FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Infinite Tree Pinball]

Wow, this is a pretty neat game! Reminds me a lot of Yoku's Island Express in that its a metroidvania but with pinball-based navigation. The sense of novelty is strong here and when combined with the rather polished construction, makes me want to explore all of this intricate world you've put together, addictively upgrading my powers and levels and so on! I also found it kind of impressive how many options and little quality-of-life aspects are in place (though I have no idea what the difficulty sliders are, I mean what the heck is 110% difficulty?)

I gotta admit though, that as much as I am impressed with the game and do want to love it...it is a difficult love. There are a lot of times that I just want to rage-quit from how frustrating it can be to navigate the world with these pinball mechanics, and this is coming from someone who plays pinball games regularly and should be having no problem! Just trying to hit the ball into the exit ramp to leave the room but slightly missing, making it fall all the way back to the start...missing the paddle that would've taken you where you want and dropping down into a route that takes forever to get back to where you can get another chance...getting stuck in a room where you can't tell if you just don't have enough powers to proceed and need to force a restart from menu...augh, it can just be so dang tedious and the physics just sometimes don't work as I would expect! Really wish the game was a bit slower to make accurate shots easier to pull off, or provided a bit more of a helping hand, like maybe magnetizing/vacuums balls into ramps if you're just a little off, for example (I want to use the lightning power more to help but its at such a limited quantity I can't use it on such things when I need it for breaking walls and such).

Having said that, despite the frustrations and my 'skill issue', I'm still pretty positive on the game and will keep trying! I just wanted to note that I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people quit from frustration (but then again, the strength and novelty of the world wouldn't surprise me if it sucked those same people right back in like it did me!)

EDIT: Sure enough, I came back and beat the whole game despite my frustrations, and I was very impressed! Always love a good final zone that challenges you and a great boss fight: wish it had even more!

[Lost in Lampyrid Fog]

Wow, another solid puzzle adventure! I haven't beaten it yet because damn, some of these puzzles are really cryptic, but I love the challenge and the creativity in all of them!

I gotta admit that I had a bit of a rough start: I was just sailing in random directions trying to find islands and getting frustrated at what I was supposed to do, not realizing that the island right at the start had already changed to something new. But once I got the gist of doing sequences to change what the starting island is, I easily got addicted in collecting more and more clues and solving these puzzles.

If I were to have any complaints so far, it might be that while figuring out that you could changes docks at that island by approaching it in different ways to access the caves made me feel pretty clever, having to go back and forth to the boat to access the puzzle caves one-by-one was quite tedious and I much would've preferred if I could just walk to them, at least by unlocking a shortcut like the bridge for the castle, haha.

Reminds me a lot of 'Lost in Firefly Forest' which was another one of my favorites: keep up the good work!

[Bird Tapper: Purple Platoon Panic]

Pretty cool game! I really liked what this game was going for where you go from just completing the levels for your token bronze to then plotting out a maximum combo potential route and stylishly pulling it off for the gold: felt really satisfying when it all comes together in a perfect flow of flaps, punches, uppercuts and dives, and it was so addictive to do it over and over. Reminds me a lot of other fun speedrun games like Cyber Hook or Neon White. Definitely a solid concept that you did a good job at slowly evolving over the course of the game. I also like the little juicy touches you put in, such as the menu animations that play when unlocking stages and medals.

However, I will admit that I think I like the game more in theory than in execution. Yes, when you learn the route and manage to pull it off, it's great, but the game's controls and physics felt very unintuitive and wonky to me and kept leading me to make moves different than I expected, constantly ruining my flow. Furthermore, there were some weird glitches like where, for example, I'd punch an enemy and they'd die, yet I'd simultaneously die as well, even though that shouldn't be possible. It felt like the game just needed a bit more time in the oven: so close to greatness! Still, a pretty good time nonetheless.

[SNEKMEK]

Pretty cool snake game! For the most part, I felt like the game was rather charming in its presentation and an interesting twist on the typical snake gameplay, what with its introduction of enemies that fire back at you (with great attack telegraphs) and turrets you can install on your body. The ability to recover from failure by switching to pilot mode was also quite novel (though a bit odd that your turrets still fire during when you'd think they'd be inactive). I was also glad to see that the controls never let me down when I tried to pull off difficult maneuvers like sharp turns.

For the most part it is fun, but I was a bit disappointed how quickly the game stalls out: it doesn't take long for the enemies to stop evolving and for your ship to stop growing, leaving the game feeling rather repetitive. The whole aspect of having aggressive enemies and turrets really brought my expectations up for how the game might evolve: maybe we'd start fighting crazy boss enemies or something like that, but instead it just stuck with pretty standard snake gameplay, even being a bit lesser since you stop growing. I dunno, something about the game really made me want more than what it settled on, but still, as I said, it's pretty decent nonetheless.

Alphons6 responds:

Thanks! it was a jam game so we didn't have all the time, we'd like to add more content though, thank you :)

[Leap of Life]

Hey, this is a pretty dang solid puzzle platformer! Sure, it's not exactly groundbreaking or anything and there are a lot of games like this, but all-around it felt very well-constructed, stylish, smooth and fun and I had a good time playing through it all. Great concept about managing limited jumps/falls and the level design kept me on its toes by constantly providing subtle traps that make you waste your jumps/falls. Didn't experience any major faults or bugs, and my only major complaint was that I wish I had even more levels to go through!

[Meowxtape: Delivery]

Cute game!

I'll admit that I didn't have the greatest first impression of it as it was a bit lacking in juice and polish: yes, it's to be expected for a game that was made in such a short time limit, but I was bothered by a lot of aspects like the lack of feedback/effects for running into things, weird layering issues, the way potholes disappear when you drive on them, the attack/drift powerup being a bit confusing and awkward, and in general the gameplay just feeling kind of simple and unrefined.

I was really worried that the game would stall out and bore me, but I was surprised at what a good job the game did at keeping things fresh through escalation, introducing all sorts of new obstacles and hazards and capping it all off with a great boss fight conclusion! In addition to that, the stylish presentation, goofy dialogue/music, text messaging, and the general vibes helped elevate the experience well and compensate/distract from the gameplay's small faults. So in the end, I quite enjoyed my time with it, and truth be told, was quite impressed that you got all of this done in such a short time: what a reversal, haha!

[NumNumbers]

Hey, this was a pretty cool puzzler! I like how it starts out with a couple of puzzles that subtly teach you the core mechanics, and then quickly gets into some pretty challenging puzzles and continues to evolve from there! I found the whole sliding aspect very interesting as a concept since it really makes you ponder each move and how it might influence several tiles at once, and I found myself easily getting addicted to this. It didn't hurt that the game had a pretty smooth and slick look and feel to it either. Overall, I'd say well done! I dunno if I'll make it all the way to the end or anything since it is pretty tricky, but I nevertheless enjoy it!

[Boing Bang Adventure]

Hmm, a pretty decent implementation of Buster Bros gameplay! For the most part, I feel like the game is taking good strides in recreating that classic arcade fun with lots of fun power-ups and satisfying bubble popping. I love the little things you've put in like how the score counter spins up and your guy gives a little victory pose at the end of each level, along with other things like the world map and so on: very cute stuff! I also found the artstyle of the game somewhat charming: it had this weird old-school Geocities aesthetic to it.

However, I gotta admit that the game got quite boring for me rather quickly: I was already ready to quit around halfway through world 1, but I pushed on, hoping it would eventually introduce some sort of new obstacle or fun mechanic to keep things fresh. However, once I finally got to world 2, all I was rewarded with was a new bubble enemy that, while it looked different, it was exactly the same as before. It just felt way too repetitive overall and I could never see myself getting through all of the worlds: it just lacks any sort of variety or sense of progression to keep things interesting for me.

Pitigamedev responds:

Thank you for the feedback!

[Time to Strike]

Hey, pretty cool shooter you got here! For the most part this feels well-constructed and it has a really slick and polished look and feel to it overall: the gameplay is nice and juicy with satisfying effects, the menus are intuitive and flow nicely with cool transitions, there's a good amount of enemy variety and wacky powerups, and I enjoy the core conceit of switching back-and-forth between ranged and melee to manage your resources and find it satisfying to reflect bullets with the bat. Great stuff!

However, that's not to say that there isn't room for improvement:

For one, the bullet hell roguelike is a very flooded genre at the moment and I'm not seeing anything exceptional here to make it stand out from the crowd. It doesn't have any sort of unique and inventive spin on the genre, and what combat it does have is serviceable but not that gripping. In particular I found the gameplay too stop-and-start: the combat was simply too easy and too short, constantly getting interrupted and starting anew, and therefore never building momentum. It doesn't help either that the visuals, while slick and juicy, are not themed in any fun way: it's just not very exciting to fight in this featureless gray void against what looks like placeholder enemies (I'm not sure if this is supposed to be the final art or if it actually is placeholder).

There were also some issues like glitches. For example, very frequently I'd have a item selection screen where it was impossible to select an item or read its tooltip: the only thing I could do was ineffectively reroll or back out and lose out on the reward.

In terms of other feedback, I felt like the slow-down from swinging the bat was unnecessary and also confusing: I think the screen should be tinted more strongly to signify the slow-mo period. I also found the transitions between battles to be awkward: the teleport to a new position feels pointless and gets covered up by the transition so fast I wasn't even sure what was happening at first.

It's definitely taking strides in the right direction and it's pretty cool what you've done in a vacuum, but I just have to be honest that this wouldn't particularly stand out to me on Steam like you're planning: it just doesn't have that addictive and fun quality that other contemporaries have for me. Still, hoping you can work on it and I'd love to see how it evolves! If it at least had some stronger sense of a long-term goal, story or sense of progression, I think it could be great.

[Creepypasta Collab 2023]

Hey, pretty cool collab! I love that you went the extra mile and made the collab into an entire game, being this cool scavenger hunt adventure game through a spooky house with some great, stylish graphics. Collecting the tapes and bringing them back to listen was pretty novel and creative: well done!

While I do love the effort, I'll admit that there are definitely some parts I'd like touched up. For example, those default buttons and sliders on the main menu don't give that great of a first impression. But more than that, the gameplay felt a bit lacking in atmosphere: I wish there was more ambient noise, like the house creaking, tv static, dripping faucets, or the hum of the fridge, I wish there were sound effects for interactions like a little metal jingle when you pick up keys, and I do wish there were more spooky events, like some creatures popping up here and there. There were also some confusing aspects, like how interaction points don't go away after interacting (like picking up keys), and that trying to open a locked door only gives you feedback on mouse release, instead of initial click.

I'll also say that the execution of the tapes felt a bit clumsy to me. I really wish you could listen to the tapes on the go, similar to audio logs in modern games like Bioshock, Dead Space, MGS5 and so on. Having to not only stop your adventure to go all the way back to your room to listen to the tapes, but to then have to just stand there and listen without being able to move around and continue adventuring, felt like a bit of a bummer. I know you want our rapt attention, but it just felt like overkill, haha!

Lizguy74 responds:

I'm sure there will bee a sequel where those issues will be addressed and I'll definably be apart of the next one. It was awesome!