FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Expedition 32]

Huh, neat little game! It's a little repetitive and slow and kinda dry in some aspects, but I liked the general presentation, it felt pretty smooth with no major bugs that I encountered, and the core spraypaint mechanic was quite satisfying and novel to use both for solving puzzles and for deterring monsters! Was also impressed that you even coded it so that the solutions were randomized, so you couldn't just find the solution, die, then race straight to the exit with your previous solution memorized: this forces you to ensure that you do the whole run of searching for answer then making it to the exit legit.

[Ruins of Paradise]

Hmm, a decent little dungeon crawler! The story, visuals, and exploration were pretty good as I liked reading all of the logs, collecting items and seeing weird creatures, but the game was held back by the tedious menus/navigation, rather dry combat and annoying random encounters/resource management. It was short enough that I made it to the end, but it was good that it ended when it did as my resources started to fall apart and I needed to awkwardly redo the boss fight after dying and just spam it down.

Seethe-Thorn responds:

Thank you for your feedback I really appreciate it!

[MATCHBOX]

Hey, this was pretty cool! It's short, sure, and a bit janky with weird visual glitches and some odd interactions, but I found myself really immersed into this spooky story experience! I wasted no time playing this several times over: even though the story always generally goes the same way, I still liked the little choices and interactions you could do and seeing the different responses, and was impressed at how some of them were more subtle than others, like not bothering to attack the creature with the knife. In general the writing and graphics were very evocative and it all led to a great 'title drop' finish as I doused myself and set it all alight!

In terms of feedback, as said before, the game can be quite janky in general. Some specific aspects that bothered me were moments like the photo appearing in your inventory before picking it up, weird visual glitches that sometimes even obscure text you're trying to read, examining the knife giving you the description of 'now covered with blood' even if you forgo attacking the creature with it, and whatever the heck was going on with the 'sound' if you can even call it that, haha. Nothing was too bad, but glitchy stuff like this did take me a bit out of the experience when everything else was doing its best to immerse me. It's a testament to the game that I kept continuing with the story in spite of the oddities because I just wanted to see the end!

WURMxFUD responds:

Wow, thanks for taking the time to play it so much! This was for a jam project so I definitely feel you on the jank- there's lots of areas that I think would benefit from more polish. That said, means a lot that you found it so immersive! Definitely will take your feedback into my next project, I appreciate such in-depth thoughts on it!

[Creature Collab 2023]

Pretty cool art collab! It may just be a slideshow of art, but I like the effort in theming the experience by putting all the art in their own test tubes, as well as providing some fun info to read about each piece. Also appreciated being able to go to an artist's profile by clicking on their name: makes it much easier to follow or check out the rest of their art if you see a creature that catches your eye!

If I were to have complaints:

I did feel like the aforementioned test tube theming was a bit low-effort: it all just looks incredibly static and boring, and the creatures don't even look like they're in test tubes, but rather standing in front of them. If you made the creatures color-tinted to match the liquid in their test tube, made them animate to move up and down a bit to simulate bobbing, and put some bubbles to float in front and behind them, then it would look like they were properly immersed and make it look a lot cooler, in my opinion. If you look at Xavier from @Zfert, that's getting somewhat close to what I'm suggesting where it looks like it is properly floating in the tube!

I also found the buttons to be a bit clunky, especially with the way you can hit buttons that are under the info pop-up which doesn't make any sense: you should disable any buttons that the info pop-up is blocking, or reduce the size of the info pop-up so it doesn't block those buttons, whichever works for you.

Nebulate responds:

Yeah… the creatures being static in the test tubes was also pointed out in the discord server. But the imiges was too big to be floating up and down or smth (i wassnt the programmer). Still glad that you found this cool. At least it was more unique than the previous creature collab.

[Mini-Putt 4]

Hey, this is a pretty nice! It's a bit old-school and dated, but for the most part delivers a solid mini-golf experience, with everything feeling quite intuitive and plain ol' simple fun.

I found it quite amusing that it tries to be so realistic: you'd think that for Cosmic Golf, since it's a video game and thus can do anything, it'd do some wacky stuff like portals and weird gravity mechanics and other sci-fi shenanigans, but it just does what a sci-fi mini-golf course would be in real-life, which is just shaping the courses like aliens and putting glowy neon paint on everything, haha!

If I were to have complaints, I would say that the game feels rather dry and incredibly plain, lacking any sort of excitement. I'm not asking for explosions or anything, but just more subtle sound effects like the rolling of the ball, slight bumps for hitting slopes, more fanfare for getting under par, stuff like that! One part that really disappointed me was when you finish a course and it just dumps you out to the main menu: c'mon, can't there be a little bit of closure, like some sort of award ceremony where you review the score and get bronze/silver/gold if you meet certain achievements?

I also found the physics simulation for the game to be a bit bare-bones and overly flat and 2D. I know it's to be expected, but I was just disappointed that some events aren't modeled properly: for example, if you're right in front of a hole and you hit full power at it, it'll just plunk into the hole no problem, when it should fly right past it, slightly bumping into the cup as it passes over, or maybe even riding the curve of it. Similarly, I'd have times where I'd be hitting a ball up a slope with power, expecting that it should get some air time, but it just says glued to the ground. Just little subtle things like that missing which made the simulation feel rather cheap: the game is still fun overall though.

Maybe I'm being a bit unfair considering it is supposed to be a blast from the past and my expectations aren't proper for that time period, but I just wanted to give my honest first impression without taking into account that type of subtle context I read afterwards as it might help for future updates!

[Home 15 Min Experience!]

Wow, quite the interesting demo! Definitely had a solid first impression: the art and animation of the world and characters was very charming with lots of fun dialogue and so much extra effort put into special emotes (especially since most games will shy away from creating emotes for things that might only happen once or twice), and the rhythm-based combat was pretty cool and felt surprisingly well-tuned (it's such a common occurrence for the note-charts to be annoyingly slightly mistimed).

That being said, while it was quite impressive and I'm overall intrigued, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows:

The choice for inputs confused me at first: it makes you use the mouse at first so I was puzzled when it suddenly stopped, and instead of using standard buttons like Z/X, Enter, Space for confirmation, it used S, which I've never seen before (maybe it's common in other regions?).

I got really confused at the part where the game is teaching defense: I spent a long time thinking I was just messing up the timing, only to realize that I'm only supposed to defend against the red notes and instead attack with the white notes (maybe mixing attack and defense should be left until the next teaching sequence, or the coloring of notes should be explained better!)

And finally, the demo was pretty dang short and didn't allow me to get a precise feel of what the game is going to be like: I can make some assumptions, sure, but I don't know if there's going to be anything else beyond combat and dialogue.

SquishY-Bottom responds:

Great feedback! I'll try to release a longer demo in the future. I will change the key from z to s. I was considering linking notes to moves using more than just color for two reasons, 1 to make it more readable, 2 color blind people.

[Marelza's Cauldron]

Hey, this is a pretty cute game: reminds me a little bit of Bubble Bobble and Balloon Fight!

It's not the longest game as it does unfortunately seem to plateau around wave 5 where it doesn't seem to get any harder or introduce any new challenges, but in general the game feels very well-crafted and polished and delivers some solid arcade fun: I got very addicted to trying to get max combos with a full train of ghosts while dodging through the chaos.

I also appreciated some of the subtle quality-of-life touches, like how enemies entering from the side of the screen (bats/ravens) have a brief second where they are dulled-out and won't collide with the player: this is great as it prevents those cheap deaths from getting hit by something you have no chance of reacting to.

I don't have any major complaints beyond, as mentioned before, that I wish the game had a bit more meat on its bones like more levels, extra modes, etc: the game is so good yet so fleeting! If I were to be a bit nitpicky, I'd also love some slight touches like having a bit more of encouraging juice to push you towards getting combos: for example, it'd be great if the point sounds would get pitched-up in sequence the more ghosts you put in as a combo, and it'd be great if there was a little fanfare if you get a max combo, stuff like that! I do also feel like certain things like lightning and fire shouldn't be able to be destroyed by your bullets, and skeletons shouldn't be able to be collected after being shattered, as it can make the game a bit easy, but maybe that's just me being too hardcore, haha!

LuckyDingoStudios responds:

When I was tuning the difficulty for this game, I initially had in mind a steady increase in difficulty that, if you were able to survive for long enough, you would eventually reach bullet hell-like waves that would provide more challenge for players of higher skill levels. But in my playtesting, I found that there was a certain threshold at which having too many obstacles on the screen broke the core gameplay loop. It could very quickly get to a point where it was not worthwhile to go for bubbling ghosts to bring in a full chain, and you would end up just staying in one corner trying to stay alive. So that is the reason why it plateaus at wave 7, after hanging at the difficulty I personally found most fair and enjoyable from around wave 4-6. Maybe not the perfect solution, but it was the best I could come up with.

[1-Bit Explorer]

Wow, quite the cool adventure game! Can't believe it's technically an RPG Maker game as apart from some subtle clues like the sound effects it looks and feels completely different: definitely must've been quite the effort to totally convert this in such a way, and I appreciate that it doesn't fall into the usual RPG Maker trap of relying so much on grindy combat and the same ol' assets!

Game overall feels very well-done and polished in practically all aspects and I was having a blast solving puzzles, running quests, talking to NPCs, collecting trinkets and upgrades, and so on: the world is just so big, charming, and addictive to explore with so much variety, and there's some cool intrigue around the title screen and the ghost that follows. No major complaints I can think of at the moment: still early in the game but first impressions have been solid, so I'm looking forward to seeing the rest!

EDIT: Damn, I ended up getting super addicted to this game! Couldn't believe the amount of stuff that keeps opening up, like the temples and their dimensional versions!

[Forest Shack]

I was really excited for this game and while I think it has improved in some ways from the original prototype and does have a certain mystique to it with its horror atmosphere, I was overall unfortunately quite disappointed and baffled by it, and feel like it actually got quite worse from before.

As said before, the most critical issue I have with the game is how incredibly confusing it is. But before we get into that, I just want to make note that when I say it is confusing, I'm not talking about the elements that are intentionally confusing for reasonable effect, such as how the player needs to pay a fee in order to see where a path leads to, or how certain mechanics are withheld for explanation until later as a means of progression/tutorialization, or how outcomes of events can be a bit vague like when you choose to steal the offerings and some such: those are perfectly understandable and add to the mystique I mentioned earlier.

What really confused me about the game is the absolutely abysmal UI/UX and the bizarre design decisions that made it so difficult to parse. I'm not even sure where to start: it seriously felt like every menu and UI layout was designed in the most worst way possible. Why can I not learn the use of certain items by hovering over them, until I first visit a shop and read the tool tips there, and only there? Why are some elements given tooltips while others are completely absent, such as the aforementioned items and path symbols? What the hell is the bone totem menu and how do you use it? Why do I have to click a bush in the corner, and what does it mean? And on and on.

The worst confusion of all was the combat design: without any proper feedback for attacks and the HUD elements spread so far apart, it was difficult to keep track of what was going on, let alone derive any sort of satisfaction from fighting. Take the lizard spitting some acid onto the ground in front of the player, or the deer just stamping its feet in place: did that hit me? Because it didn't look like it physically connected with me, and my sprite didn't react in the slightest, and my eyes were focused at the battle in the center not the health bubbles in the corner so its difficult to notice any change there: for all intents and purposes, its easy to think that the attack missed!

This confusion extends to a lot of other elements: for example, the feedback for landing a normal or critical timed hit on the arrow QTE is the same, so it's never clear whether you're getting the critical or not. Similarly, I had no idea I was actually succeeding in the knife QTE because the confirmation is so delayed from my input, and I have no idea what success does: did I hurt the enemy, or did I just stun them from attacking me, or something else? Who the hell knows, everything is so vague and lifeless and lacks any sort of logical connection that can be made due to the complete absence of visual or audio effects! A few hitsparks here, some player knockback animations there, a few damage numbers appearing above heads, moving health and turn timers near enemies instead of stuffed in the corner, perhaps slowing down the speed: some very simple things could help a lot here!

Even if I were to put this all aside, learn all of the game's rules through trial and error, and just focus on the gameplay...there's not much there either. Combat pretty much boils down to mashing attack, chugging a potion when you're low, and reacting to random QTE prompts: there's no real engaging strategy to the fights that I ever found, like having to prioritize certain enemies first, managing supplies in the long-term, or having to stay alert for powerful attack telegraphs and pre-emptively defend against it or stun them first. To add salt onto the wound, the game seemed incredibly buggy, with QTEs sometimes appearing behind enemies thus making it impossible to read, it losing my save file due to oddly-worded instructions, and with it just looping me back to the start despite my best attempts to progress over and over. Finally, without having any real sense of an ultimate goal or story from the very start to strive for, what's the point?

It was unfortunately a big miss for me, but as said, I think the concept behind this game could be nice, and for your first foray into game design, these kind of things will happen. As you create a game and get used to all of its systems, it can be very confusing to realize just how much you need to teach a player and facilitate their experience since it all seems so obvious in your head. Best of luck in future.

HatiValcoran responds:

Looping you back to the start? ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ❓

The save system doesn't load your save unless you *click* load at the very beginning.

It is likely you were confused by the overworld travel, after you reach the campfire you enter a different area, it is not visually distinguished but it becomes obvious as you unlock new runes and new enemies that show up as you progress.

It feels wrong to say it, but most of your complaints touch the things I focused in the least in this project, I learned the most on how to craft an atmosphere, a progression system, different types of encounters, balance, coding, planning, prototyping, developing a concept, and *so* many other things.

A far smaller, more tightly designed game where I focused on a small gameplay loop and clarity would had made the more solid experience you were looking for, but unfortunately it would had taught me much less.

Thank you for your feedback, I'm still learning so any feedback into the parts a player might find the most confusing about my design is very valuable. ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ✎❑

You would had made a great playtester. ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ❤

[Bleek]

Hey, pretty dang cool game you got here! The game may be bleek, but the design of this is hella sleek (pardon the dumb poetry): everything about this looks and feels great overall, with a very professionally-crafted impression. The good times don't stop there, as the gameplay is also pretty cool with a nice core design of having to avoid ghosts that can only be seen and defeated with your limited flashlight, while the game keeps ramping up the stakes with new obstacles and enemies that push you out of any potential safe zones and encourage fun chaos. It's technically a bit shallow with it being the same progression over and over with no big story to strive for, but nevertheless its a fun, addictive romp.

If I did have one big complaint, is that it was very tricky at times to determine when I would take damage: many times I would get hit by a bullet or ghost that I thought would only graze past me since the perspective makes me think that they, while technically overlapping, were not actually colliding with me. Upon testing, the game does seem to be rather generous with the hitboxes and only counts it if you get hit dead-center in respect to the 2.5D perspective with depth, not reducing everything to a flat 2D perspective, but still, without shadows for bullets and ghosts it was difficult to discern their actual position: just how far are they actually hovering over the ground?

FodderLabs responds:

Thank you for playing the game!

Sounds like the collision boxes from Bleek will make you "shriek". :P (Bring on the silly poetry! >:D)

We are working on adding some additional content, with different mechanics + additional power-ups.

As for a story... We are thinking of keeping this as an arcade style game, but I would love to explore a story with this character and it's world for a sequel/ spin-off! :D

We've made some tweaks to the collision box (now it's the shadow of the player), but maybe we should revisit the collision boxes of the enemies + projectiles.

But currently, the collision for the ghost and projectiles is actually flat, no hovering or any collision on a z-axis for this game. If it overlaps with the player's shadow, she will take damage.

Hope this helps!

And thank you for the kind words and giving some good feedback! :D

Hopefully we can keep up a good streak with Bleek. ;D