FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Hidden Dinosaur]

Huh, not too shabby! Navigating these labyrinths took me right back to playing Golgo 13 The Mafat Conspiracy on NES (or perhaps more appropriately, Jurassic Park on SNES?)

The game overall has a very polished and quality look and feel to it which enticed me to play more and more. The concept is nice, but I'd admit I found my attention flagging around 10 levels or so as the levels didn't feel like they were increasing in difficulty in a satisfying way. They were introducing new mechanics but it never felt like things were stepping up significantly: everything was just a bit too easy and bite-size, and the levels just started to blend together in a blur.

Again, while this didn't quite get me, it's not a bad idea, nor a bad attempt as the construction behind the game is solid, so I'd definitely love to see future games from you as you look to have some decent chops.

[Type For Your Life]

Hmm, I certainly like typing games and this is not bad as a foundation for that type of game, having some niceties like the text highlights for direction, but the execution left me a bit bored.

Every enemy seemed to just be more of the same, neither escalating the challenge or varying the mechanics in an interesting way that matches their characters (and when it did differ, like the one that makes you type the same one character over and over, it was for the worse, not better). Furthermore, the tension of the chase is lessened by both the way the camera is so zoomed out, and the game just overall felt very bland, lacking pizazz and effects needed to heighten the mood.

It definitely could be something nice, but right now it's just a decent rough draft/foundation I'm seeing.

Also I felt a bit weird that I got caught by the demon but my timer hadn't depleted yet. Unsure if that's a bug or if there's supposed to be a weird desync between distance and time?

errorerratum responds:

Thanks for the review!

I had wanted to differentiate the enemies via the content of the sentences/paragraphs as well as how they attacked. Changing the typing mechanic more than once would have made the characters more notable but honestly I can't think of too many different typing challenges.

I do like the idea of bringing the camera closer to the action and adding more effects, however I did want this game to be a bit more "toned down" in its gameplay.

As for the demon thing: All the enemies will "catch" you if you get too close to them, regardless of where the timer is. The only thing the timer indicates is how long the challenge will last.

[BLOOD DICE]

Not bad! I like the general spooky vibes and stylish scribble presentation, and the concept of having to quickly do math and use your power-ups to try and stack your odds against RNG while under pressure by a creepy entity is noteworthy!

While it was neat, unfortunately I'm not sure if the execution of the concept is in its ideal form yet. In particular, the creepy entity quickly felt non-threatening when I realized I could peek at him anytime to send him running, even if he's miles away already. This is just off the cuff, but I feel like it would work much better if the only way to send him retreating was to make progress in removing cards from the deck, challenging you to make quick decisions. In fact, that's actually what I thought I was supposed to do until I realized I could peek at him, and the peril I initially felt was much more compelling. Of course, perhaps you could do something even more creative: having to peek up is interesting, but there should be some sort of interesting dynamic there, not just a tedious chore to shoo him away. There's something here, though!

As a side note, I won on my second try but I didn't get the achievement. Perhaps it's because it seems like it loses the login connection between attempts? Weird.

[Gunka]

Hey, this is a pretty neato arcade game! It's rather simple, but the physicality of swinging around the ball and chain is incredibly addictive, satisfying, and deceptively deep: for example, you can choose to thrust it forward instead of swinging it around to avoid collateral damage, but it can be tricky to pull off. I wish it had a bit more to it, like more enemy types, boss fights, or whatever, but what's here is fun!

As a side note: I felt really silly once I realized I could just walk over the cats to pick them up and get them outta the way. I thought I just needed to avoid them, but it was a nightmare when so many were on screen at once!

[Bloodlust: Santa Monica (Definitive Edition)]

Wow, pretty neat game! Always interesting to see how creative demakes get in representing the original material, and to see Vampire Bloodlines recreated as a point-n-click adventure is neato: reminds me a lot of SNES Shadowrun which I loved back in the day!

For the most part, the game is cool in a lot of ways: a very rich world with loads of interactions and flavor text, tons of quests and character choices, solid presentation and intuitive design, and so on and so forth. It feels really professionally done! Having said that, though, there were a lot of pain points that stood out to me that got in the way of the fun:

*The biggest problem with the game is the dialogue/text system: it commits the cardinal sin of making it so that when you click when text is filling out, it skips to the next line altogether instead of just fast-forwarding the current line to be completely filled out, then requiring another click to go to the next line. Because of the way its setup here and how text-heavy the game is, its so tedious to have to wait for the text to fill out.

*While I like that the game is incredibly rich with interactions, it can be a bit much: there's so many unimportant people to talk to who say unimportant junk, and get us involved in unimportant quests. I know people enjoy sidequests, but I'd like if they at least stay somewhat aligned with our main goals and vampire culture in general: why the hell is my character offering to help out people with so much meaningless garbage? Don't they have more important things to worry about?

*Some of the puzzles are pretty dumb. For example, there's a dog supposedly blocking the way to the suites, but really he's off to the side: can't we just walk right past him? Even if he was in the way, why in the world can't we distract him with the steak or a frisbee?

*I tried playing as a Nosferatu, but was really disappointed. In the original Bloodlines, playing as Nosferatu makes you approach the game in a completely new and fresh way, having to sneak around through sewers and such. In here, all that happens is everyone gets spooked when you first see them, but are easily convinced by a silly excuse. It's really tiresome to do so everytime and a complete waste of an interesting setting.

*Quest log progression is a little weird in that it shows you information you shouldn't be aware of yet. For example, I haven't even read the note yet, but it's already showing me my next steps of meeting with Mercerius at the suites. Likewise, I went over to the beach during my exploration and suddenly got a new quest telling me that Mercerius wants astrolite from the beach: I haven't even met him yet so why would I know that???

*I really wish that the game told me right at the start that I couldn't save when playing the browser version! I just wasted like 30 minutes, only to realize that I wasn't going to be able to save!

The game definitely has a lot of potential, but some of these errors are pretty major. If they get ironed out, I think this could be excellent!

emontero responds:

Thanks a lot for your feedback! I'll try to address all of the issues in the following update.

[The Bugs Manor 🦋 - Prologue]

Hmm, seems like this could be a decent horror adventure, but I didn't find this prologue that helpful in giving me an idea on how the game is going to play, as it is way too hand-holdy, never allowing me to explore or do anything beyond exactly what it prescribes. The story didn't sell me that much either, being a haunted house lorded over by this jackass who is using monsters to raise dead family members and all those classic cliches we've seen done to death. All that left was the general presentation, which to give it credit, did seem pretty good in terms of pixel art.

If there was one notable aspect, it would be the inventory/interaction mechanics, where it has you hold down the triggers to grab hold of objects. This could be interesting as it could add some nice physicality to handling objects beyond just stuffing them into a pocket dimension inventory as most games do. Unfortunately it seemed a lot more simple than I liked: I thought each trigger would represent a hand, but everything seemed to require both triggers to be held, even when they were activities than can be done with one hand, like opening the cabinet doors. Also, it was quite awkward and tiresome to hold down the triggers when moving around.

As much guff as I'm giving it, I do think the game could shape up into something nice, but I'd say that the written description did a way better job at selling me on the game than this prologue did, because it at least gives me an impression on what the intended gameplay is!

Moonth responds:

Hi, thanks for the feedback.

I'm sorry that the prologue didn't convince you, I hope you like the final game more.

It's true that the story is a cliché of the horror genre: "kids exploring a haunted mansion and discovering the horrors it hides." But I don't think that's bad per se, I've tried to give it narrative charisma through the characters and the setting, but I can understand that there are people who don't like the story for lack of originality.

The full game will make more use of the object interaction system, and I'll also put in the possibility of changing the control from needing to hold down the button, to simply pressing the button to grab/drop an item, for those who find it annoying.

And of course, you will be able to explore the whole house, including the areas that are not accessible in the prologue, so I hope that exploration will be more interesting.

[TAMAGARASHI 1.1]

Interesting experimental horror game! I think I might like it more in theory than in actual execution, but still, not too shabby!

From what I can gather based on my own playthrough, it seems like the intended experience is for you to be creeped out by the situation and just try your best to treat him as nicely as possible, keeping him fed. This eventually results in the prisoner escaping and you being perfectly fine with this, as it was a messed-up situation. Be free!

However, upon seeing that what you got is just one of the many potential endings, your gamer instincts activate, making you seek completion above all else. I gotta get all those achievos! So, you start experimenting: what happens if I don't feed him? What happens if I feed him rusty nails and glass? What about these weird pills I found in the corner? Is there a way I can keep him down just enough so he doesn't escape, but doesn't outright die?

This cycle continues until eventually you take a step back and realize what a crazy nutjob you've become: before you were a nice guy, but now you've embraced the torturer role and become in sync. It's a tale as old as time, seen most famously in games like Undertale's genocide route: just because you can, doesn't mean you have to strive for 'completion'.

So yeah, I like what the game seems to be going for, but it stumbles a bit, in my opinion. I know it's part of the process, but the game just feels so repetitive and simple, and I was really let down with its lack of reactivity since it made the world seem so flat: would've much appreciated if the victim would change their talk response upon being fed, and based on what they were fed. Also, the game just can't help but give the twist away with these hints and tooltips that prod at your guilt, which makes it hard to take it seriously: subtlety is a lost art. Still, not too bad for a short adventure, and a nice proof of concept that can be iterated upon!

[ZOMBIES CAN SING TOO!!!]

Hah, this was surprisingly pretty fun to play around with! Gives me Mario Paint vibes, in that it's not only a neat gadget for making music, but it also has a very whimsical and goofy interface design that makes the act of pressing buttons fun in and of itself. If I were to have any feedback, it would be that it'd be nice if a few of the performers were a bit more subdued and subtle: it felt like everyone was trying to be the leading man when its good to have some backers instead who just deliver strong beats. It's all good, though.

['Lair of the Missing Sock']

Not too shabby!

On one hand, it's a pretty bog-standard action platformer: bit janky and rough, lacking any sort of special spice or quality-of-life features like being able to peek downwards. On the other hand, though, the art and story are very goofy and lively, there's a good variety of enemies and level design, and the boss fight was pretty cool.

Basically, it's not necessarily something I'm going to remember or recommend to people, but it's not something I'd kick outta bed either: it provides a decently fun short adventure and has enough potential that I'd like to see how it evolves in your next installment!

Butzbo responds:

Thanks for the review! Good to know of the aspects of the game which stand out post experience, and others that can be further developed.
Thanks for playing, and great to see you're still at it! (: