FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Sofia the Witch Curse of the Monster Moon - Demo]

Oh, this was a rough one for me. I really, REALLY want to like this game as it's just so bloody cute and charming on many levels, and I feel like there's been a lot of love and considerable effort into constructing this. While I'm a bit more of an action junkie, I did find the simple low-stakes scavenger hunt-style gameplay where you're searching and collecting friends to be cute and fun. All in all, there's a lot of potential here and it legitimately feels like it could be a great adventure that stands alongside other games like Kirby's Dreamland, Super Mario World, McKids, and so on.

But unfortunately, I found the gameplay to just be quite boring and repetitive, mostly due to how sluggish it is to move Sofia through these arduous and maze-like environments. For such a cute game, it was actually quite the stressful affair, and not in the good challenging way, but in a tedious way. Whenever I fell from a tree branch from a unsuccessful jump or died, I groaned at having to make the trip back: compare this to movement in a Mario or Kirby game, where I'd be glad to zip, zoom, and jump right back to where I was. I also hated having to check every nook and cranny to see if there's some friend lingering on the edge of the screen that needs a leap of faith to reach. It didn't help that every level just seemed to be the same thing over and over without any new things being introduced to keep it novel. In short, the core movement and traversal of Sofia is just so damn unsatisfying compared to other platformers, and due to the environments being so static and large with no flow or fun obstacles, it just amplifies the boredom.

In terms of other feedback beyond the core gameplay:

*When you use the wand to make bubbles, you shouldn't be able to make them within walls, and due to the way the wand currently makes bubbles at an exact position no matter what, this is what unfortunately happens. If you create a bubble when standing close to the wall, it should create the bubble at the nearest open position: it just makes more sense.

*I understand that water is a witch's enemy, but I was shocked when I was killed by jumping into a waterfall: I thought I only needed to look out for jumping into a pond of water, because waterfalls looked like they were just part of the background, not the foreground, and thus I thought I was just jumping past them, not into them.

*When you bounce on a turtle enemy to flip them over, you shouldn't take damage when you land on their flipped state afterwards: it just feels unnecessary and cruel and damage should only be given when you make contact with their unflipped state.

*The save/load function didn't seem to be working for me. I beat the first two levels of the forest zone, took a break, and then when I came back, I was back at the moon altar and the first two levels were locked again. Why did it not save after beating those levels?

As much as I'm harsh on this, I hope, considering this is a demo, that the feedback can be helpful in making this out to be the best it can be in the final version!

jakemacher responds:

Thank you for all the feed back. I'm going to look into some of your suggestions.

Saving is done manually. In your home there is a spell book where you save your progress. After you complete the tutorial level the owl tells you this, and the cat in your house reminds you too. To make this easier on the player if you hit select you can teleport right back home where you can save your game quickly.

The bubble going into walls is not something I can control sadly, it is a limit of game engine I'm using, sprites do not have collision detection like that.

[Sporit]

It's a decent little game for a bit of fun, but ultimately it did feel rather dry and generic, both in gameplay mechanics and especially due to the lack of any sort of juicy audio/visual effects. Basically it was the equivalent to eating a plain piece of toast: not bad, but not necessarily good either. Obviously it is understandable that it is mostly likely not going to be something crazy good due to the game jam restrictions, but I just want to be honest (and have actually been surprised plenty of times by game jam entries).

If I had any notable bits of feedback other than the obvious, it would be:

*I felt like the visual clarity was lacking for some elements such as the pushable rocks: I didn't even notice them the first time because they are so faded and desaturated and therefore blend into the background. I would prefer if they were treated differently, such as having a more striking outline like you did for the spikes: that would make them pop a bit more into the foreground.

*The difficulty curve was a bit odd. It felt like the levels were doing a good job at being nice and bite-sized until suddenly you have this rather early level requiring you to make long back-and-forth journey with a sizable amount of precise jumps over spikes, all of which can make you have to start the entire sequence all-around again. It really stuck out to me as an unnecessarily tedious roadblock.

*Would appreciate a save/load feature: most likely not the longest game but it can still be nice to take a break.

[cyber_serpent]

Hey, this is a pretty decent arcade shooter! It's not exactly bowling me over with innovation or breaking any new ground which I'd want to see from a game jam, but it nevertheless delivers a simple and fun explosive experience that's just plain fun. I had a couple of times where I wasn't even sure how I died because of all the visual chaos, but I felt like this game was very juicy and had a very good amount of enemy diversity that keeps the gameplay evolving and addictive, so all in all this was very nice.

Speaking of gameplay innovation and such, at the risk of sounding like an armchair developer, I feel like you might've missed a trick here. I noted that you made the design choice that enemies hitting your tail get damaged, and I thought that was very interesting and could've been utilized to create a more exciting gameplay loop where, instead of having generic guns that allow you to shoot from safety, instead you need to dangerously get close to enemies so as to trap them within your tail and make them crash into it. Obviously it doesn't work because you've built enemies specifically for the guns to handle like the laser walls, but I tried it in the early game and found it a very fun and more exciting way to play: perhaps it'd be worthy of experimenting with in the future, or a bonus challenge mode!

As a side note, I found the controls quite odd: you use the d-pad to navigate the menus, yet you can only use the analog stick to move within gameplay. You'd think they would be interchangable where you can use both of them for menu and gameplay movement, instead of them being locked to their own sections. It was a short time, but it was still a source of great confusion when starting out since I thought my controls weren't working!

[Wall Wizard]

Not too shabby! Gameplay concept kind of makes me think of Bomberman but with more steps, or an interesting subversion on the Qix genre.

I admit that I feel like the gameplay feels rather half-baked at the moment as it is easily exploitable with lame strategies and doesn't feel like it evolves at a significant pace or in a way that makes the gameplay change and introduce new tactics. I know it's a game jam game so obviously I'm not expecting much, but I still feel like we haven't fully uncovered the potentially fun core of this wall-bombing gameplay you've introduced here, only having scratched the surface.

Having said that, this game is a great example of what I like to see the most in game jams: instead of sticking with something normal and safe, you experimented with a wild and creative mix of mechanics to see if it worked, and despite my grumbles before, I still had a decently fun time with it in its current state, so I consider that a success.

Even more so, it really gets my imagination going for what the game could evolve into. For example, what if the trigger to explode walls actually came not by player detonation, but when you intersect a vertical and horizontal wall, similar to how you block out sections of the map in Qix? Or, what if there were some sort of combo system where explosions that occur from multiple walls being constructed or intersecting give more points, or do more power which is necessary to defeat foes with large regenerating health? Lot more to experiment with here and if you do so, I'd be happy to play it!

[Beneath]

Hmm, cute little game, but ultimately a bit generic and unexciting, though I suppose that's to be expected considering it might just be an asset pack showcase (but I'd still hope for more).

If I regard the game purely as a vehicle just for selling the related asset pack, then it's quite alright as that is the best part of the game, with the various animations and graphics looking quite decent. For example, I love the way the player character's cloak flaps as they jump. However, if I were to take the game as something to actually be played for fun, I find it quite lackluster with most of the weapons feeling very token and unnecessary and the levels and their obstacles being very easily overcome and exploited.

Take for example that one level where there are some skeletons and a bat atop a crumbling bridge you have to cross: it has the potential to be an exciting scenario, but all you need to do is just snipe the enemies with knifes from across the room and then just cross the bridge with no issue. Practically every level was like this, where there was no sense of design or intention, no need to think what weapons you need to use or act cautiously. Even worse was the fact that, upon death, the room doesn't reset to its original state, meaning that you can brainlessly brute force your way through without having to think by just killing enemies recklessly until the room is empty.

It's still a decent looking and feeling game thanks to the aforementioned asset pack you've made and the juice you've put on top of it, but I was disappointed with the brainless level design. Hopefully, I suppose, someone can take the asset pack and make an even better adventure with it, though, and since that is likely the intention, it's a win!

[Prickle]

Wow, this was a solid little puzzler you got here! For the most part, everything feels well-done: charming graphics/sound and presentation, interesting concept of sticking blocks together which is cleverly elevated with the porcupine theming, good level design that subtly teaches and slowly ramps up the complexity, and some nice juice on top with stuff like having the game show you can't rotate by playing a bumpy animation and that cute little dance and music jingle that plays at the end of a level. Sure, it's not necessarily gonna take the world by storm or revolutionize anything, but its a good bit of puzzle-y fun, so hey, what more can I ask for? Well...actually, if I were to ask for anything, it might be a save/load: some of these puzzles are tough and I would've loved to be able to take a break and come back later without having to redo everything to get back!

[Paula Poppet]

Huh, quite the interesting little game you got here! The main gameplay loop of picking up stuff up to throw it at enemies reminds me a lot of satisfying telekinesis-based games like Control or Psi-Ops, but the twist of having to throw your own flooring and thus risk reducing or scrambling your movement space adds a whole new interesting dimension to that gameplay. Also the game is surprisingly juicy for a game jam game: picking stuff up, slamming it down with explosive force and watching all the tiles scatter and replant themselves was very satisfying every time.

While I am quite impressed, I do feel like it is still in a somewhat rough state with a lot of systems feeling rather shallow, unbalanced, or confusing. For example, purchasing new bubbles seemed more like a hinderance than a help and I dunno why you'd even want them since it doesn't even increase your refire rate, there were some cases where I could've sworn I killed enemies but they were still fine for some reason, and it does get quite repetitive without some sort of greater goal or purpose to strive for. But hey, in my opinion, game jams should be primarily focused about exploring and experimenting with all sorts of wacky systems to see what has potential, and I felt like this had did just that and found something interesting, so I consider it a success!

[Spooky Season]

Wow, what a cute, cozy little game! Always enjoy a little scavenger hunt adventure and this delivered that, as well as a quaint and goofy world filled with funny characters and wacky dialogue. I was also impressed with some of the more surprisingly elaborate little touches, like a whole minigame just for petting the cat and for sweeping the cobwebs: not necessary, but the effort is appreciated!

If I were to have any complaints, its that I was a bit bummed out at how automated it was at times. As stated before, I liked that it had a little minigame to sweep the cobwebs instead of just fading to black and fading back in with a clean room. So, when it came to events like having to know a magic spell to undo the barrier or knowing the exact characteristics of the headless horseman's pumpkin, it was disappointed that you didn't need to memorize those facts and be quizzed upon them: instead the barrier is automatically undone when you learn it, and the pumpkin can be brute forced by just picking up the only interactable one. It's fine in the grand scheme of things, but still, it's what I felt at the time.

I was also a little bummed that there is no save/load feature. I understand it's not the longest game, but it'd still be nice to have. Nonetheless, I had enough fun that, despite losing my progress, I still replayed it to make it to the end, so take that as a compliment!

arudasics responds:

Thanks for playing! I'm glad you appreciated the details I spent so much time on! I only gave myself 7 days to make the game by myself, otherwise save/load would have been the next feature I added! Thank you for replaying!

As for the spell, Skellington the Magical isn't the smartest perhaps and actually says the words to unlock the Witch's hut himself. I do like the idea of quizzing the player though, I might add some variation of this in the sequel next year. As for the Horseman's head, I actually wanted to add the ability to brute force the pumpkin, because unfortunately some of my play-testers got very frustrated checking each individual pumpkin. The compromise was to make the interaction area as small as functionally possible so that I would decrease the chances of just bumping into it.

[Boo! Bark!]

Cute little game! I found the very physical slingshot pull-and-release mechanics very intuitive, fun and addictive to pull off, and the way you combined this with the theming of a dog pulling on a leash was a stroke of creative genius. Further combine this with great graphics and sound, a nice assortment of enemies to deal with, and other nice touches, and you've got a nice game, and even more so a great game jam result! Impressive stuff overall.

The only thing I felt a bit letdown with was the barking: it feels like it gets overshadowed as its power is very lacking compared to the dashes and I might've liked if there were certain enemies that were weak against it to create even more strategy...but it is still fun to press!

One thing to note is that I had a lot more fun when I switched over to controller: not only do analog sticks allow you to aim more accurately, but the physicality of pulling the stick back and letting go is more in-sync with the slingshot feel of the leash, creating a more satisfying connection of player and game. I wouldn't be surprised if people who play this with the controller would rate it higher: I know I did!

[Commission Hell]

Hmm, felt kinda let-down by this one, unfortunately. Perhaps it's unfair of me to hold it up to expectations I had, but for a game that's seemingly about drawing commissions and does offer you the ability to draw, I was disappointed that so much of the gameplay involved the placement of pre-drawn stamps instead.

Don't get me wrong, I can understand how difficult it might be to create an algorithm that can tell what you've drawn accurately, so I can see why you might've opted to use stamps in their place. But it just felt so creatively stifling, with so many of the puzzles being solved by randomly scribbling some color and sticking some stamps on, instead of actually needing to think about composition. Hell, even with the stamps reducing the algorithm complexity, I still found the requirement detecting terrible nonetheless: for example, I had an instance where it said I had stamps overlapping when they weren't even close to doing so, and I had another instance where it treated the color underneath a stamp as something to account for in percentages when it shouldn't.

The humor felt quite off to me as well, with most of the commissioners being just non-sequitur goofball morons with no common theming. Considering the game is called a commission 'hell', I expected to have a lot more of the commissioners themed around unreasonable demands, or sudden additions to requirements that completely ruin what you've been working on so far, all of which could be used to create some fun improvisational problem-solving gameplay. Heck, you could even make it so that success isn't possible: make it something akin to drawing puzzles in 'The Looker', perhaps, where they are never satisfied.

One thing I was very impressed with was the whole multiplayer aspect where you can see other people's drawings: as it is now, it unfortunately showcases exactly what I'm talking about where the drawings are just generally scribbles with stamps with no actual design since that's what the game accepts. However, if I had my way, I think I'd lean into that as the primary focus: throw out the stamps and throw out the game grading your paintings, and instead make it so that other people judge your commissions instead, similar to a game of Gartic Phone. This way you don't have to create an algorithm for judging since people will be doing it, and this way you don't need to have dumb stamps, instead allowing people to creatively draw and also being able to create more wild and creative requirements since you aren't limited to percentages and such.

Basically, I think this is a case of a really good concept just executed very poorly: if you were to just rearrange what you have and shift focus, though, I think there is something really promising buried in here.