update once I've had some sleep.

There is a very real point I'm trying to make with this work though, as an interactive music video specifically.

If you're trying to assess this specifically as a game and not a political statement then you're missing the point somewhat.

[TV TIme Alpha 5]

Hmmm, this one is pretty rough, but I suppose that's to be expected for something that's still in an alpha state!

On one hand, there's a lot of potential in this game, particularly with the presentation. Overall the graphics are very cute and charming, and I was impressed with the menu design and other nice touches such as transition animations and the like. The platforming mechanics seem ok with a decent amount of variation in terms of obstacles, such as disappearing platforms. Basically, the game looks to have an interesting world to explore!

That said, it currently feels very much style-over-substance. When you cut to the meat of it, the game just feels incredibly generic, your bog-standard hop-and-bop action, and doesn't offer anything new or interesting to the platforming, nor is the platforming fun and fluid enough to make up for that. I was really hoping that the game would do something interesting with the TV premise, but unfortunately it just rather superficial.

Moving on from that, there are a lot of rough spots and nitpicks to its current state:

*I was very confused as to the purpose of the static and the towers. Do they do anything?

*There didn't seem to be any sort of health meter and I was always confused when sometimes I could take a hit but other times I'd die in one blow. Very odd that you've got this wifi meter that goes down when you die: you'd think you'd use that as a health bar, with each pip representing the amount of hits you can take.

*As unique as the static animation and sound for collecting coins was, it was very unsatisfying and didn't compel me to collect them at all.

*I was using arrow keys to play the game, but they only seem to work for movement in-game: menus can't be operated except by using WASD for some strange reason.

And there was just a lot of other general confusion and odd glitches here and there. Hopefully this feedback can help in some way as I'd like to see how this game develops!

Trashedy responds:

The Arrow keys thing is being fixed, and the hit system is sort of like crash bandicoot, the remote follows you around and when take a hit he disappears. As for the towers, the wifi symbol respresents how much.. like connection (idk what to call it) you have left, if you're too far away from the towers for too long it slowly drains (faster without the remote). I do agree with you about the coins, I think making them disappear faster would make it more satisfying. As for the TV premise, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by style-over-substance, but I see what you mean by the game not really being related to TV's all too much. I feel like there's cool stuff I could do with the idea I just can't think of anything. The theme also isn't really supposed to be just TV's it's more about old tech in general. There's a loose story I have planned. So I'll add a intro cutscene as well as a tutorial. Also I do plan to try I make the game stand out a bit more by adding some metroidvania type upgrade elements, not sure how I'm gonna do that, but I'll take it into consideration. Also you said the platforming wasn't fluid which I could see but could you explain more?

Also sorry for the long response but you wrote a lot! I means a lot that you took the time to tell me what you think! I'll try to improve.

I also noticed that you really only complimented my art (not mad) programming and music are pretty new to me lol.

[The Newgrounds KinitoPET Collab]

Cute art collab! I'm not familiar with the source material unfortunately, but the art is nice and I do like the whole fake-OS presentation you got going. That said, I do wish the art was presented in a more creative fashion than the typical slideshow format, and I was bothered that some of the art is difficult to look at because the artist credit gets in the way (there's a piece of Hexamak where a speech bubble is covered up). I also wish there were some other quality-of-life features, like being able to click on an artist's name to go to their NG page, some sort of gallery view, being able to move or zoom the art, etc. Not too shabby, though!

riot100233 responds:

SKIBADI TOLET

[Magli Draelyn the Half-Dragon Mage]

Huh, this is quite the interesting game you got here! For the most part, I really like the concept of switching between two forms which each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and while there's a lot to take in, I really liked how deep the mechanics got and enjoyed mastering the various movement techniques to pull off some cool tricks! Game is also very charming with its presentation: love how the personalities of the characters come off with their animations and stances, and the dialogue could be rather amusing.

That being said, while there was a lot to like here, there was also a lot to nitpick, so here we go:

*I felt like the characters are a bit too strong on their own and could use some tweaking to their capabilities so as to make them more synergetic and make-up for each others weaknesses. For example, I found it very odd that the timid and weak wizard form is able to do something as physically strenuous as wallkicks: I think that ability should be eliminated so that wallclimbing is left up to the dragon form where it makes more sense due to their strength and claws. I know you'd need to tweak the existing level design and such to make up for this, but I think it'd be worth it and highlight the character swapping much more.

*Game definitely overdoes it with the tutorial handholding, I feel. So much text to explain things that could be explained with simple pictures, can be put off till later, or the player can naturally infer. I understand that you want to teach the player all of the little subtleties of this wonderful system you've built, but seeing so many words just makes me want to skip them, and I as a player would like to figure some of them out myself, almost like a puzzle, so as to feel clever.

*I felt a bit let down by the final level: we'd been spending so much time learning all this movement tech that I thought the game was building up to be like Dustforce or Celeste, delivering some challenging parkour/speedrun-esque precision platforming levels, but instead we just get what felt like very generic combat with levels that don't need any of the techniques we just learned.

*Speaking of the final level, it was also weird that it suddenly introduced this new emotion meter where if you get too scared or too brazen, you can't transform back to the other until you calm down. I like the idea in theory (one of my favorite games is Pac-Man 2 on SNES which uses this same system), but in application, it just kind of felt like an unnecessary annoyance, and you even seem to think so because you had to introduce items that can force an emotion reset just to avoid players getting stuck in one form with no way out. Think you might be overloading the game with so many systems instead of having a clear focus.

*There were also some minor issues like how the LT button wasn't being recognized from my controller: perhaps its because I use a PS4 controller? Luckily the LT button wasn't that necessary, as it was only used for these weird and superfluous techniques.

Despite my gripes and grumbles, I really like the idea behind this game and want to see more progress on it!