FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Newgrounds Arcade Online]

Unfortunately, as is typical with my review process, I end up coming to these games too late, missing the initial hustle and bustle that a social game like this excels at. So yeah, I'm not looking at this in its best state, to be fair!

Anyway, while it was a ghost town when I visited, I was impressed with a lot of things! For one, I loved all the communication tools that were present, such as chatting and emotes. The theatre was super cool and exactly what I wanted from such a feature, which is being able to just drop in, check out some films, and do so with a bunch of other people to watch and chit-chat along with, all in a very fluid manner. There's also a lot of games to play, some of which showcase some neat tech like the Starfox-esque Alien Hominid game.

That said, the game had a very janky and rough feel to it overall, like it was barely holding itself together. There were a lot of technical issues where I couldn't get the shop to work properly and I couldn't leave the theatre, necessitating a full refresh to start over. The games in the arcade felt kinda cheap too, like the type of stuff you'd see on a 100-games-in-1 CD or a Chinese bootleg game pack: very quantity over quality. It just made me want to search out more refined version of them, like the original Kitten Cannon game.

Again, there's definitely some impressive work on display, getting all these different elements to work together. It's so close to being a perfect social gaming hub: it just needs some sanding down of the rough edges.

[PICOLLAGE2025]

Yo, this is some fantastic art on display, and I love how it's arranged in this cool collage format! The interface is very intuitive with how you can navigate the collage by either dragging it around and zooming as you like or clicking on the pieces to center it, I love that you can easily access artist profiles by clicking on their names, and I like the inclusion of secrets and a bonus puzzle game to provoke more engagement and keep people's eyes on the beautiful art. Feels very professionally done, so nice work!

There are some minor issues I have with the setup though. For one, it looks like I should be able to click on the musician's names when the music pops up to go to their profile just like the artists, but for some reason, it doesn't work, even though they get highlighted on hover like a link would. Sorry, musicians! Another thing that bothered me was that the game doesn't zoom out enough to see all the pieces at once for the puzzle game: there's one row that isn't shown on screen and it makes it very annoying to have to keep moving the camera to find pieces.

Arzonaut responds:

fair

[Solitaire Battle]

Wow, this is some really impressive stuff, and that's coming from someone who doesn't even like solitaire! Overall the game feels very professionally constructed in practically all respects: it looks good, it feels good, it's got a neat concept of combining solitaire rules with deckbuilding adventures, it's intuitive with its controls and mechanics with all sorts of great HUD design, symbols and tooltips, and so on! I had a blast with this and hope that it gets a lot of attention and love!

That said, while I think it's in a fantastic state already, there were still some aspects which confused me and I think could be worked on. I was able to get the general gist so I could play alright and I'm slowly learning the more subtle aspects over time, but here's some feedback about some of my stumbles:

*While it's nice that the game goes so fast, it was too fast for me as a beginner and I kept missing certain stuff. For example, I had no idea that picking a card that matches the suit was a thing that gave me 2 points instead of 1 because the number only stays on screen for like half-a-second, and there is no difference in making a suit match than a normal match: there needs to be some fanfare like sparkles and a nice sound to distinguish it! I also wish I could see what the enemy is doing so I could keep track of his moves and see how he is building up. Basically, I wish it would play out in a slower fashion by default and there could be a turbo skip mode that's as fast as it is now.

*The Heat display is a bit confusing in how it shows blinking pips. Usually when I see blinking elements, I think that I'm about to get that much heat from an action, not that I already have that much heat and it's how much I can lose. Because of this, I think it should only show the blinking pips when the user is hovering over the 'next turn' button, because that's the action that is going to make the blinking pips go away.

*While the highlighting and card shaking is a very nice and helpful element to let people know what choices they have, sometimes it gets to the point where it feels silly, like there is such a limited number of moves that why am I as a player even getting involved when the game may as well play itself, haha! I'm not necessarily saying to get rid of them, but it was just some food for thought, I guess.

*The blue icon for the charge system looks very similar to the blue icon for the draw system, and I got the two confused initially. Maybe you could use some different colors and symbols to separate the two more clearly.

I still am lost on a lot of other things, like I don't know what the colored spade symbols on cards mean, but as I said, I still think the game is cool and fun enough to keep me playing and has enough informative resources in it that I can figure it out as I go. Well done!

[Compact Colonies DEMO]

Hmm, seems like it could be a promising little city-builder game! The graphics are nice and the controls/menus are pretty intuitive, and I started to get into a nice rhythm of assigning roles to villagers to gather resources (which was some impressive AI to see in action), building up our city while trading and feeding everyone to keep them happy.

However, I couldn't quite get into it because it's still in a rather rough state at the moment, feeling more like a prototype that needs a lot more love before I see the core appeal. Some feedback in regards to that:

*There's a lot of confusing aspects to the controls that make it difficult to operate. For example, there are no descriptions for objects you are building so I had no idea what kind of stuff I was putting down, and then it might not be what I thought it was, like putting down what I think is a footpath but it turns out to be a wall. Speaking of confusing icons, I don't know what the heck the meat icon is and how it is supposed to represent meat: you'd think you'd go for the classic t-bone steak icon instead.

*Another source of confusion was the objectives. Many times I would try and follow the objectives but they wouldn't proceed, like I'd trade with both types of natives (giving money for resources and giving resources for money) but the objective would still say I need to trade with them. I also wasn't sure if there was a more long-term objective to go for, as I found basic survival a bit boring: it'd be exciting if there were time limits to meet and certain demands to be met for your village, as well as disasters and problems to contend with.

*It's understandable since it's a demo, and it's in a pretty good state, but I do wish the game had a bit more juice to it, like the sounds of chopping woods when you're gathering resources, clanging of the bells when you build a church or whatever. It's just rather dry for now (but it'd be impressive for an NES game in its current state, I suppose).

Looking forward to seeing how this gets built up over time!

ProsciuttoMan responds:

Very solid feedback as usual!
* Your assertion that this is a prototype is correct: a lot of content had to be cut down to make the html build run smoothly, and many features remain incomplete as a result of this and the shorter development time
* The meat icon was meant to be either meat or leather: some items were going to be constructed with leather, but it was cut for time
* The full game is intended to have a plethora of random events which, as outlined before, were cut to make the game run on more smoothly html. Natural disasters, paranormal events, and attacks by different groups are just a handful of the things players will have to contend with in the full game

[Wispy Dreams]

Wow, not everyday I see a game that reminds me of Bubble Bobble! Loved that game as a kid!

The game certainly makes a great first impression with not only its excellent intro, but its very cute and lively menus, intermissions, and overall presentation: it just feels like it has been lovingly crafted and polished in all areas. The gameplay is also very fun to kick enemies around, and it felt well-paced with how it introduced new enemy types and a boss fight at the end. Great stuff!

While I liked it, here were a few notes on some of the parts that could maybe use some work:

*While the game is very charming and juicy, it can be a bit lackluster and muted in some respects. Certain actions like collecting items or events like the level changing phases didn't have any sort of significant sounds or effects to them to work as feedback: just felt off to me.

*The controls were a bit annoying to get used to. For example, I wish we had more control over our jump, like being able to tap the button to do a short hop. The grounded aiming kick, while useful for moving items like the cog, felt a bit too slow to use in combat with enemies, which made me feel inclined to just use the jump kick constantly instead: maybe it'd be nice if you can just aim in another manner, like pressing a direction plus the attack button.

*I always find myself a bit frustrated with bosses that have invulnerability phases: feels so annoying to have to wait it out until I can damage them again. Either the attacks they do during invulnerability need to have me on the defense so hard I can't even think of doing offense, or they should just be vulnerable all the time, but more spongy to make up for it so they last long enough to put up a fight.

*I'm curious if the game has more to offer. Was hoping that we'd get a hint of what new mechanics might come into play by getting to play, say, the first level of the next world, but alas, I'm unsure. It's nice, but currently I'm just a bit worried it might get repetitive. Feel like a demo should tease you with something to give you a sense of how it evolves and make you hungry for more, and I didn't quite get that here.

recon-project responds:

Thank you so much for playing, and for the kind words!

The game certainly is flawed, and making it has been a long learning process. For example with not being able to regulate your jump height - decisions like that were made to emulate the movement in Bubble Bobble or Snow Bros to a T when I should've focused on improving on those systems instead.

Either way, what the full game offers is more of the same, each world having unique enemies and a couple gimmicks like conveyor belts. So I'd just say, if you like what's here, get it, otherwise not! Though you're probably right that the demo doesn't sell the game very well... I won't tell you directly how many sales I've made since I uploaded the demo, but it's a number you can make by bringing your thumb and index finger together!

[Purrrification]

Hmm, I can see it's going for that whole schtick where the cutesy game is actually a creepypasta horror, similar to games like Eversion, but unlike Eversion, the execution feels very lacking here.

There's some decent potential in here: certainly has quite the assortment of different glitches and oddities to throw the player off. However, there just isn't any elegance or class with the way the game tries to scare you: it doesn't even let you get immersed before it just starts assaulting you with scare after scare to the point where it doesn't feel scary anymore, but just dumb. It doesn't help either that the core platforming is very generic and boring, lacking any sort of interesting mechanics, and that it uses annoying sudden earrape scares which are an instant turn-off for me.

It's a decent idea that can work, but it feels like you got too excited to show off all the ways you can scare the player that you end up ruining it. Some more patience could really help the experience.

[UVSU Demo]

Hey, it's nice to see this come back in a more fully developed form! Overall the game seems very promising and solid: the core conceit of having to thwart and un-thwart yourself successively is very creative and makes for interesting brain-twisters, the game has a stylish and eye-catching claymation look to it along with some chill vibes from the world design and music, and there's a fun sense of progression in exploring the map and finding these challenge rooms.

For feedback, I'd offer this up:

*I feel like the map screen could use a lot of work. 1) I wish if I looked at a key door on the map, it would show me how many keys it needs so I don't come back with too few when I go off collecting. 2) I wish it would save my previous zoom level: it's annoying to have to keep re-zooming it when I check it repeatedly. 3) The buttons could use some symbols next to them to let you know what they are used for, like a magnifying glass next to the zoom keys.

*I wish the game had a bit more of a story or a goal to give it a sense of purpose, as without that, the world feels a bit less compelling and I don't have as much motivation. I kinda just feel like I'm wandering around some sort of sterile testing facility instead of a cool and weird world like it should be.

*Changing the game from a level-by-level affair into a metroidvania isn't bad and is probably the smart move to give most players a feeling of getting more bang for their buck, but it still felt kinda weird that the actually interesting puzzles are limited to these cordoned-off rooms while the rest of the world is fairly generic. Again, it's not bad, but it kinda feels like the metroidvania is filler/padding and I'm hoping it gets more interesting later with the core mechanics being integrated into the world more so: for example, I could see it having stuff like the Badeline sections in Celeste.

Best of luck with the eventual full release!

dietzribi responds:

Thanks! That's great and useful feedback, goes right into my TODO notes :)

[Ventriloquist Hero]

Played this since it was mentioned in Treasure Hunt event, and wow, I can't believe this game got overlooked!

I really like the core conceit of matching gestures to the situation: it's not only very creative, but satisfying to master pulling off! It reminds me a lot of other games like Kukkiyomi and this one game where you can only rotate your eyes to match social situations, I forget what it was called. The sketchy art style was nice too as part of the presentation.

It's a bit of a shame it doesn't have much content going for it at the moment, but I would consider it a perfect game jam result, as it absolutely grabs my interest and makes me hungry for more!

DavidMarchand responds:

Oh, you're probably thinking of Social Interaction Trainer. What a fun game! Thank you for your kind words.

[Loop Cat]

Whoa, this is a pretty wild find for the Treasure Hunt event! Can't believe this got overlooked as it feels like a very promising game!

In general, I love the arcade/pixel presentation, and the core conceit of the one-button looping/circular controls is very creative, interesting to master, and creates a lot of novel combat scenarios!

It's a bit of a bummer that there are no hi score tables, and the game can get a bit repetitive when the bosses repeat patterns, but overall the sense of progression is great and it's just a very fun and challenging adventure!

I did note that the game doesn't seem to work properly in Firefox for some reason: I wonder if that technical issue contributed to the game being overlooked? Having said that, it seems to be working now, so maybe it got patched? Who knows!

[Mark's School Escape 2]

Hey, this is a solid entry into the Riddle School clone series! Very glad that the Treasure Hunt Event dug this up, as I had a great time with it!

The general presentation is stylish and well-animated, the gameplay is smooth and intuitive thanks to helpful design decisions like highlights for interactable objects, there's loads of funny flavor text, and it's just got great goofy vibes: well done!

For feedback, I did note that there are some slight typos here and there, as well as some bugs if you do stuff like click when the game is already doing something else, so it could definitely do with some polishing up in general. Also the puzzle logic can be pretty bonkers at times, but eh, I guess that's just par for the course with these kinda games, haha!

Kule1Toxic responds:

I'm surprised people are still looking at this game.
thought it would just get forgotten about after a while lawl.
Glad to see that someone posted my game for the treasure hunt, means a lot to me.
Also thx for the comment!