FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[DEMI DAGGERS]

Hmm, bit mixed on this one as it can feel a bit more like an impressive tech demo/port than a fun game, but I still found it to be a decent experience!

As said, I'm not too familiar with Pico-8, but from the little bits I've picked up over time, I'm sure putting together something like this within the limitations of the system was very impressive, even more so when you give the player all these fancy editing tools. Overall the game does seem to capture that Devil Daggers vibe decently, and it even adds its own little twists on the formula with these spiders and acid spewers and such.

However, as much as I wanted to get in a trance and dagger some devils all over the place, I did have a lot of issues that made the experience a bit rough for me.

*First and foremost, the default controls were a bit awkward. Not sure why the mouse sensitivity is so damn high by default, and I'm not sure why ESDF was used over the more commonplace WASD, especially since it doesn't seem to use the extra keyboard real estate to map any other buttons: maybe it's a regional thing? Also why do you only jump on releasing space instead of on pressing it? There was also a weird issue where I kept having to refocus the window by clicking on it when transferring between scenes, like between picking up the daggers and starting the game proper.

*Next, the gameplay felt a bit awkward in a lot of respects. Devil Daggers is great in how smooth, fast, and sharp it feels, and this felt like the exact opposite, unfortunately. The character feels like he moves much slower, the visuals are much more blurry and hard to parse, and the hitboxes for objects felt confusing in that I would miss thing I felt I was hitting spot on, or I would get hurt by enemies I thought didn't hit me (actually, most of the time it was the opposite, I'd actually not get hit by enemies I thought were gonna hit me).

*Couldn't tell if the audio was trying to pull off some sort of 3D audio to help me keep track of enemies around me since it felt like the sound just kept devolving into this crackly chaos.

Eventually I kind of got used to the different feel and had a good time, but still, a bit of an awkward first impression!

freds72 responds:

thanks for the detailed feedback.
the mouse sensitivity is in my todo list.

some more visual cues on where are ennemies may indeed be needed.

[Shirogami's Maze Pocket]

It's nice and I'm sure it may appeal to the classic maze-lovers, but I couldn't really get into it: not only does it feel too overwhelming with the way it's so jumbled together, making everything look the same in that it's difficult to make a mental map, it doesn't look appealing either or engender a sense of adventure. I tried my best and, credit where it's due, I did start to see some patterns and routes in the maze, like funnels where wrong ways send you back to the start, but again, I just ended up feeling bored and not wanting to deal with it. Some of it might be down to me not being a fan of the genre, perhaps, but I'd still say that some work could've been done to make it more appealing.

cidoku responds:

I think you're right about a lot of that. It's a learning experience. Thank you for the nice review.

[Le Chat Fonce and the Secret of the Clock Tower]

Hmm, bit mixed on this one!

On one hand, the initial impressions were pretty high! Feels like the Chat Fonce series has had a serious graphical facelift, and I felt like the 3D environments and movements were very nice and smooth! I liked the way that the camera was flexing its skills by framing the scene at the start, and speaking of the camera, the way that it is more zoomed-out now helps deal with the rather cramped and claustrophobic feel that the previous games had, which made it much easier and enjoyable to navigate the world.

On the other hand, though, the game still didn't do quite enough to impress me to keep me engaged the whole way through, and I found myself dropping off midway. The world just felt rather dull and lifeless, all looking very similar, lacking any sort of special effects, sound or pizazz. It didn't help either that certain quality-of-life features were absent, such as how if you press a key while text is being typed out, it skips to the next line instead of just filling out the text as it properly should.

It's cute, and I like the upgrades, but could still use a bit more meat on its bones for an appealing experience, I think!

[Corn Collab]

Wow, this was quite the rollercoaster ride!

Initial impressions were a bit rocky, as once again I was seeing an art collab where it's going with the unexciting, bare-minimum-effort slideshow presentation. Well, bare-minimum-effort isn't completely fair as I did have to admit that it had a certain sense of style and grace to it, what with its crisp layout, cool music and nice subtle effects for buttons and transitions, as well as these weird joke pop-ups. I also liked that there were links to artist's profiles when you click on their names...or at least there should be, as only some of them work (poor Chdonga gets shafted, for example).

That all changed when I got to the poetry section, however: what an experience that was! Great voice acting, a nice variety of different poetry cadences and styles, cinematic presentation, and so on! This is the kind of interesting creativity that I live for in art collabs, and I'm really surprised you don't lead with this as the hook since it makes a much stronger impression! Course, there are still a few weird errors that bodge the work up, such as janky audio cut-offs, but still, very memorable indeed!

riot100233 responds:

ea sports

[Wildsong]

Hoo boy, did this game give me whiplash from how it lifted me up only to bring me down so hard!

On initial impression, the game is an absolute delight from a presentation standpoint! Graphics and animations are delightful, menus are cool, there's no tutorial but the 'how to play' section is organized nicely and color-coded, and as far as I can tell, the game's core concept of battling bosses with your beast friend could be neat and is right up my alley as a beat-em-up lover!

Unfortunately, this is a classic case of style over substance, as once you get past the flashy visuals and dig into the actual gameplay, it is, in my opinion, currently terrible and in absolutely no state to be put out to the public for review.

*First, as much as the game does have a 'how to play' section, I did not enjoy how the game just throws you into the deep end by putting you into a fight immediately without practice. It would be much better if there were some sort of tutorial section you could play through where you fight a dummy, perhaps.

*The combat felt absolutely terrible in terms of feedback, where attacks and blocks felt weightless and non-existent, like we were just swiping the air: if it wasn't for the numbers popping up, I'd assume we were not making contact.

*There didn't seem to be any way to fight intelligently and strategically. The enemies seemed to attack me instantly without any sort of telegraph, so there was no way to time a parry or block to avoid damage. There didn't seem to be anything interesting I could do with my pet either: all I could do was try and mash the boss down blindly.

*The bosses would constantly make these eardrum-shattering roars for their special attacks: feels like the sound levels haven't been balanced properly, or there is some sort of overlapping sound glitch or something. It was painful.

*To add insult to injury, the controls barely work: I was trying to play with a PS4 controller and for some reason, while I could move with the D-Pad, the Analog stick would only move me horizontally, not allowing vertical movement. I tried to switch to using the keyboard but the WASD controls weren't working with the buttons taking me different directions than expected.

I'd like to think that this has potential and could be a great beat-em-up, but unfortunately, all I have to go on is your words as the demo did absolutely nothing to demonstrate its appeal properly. Best of luck!

[Palm Cracker]

Wow, pretty cool fake-OS puzzle game! Reminds me a lot of something like Hypnospace Outlaw, and similar to that, I really enjoyed digging deep into this! I liked how educational it is in learning about various cyphers while still being fun (imagine that, learning being fun) and also how it is more than just figuring out the cypher code, but then taking those hints which are used to solve another puzzle hidden within another app, and so on. Cool stuff!

I have to admit that I am having a bit of a rough time with the game, though! For some reason, ever single cypher I've tried to learn and use feels like it was explained in a rather confusing manner which made me completely misinterpret what it was going for. I'm not sure if you're intentionally trying to not explain it clearly so as to not make it too obvious and make the player do more work, or if you're actually trying to be clear and you've just chosen a weird way to explain. Could also be me just overthinking it or something.

For example, when going over the third cypher, it says that letters are placed on separate rows, where every other letter is placed on the lower of the two. This makes it sound like, if you were to scramble EXAMPLE, it'd be:
E A P E
X M L
I understood that, but then it gives an example of LITERATURE being scrambled, but it's not following the same pattern of every other letter alternating rows, and instead it looks like it splits the word in half, putting the first half on the top row, and the back half on the bottom row. This made me really confused in solving the puzzle as I was trying to follow what it showed instead of what it said. Eventually I realized my mistake and it was just a confusion between encryption and decryption, and I do feel silly, but again, I wonder if it was just a weird way to explain.

Anyway, I'm very much enjoying myself, and while I haven't beaten it yet, I'll give it my best!

EDIT: Got confused with the puzzle with the grid and cross, especially since it didn't open up a code book to learn from, so I just looked online for 'cypher grid and cross' and figured out about pigpen that way from wiki. I assume that's not intentional and maybe I was supposed to unlock the book somehow, but eh, learning is learning, haha!

Deklaration responds:

Hey, thanks for the review! You're correct that some of the books describes the encryption process, and that you're supposed to use it to decrypt. That might be a bit confusing though, you're right. I'll take a look at it. Also, my English isn't the best, and it's most noticeable when I try to explain stuff in the most clear way possible.

And yeah, it's pretty cryptic that you're supposed to pick out the correct letters once again in the ICU app, just like you did before. I think most people found out that the letters in the pig pen are clickable by just trying to click stuff out of frustation and realizing that the letters are more than just an image. But, I guess an additional clue wouldn't hurt. I'll add one in the next update that's going live in an hour or two.

[GOMBI-ACTION: BOOZE TIME]

Mmm, I want to like this game, but it was a rough one for me! Definitely started good as I find it has a very energetic and goofy vibe it's got going for it that's quite charming, and I think the general presentation and feel is nice. However, I just didn't find the combat that exciting, unfortunately! The horde survival was pretty meh, and while the boss was promising and I liked learning its pattern, it felt way too spongy and got old quickly. The worst part was the weird ammo system which felt like it was just constantly stopping me from having fun: maybe it could work with some tweaks, but here it was just an impediment. Still had some decent fun, and nothing wrong with just having a short lil' game like this, but yeah, it was rough.

[The Summertime in Wintertime Collab]

Cute little art collab! For the most part it's nice, but I have to admit that, presentation-wise, it is a bit lackluster, going the ol' slideshow route, aka the bare minimum. I'm not saying you need to have an incredibly unique presentation or it's a no-go: in fact, I wouldn't have minded it that much if the art was consistently posed in such a way that they appear to be on the beach as many of them do, but there are a lot of pieces that are look like they're floating away and it would've helped so much for consistency if they were placed better. Ideally, I'd love it if all of the pieces could be combined in a big collage where they all look like they're at a beach party together, kinda like something you'd see in a Where's Waldo book, haha! A more interesting presentation would get more interested viewers which would mean more follows and commissions for artists!

Moving on from that, it'd also be nice if there were some other certain features for a better gallery. For example, it'd be great if there were links to the artist's profile within the game that would allow for easy access to view an artist's work or follow them if they catch your eye. It'd also be great if there were features like a gallery/thumbnail view, or perhaps a search: with a lot of entries, it's nice to have ways to get around beyond mashing the arrow keys over and over.

TigerPlushiefire responds:

At least the last review didnt called us basment dwellers. I live in apartment complex in Brier Creek

[Ozzy's Rockin' Diner!]

This one was a bit of a rollercoaster for me, never being quite sure how to feel about it!

First impressions were pretty positive: I liked the whole appeal of this Atari-demake of Five Nights at Freddy, and I was impressed that it was all being done through RPG Maker as it really doesn't look like it from a cursory glance. It was starting out a bit slow, but I had hope for the story it was building up.

As it went on, though, I was getting quite bored. Every day was just mindlessly following very boring orders and I was confused on what this game was even supposed to be. Will I ever have to do something interesting, make choices, improvise, and so on? Yes, the game was delivering little tidbits of intrigue, but I've seen so many of these Five Nights at Freddy's parodies that all try to add some elaborate twist that I've grown tired with it all. Maybe that's on me.

I stuck through because of sunk cost fallacy and was finally rewarded with a chase sequence! I was excited...but then let down by how many times I needed to reload my save to finally find the stupid way you're supposed to get through it. Why in the world do those cones move like that? It doesn't make any sense! It's a miracle I didn't quit!

I pushed on, and as silly as it was, I did like the whole twist ending with the fake "new game" screen and getting revenge and all that. And with that it was over! On one hand, I do think it was somewhat memorable and I enjoyed it, but on the other hand, I felt like it was a bit boring and could've used a bit more work to make it fun. Definitely had a lot of potential, and it was interesting enough to keep me going despite my reservations, so that's something!

Azeleon responds:

Thanks for the review! I appreciate all the feedback, and I'll definitely be taking notes for future games or updates. I've never written a horror story before, so I didn't expect this one to be super interesting, but glad to see it was still enjoyable in some parts regardless.

[Driftmania]

Wow, this is a great little top-down racing game! It's simple, but lord have mercy, it just feels so bloody smooth, and nothing beats the satisfaction of pulling off a perfect turn or cut corner! I got really addicted to optimizing my routes to get more medals to unlock more courses, and I was glad to see that the courses kept introducing new elements like puddles, boosts, jumps, and so on!

Yes, the environments can be a bit bland and it can be a bit of a bummer that there are no other drivers to race against, but not only do I understand the limitations of working in Pico-8, but I was surprised to see that the game has cool car customization and ghost cars, so I think the right choices to focus on were made in development. I was also really impressed at some of the special effects for stuff like the puddles: it looked fantastic!

At first, I was a little aghast at how difficult the medals were in this game. I mean jeez, I was cutting corners like crazy and pulling off perfect drifts, but I still haven't even gotten a gold medal on the first level! The first level! But then again, I do feel like games give out gold medals and SSS's way too easy nowadays, so it's nice to have a game make you really earn it. It's not even that bad either because you can unlock levels just through bronze and silvers, which feels fair.

Frenchie14 responds:

Really looking forward to watching your Newgrounds Monthly playthrough!