FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Konkr.io]

Wow, really surprised with how slick this feels! This isn't my type of game, but because it is so welcoming with its tutorial and designed so smoothly, I enjoyed it and found myself getting hooked! I especially love the subtle hints at how mechanics work by utilizing visual elements, like how coins appear over each tile you own and then get vacuumed to each unit: a very elegant representation of the income and upkeep system that can be understood without words (but it and other mechanics are also backed up by an informative HUD and tooltips and a hint/guide as well)! Like it says, it's a simple yet deep game that's quite fun to play!

While the game does do a decent job at explaining a lot of things intuitively, I still ran into a lot of confusion on my attempts to play and feel like the game could've done a bit to its design to help in subtle ways. For example, it'd be great if hovering over interactable things like units would have them react in some way, like wiggling or growing in size or glowing, to let us know (and in some cases, the tooltips on hover wouldn't appear until you double click or wait for a long time for it). Similarly, it'd be nice if units that we'd already moved would be grayed out to indicate their inactivity: just stopping from jumping around isn't quite as clear. More importantly I wish important events like units killing another or becoming bandits, for example, would happen with a bit more fanfare like an explosion or sound effect since sometimes I wouldn't even notice them at first glance (it does try to help with the exclamation points after the fact, though). The game is general is very lackluster when it comes to sound when it could be a great service to signal events like this, or make other events like the act of coin collection more satisfying.

[Rolus in the Outskirts]

Pretty cool game! Certainly makes a great first impression with its stylish art and professional-feeling construction to its world. The story is a bit too aimless for my tastes without even a hint of some greater goal or motivation beyond this weird crystal, but it was nevertheless fun to check out all the locations, chat with everyone, and just explore, learning bits and pieces here and there. I was really impressed at all the little touches to the environment, like being able to kick or crush cans, ruffle grass, and so on (though there is an odd sound mismatch where kicking a paper milk carton sounds like a tin can): stuff like that can add so much life and make it fun to wander around. Loved the various special events like getting run over or the exploding dog as well. Cool to see the crystal baby respond to events as well like getting hurt or scoring a kill! For the most part I can see myself enjoying the game as a straw millionaire type of game: search around for items to fulfill quests that lead to more quests and so on and so forth, all the while enjoying the dialogue and general weirdness!

Right now the biggest sticking point for me was the combat: it's just so bland. Don't get me wrong, there certainly was a bit of effort in creating a nice mix of various enemies and this whole crystal magic system and such, but it just feels really dry and simplistic and just not fun. I was having a pretty good time just wandering around, talking to the wacky characters and such, then I got into this school dungeon and it just really killed the mood with how repetitive it was, especially since it led me to a dead end (at least it felt like, only later did I realize I needed to move those unnoticeable cans to serve as bait for the mousetraps) and it was so boring to walk back out through the empty halls to the entrance. I suppose it does add some variety and I think it could work, but I almost feel like currently it adds nothing and even hurts the game.

Apart from that, there were some other slight nitpicks here and there: lots of backtracking, lack of music and maybe being a bit too slow in mood, lack of a quest journal or some sort of inventory to help keep track of things, it doesn't stop you from picking up crystals beyond your limit which wastes them, lack of button prompts or a tutorial, not sure of the purpose of benches, and so on. Still, despite all this, the game is shaping up to be a really funny little adventure!

Toony responds:

Interesting to hear you liked the quests but was uninterested in the combat. We plan on keeping the half and half focus of questing and combat, but improving the combat with better dungeon layouts that are less meandering, and more options other than shooting.
Also I really want to better establish that the "greater goal" is getting the cheeseburger.

[Faster Blaster Asteroid Master]

Pretty decent game! Bit surprised to find an asteroids-esque game where you just move in absolute directions instead of using a forwards jet and turning, but nevertheless the game did provide some ok arcade fun of blowing stuff up. The shield bomb move added a bit of variety with the way it vaporizes asteroids (and blocks bullets), and I enjoyed getting close to a tightly-grouped cluster of asteroids to make the most of it.

That said, it is quite the simple and unchallenging game, being just a generic asteroids-esque space shooter that is indistinguishable from hundreds like it which students make for projects every day, and I found myself getting quite bored quickly and killing myself intentionally to end the game since it seemed like there was no end in sight. I was actually surprised to see after the fact when I peeked into the stats menu that there are bosses: I was playing for so long and yet I never encountered one! Definitely could stand to make the game more exciting so as to keep the player's attention with more events and new elements such as said bosses popping up earlier on.

Again, it's decent, but didn't feel like it has anything really unique or exciting to it: kind of the equivalent of a good piece of plain toast. Still, it's well-constructed and didn't have many issues to it (beyond boredom), so it's a good foundation to work from!

LionJeff responds:

Thanks for the play, rating and honest review, I appreciate it!

This game was a little challenge after a hiatus from game development. It took ~2 weeks to get it all put together and so from that aspect, I'm happy with it. True, I wasn't trying to make a world changing game with this, but it sounds like the "make a solid game" goal was achieved for an asteroid inspired game. I like my toast plain some times ;)

I don't blame you for getting bored and I appreciate that level of honesty - if we return to this and make bigger updates, more challenges/events would be a great addition!

FYI - the bosses pop up every 250,000 points and has a handful of different attack patterns for variety. Some attacks can take you out pretty quickly if you aren't careful so the idea of the build up until then is to have as many gun/bullet upgrades as you can have while not losing lives to survive the fights.

[Dungeon Reaper]

Hmm, quite the interesting little game! It's pretty shallow right now and could use a lot of polish and a better definition of what it's end goal is (how long does the game go and how does it evolve during play and what is the player striving to do), but nevertheless I felt like the game at its core was very fun and satisfying to play even without these aspects yet!

It's definitely a little clunky in some respects. I had no idea that you could double-jump, meaning I was quite stumped at how to get past the tall wall at first, and I was annoyed that if you let go of the slide button while in a narrow tunnel you get killed immediately, instead of the game more logically just keeping you sliding until you get out of the tunnel and automatically standing up then. There are also some weird glitches here and there like bullets sometimes making explosions when they hit a wall and sometimes not.

Finally, I was a bit annoyed at the money with how it doesn't magnetize to you and also has weird physics and collisions tied to them, which meant that it would just scatter randomly and be incredibly unfair/hard to pick up. Speaking of money, I was also curious why the game has you buy the heart pack instead of it just happening automatically when you get enough money, like getting a 1-up in Mario or Sonic when you get enough coins/rings: part of me is worried it is there to create some sort of proof of concept for a gross microtransaction system where you can buy lives with real money and I'd prefer that not be the case and just be my silly paranoia, please.

Certainly has a lot of potential in my book and has a great start by focusing on a satisfying and fun feel to the core gameplay: looking forward to updates!

[Auto Necrochess]

Pretty dang cool game! Love the very stylish presentation that everything has to it, always appreciate a story about overthrowing the man, and the gameplay felt very intuitive to learn, well-constructed and satisfying to play! That being said, the game did feel rough initially in many ways and it took me some time to warm up.

There was a lot of confusion at the start of my playthrough where it was rough to get used to the controls. For example, I thought that clicking on something once was enough to freeze something since the freeze text does pop-up when you do that, only to realize later on that you need to double-click. I was also surprised that holding down click and dragging minions around wasn't possible when I felt like it would've felt much better. It was also real annoying if you buy a unit mistakenly and try to sell it to undo the action and get your money back, only for it giving you 1 coin back: I only think you should get 1 coin back if you are selling something that was done in a previous turn, not the current turn, in which case you should get the full 3 back. There were also other times where I just didn't know what to do, like not realizing I'm supposed to click on the necromancer to add the bone when I get a tier upgrade: the graphic makes it look like I should pick an item from the circle or something.

I was a bit bummed out on some of the design decisions as well. The biggest point for me was the limited 'spy' actions: I'd much prefer if spying was something that you can just do anytime so it always feels fair and you can reorganize your lineup each turn to try and counter whatever changes the enemy has made, instead of it as just being up to chance and you having to make a generalist line-up to try and deal with any possible situation that could arise. Having limited spys just makes me feel so stressed with paranoid and makes me want to hoard them instead of using them. Usually these tower defense games show you a preview for free, so seeing it limited here was frustrating as it can make strategy feel up to unfair dumb luck instead of being able to puzzle it out as best you can. I'd also think it would be nice if, considering how long a play can be, if there was some sort of save/load feature so you can take a break.

All that massive wall of text aside, I do think the game is pretty dang cool both from a presentation point and actual gameplay point, and I'm looking forward to getting good enough to eventually achieve victory!

[Nutbuster (✨THE CANCELLED UPDATE ✨)]

Hmmm, this was a rough one for me!

The goofy story with funny characters and dialogue, along with the stylish art and world really intrigue me and want to play further. You've got a great dumb protag that kicks nuts and some weird antagonist who can't even pronounce clan correctly, and it just keeps going from there: it's quite the comical adventure! I also always love a good beat-em-up, so the gameplay should've sold me.

However, the game itself felt really awful to play. I want to like it since I really like beat-em-ups and this does seem to make some good steps in the right direction with decent boss design and attack telegraphs and so on, but it just felt really bad. Hitboxes felt terrible where I would keep whiffing my kicks despite standing right next to enemies and enemies would hit me when I felt like they should've and not hit me when I felt like they should. The enemies were dumb and repetitive with no variation to them and with attack telegraphs that delay their blow so long its actually hard to parry than if they were sensibly quicker. I kept trying to pull off parries and other stylish techniques but it never really seemed to work in a logical manner. Finally, for a game about kicking nuts, it looked more like I was kicking people's toes or shins, and our player movelist felt so limited and shallow. It tragically feels like a style over substance situation: the game looks pretty, but it doesn't play well.

The final nail in the coffin was that I've even had the game hard-crash on me multiple times: thankfully the game does save progress but crashes really don't give me confidence in its programming. It kinda feels like one of those games that is only built for the best-case scenario and just doesn't work for anything except that. I can practically hear the ghost of the developer screaming in my ear when I feel that my attacks keep whiffing and that the parries aren't working that I "must be standing in an incorrect position" or "didn't read the tutorial" despite my position looking perfectly fine and I'm hitting all the buttons correctly, among other things. Another example that might help illustrate this, though minor, is that the game doesn't disable functionality during a transition animation: yes, in a best-case scenario the player will wait for the transition to finish before resuming input, but since you don't lock it down, a player can accidently press buttons during the transition and end up activating something else they're not supposed to and ruin the game. True programming should acknowledge that a player won't always move like you want them to and construct a game robust enough to work with that worst-case scenario.

I think I will continue to play to try and see the rest of the story since it is very amusing, but it will unfortunately be a case where I feel like I have to suffer through the gameplay to get to the good story part.

ChalTheChalkyOne responds:

Your feedback was greatly appreciated! I do agree that the gameplay do feel shallow and i acknowledged that (after alot of tries on the game), and i am still a mediocre programmer (despite making 9 games already) so bugs may occur onto this lil buggy game of mine, i am very sorry for the inconvenience that you go through for this and i will try my best to improve the game as much as possible so it can make a much more funner experience than it is rn in the next update, again i am really sorry for your inconvenient experience with the game and hopefully the next update will have more substances than it has rn

[The Wizard Ran: Chapter 7]

This was probably the roughest chapter for me as going through that beginning maze was absolutely interminable. I know I've had some tricky times with some of the other chapters but I feel like they've always ended up being a positive experience, but this...I mean I was legit seconds away from quitting despite my love of the series before thankfully having a chance encounter with the tower where I was able to witness the twist and make my way through the timed pawn-slicing tower climb and get the first ending. Can't imagine what that experience would've been like for a newcomer, though I suppose we are at chapter 7 in a series so you can put more faith in the audience's patience (but still, I'd say you are really pushing it).

Unfortunately, the whole timed pawn-slicing tower climb and subsequent ending didn't really feel satisfying to accomplish, so it didn't really do anything to recover my flagging motivation that was already thoroughly sapped by the maze, so I doubt I will go through the maze again to find any of the other endings, which is a shame because that's always an exciting part of these games. I dunno, it just feels like a real bummer: chapter 6 setup with a heck of a cliff-hanger that really had my hopes high, and I feel really let-down.

Maybe after some time where I wait to forget how terrible of an experience the maze was I'll have the courage to do it again.

EDIT: Hmm, guess I might've screwed myself a little bit by picking the Shepherd first since the others were more straightforward. Probably missing a trick as well.

adriendittrick responds:

thanks for sticking in despite the hurdles :)

[Juurru]

Another solid adventure game! Overall it feels like a well-polished short and sweet puzzler with a neat little concept that gets expanded on in an elegant way with levels that both intuitively teach the player and keep them hooked. Presentation is great as well, not only in the game itself but in other aspects like the cool level-select screen and the nice little cutscenes. No major complaints I can think of as I quite enjoyed my time, except that maybe the dotted line for underground movement boundaries should still be present even in normal play so you can plan ahead, and that I wish the movement when you're holding down the button would be faster so I don't feel inclined to mash!

[Nyghtmare: The Ninth King]

Hrmm, a bit mixed on this one!

First impression of the game was great, as I loved seeing the really cool title and map screen among other nice little touches that take some good effort to put in where other devs would skip. In general the graphics seemed very well-done and added so much to the atmosphere, and the gameplay itself was delivering some solid Castlevania-esque fun with interesting levels, enemies, obstacles, and solid boss fight patterns.

However, as the game went on, the first impression kinda fell off due to several factors that felt unpolished. It's difficult to nail down what exactly contributes to it, but in general the gameplay felt a bit off and unsatisfying: at first I thought it was just the fact that I was playing with keyboard, but even when I switched to controller, which I felt helped, it still just felt very awkward. For example, it felt really annoying to get used to the delayed attacks despite Castlevania having similar delayed attacks which felt alright: not sure what the difference was, maybe it's because of the jump acting differently or the attacks lacking impact and feedback, especially in the audio department. Speaking of audio, I felt like the music really took a downwards dive in quality on the second level (the second level also felt like it kicked up the difficulty way too high way too fast, what with all of the instant death pits and enemies perfectly positioned to shove you into them).

Moving on from the general feel, there were also just a lot of weird bugs. For example, there's a certain checkpoint that you respawn at on level 2 where you will spawn right on top of enemies and immediately and unavoidably take damage: having that happen really diminished my faith in the game's design as I couldn't believe something like that could be overlooked, and therefore really killed my motivation to keep going on (for if a bug like that was missed, what else might have been missed?)

I think it still delivers a decent experience, but it was very close to feeling like a bit of a style over substance thing: the game looks good, but doesn't exactly feel good to play. Definitely has a lot of potential though, just needs a bit of polish in my opinion.

Elv13s responds:

thanks for the honest review. the spawn bug is fixed in recent builds of the game, this embedded build, in particular, was 0.2.6 if i remember correctly, the full game is much more balanced imo?

[Bore of Time]

Hrmm, it definitely doesn't make the best first impression, what with its very complicated rules that are sadly only explained in a massive wall of text devoid of any pictures or colors that could've helped make the information easier to retain and recall. That, along with the fact that the game just seems to be a randomly generated assortment of levels with no clear end goal making it all seem repetitive and aimless, I wouldn't blame a lot of people for quitting outright from, well, the namesake boredom.

However, I will admit that I actually did have some good fun with the game when I gave it the ol' college try. Wrangling the complicated rules wasn't too bad thanks to the actual gameplay having some intuitive symbols, and utilizing the rules in game lead to some very clever and crafty moments that made me feel good: using the lightning tiles to avoid damage while maneuvering around, setting up yellow kills to recover health, recovering a doomed run where I wouldn't be able to reach the stairs without dying by managing the kill the final enemy and thus freely move to the stairs without taking damage, and so on!

I'm still a little sketchy on the game, but it does have a fun little core that creates clever gameplay hidden in there, so well done on that aspect.

amidos2006 responds:

Thanks a lot for giving the game a chance, sorry for not having a better tutorial as I was rushing to submit the game for the 7drl and I didn't have much time to polish the game and make it easier to learn. I am glad that you enjoyed the main game loop and understood it :)