FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pico's Puzzle UFO: Shooting Stars]

Hmmmmm...this ones practically as tricky to judge as solving the puzzles within!

On one hand, I feel like the game is generally very well constructed and has a great level of polish to it: everything looks and feels not just good, but very stylish as well. I love the whole picture book presentation and gameplay graphics as they are very charming, and the puzzles are quite the brain-teasers! I'm so used to puzzle games starting out slow with tons of plodding tutorial-esque levels to get you used to everything, meanwhile this game is almost refreshingly starting off strong with some very elaborate puzzles right at the start! Seriously, some of the first level puzzles were absolutely crazy and unique, even making you go back to past puzzles with future pieces to rearrange them in new ways to progress: this type of design where puzzles spill over into each other is wild! Later levels introduce even more interesting mechanics like the gun and it just keeps going, and I do think the game tries to teach you mechanics well in subtle ways, like how you can see the entire island glow when it gets charged to let you know that any bridge blocks that get placed on the island will also get powered: seriously impressive stuff!

I gotta admit, however, that as much as I like a challenge, I feel like this game overdid it and I could've used a bit more of a slower start and some tutorials/explanations as my peanut brain was struggling to even get past the very first level! Some of the solutions just seemed plain ass-backwards strange at times: I solved the final puzzle in the first world by pushing a battery onto a previous puzzle island, resetting it to delete it from the board, and then with that obstacle removed I had enough room to move around the final pieces to get to the end: I'd like to say it's intentionally clever, but it feels more like I broke/cheated the game and with puzzles this wild, I really have no idea what's the actual case!

Also, as a small petty complaint, I just kinda feel like this game isn't very Pico-ish: feels like you just had a puzzle game being built and just slapped Pico on as a shallow cosmetic skin as an afterthought to make it work for Pico Day, rather than creating an actual Pico game from the very start. I mean, c'mon, light-bridges? Batteries? In what world does this make you think of Pico? But whatever, it's not that big an issue.

As stated, it's very tricky to judge: while I did enjoy the eureka moments I finally had where I figured out some wild solution to the really complicated puzzles in this that refuse to teach you anything, I also found myself quitting several times out of sheer confusion and exhaustion (but again, the game was interesting enough to have me come back a few times to give it another go, so I dunno whether that's good or bad!) In this case, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt with a decent score since I think there's stuff to love here for the smarties in the audience, but woof, I dunno!

[Charge Newgrounds!]

Hmm, I certainly want to like this game as I love me some 2-d running and gunning fun in the vein of Contra or Metal Slug, but unfortunately this just feels like an unfinished prototype that is devoid of any interesting hook or satisfying gameplay. I'm not even sure what to give feedback on: it's in such a rough state that I'm unsure what direction the game would be going for. The good news is that I think you've got all of the necessary engine components to be able to build from to create a nice shooting game: if this game had a greater variety of enemies, more interesting combat scenarios, more abilities/guns, more setpieces, more levels, more feedback and special effects, and so on, it could be real fun to play! The bad news is that none of that is in place here yet, and I gotta judge on what we have so far!

[Rushdown Rivals Reloaded]

Wow, really cool rail shooter you got here! In general I think you guys knocked it out of the park: game was very stylish and felt polished and well-constructed in all aspects, feedback for shooting was very satisfying with great feedback (especially for headshots) and very strategic due to the great assortment of enemies with different attack patterns and good attack telegraphs that you can stun them out of as well as the emergency bomb blast ability that helps in a pinch, I liked the progression of intensity of the game and the way it caps off with a wonderful boss fight that reminded me of the Magician from HOTD2, and I loved the inclusion of a second path for replayability. I was also impressed as some of the subtle touches, like how enemies won't unfairly fire at you if they're behind another enemy like the big purple guys.

I don't really have any major complaints to make! There were a few nitpicks I could make here and there, like how awkward the cooldown icons for the secondary fire are (why isn't it just one icon with a number on it for the charges, instead of being two icons where one disappears if you fire both), and the death screen feeling a bit lackluster with how you're still controlling your character and the crosshair is under the screen, but for the most part it's great. The only real complaint I would make is that I want even more! For example, I would've loved if enemies reacted in even more diverse ways like ragdolls depending on where you shoot them or just having more callouts and grunts of pain and various death animations since it does get a bit repetitive and silent with how it is currently, and I would've loved even more missions to go through, but again, in general you guys made a great feeling game and I'm just being greedy, haha!

[Pico Untamed]

Hrmm, got a bit of a mixed impression on this one. In general I like what this game was going for and thought it had a lot of cool ideas and some nice touches, but many parts of it just felt unfinished or confused, giving a bad impression.

As said, I think it does a decent job at attempting to be a Pico's School style game. The story is an interesting exploration of the themes of Pico with all the various choices to make, the presentation and animations are very nice, the point n click adventure is decent with all the necessary elements of exploration and inventory management in place, the boss battles have a great variety of interesting patterns, and I love some of the little flavorful touches like boyfriend getting scared if you fire off some shots around him: you didn't have to add that but you did and it adds so much life and humor to the world!

But while all the ingredients are there in theory, so much of it felt really badly executed:

*The adventure felt a bit too linear, scripted, and easy for my tastes: would've loved a greater sense of exploration and problem solving, but the game world is just too tiny that it ends up leading you straight to solutions without even having to engage your brain. All of the little minigames like hiding and sneak attacking the guard felt so token and handholdy instead of being an interesting system to engage with: would've loved if the guards were more like Nemesis stalking you and you need to randomly react to their appearances in time.

*While some people might defend it, I didn't like how the game didn't highlight interactables when you hover over them (besides the obvious arrows) which made it confusing to determine what you can click on.

*The boss battles felt so terrible: without any sort of blood splatters or reactions from Pico and the boss when taking damage, without any sort of telegraph from the bosses for when they make an attack, without clear hitboxes for explosions and attacks, without any sort of strategic limitation to fire rate or ammo and being able to just spam-click until your ears blow out from the repetitive noise, it all just comes together feeling like a confusing, lifeless, dull mess.

And so on and so forth. Definitely feels like this had a great design and passion that could've came out great, but might not have had enough time to fully solidify the execution, leaving it ultimately feeling unfinished and lackluster. While that is a bummer, I think the hearts in the right place, I didn't completely hate my time with it, and it shows a great deal of potential: would love a more polished version of this or at the very least, would love to see future games from you!

TrickWithATwist responds:

First off I just want to say thank you so much for playing the game and leaving a detailed and thoughtful review. I'm sorry that your experience was mixed and you have brought up a lot of valid points. I really wish I could have properly fleshed the game out and make it more dynamic but due to tight time constraints and attending university a lot had to be scrapped. I really appreciate your feedback and I'll definitely keep this in mind once I work on future projects. :)

[Package Man]

Hrmm, not much to say unfortunately. Once you've played the game for a few seconds, you've seen pretty much all it has to offer, and while you can derive some minor pleasure from running around and throwing boxes and watching them bounce around, I didn't feel like the delivery mechanics were exciting enough to make me compelled to go for a high score, especially since the whole scoring system is comprised by random box variations that can give you an unfair lucky advantage (two people could play just as skillfully as one another, but one could have a lucky run where they get some +1 boxes).

I think the concept does have some merit: trying to deliver packages rapidly by having to both plot a course through a complex environment and manage precise/risky manuevers like throws could certainly be fun. The execution to me at the moment feels rather halfbaked and insubstantial: maybe if it had more interesting levels/geometry to get through (maybe even changing the terrain every delivery so you need to constantly react and replot your path), some fun risk/reward mechanics (like maybe being able to damage the box with bad throws), and altogether just had a bit more pizazz, it could be nice! As it is, though, I'm not seeing a great hook to make it a memorable experience.

CaperCube responds:

I think most of your points are right on and are things I'd much like to address if / when I come back to this project.

Watching your video review, I noticed that you picked up on this being an Ludum Dare game. tbh, we 100% could have done a better job with this project, but we missed most of the jam an only had 8 hours to put this thing together. I was surprised when we got FP'ed here, but I'm glad a bunch of people were able to have fun with it!

Thanks again for playing and reviewing!

[Pizza Dash]

Was pleasantly surprised with this one!

While it had a very slick and stylish presentation to it, I gotta admit that I didn't have the greatest initial impression with the gameplay mechanics: the movement that makes you feel like you're constantly slipping on ice and the very slow and awkward grappling mechanics were incredibly unwieldly to get used to and I was certain that I would quit from frustration shortly.

But surprisingly, I felt like I had a great time with this game! Yes, the controls are a bit awkward to get used to and I feel like better setups could've been made (like maybe allowing you to cancel a grapping shot midway so you don't have to awkwardly commit to a miss), but everything seemed to come together with a little practice and I got in a great flow state, so clearly the levels were designed to work with the mechanics very well.

My only real complaint with the game was that I wish it had more as it ends just as it is getting good! It did a great job at introducing new interesting mechanics like the grapple and pizza, and it gave a great example of some of the more complex challenges it could build up to, with the whole last gauntlet where you need to launch the pizza to lower the electricity and then make it through in time to collect the pizza and exit. Would love to see a more finalized version of this, or perhaps just another great action/precision platformer from you in future!

[Mya's Pizza]

A bit mixed on this one! I'm a huge fan of this job simulation/management games and this one looked really promising on initial inspection: presentation was very charming, game feels well constructed, tutorial taught everything quite effectively, and the feel of answering calls and sending out the drivers and all that was nice. Definitely feels like there was a lot of polish, which is impressive for a game jam game!

I gotta admit, though, that after playing it for a bit, I was disappointed with the gameplay mechanics and the lack of any complexity or evolution to them. The act of answering phones, sending out drivers, and handling in-store orders was dead simple and the game never introduced any other mechanics beyond that: the only thing it did was increase the volume of orders to deal with, which could be challenging, but since you're upgrading your cooks and drivers in tandem with that, there's functionally no appreciable difference as the days went on.

The whole allure of these games for me is the engaging improvisational plate-spinning and rapid-fire decision making you have to do, and while I don't necessarily think this needs to be like Papa's Pizzeria or Cook Serve Delicious where you physically get your hands in the dough while also managing the store, it really felt like there needed to be something more to this as it just keeps looping the same stuff from the first day. Maybe if more obstacles came up that you need to contend with as the days went on, it'd keep things engaging, like maybe having to draw a path for your drivers to avoid traffic jams that pop up, or maybe having to memorize and relay customer's desired ingredients to the cooks, or so on. We don't even seem to get bonus cash for getting an order done quickly: that could've added some incentive. Unfortunately, it felt like a real style over substance situation: would love to see an enhanced version with more complexity to it however as it did have a good initial impression.

Also, as a side note, there are some non-functional aspects to the game like the pause button not doing anything (luckily you can just unfocus the game and that pauses it).

[Witch's Familiar]

It's a decent concept that shows some good promise, but at the moment it feels a bit underwhelming due to a lack of content/progression and the presence of bugs.

I enjoyed the basic premise of picking up and dropping objects, but it really didn't evolve in any significant way to keep my interest: many of the levels do the same pattern of 'drop package on switch to get rock to put on switch instead of package' and it was only the very last level that finally changed things up with a few interesting tricks before it was over and left me feeling unsatisfied. Would've loved if there were more mechanics to deal with or really brainy puzzles that took advantage of the premise more: as it is, it's ok, but quite boring and doesn't feel unique or memorable.

The game was also quite buggy, with the major bug being that the objects like packages and rocks don't have their rotations locked, meaning that they can actually tip over if you place on the edges of platforms. This can create very glitchy behavior where, if you pick up a rotated rock and then drop it, you can end up blasting away from each other, most likely because your hitboxes are intersecting upon drop off since it isn't giving enough clearance between the two (since it expects the objects to be flat rectangles in their original positions) and the physics engine tries to rectify it by moving them away from each other. There are other minor bugs like how the 'z to drop' message doesn't disappear if you place a cog in a switch, and the animation of the bird freezes if you walk on the ground.

It's understandable since it was made in such a short time frame, I suppose, and like I said I did have a decent time and it does show promise if it was further developed, but I wanted to give my opinion on it lacking as a full game since, after all, this has been submitted on newgrounds, not the game jam site, so I think the context is fair. Would love to see an enhanced version with more meat on its bones!

nion-ne responds:

Thanks for the coverage and the lengthy feedback, especially impressive after playing so many games. I mainly kept the rotating and janky physics because it was funny in a kind of half life 2 sort of way, but definitely agree that a polished version would need to be predictable.

More mechanics would be nice. A struggle during the jam was thinking of mechanics that wouldn't be too contrived or difficult to implement reliably in the short time available. For instance a "draw string" that powers machines for a short time while pulled. But ultimately I decided on being short, simple, and easy so that most ludum dare players would be able to complete it.

A more complete version is something I'd love to do after my current project. There's a number of ideas I'd love to implement, both narrative and mechanical.

As for submitting to Newgrounds, it's mainly because they were advertising for the game jam, that being said these are all points I will take into account if I take this project further.
Thanks again :)

[Boxbrawl Delivery]

Wow, I loved the hell out of this game! Feels like a fantastic combination of great polish/presentation with a solid execution on a unique gameplay concept, and while it does use a retro look to add appeal, I found it legitimately charming and well-done, not some sort of nostalgia bait to garner points. The strategy the game promotes is cool: it was a real pleasure to chuck boxes at enemies and catching the rebounding box all in a smooth motion, and I loved racking up a huge load of stunned enemies before turning in the package for a big bonus. Game also has so many little touches to it that add so much flavor: the animations for your partner in the truck, the speech bubble responses from customers based on the box's condition, the ending point tally which spins the time down and depletes the stars one-by-one, the way the time flashes red to let you know that it went down from your damage, all-around really wonderful stuff that I'm quite impressed got done considering it was a game jam!

That said, while I did overall love my time with it, I did have some feedback for improvement:

*I loved chucking the box at enemies and catching the rebounding box, but it was very frustrating that it only worked if you were spaced a good distance: if I tried to chuck a box close-range at an enemy, the box would just fall to the floor and ruin my flow. This was especially annoying when dealing with snails who you want to chuck it twice at rapidly but can't if the box just falls to the floor when you should catch it for that second needed toss! Speaking of tosses, there were also some weird occasions where the tossed box would both hit an enemy and the floor at the same time, acquiring some unfair damage that should've been cancelled from the hit.

*The whole "damage depletes your time" mechanic was a bit annoying and I'd prefer a different solution: too many times I'd take damage and get time so low that I was in a 'dead man walking' state where I didn't have enough time to beat the level without dying no matter how hard I try so why bother? Do I keep trying despite having no chance or just hurt myself to bring it to zero? Very awkward.

*The game kind of peters out as it stops introducing new enemies and just recycles the same levels over and over with more packages to be delivered and larger enemy density. I wasn't sure if it had an ending to strive for or if it was just looping and it made me feel like it was a bit pointless. I know retro games like Mario Bros and Wrecking Crew and all that do just loop like this, but I'd love a bit more of a sense of progression and finality: as it stands, the game just plays until you get bored with it, which kind of sours the last impression you get.

*Difficulty is a bit wonky: snails are super difficult to deal with and they appear quite early on, while frogs are much simpler and appear after snails, creating an awkward spike. Feels like they should've been reordered in appearance. Enemy density can get so high and the flies which hurt you for stalling can feel unfair when compared to it since you might practically have no choice.

[Darkspace Ambush]

It's quite the interesting game in some respect, being a rather unique sokoban puzzle/combat hybrid where you must outwit an opponent that doesn't just follow a set pattern but rather its own behaviors, and I want to like it, but due to a combination of tedium and confusion I ended up quitting the game after two solid play attempts despite its initial good impression.

While the early levels were nice and simple enough, the later levels ended up getting quite complicated in cool ways. Learning certain AI behaviors, such as the fact that they will focus on eating the white cubes, and the fact that enemies will actually do their best to avoid me, made me feel quite clever using these behaviors to make them pathfind a certain way where I can spring a trap on them! The process of figuring out these AI behaviors, though, was very difficult to grasp, especially since they were are not telegraphed in any obvious way and they would sometimes act against my best judgment, like how the enemies would avoid making an attack on me despite them being a flaming ball that you'd think would kill me if I got in their way and despite me giving them a change to use the trap box against me but retreating instead (whereas some other times they would trap me when I thought they wouldn't!)

Moving past the whole AI enemies being illogical and confusing, the game was also quite tedious to play: some levels require you to make a lot of moves, and having to do each move one-by-one by clicking on the arrows while waiting for the animation to play out was straining to say the least.

I think it has some good potential and could be an interesting game if perhaps it had a bit better of a tutorial or tooltips/signals to let you know of the AI patterns, and fixed up the controls to let you play faster with the arrow keys! Maybe if it did something like Into The Breach with future-sight for the enemy patterns it could be simpler to grasp.