FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Y.O.F.F.]

Oh man, this is a rough one. The concept that you're going for is solid and there are glimpses of greatness in here, but the execution felt incredibly ham-handed and unfinished.

As said, this has the makings of a great speedrunner game in the likes of Mirrors Edge, Neon White, and so on. When the game is firing on all cylinders, it can be a load of fun as the courses turn into very exciting rollercoaster rides where you're dashing and jumping with style through all sorts of clever designs. I quite enjoyed trying to clear some of the more challenging aspects, like this part where you need to triangle jump upwards between two platforms!

But overall, the game felt incredibly janky and awkward to play:

*Not being able to strafe is a strange design choice, and movement in general felt way too slippery and strange, especially as there's a weird sideways adjustment you make upon stopping that I see no reason for.

*I didn't like how your gauge is instantly killed if you let go of forward for even a nano-second, as it made it so overly delicate and didn't let you do stuff like drifting.

*There's no coyote time so I was constantly having my jump inputs ignored when jumping from the edge of platforms.

*There were loads of missing sounds and feedback, such as when you get a feather: without feedback, I had no idea whether I got it or missed it.

*The game doesn't even get simple things right, like how it doesn't even update your facing upon death or level transition.

As said, there's definitely potential here, and I really, really want to love this: it just needed more time in the oven!

Kunishiro responds:

Thank you for the review!

[Gates of Hades]

Huh, I hate to say this, but this felt, well, pretty bog-standard and boring, like some sort of unfinished 'my first game' student project or something. I could barely stand to play past a minute based on the terrible first impression.

There's so many aspects that feel like they are placeholders, such as the menus and UI, and the gameplay is just so uninspired, being an arena shooter with no unique concept or powerups or interesting combat design. Shooting enemies just wasn't satisfying, the levels drag on, and the controls also felt incredibly awkward, especially with the jumps which are momentum-based and don't allow any air control.

It's strange because there are so many elements that are technically good on their own: sprites and artwork are nice, music is cool, the arenas change up as you go, enemy variety is good, there's some decent special effects like the gun casings spilling out, and so on. But for some reason, the game feels way less than the sum of its parts.

There's certainly potential here: as said, you've got some good assets, and the skeleton for an arena shooter is present. There just needs to be more pizazz, some sort of juicy hook or concept, some spark of joy to make the gameplay interesting!

Paytonio responds:

I appreciate the criticism. It's fair to say there's a lack of a hook in the game. The design philosophy was inspired off of Sonic 2 where the final batch of levels are brutal to encourage you to run through the easier levels as practice. The intention is to make the run where everything finally comes together as satisfying as possible. I see how that isn't a very intuitive philosophy, though, and unfortunately very few players will experience this rewarding feeling from the game. Luckily, I will be able to create my next project with this in mind and I will be sure to make my vision clear from the very first level.

[SUPRA DREAM BEAN GARDEN DRIFT]

I tried my best to figure this out, but despite my best efforts, I have no idea what this game is or what the appeal is, and am left baffled and confused, unfortunately. I just really couldn't tell whether this game was some sort of experimental outsider art, or just busted!

In some ways, the game has a lot of potential in its weirdness. The graphics have a certain level of charm and craftsmanship to them, and the level design is rather surreal with its flower design and void-like structure. There's a feeling that there is so much going on with all sorts of alerts and alien mechanics, and it's an adventure to try and learn how everything works. I felt like the strange way the car reverses on a dime is reminiscent of games like Big Rigs. There's some satisfying juicy hitfreeze when hitting objects, and the way the car drifts is also neat.

But on the other hand, I was completely lost. Controls and goals weren't explained and even when they were explained they could be contrary to how they operate. The game's performance would constantly dip into single digit FPS on certain sections of the map. I wasn't sure if aspects like glitchy void, the powerful car reverse, were intentional or just shoddy/unfinished. Despite my best efforts, I felt like I was making zero progress.

It was certainly...something!

tscoct responds:

Ye, sorry, this is my first time ever writing on Tic-80, so the performance was the only unintentional thing, everything else was more or less fitted to work in conjuction with each other

[Pixel Fixel]

Huh, this is a pretty nice and chill puzzler you got here! I was a bit confused and wasn't fully sold on it at first, but there was something really interesting about learning the main conceit of the game through experimentation, and the act of arranging gradients tickled my 'strangely satisfying' sense quite well! All the fun of taking a trip down to your hardware store and playing with their color swatches: maybe with this as practice I can finally see the difference between true white and off white!

If I were to have any feedback, it might be that it'd be nice to see the fastest/par score within or at the end of a stage, instead of only being able to see it in the menu. It'd also be nice if it were to grade us at the end of the level, give us a medal if we got under par and all that jazz: add a little bit of addictive razzle-dazzle for the achievement hunters and all that.

It does also get a bit tedious and overwhelming as it just keeps increasing in scale and utilizing colors that are so close to each other where its super hard to eyeball the very minute distinctions in color: I'm not sure how you would do it, but it would've been nice if the levels somehow evolved or changed things up in a different way with a new mechanic or some such.

[Kiwiman X-TREME]

Hey, this is a great arcade game you got here! The concept of being stuck within this circle and jumping to make triangles is a unique and well-executed concept, the overall construction of the game feels very charming, polished and professional, and the game has lots of variety and build-up with all sorts of enemy types that force you to play in new ways. There's also lots of nice little touches, like the triangles you build leaving paint on the background which slowly builds up. Great, classic, addictive arcadey high-score fun all-around!

If I were to have any feedback, it might be that I'd love if the scoring system was a bit deeper and allowed for more player expression and mastery. For example, being able to catch enemies in your triangles to kill them for bonus points, getting a style bonus if you 'graze' enemies as you build, getting a time bonus if you build your triangle quickly instead of waiting around, and so on! Being able to flex like this could add a lot of satisfaction and depth to the gameplay, introduce some exciting risk/reward as being stylish gets you closer to getting new lives but could get you killed, and most importantly, it would make starting new runs from scratch (which can be a bit boring due to getting used to the higher difficulty you were previously at) less repetitive.

By the way, you wouldn't happened to have played Resonance of Fate, would you? The whole triangulation mechanic? Oh, never mind...

[Boog A Spook]

Hmm, this feels quite promising as a goofy Dead Estate-ish clone, but in its current state, it feels really undercooked.

There's a lot to like about this game. In general, the game is very stylish and filled with life through all sorts of charming graphics, animations and so on. For example, I really liked all the goofy graffiti, the gibs that explode on killing enemies, the way you pinball around on death: it's great! Furthermore, the game does a decent job at having a good variety of enemy types and wacky weapons to use, and spices the waves up by introducing new obstacles in addition to enemies. There's certainly some promising combat to be seen here.

However, as stated before, the game just felt so rough and unfinished in many ways. Overall the combat now just feels unsatisfying, repetitive, and even confusing, especially when it comes to aspects like the altitude of enemies: so many times I tried to jump and shoot an enemy only for my bullets to somehow whizz right through them for some bizarre reason unless I hit the exact height sweet spot. Cooldowns for abilities were very strange as well with them awkwardly pausing at 99% like a bad Windows loading bar before eventually completing. While you tried to use shading to help players determine the altitude of enemies, it didn't work for bullets, which were always difficult to tell in the heat of combat whether they were above or on-level with you. And there's various other little nitpicks here and there that just made the game feel rather cheap and barely holding together.

If I were to be cynical, I'd say that you tried to distract players from a mediocre, unfinished game by waving T&A in their faces, but I'm hoping that's not the case. Nothing's wrong with some T&A if you wanna go there, but the game needs to be fun first and foremost, and I wasn't feeling that in this. Again, it's certainly promising and very charming graphically, but everything else needs more time in the oven.

[NG BBS Awards 2023]

Pretty cute presentation you got here! I was impressed with the nice cinematics and animations, and thought the book interface was charming and well-done. Functionality was decent as well and I liked that you could click on pictures of threads to have them pop-up in a window for further investigation and reminiscing. Basically, I had a good time flipping through the book and made it all the way through before I knew it!

It does have some rough spots I feel should be ironed out, however:

While it is nice, it is pretty rough in a lot of spots:

*While I liked that I could click on pictures of threads to have them pop-up in a new browser tab, I was disappointed that I couldn't do the same for profile pictures: would've been nice.

*The mouse pointer isn't offset properly: I tried to click on buttons by hovering the tip of the pointer finger over them, but found I needed to shift over to the center of the hand instead. Just awkward to determine what I'm pointing at in general.

*In addition to the mouse pointer being difficult to aim, the navigation was confusing because not only do buttons not react on hover to let you know you're pointing at them, there was no indicator for where the page flip button was: lots of times I tried to click on the corner of a page to flip it, only for the book to close!

*Perhaps this is intentional, but I tried opening the B book and flipping to other pages within it, only to have the game crash and boot me back to the title screen except with the mouse no longer working.

[BORE BLASTERS demo]

For the most part, seems like a pretty cool game! Definitely has the overall feel of high production values: everything is pretty smooth, polished, and intuitive, and there are plenty of quality-of-life features, such as the inclusion of an auto-fire toggle which is great for my old man hands! Even though the demo is technically pretty short, there's a good variety of biomes and enemies and the general loop is decent.

I gotta admit that I did have a bit of a bad first impression. I felt like I was doing great making my way downwards, collecting resources, blasting enemies and so on...until I got a warning that I had a fuel limit...right when I was running out of fuel! I'm not mad that a timer exists as I think pressure is good, but jeez, you think you could've warned me from the start that I was on a time limit? I tried to race to the exit but ended up crashing and getting kicked to the title screen: felt like a slap to the face, I was so deceived! Warn me earlier next time!

Furthermore, while the demo level does have a lot of surprising variety, without any sense of the long-term upgrading and mission structure, I don't think I can get a good feel of the gameplay loop, which is pretty critical for an impression. It's still ok, but in a way, the minute-to-minute gameplay didn't necessarily blow me away or anything: I think this game will likely be addictive because of the long-term carrot that upgrades provide as well as a story, so without seeing that being present, I'm not sure what to think of it.

[Goober Game]

Pretty decent Suika game clone! Compared to most of the other clones I've seen, this at least has a sense of energy and charm to its presentation, and takes steps forward in terms of iteration as the charge-up mechanic is a novel addition to the formula. Provided some decent fun, this!

In terms of feedback:

*While it is lively, I do wish it had a bit more juice to it, particularly in terms of the points/score-keeping. It's given such little real-estate on the screen that it's almost like it doesn't matter, making me feel less inclined to go for big combos and higher scores. It didn't even keep my high-score when I came back to it after a break.

*While the charge-up mechanic is a novel addition, I didn't even realize it existed for the longest time, so I definitely think the mechanic should be explained better: maybe the controls should be kept on the side of the screen instead of vanishing immediately. Furthermore, I don't feel like the charge affected gameplay as much as I'd like: there were times that I wanted to use a super-charged shot to squeeze through a gap, or make the pile bounce around to rearrange things, but I wasn't able to do it, making it feel pointless.

*It would be nice if there was a size chart on the side. Not only would it be nice to see a long-term goal to strive for, it'd be nice to help remember the evolution order so you can plan combos better than just eyeballing them and memorizing.

[Atomic: REDUX]

Ehh, unfortunately, I'm not really feeling this game. While I can appreciate that, as it seems to be built for mobile, it's going for a rather simple arcade game, and while the basic premise does remind me of games that I do enjoy, such as Infectonator, I'm just not feeling the appeal in this.

The main conceit of basically putting down a piece of fly paper and seeing how many flies you can catch just seems rather dry and so luck-dependent. Since the red atoms start to fade immediately on level start instead of once you place your green atom, there's no time to try and plan: all you can do is slap it down based on general feeling and see what happens. May as well just be pulling the lever of a slot machine to see if you win: I'm not a gambler myself, so again, the appeal is lost. And no, I don't see the appeal of grinding until you level up enough to win either as it just feels imbalanced and silly.

The game may have a lot of levels, but they all seem the same since all it is doing is increasing the number of red atoms. It feels fake and completely unnecessary as I don't really feel like I'm progressing without any sort of significant changes that affect gameplay and introduce variety: where are some walls being placed in the levels, or maybe multiple red atom explosions, or slow-mo fields, or something, anything? Then again, the game didn't keep me hooked, so perhaps the later levels did this? I wouldn't know.

I had hoped that the other game modes would change up things significantly, but no, they just change the properties of the game in a barely noticeable way (bounce) or in a completely idiotic way that screws you over (phase). I was really hoping that, as an example, bounce would be a game mode where the balls are affected by gravity and bounce around like superballs: at least then you might be challenged to place your green atom in a different manner since the pathing is different. Or maybe you could've made it so that the green atom bounces around, just anything more significant than that.

Maybe you can just chalk it up to me not being the target audience: maybe something about this might be addictive and fun to certain people like gamblers. Even I'll admit that it can be 'fun' to see the red atoms smack into your green atom: it sounds like bubble wrap being popped. But for me, it just felt like an incredibly lazy design that is padded and stretched thin with repetitive content and an unnecessary unbalanced grind on top.