FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Gravoor Infinity]

Pretty neat infinite runner arcade experience! I quite enjoyed Super Gravoor as a nice Irritating Stick-esque game so it's nice to see it come back in a new form! Presentation is wonderful, especially the menus and UI as they are incredibly juicy and colorful, the controls are smooth and have a lot of interesting depth to master such as the new drift control, and the gameplay is fast-paced and fun! Definitely found myself getting addicted going for higher scores, deciding when best to use ammo or keys to save time!

As nice as it is, though, it did start to feel a bit repetitive as I started to see the same chunks of levels over and over, sometimes with the same chunk repeated right after one another. I was hoping that once I got to a high enough score threshold or time it would introduce something new, but I never saw it (perhaps it is there but I'm just bad, though, haha). I suppose this is where Super Gravoor was a bit superior for me, what with its level-based structure that kept introducing new elements, like power-ups, obstacles, layouts, music, and so on.

Another aspect that was a bit rough for me was how luck-based it could feel: there were a few runs where I kept getting that level which has a side 'supply room' containing 3 powerups and I was awash in extra time, whereas other runs I was fighting to stay alive. Could just be me, though.

[Dwarf Planet One]

Wow, this is quite the fascinating game! The presentation is beautiful and silky-smooth (never get tired of seeing the way the seeds grow) and the gameplay mechanics like the childlike way gravity works and the seeds grow are very unique and mind-bending: all of it gives such an enthralling sense of mystique and scale that makes me want to explore further and reprogram myself to grasp it. Can't believe it was made in Flash: guess I underestimate what this is capable of!

I will admit, though, that as much as I want to love it, it can be quite intimidating and confusing to figure out! So far I've been able to experiment and figure out certain things, like feeding the bugs to the gator by either building a path or knocking them over, but ever since the universe expanded, I've been at a loss, wandering around, trying things out but not working out and begging for some sort of reset button. Even when I do figure out a solution, the way to enact said solution can be so slow and tedious it ruins any catharsis. Perhaps I'm overthinking things or doing a very inefficient solution: not sure yet.

It's a bit of a battle in my head right now: I want to play further because the world seems so fascinating and grand, but at the same time exploration can be so intimidating, overwhelming and tedious that I want to pass. Guess we'll see what happens!

[Los Tostadores]

Hmmm, this one is an odd one for me!

My initial impression of the game was sky-high: I loved the goofy premise and the lively and animated presentation, and I especially loved the very creative shooting mechanics: popping out of the toaster and shooting in slow-mo was so damn stylish and satisfying! It really made me curious as to how the game would play with the mechanics: I wanted to see how it would evolve!

But then before I knew it, the game was over, and it barely did anything! This incredible premise just felt like such a waste: the entire game felt like a tutorial where you keep shooting non-threatening dumb targets over and over, rarely engaging with actual bandits. It took until the boss to introduce any sense of challenge or strategy, and then it was over.

Hopefully you can take this as a compliment, in a way, that the game raised my expectations so high (only to unfortunately lose them)! Would absolutely love to see a more fleshed-out version of this game.

[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.