FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[GEMSTONE DREDGING]

Pretty neat take on minesweeper! For the most part, the game is very addictive and fun thanks to your gorgeous presentation and satisfying gamefeel, and the introduction of battle segments to replace instant death when you trip a mine was a novel concept to differentiate it from your typical minesweeper clone. I really like all the cool and juicy touches the game has, like the way the screen shakes and the bubbles that appear from the scuba helmet. I had a lot of fun playing!

If I were to have any feedback, it's that as neat as the combat segments are at first, they end up feeling like a silly gimmick due to how simplistic they are and how they fudge the numbers (the health bars mean nothing because damage is always a certain percentage). And after all, as long as you play well, you'll never encounter combat, so it ends up feeling like a waste to have this new element only exist as a punishment? Maybe it'd be better if you always encounter a fight at the end, but the difficulty depends on how well you did in the level beforehand? I dunno, just something about it felt rather token in its current execution.

Some of the other mechanics like how you won't trip kraken tiles if they are within your 3x3 uncover seems to make the game too easy as you just flag them immediately instead of having to math it out to figure out what's what. I guess it makes sense because you wouldn't want a user to get penalized when they have to uncover a large area...but then why do you make it that they uncover a whole area instead of just 1 by 1? Again, similar to the minigame, it feels like you've added something new but it just ends up not necessarily enhancing anything.

[Telly the TV]

Hmm, the game is a rather cute platformer, but from what little I got to play of it, it felt rather bland and bog-standard with neither eye-catching presentation and gamefeel, nor any sort of exciting or unique hook to pull me in. It feels like a prototype or a rough draft, as in it has all of the nouns and verbs to make a platformer, but it hasn't done anything special to create a fun gameplay loop yet beyond setting the foundation. It's like a plain piece of white bread that's just begging to be toasted and have some butter or jelly put on it!

I don't want to be too mean because this game really feels like a 'my first game' programming project, and if that is the case, then it's quite decent for a starting point on your game dev journey and you should be proud. But I feel like I need to be more critical because this is looking to compete on Steam and potentially even ask for money, and I'm just not seeing anything worthy about it in that context. Sorry, but there's just so many superior games on offer, even free ones, when you step into that arena!

Some bits of feedback:

*I felt like the enemies were a bit annoying for a first level, with it being quite tricky to ensure you get high enough to hit the pogo demons and the turrets being placed to catch you out if you don't carefully trip them off.

*It could be personal preference, but I don't like it when a game lets you keep jumping when you hold down the button: I prefer that another jump is only possible if you release the button and press again. Letting you hold it down can create weird situations where you make contact with the ground sooner than expected and prompt another jump that you didn't intend.

*Wish the game had a bit more juice and direction. For example, it'd be nice if the TV would display that you still have keys remaining if you go to it too early. Likewise, it could be nice if there were guidance arrows for locating the keys, or for where the TV is after you collect them all (along with a nice fanfare, perhaps).

*As said before, there's just nothing particularly special about the game at the moment, and I'd love if there was. The game doesn't need to be beautiful or anything as long as it has a cool twist. Take a look at games like VVVVVV for example: its very simple, but the gravity switching mechanic and the things it does with it makes it stand out from the crowd and punch well above its weight.

I'll admit I'm a bit confused because the demo I've played looks to only have one level (starting at 2-1 for some reason) and nothing else, while a lot of the other reviews mention playing to higher levels. Unsure whether this used to be the full game but got changed into a demo, or if I'm just missing something. Might explain why it was a bit lackluster to me since I only got to play one level and not see how it might potentially build up to something greater.

[VGUV]

Huh, interesting little level-editor gadget you got here!

I'll admit I was a bit disappointed at first in how simple it was. I was trying to build a staircase to the top of the screen hoping that it would reveal some sort of secret hidden adventure up there, but alas, it is just a construction kit, no more no less. Even once I accepted it for what it was, I had to admit that it's no Mario Maker or Minecraft, lacking the sort of sheer complexity and freedom to create something cool that you'd want to challenge or share with others. It also had some jank to it, like how weird the ladders worked.

Despite all that, though, I surprisingly got into working with the tools to make a nice looking level. I kinda felt like Bob Ross painting, just trying to get a well-balanced composition going, all the while just having a chill, pleasant time in doing so. It may be simple, but something about the simplicity and fluidity of the controls, alongside the nice looking tileset and lo-fi atmospheric music, worked wonders to win me over. So yeah, wish it was more, but it had some nice vibes nonetheless.

[Topeka Drift]

Hrmm, this one is a bit weird for me!

As someone who loves games like Crazy Taxi, I was totally down for what this game was putting down. Driving around delivering passengers in a wacky world filled with crazy stunts, God himself, and plenty of cows and deer to run over, all while collecting cash to buy weird upgrades: heck yeah, that's my jam!

And while I do think the game is pretty cool, at least potentially, it didn't take long for it to wear on me and ultimately lose me. The controls were pretty awkward to get used to, in that you have a weirdly forgiving and arcade-y handbrake for drifts, but everything else like normal turns and brakes and so on are annoying stiff and unresponsive. The world you drive around in not only felt too punishing with how restrictive it is which makes using all the fancy powerups or just having fun in general a liability, but also it's so small which makes all of the deliveries quickly turn repetitive as you run the same laps over and over. I just didn't feel compelled to keep playing and unlock the rest of the upgrades and get an ending.

Basically, I really want to like this game and get all the cash and have goofy fun, but it feels like there's just not enough meat on its bones or freedom to have the fun I was looking for.

[Probably Art]

This was quite the experience, in many ways!

I'll admit that I didn't have the greatest initial impression, as I'm typically wary of these artistic games as, well, they're just not much of games at all! Indeed, apart from the little music puzzle and the simplistic act of collecting things, there just wasn't much to play beyond gawking. There were also some technical issues that didn't help my impression, such as how when I tried to move around as a bird, it kept scrolling the browser window when I hit up or down.

However, once I got over that and accepted the game for the cool artistic journey or museum trip it was, I found it pretty, well, pretty! Graphics aren't everything, but this does have a flair for presentation, and I'm not just talking about the art pieces themselves. It certainly had a way of keeping things interesting through all sorts of elegant framing and sets, and the way the game mechanics were used to deliver the art pieces or enhance the viewing of it through aspects like depth and parallax was cool. Just had a mysterious and trippy vibe to it that made it interesting to explore, despite the fact that I wasn't necessarily doing anything, in a way.

So yeah, it kinda won me over! I still haven't figured out the whole key thing and I'm not sure what I can do with these 7 jpgs, though. Bit of a bummer it doesn't save you progress as I'm not sure if I wanna go through collecting them all over. Oh well!

[Newgrounds Wii Art Collab]

Hey, pretty cool art collab! Judging from the thumbnail and name, I expected an art gallery akin to the Wii menu, and I got what exactly that, so no complaints there! Indeed, the Wii menu vibes are recreated pretty immaculately and I found the interface not only contained everything you would want, such as links to the artists, but it was very charming as well, especially when the art really resembled an actual game preview, such as Moopers. Nice work!

If I were to have any feedback, it'd be that it might be nice to have side arrows so you can go straight to the next art piece instead of having to back out to the menu and then click on the next one. Also there were some weird performance issues with some of the animated art pieces for some reason. Finally, it would be nice if there was an options menu where you could perhaps change the music or turn it down or other features like that.

AlexToolStudio responds:

Told you it a huge improvement

[Darkness Revived]

Hmm, this was a rough one for me!

I really like what this game seems to be going for, which is this whole improvisational survivalist combat, and indeed, once I got to the first boss fight and had to scrabble around for ingredients while under constant threat, shining the flashlight at the enemies to buy some time for crafting new weapons, it felt pretty cool!

Unfortunately, while I think it's a good concept, I don't think it is executed that well. As said above, it took until the first boss fight for the game to raise my pulse in the slightest, as before that it was pretty boring, what with its very bland world, sub-par graphics, spongy enemies, and inability to stop the player from easily cheesing or optimizing the fun out of the game by playing in a very risk-adverse manner. Once the first boss was defeated and I saw that it looked like I needed to do more of the same tedious work over and over, I just couldn't work up the nerve to do so.

While I am somewhat harsh on this, I don't think it's all that bad: considering it's a game jam game and it did tickle my brain with a promising core concept that I would love to see have more time to get executed properly, I think you can consider that a bit of a success.

[Losing Sense]

Wow, this was a pretty cool point-n-click game! The whole aspect of having to rely on limited or unusual senses like taste to slowly identify where you are and what objects are around you was very unique and really enraptured my attention and imagination! Not only does it get your brain working to try and get through the game itself, it also makes you think about life and your senses in a new and more appreciative way! The game felt pretty well-paced in that, at least most of the time, I felt like I was able to get a good inkling of what objects were before the game finally identified it for me, and while I feel like I got lucky on one of the puzzles, most of the others felt intuitive.

If I were to give feedback to anything, it'd be that the game can be rather tedious with how you have to just rub your newfound senses over every object in the room over and over: can feel like such busy work, but maybe that's just because I took a break and had to do all that over again from scratch which made it doubly tedious (it'd be nice if there was some sort of save/load system). In a way I wish the game promoted more intelligent use of the senses rather than just brute-force: that's what players do when they're desperate in these games, just combine everything with everything until something works, haha!

Anyway it was all good fun, and goddamn, that ending! I was waiting for the shoe to drop, but it wasn't quite what I expected. I was so sure it was going to be that one or many of the items we thought we had an inkling was would turn out to be completely different once we got our eyes on it, so it was a bit disappointing that it was an object we weren't able to identify the entire time, but still, good stuff!

[Human Hunters]

Wow, pretty cool beat-em-up you got here! Right from the start the game sold me with the way you seamlessly transition from the menu into smashing the gate open: so damn cool to witness! The presentation has a real top-notch cartoon-y quality to it, the gameplay offers some fun mashy goofness, there's a lot of great special effects like the blood which can then make bloody footprints. It just has a great old-school Flash feel to it, reminding me of a lot of the classics like Disorderly!

Having said that, though, I'm a real stickler for beat-em-ups since they're my favorite genre, and there was a lot that I felt could be improved here:

*While the game does a decent job of selling hits with copious blood and knockback animations, it can still feel like you're just flailing and not really making contact. Something like hitstop/freeze would go a long way to making hits feel more satisfying.

*The moveset for the character isn't well-explained and the special attacks like the uppercut and the kick don't feel like they have strategic purpose to them at the moment. Would be great if, for example, the bite can give you health (but takes longer, so you gotta find a big opening to risk using it), the uppercut can lead to juggles for higher damage combos (but at the risk of higher commitment which leaves you open) and the kick can knock down enemies longer or break guards or throw them into other enemies to knock them down (but that power comes at the cost of taking much longer to get to that part of the combo), and so on.

*The controls for running were a bit weird: it felt very difficult to get started running, and then once you do start running, it's very difficult to stop. I can understand momentum and such, but even then, it borders on unresponsive.

*Felt a bit annoyed that enemies are immune to obstacles like the bananas and the bear traps: would be nice if I could get creative and use them against them.

*While the AI for the boss wasn't too bad, the enemies had some pretty bad AI. Maybe it's just because it's the beginning of the game, but it was too easy to corral the dumb enemies into one big mass and then beat them up all at once. Ideally I think they should have a bit more randomness to their movement to keep you on your toes, as well as having some of them try to circle around to your back. Would be nice to see other enemies like the Knights adopt other special forms of AI, like maybe they guard and counterattack if you hit their shield too many times.

*The difficulty of the game was pretty awkward in that there are no extra lives or checkpoints, which when combined with the unfair randomness of health drops and the mashy combat, can be a bit frustrating.

*Bit annoying that you can't seem to hit enemies when they're down, especially when they're the only enemy left on the screen and all you can do is just wait for them to get back up. Would be great if you can kick them, or even pick them up and throw them.

Hoping this can help in its development: it's already showing a lot of potential as a beta, so I'd love to see its final version!

[Cannibal Holocaust - The LCD Game]

Hmm, this is a bit of an odd one! I mean, on one hand, you've authentically recreated a Tiger Handheld Game experience, but on the other hand...you've authentically recreated a Tiger Handheld Game experience!

It's like, you know, it's impressive how legitimate it feels, so kudos for sticking to the theme and the rules that come with the system limitations, but at the end of the day, it's just a very simple game that gets very boring very fast. I wasn't a fan of Tiger games as a kid, let alone nowadays as an adult! The phrase polishing a turd comes to mind. Sorry!

In addition to being a Tiger game, this also feels very awkwardly designed. For example, I couldn't figure out the scoring at first, because it didn't make sense why you need to hit the side buttons an extra time after you've already moved to the side and the food's already in his mouth: maybe if they started with the arm down and hitting it an extra time raises the arm up to his mouth, it'd make sense. Scoring was also compromised by the fact that there is no fire-rate limiter, meaning you can score as fast as you can mash, cheesing it with an auto-clicked if you felt like it.

Deklaration responds:

Just like a proper Tiger Electronic LCD Game! Simple gameplay that are still difficult to understand. I had a Jurassic Park one that I spend like six months saving up for and I never once understood how to play it.