FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Cthulhu Merge]

It's a rather decent Suika game clone, and for the most part, delivers the experience you would expect. However, while I wouldn't necessarily call it a bad game, it did have a lot of aspects that made it a much lesser experience than the original.

This is a bit vague, but there was just something about the game's core feel: the slowness of the physics, the awkwardness of the hitboxes, the lack of pizazz such as music and sound effects, something just put me off and made the game feel a bit unsatisfying or frustrating.

Furthermore, the lack of differentiating color for the objects, the sizes being not as hugely contrasting, along with some of the objects looking incredibly close to each other without serious examination (the two fox-looking monsters which are right next to each other on the evolution), made the game rather confusing. These attributes made it difficult to feel like I was progressing, difficult to get a general read of your situation at a glance, and led to a lot of mistakes where I thought I was matching but the object was different than I thought.

Basically, it's decent, but I think it needs a good amount of polish and juice added to the experience to make it worthwhile compared to the competition.

[ART GALLERY COLLAB]

Hah, a rather amusing art collab! I do like it when an art collab gets creative in its construction, and while this may be a generic slideshow at first glance, the presence of these audio logs of hoity-toity artists overanalyzing the pieces is a novel addition, elevating it far beyond my initial impression.

I'm a bit torn about the low-effort interface aesthetic, though. On one hand it does have a certain weird charm to it, and it can be an amusing juxtaposition to the hoity-toity analysis, as if to say 'why are you talking this so seriously?' But on the other hand, it does, even if its intentional, feel incredibly low-effort, and makes me as a viewer less-inclined to have faith and stick through the whole collab experience. It's important to have art framed and presented properly, just like how food has to be plated for maximum effect, even if technically it tastes the same.

Because of the above, I'm inclined to believe that it might've been better if more effort was put into the interface. For example, if you were to make the interface very high-class and like a museum, with classical music playing: to see these goofy pieces get analyzed as if they were within a fancy wine-and-cheese event would be rather amusing and coincide with the audio logs better, I think! But perhaps I'm overthinking it and not accepting it for what it is.

In addition, as much as it might go against the low-effort aesthetic, I do wish there was a bit more quality-of-life changes in the interface, such as links to the artist's NG profile if you click on their name, as well as a back arrow and a index/gallery view.

Thetageist responds:

That’s an interesting take, and I feel like your suggestion recontextualizes the comedy, though I’m unsure if it’s in a negative or positive way. In the current setup, the narration is more of the punch line than the artworks themselves, because it’s the one thing that doesn’t fit with the rest; what you suggested would make the artworks the unexpected element and therefore into the main punch line.

Looking at it through that lens, I’m actually inclined to agree with you on this one, and I hope this gets tested out in another Art Gallery Collab!

[Dear Edmund]

Hmm, quite the promising management game with tricky balancing of many aspects, including morality! Reminds me a lot of games like Yes Your Grace, Papers Please, Frostpunk and the like. For the most part it has a pretty solid presentation and cool concept, and I was intrigued to play.

At the same time, however, it had a lot of rough aspects that I felt could use some ironing out:

My biggest problem with the game is that it feels rather toothless and unsubtle. Yes, you need to make decisions to try and keep both parties happy lest you run into a game over, so you might need to make some choices you don't like here and there, but the whole crux of this game should be that it's hard to be good and easier to fall into corruption and I just wasn't feeling that. For example, whenever a choice came up where I can earn some coin by being evil, it was incredibly easy to say no, because what the hell do I need money for? I'm a superhuman who doesn't need food to survive, modifications to my house don't provide me any tangible benefits, and I have no attachment to my wife just because the game says I should! Games like Pathologic and Vampyr have strong motivations within gameplay to tempt you towards evil through selfish survival or even the greater good: this doesn't except in very shallow ways. It's so blatantly and cartoonishly black and white instead of having some interesting grey areas.

Dunno what the whole point of the contracts spilling to the ground and needing to be picked up is? Even though you put them on the shelf, they get erased on a save file being loaded, so they don't seem to have any sort of actual importance. I was also disappointed that despite me picking them up beforehand, the guy berated me for not picking them up when he should've recognized that I already had.

The 'accept/refuse' system is a bit awkward at times in how it is handled: for example, when the guy with your wage appears at the end of the shift, it gives you an option to accept or refuse, but either way results in the same thing of you getting your wage, when you'd think refusing would be spitting in their face and not wanting the wage.

Found the money system rather confusing in that you have street budget and personal funds as separate things: don't know why it can't just be one thing and I was confused about how each of them work. For example, I thought, based on the instructions, I was supposed to be not collecting the money in the safe so it goes towards the budget instead of my pockets, but every time I was forced to collect.

Would be nice if there were some quality of life changes, like being able to speed-up or click to complete text being written out. Speaking of text being written out, it seemed silly that it starts to write out the program code for specifying text color before it suddenly transforms back into regular writing. Some of the menu navigation was a bit awkward as well, like I couldn't find the way to go back in the shop menu to the root, being stuck at the end of one of the branches.

Some aspects of the menu and UI were way too tiny, especially when it came to text: could stand to make some things bigger for better readability.

Best of luck in further development!

MindTheGrease responds:

Thank you for the feedback! It’s still in beta so there are many things that need ironing out such as accepting the wage etc. The main mechanics are in place and through feedback I plan on adjusting everything to a release standard.
Cheers mate

[Attack of Mechaningale]

Hmm, I really like the direction this game is going, but it felt like it needed more time in the oven!

As said, the concept behind the game is pretty solid: it's 'Rampage'-esque gameplay where you, well, rampage all over a city, destroying everything with reckless abandon while defending yourself from the resistance which continually becomes stronger until you get into a big boss battle finale! Everything gets very chaotic and fun, I like how you regain health by destroying things, the charge-up laser power is cool, and the cartoony-visuals are also quite charming. Overall quite promising!

When it came to the gameplay execution, however, it felt pretty rough in some areas. My biggest problem with the game came from how bland attacking felt: there just wasn't enough juicy effects when raining down hell to make the destruction satisfying and compelling. Where's the explosions, the rubble spilling out, the screams, the screen shake, and so on? The damage modeling needed to be more visible and progressive and that includes the player as well, as it was difficult to tell when you were being hit and how severe: I know you have a health bar, but it's all the way in the corner and difficult to keep track of when you're focused on the battle, so it would've been nice if the player would react more when damaged as well as looking more worn-down the lower their health went.

[Sleigh Ride Saga]

Hmm, I really want to like this, but it had some pretty rough edges to it!

For the most part, this is a pretty nice Christmas-themed Paperboy-esque arcade game: it's fun to balance the tricky flight controls with throwing the presents accurately and go for a high score. I also thought it was a nice touch that you need to 'prove yourself' on the title screen to unlock higher difficulties. General presentation and is pretty nice and juicy and such, so it should've been an easy lay-up!

However, there were aspects of the way the game is designed and constructed that brought down the experience for me:

*I found it kind of odd that there was no sort of bonus for speedy deliveries or some sort of time limit to make all the deliveries. Because of this, I found it all too easy to lame it out, moving very slowly and taking easy shots, when it would've been way more fun, challenging and chaotic if you needed to take risks. You'd think that he would be pressured to get it all done quickly before the night ends: it's Santa's whole schtick after all! Was hoping that maybe this would be the case in higher difficulties, but no, those just decrease your present allotment.

*I found the whole handling of failing a level very awkward: instead of a more common solution of living with your failure and moving onto the next level, or allowing you to retry from scratch, it instead forcibly decreases your difficulty level and lets you play the level again with whatever deliveries and damages you've made still there.

*I found the noise aspect a bit disappointing that all it does is blare noises and give you a point penalty: would've loved if cops start descending on you and try to blast you outta the sky, or maybe kids/paparazzi try to take pictures of you and you need to dodge as that seems like a more natural consequence fit.

*The most frustrating issue that I had with the game was how presents would be randomly dropped without my input. I'm not even talking about presents being dropped when you bump into stuff: that's ok and kind of funny. No, I had plenty of times where presents would, for example, drop in pairs when I just tried to drop one, or just drop completely out of nowhere, despite me being very deliberate and precise with my inputs.

It's still a nice arcade game with a solid core, but the execution was a bit off for me.

[Krampuslauf]

Hmm, this is a rough one for me as it feels more like a prototype that needs more time in the oven!

In theory, I really want to like it as it seems to be going for a nice Hotline Miami or Ape Out-esque gameplay loop where you bulldoze into rooms and cleave through a bunch of kids before they can raise a finger in defense. It even has some decent quality to its presentation and some nice effects like hit sparks and ragdolls (albeit the ragdolls awkwardly fly towards you instead of away for some backwards reason).

The execution left much to be desired, though. For being such a big and burly creature, Krampus is absolutely pathetic in how easily he is killed in one-hit, along with his wimpy and slow claw swipe animations which feel so awkwardly delayed: don't get me wrong, I understand that there should be some challenge to the game, but it felt like it was a huge mismatch. Speaking of challenge, the kids were very annoying with the way they instantly shoot as well as back away: kudos to how smart they are, but it felt like a bit much. It also has some slight problems like how easy it is to get caught on corners, and there are exploits that should've been patched out like being able to hit kids through a wall that should block such attacks. Just overall a frustrating and unpolished experience!

I think this game is heading in the right direction and shows a lot of promise with its concept: I want to love this! But, in the end, it just feels like it got a bit confused and wasn't fully polished enough for release.

[Newgrounds Ms-Paint Collab III]

Hey, nice to see this art gallery come back! Overall this is a pretty dang cool and creative art collab and I really enjoy the 3D gallery concept as it is a breath of fresh air compared to typical slideshows!

Loved the little scanner device you have that allows you to get details about artwork and even link to the artist's page: very nice quality of life! I will admit, though, that I'd kind of prefer if the scanner blanked out when you're not looking at an art piece instead of freezing with the last seen one: that's just my preference, however. I also found it disappointing that there were a lot of artwork like decals and characters that I wanted info, but the scanner doesn't give anything for them: oh well!

I have to admit, that as cool as the gallery is, I was getting a bit exhausted of it halfway through: it just felt like so many of the rooms were the same bland purple-blocked rooms over and over with the same music playing the whole time. Would much prefer if there were a higher quantity of rooms (or at least rearrange the architecture to better pace the journey) having cool and unique themes, construction, and music to them, like the COD Zombies room, for example. It was also a bit strange to see so much reused stuff from the previous collab. I also felt like maybe there were less easter eggs? Or maybe they're just hidden too well, haha. Anyway, the combination of these factors made me feel like this gallery was a bit less well-developed, even though it is still nice in a vacuum. I guess you raised the bar so high I couldn't help but want more from ya!

[ULTRAFUN]

Hmm, this was a rather mixed one for me!

On one hand, I really love the absolutely strange vibes that this game puts out: it was like trying to figure out how to fly an alien spacecraft and reminds me of other bizarre games like Frog Fractions and the like. It was very intriguing to see what the heck happens next as the epochs went on and either new mechanics got patched in or weird events got put in like Qubert wandering around. Putting the main loop of voidling shooting aside, it was also interesting to try and figure out what was going on in other places, like the Ky Fragment: a little experimenting made me learn that I could feed Qubert, and I was also having fun trying to figure out the weird exp minigame and how to grow the tree. For all I know, there's probably so many hidden layers to the game, and I was eager to see where this weird journey took me!

Eventually though, around Epoch 6 or so, the pacing of weird stuff the game was introducing started to slow down, my initial fascination and allure of the game started to wear thin, and all I was left with was a rather mindless idler game that has no sense of challenge except mindlessly blasting away and getting upgrades that I wasn't even sure if they were doing anything as, well, it's difficult to decipher or trust the game. As much as I was curious to see what happens next, it all just started to feel rather pointless and I felt like I wasn't making any progress.

I'm a little worn out by the game, but perhaps I'll try revisiting it later on. Even though I got a bit soured by it, kudos for making something as experimental as this: it's certainly quite memorable!

[Jack The Racoon]

Hmm, for the most part I thought this was nice, but it kind of let me down as it went on!

As said, in general the game feels pretty competently made: it's got a cute aesthetic and premise, the controls and physics feel nice, the hitboxes are quite forgiving, and the levels slowly introduce more complexity in their design to keep things interesting. Decent stuff: feels like a proper retro game!

However, I felt like the game stalled out early on and failed to keep my interest. It took around until world 2-4 for it to finally introduce a new emerald jumping mechanic, but until then, every level was pretty boring and just featured the same platform jumping and spike avoiding as every other level, and I was already feeling like I wanted to quit around 1-7 or so due to boredom. Sure, it tried to spice things up with dialogue and increasing level length, but it all boiled down to the same mechanics being recycled for too long. I just feel like the pacing needs to be sped up a bit, as this feels like a classic case where a game has been stretched thin to pad its play time: I much prefer a more short and sweet experience! Either that, or the game needs more fun and complex movement controls that can allow players to have more freedom to let them enjoy flexing their stuff.

As a side note, I wish there was some way to fast-forward text when you're talking to someone. I also don't quite agree with the respawn system being so lenient, as it allows you to cheese levels by intentionally killing yourself to quickly backtrack to the start to go down a different path, when I feel like making your way back to the start should be part of the challenge.

Oh, and I hate to be a nitpick, but it's spelled raccoon! Eh, maybe it's intentional, what do I know!

[Dave the Game]

Ehh, this was a really weird one for me, as it's a bit of a beautiful mess, in a way!

I actually found it pretty novel that it seemed to lean heavily into some unorthodox controls and physics to create some absolutely bizarre jumping puzzles: in a way, it was rather unique and mindbending to wildly walljump and rocket around! However, the more I played, the more it felt like the game was not properly coded and was just an absolute mess, and any intentionally I assumed previously was either a mistake or an excuse: bad either way.

It's just so bloody unintuitive, janky, and lacking so much quality-of-life or refinement that I gave up. It didn't help either that the game is so tiny and doesn't explain anything effectively, along with having a very boring and grey world. It's a shame since I thought the boss fight was promising at the end, along with some of the level design and little charming bits here and there, but yeah, overall I felt like this needed way more time in the oven. I understand it's a game jam game so you were limited and did what you could, but it is what it is: it's at least neat enough that I'd like to see another attempt from you in future!

TheLoFiBoi responds:

This review was so honest and constructive all i can say is thank you for the insight and for playing the game, and you already know our next projects shall be even better!