FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[BATTERY ACID: ZEITGEIST]

Pretty neat shmup boss-rush prototype!

It's got the fundamentals down pretty well as the core act of shooting looks and feels pretty nice, the bosses have some nice varied attack patterns, and there are some neat characters to pick from: it's simple but fun!

It's playing around with some neat ideas too: having your ammo and health tied together in one resource which you replenish by parrying keeps things exciting and strategic, and the roulette system alongside random boss changes is an interesting idea to keep things fresh for every run.

It did have a few things that got in the way of me fully getting into it though:

*The minor statistical upgrades you and the enemy get from the roulette, as well the random cosmetic looks to the bosses, did not do enough to keep things interesting and just felt really superficial and lackluster. I really wish there were more significant changes, like if the roulette would to grant new powers and bullet patterns to the bosses.

*The damage feedback felt really vague and confusing at times: I'd swear that I parried a bullet but instead I got hit?

*Some of the physics of the game just felt kinda wonky, like bullets that should be being reflected back to the enemy would just fly off in weird patterns.

*Some of the bosses like the worms were just very annoying to fight since they constantly dip behind you where you can't hit them, and all you can do is wait for them to emerge in front of you once again.

So yeah, the execution wasn't totally on point for me, but I'd consider it a good game jam result because it's got a good foundation and some neat ideas that I'd like to see expanded upon, so well done in that regard!

[DV: Evil Spirits Begone! (Demo)]

Hey, this is pretty neato! I love me a good beat-em-up and this delivers that experience pretty well, which surprised me because beat-em-ups can typically feel pretty clunky, but this felt very intuitive to learn, the moves are have unique purposes, the hits are satisfying, and the enemies are very diverse in their attack patterns. Felt good to beat up the enemies and style on them, like using the sliding kick to go under projectiles, and I always appreciate a game with a cool defensive mechanic: parrying those skeletons and their big swings was great!

Right now the game is a little shallow, what with the small arena you fight in, simplistic arcade goals, and the ability to just spam special techniques at will to keep enemies at bay. But it has served its purpose as a demo/showcase. It definitely has a load of potential and I'd love to see a more fleshed-out game to use these mechanics in!

[SENTINEL - Echoes of the fallen]

Hey, not too shabby for a survivors game! I'm reluctant to play yet another survivors clone as there are so many, but overall the game feels pretty well-constructed and fun, with some great touches that made a fantastic first impression, such as the well-animated main menu, as well as some amusing chatter like your operator chewing you out for not paying attention to your health, haha! Game also sports some good fundamentals: I liked how there was a good amount of enemy variety, for example.

It's nice, but if I had some feedback, I'd say:

*Gameplay felt kinda dry and not that satisfying. Could stand to spice it up with some more loud, addictive and impactful special effects, especially for hits and collecting gems, a more vibrant environment, and more special events like mini-bosses, waves, and so on.

*As mentioned above, this game is just yet another survivors clone, with its own unique qualities being purely aesthetic, such as the mecha theming. Would love this game to have something more substantial, some sort of unique mechanic, twist, hook, whatever you wanna call it!

Would love to see how this develops, as I think you have a good foundation to work from!

NuelSquare responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I really appreciate that you took the time to comment on my game and give your opinion. I'm still constantly developing the game, adding content and improving the gameplay.

What I mainly thought of as the unique mechanic is the perk system, but I think it still has a way to go to make it as I envision it, anyway, thank you very much for your comment!

[Shadows of the Lost code DEMO]

Hmm, this is a rough one for me! Definitely had a great first impression with its wonderful art and presentation, and I do think the game and its platforming are decent, but the game just never went anywhere exciting for me with every level after the first just feeling like more of the same! I feel like it really needs its own unique mechanic or twist on the formula, or at least more exciting/challenging level design, as right now it's the equivalent of a piece of plain toast: a serviceable foundation, but dying for some butter or jam on top to add flavor!

[Reverie Channel Act Zero]

Huh, this was pretty interesting and ended up hooking me more than I expected! I'm not one for RPG Maker games, but the wild world you've constructed in this was very intriguing and kept things fresh with so many perspective/map changes, cute characters, goofy dialogue, dramatic cutscenes and so on: it's quite the crazy ride and looks like a lot of effort was put into it!

Having said that, there were a lot of rough spots that made it difficult to continue on, despite how weirdly attractive the world you've made was:

*While I did try to enjoy the ride, I couldn't help but feel like I opened up a book right in the middle and started reading. Just that awkward feeling where I don't know these characters and the world as well as I think the game expects me to. Maybe I'm wrong and it is just intentionally starting 'in medias res', and nevertheless I do feel like I got the gist, but still, the vibes just felt off, like trying to butt into a conversation between friends.

*The pacing started to get thrown out of whack as the game progressed. Going through the dungeon the first time was interesting, sure, but oh my god you need to backtrack through there over and over and over! Also I hated how I got this key that I want to use now, but I keep getting interrupted by Peter and Eva chaining phone calls one after the other! And that big maze level almost made my eyes glaze over: boy did I feel lucky making it out of there without too many wrong turns since I would've quit otherwise.

*Kinda wish the game had a little more to it than just walking to talk to someone, over and over and over. Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking for the game to have unnecessary combat shoved in there, but I do wish there were a few more puzzles or minigames or special events or something where I actually need to use my brain and feel like I'm playing the game instead of doing busy work.

*There were a few times the story confused me. For example, we found a pass to go on the trivia show from a nervous kid, but then Noir took it and dipped, leaving us high and dry. If that's the case, why are we then allowed to walk into the waiting room and attend the gameshow? Shouldn't it be Noir, because they've got the pass? Why are we allowed in?

*There were also some weird technical issues, like the time limit for the trivia gameshow wouldn't function properly. I'd answer a question within the limit but then before he states the next question, he says I ran outta time...and then he says it again! Very weird.

While I had some rough spots, I do still think the game has a certain attractive charm to it, so well done in that regard! As said, I shy away from a lot of RPG Maker games because they typically are just generic fantasy stuff with lots of exposition before gameplay, but I like this game's weird world and how quickly it cuts to the chase. Lotta potential here!

PlasmaSpade responds:

Thanks for playing! I apologize for the issues that you faced in the game.

When it comes to the story, it's kind of a side story/prequel so I can see how it can get confusing to try and understand what is going on. So I'll try to add some dialogue that gives some more context.

I know I tried to make subsequent visits to the dungeon slightly different with the small interactions that happened between those visits but I do see the issues with going back and forth without much happening.

With the directions I tried to add a task menu along with a map for the dungeon, but I know it can become a lot to remember certain locations and where to go next. I'll make additional changes to make the dungeon less tedious and confusing to navigate. (I'll make an update to have it be more clear that the interactions for Peter and Eva are optional as well)

Honestly I know there isn't much to do so whenever I get the chance there will be more stuff to do (and see) besides walking and talking to characters.

I'm going to add a notification for obtaining an item, like how there is the notification for a task or interaction so it becomes a little clearer (the dialogue does seem to read as if Noir took it so I'll fix that).

Sometimes RPG Maker does some weird stuff when it isn't played in the editor, so there can be a few oddities. I might've also added some duplicate text for the game show by accident.

Again, thank you for playing and also for the feedback. It helps out a lot and I'll make an update to fix the issues that you mentioned.

[Dreamed Date - SFW]

Huh, quite the interesting visual novel!

Not really familiar with the source material beyond a cursory glance so I don't get many of the references, but the presentation was beautifully done, the characters were cute, and the story had some interesting twists as I tried to unlock all the endings! I also got to learn a little bit once I unlocked the gallery.

The fact that the game is so short is both a positive and a negative: it's certainly nice to have something light-hearted and concise that doesn't monologue forever and ever, but it's also a bummer that I don't feel like there was any time for emotions to develop and grow, making it feel rather shallow.

Took me awhile to figure out the 5th ending: didn't think it mattered what choices you made to end up in the nightmare, but I suppose it makes sense.

[HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOUREASHOTGUN]

I like the blood splatters and the screams. The animations are cute too, like the game over screen.

I kinda wish there was a mechanic where you can spray the blood at the fire to put it out.

Happy birthday!

[Razor Wizard]

Pretty cute little boss rush game! The bosses are all rather simplistic and it's over pretty quickly, but the game's central mechanic of having to be careful with how you shoot because you can hurt yourself with a ricochet is an interesting twist. Overall it's a little half-baked which is understandable since it's a jam game, but nevertheless it's good enough for a short bit of fun and the cruel mode is an intriguing bonus!

If there was one frustrating aspect that put me off the game, it would be how random the way the razors bounce. I swear, sometimes they bounce off of a wall once or twice, sometimes they disappear immediately without a single bounce, and sometimes they seem to just keep bouncing forever! I couldn't tell whether this was intentional or just a glitchy aspect of the physics engine, like maybe when it seems to bounce less is because it's bouncing off of a corner and its counting that as multiple bounces, I dunno.

Oh, as a side note: dialogue systems should always be built so that if you press a button when a line of text is being typed out, it just finishes that line, not skips over to the next one!

[Double-Barrel Sniper]

NOTE: I played the downloadable version instead of the web version.

Wow, this is a pretty cool game! I love me a fast-paced movement shooter and this delivered in spades, reminding me a lot of other crazy games like 'My Friend Pedro'. When you get into the zone and are pulling off stylish move after stylish move in rapid-fire sequence, embracing all the crazy tech like boosting yourself with a shotgun blast and sliding everywhere, it feels fantastic! The cherry on top is the music and the way it gets more intense as things get crazy: it's so damn motivating!

As said, when the game is working as intended, it's great, but there's a lot of times where the game isn't working and it gets in the way of the fun:

*The biggest issue for me was trying to work with the physics and momentum and all that jazz: I know it's part of the challenge to master the systems, but with this, it just felt really glitchy, unresponsive and unintuitive at times, leading to a lot of weird unintended movements and unfair deaths. Here's a simple example: if you come to a dead stop, walk backwards a few paces, stop, and then hit the slide button, you will end up sliding backwards which makes no sense as you should clearly slide forward!

*The slow-mo system is too overly generous, allowing you to gain huge amounts of bar with every kill made during slow-mo, leading to you being able to keep it on practically indefinitely. This makes the difficulty of the game go kaput as it's too damn easy: I want there to be a valid reason to switch back to regular time and blast people with the shotgun, but there's none because of the way it's balanced!

*Speaking of the shotgun blast, I found myself wanting to avoid using it not just because slow-mo is so generous so why bother, but the shotgun blast feels like it misses half the time. I'll clearly overlap someone with a shotgun blast and they'll be right as rain: why? I dunno what's going on with it.

*I really wish the game had a better scoring system. It feels weird that it only tracks your time and allows you to clear levels without killing everyone: shouldn't killing everyone, or at least a specific target, be part of the goal as a sniper? If killing isn't important enough to be scored, why didn't you just call the game Double-Barrel Runner?

*The ending is amusing with how goofy it is, but I have to admit that I was disappointed that it just ended like that. C'mon, give me a good boss fight, or at least a cutscene of us killing our main target, some sorta CEO or whatever.

It's rough around the edges, but I had a nice time playing this game: would absolutely love if you were to polish it up and add a proper ending/story/boss/etc to this!

NonsenseNHReal responds:

Thank you for the in-depth feedback! I will keep these in mind when I'm ever working on an actual fleshed-out release. I admit, it's a bit rushed at times but yeah, had a lot of fun making the project.

again, thanks for playing! :]

[Zui's Witch Academy]

Hmmm, this is a tough one for me!

As a fan of boss-rush games and Wizard of Legend, I really like what they game is going for! The bosses are fantastically diverse with all sorts of interesting patterns that go beyond just different bullets, such as the one that gives you a cup memory game to solve during the fight. Setting up a spell loadout is very tactical, and the automated cycling of spells is an interesting extra bit of spice to the already chaotic gameplay. It's very promising stuff!

Unfortunately, as good as the game sounds on paper, actually playing it was difficult to do as the game just had a very rough and unpolished feel to it that got in the way of my enjoyment:

For one, there was a lot of design issues I had like how character sprites are so tiny and the backgrounds can be so visually dense and colorful to the point where the visual clarity is severely damaged and I lose track of where I am so easily. There are other aspects like how the roll feels rather vague and unsatisfying, with damage feedback also suffering a similar issue where at times I wasn't sure why or how I died, or if I was even hitting the boss or not.

More so than that, though, there were a lot of technical issues too. Just weird glitches like the spell book always describing a saw spell that I don't have when I first open it up, the crosshair being under the HUD elements instead of above them, getting hit after I'm already dead, always entering a room in a dying pose, and so on. None of them were exactly game-breaking, sure, but with so many oddities, it just kind of eroded my trust in the game and whether it was going to function properly. It felt like I was crossing a rickety bridge that'd snap at any moment!

You have my sympathies because I imagine a lot of the nitpicks I have come from the game jam deadlines: it's impressive you were already to get so much done during that timeframe! It's absolutely a game I want to love, but it's just a bit uncomfortable to swallow! I'll try and give it another go at some point.