FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lunatic Lane]

I like the fast-paced Crazy Taxi-esque energy this game was going for where you race to pick up passengers with reckless abandon, smashing through houses and such, but overall the game felt very flat and undercooked to me, most likely due to its jam nature.

The game just felt really unfinished, especially with a lack of polish and special effects. While some aspects like running over kittens was fun due to the explosion of gibs it produces, the critical aspect of the game, aka picking up passengers, felt really boring due to the lackluster feedback: where's my style rankings, where's my score and time pop-ups, where's funny banter from the passengers, where's the satisfying ding and rattling of the score ticking up, and so on? With a really boring HUD and no feedback from passengers, it just felt like I wasn't making any progress until the game unceremoniously ends without even a 'time over' message or anything to signal it. There wasn't even a end score ranking or high score table to see how well I'm doing and compete with others, making it all feel pointless.

Moving on from that, I also felt like the car movement scheme was pretty boring: the fact that you just move in the direction of whatever arrow key you press immediately instead of having to make turns and build up momentum and such like, you know, a car does, really reduced the amount of fun and skill involved for driving.

First impression of the game was also really odd: there was a weird bug that happened to me where suddenly my speed got all out of whack and merely tapping the movement keys would send me blasting at light speeds knocking over houses and such. It was so fast I couldn't even pick up passengers because I would instantly overshoot their positions. Bizarrely, though, despite me moving so fast, I couldn't run over all of the cats that would swarm me. This luckily didn't happen to me on any of my other runs.

Certainly could be pretty decent, but again, most likely suffered from the jam time limit: kudos getting as much as you did in just three days.

[Down Hole]

Hrmm, unfortunately I didn't really have much fun with this.

The mechanics of the game just seem way too simple, the levels take almost no time before they just start repeating themselves and don't evolve in any significant way, I can't see what the goal or end could be, and the way maps seem to generate randomly with some coins in impossible to reach spots and such gives me no confidence in the game being smartly designed. There's just no fun goal or mechanics or anything that I can see, and the boredom sets in almost immediately.

To add insult to injury, the grind commitment that the game expects is crazy too: there's absolutely no way I would have the patience to get 100 coins to unlock a single character, let alone all of the characters, not to mention that since the game isn't that fun to play in the first place, what point are cosmetics going to do?

I'll at least give it that the game looks alright and does have some nice little effects here and there, but as long as the core gameplay isn't any fun, it's just smoke and mirrors. Also I did play it on mouse/keyboard so I understand that's likely not the ideal environment to play it on, but even when I tried on mobile it didn't make a big difference.

[ScatterPaws]

Hmmm, this one was rough for me: I really like the concept, but I think the execution was flubbed a bit!

There's a lot to like about this game in theory. The whole concept of a cat running around the house wrecking stuff for attention while dodging distracting cat toys under a time limit is very cute. Combine that with the vague laser pointer guidance movement mechanic that has the cat slipping around and pinballing off walls, and it just adds to the chaos and creates an authentic cat experience! The game also had some wonderful graphics and animations that made it look great. I was really onboard at first and thought that, while there was a bit of jank to it, it'd all be great.

Unfortunately, as the game went on, those janky aspects overpowered the good concept and it just kept getting more frustrating. I understand the idea of the cat slipping and sliding on tile/hardwood flooring, but the physics involved just seemed really out-of-wack and too chaotic where it crossed the line from intended challenge to absolute annoyance. The objectives were weird too in that you are forced to scratch objects in a certain order: feels stupid that you can't just scratch objects in any order you want. Speaking of scratching, the way the scratching worked just felt so vague and unsatisfying: dunno why it doesn't make an effect or animation when you're not near something despite going on cooldown. In general the audio and feedback of the game felt quite missing as well: would've loved more sounds and such for bumping off walls and the like, as without it the game feels so quiet.

In a way, while the game did feel really halfbaked and missed its mark for me, I still think it's an ok game jam result because I did find the concept very fun in theory and would've loved to see a more polished version of it. Just imagine a game that had even more interesting mechanics and levels, like different friction coefficients for all the different flooring types and so on!

[Octillery VS. Collection]

Hmm, bit of an odd egg and difficult to judge!

On one hand, I feel like the games are just absolute insanity with most of the humor just being non-sequitur and too personal/inside-jokey for me to understand. Just feels like I'm reading some kid's cringey/edgy diary or fanfic where they make fun of their bullies or weird discord friends and it's like, I don't even want to make fun of it, it's more like I feel like I shouldn't even be reading it in the first place and it's not my place to judge. Really feels like it is a game that should've just been shared with friends and family, not with the public: it's too personal and inscrutable.

It didn't help either that some of the combat seemed very confusing and overloaded. For example, I died in the very first fight in Jonathan's Adventure 2 and I was surprised to get kicked out all the way to the main menu: it was so overbearingly hard that I just figured it was one of those fights where you're destined to die (and with how confusing this game is, heck, maybe it is?)

I will say though, for as much as it looks like it is kinda low-effort weirdness, it actually did end up intriguing me and kept me hooked to see what the heck was going on. It's like there's some sort of charm and smart design behind its strange facade: almost like a lot of effort went into making it look like it was low-effort despite actually being high-effort, almost like Cruelty Squad or something akin to that. Outsider art, perhaps.

In a way, it was certainly more interesting and memorable of an experience than many other RPG Maker games that I've played, where they usually just bore with way too more generic exposition and grindy fights with no strategy: this at least gets right into the action and provides you with a lot of options! So I will give it that much at least!

Vidyabatter responds:

Thank you! This was genuinely helpful!

[SQUADADDLE]

Pretty neat game! For the most part, I had a lot of fun with this. I love the fast-paced, bite-sized platforming challenges, and I love how juicy and lively the game is: everything is just so animated and stylish that it really elevates the experience.

That being said, the game can be a bit frustrating at times:

The controls were a bit awkward to get used to: not only are you super tiny yet move so fast that it can be difficult to judge your movements, some rooms that would make you do really challenging maneuvers felt like a huge difficulty spike. Eventually I got decent at it, but I just wish it had walljumps instead of climbing as it might be a bit more intuitive, or maybe if it had controller support it'd work a bit better.

Sometimes I was questioning what the goal or rules of the game was. Scoring at the end of the levels isn't really explained and you never see how the numbers add up: couldn't tell whether time left was giving me more points or if it was a flat rate, and how much of a bonus the fruits were giving was difficult to tell as well. Wasn't sure whether the game has an ending to it either: the way everything is randomly generated makes me think it's endless, but it was rising in difficulty, so maybe it eventually ends? It was also a bummer that every run ends with a game over and a sad little dude: you'd think it would celebrate me getting a new high score or something, but if everything just ends in sadness, and the game just feels pointlessly endless, it really hurts motivation to retry.

Also there were some odd bugs like ice sometimes not doing anything to you whereas other times it would have that slow start-up slipperiness that you'd expect.

Again, though, while it was a bit rough starting out, I still find the game very addictive and fun, so well done!

kaiakairos responds:

i was awaiting your review!! i wanted to respond but I waited to watch your video first to get a full picture of your thoughts.
I was actually intending on adding something that told you how exactly the score counted up, but I gave myself a deadline of the 25th of february and wasn't able to get it in in time. The score is calculated +500 for level completion, + (time left * 100), + 2000 if the bonus was picked up.

The game is significantly easier to with a controller, and would have been the intended way to play, however I never got the support in because HTML5 controller support can be finicky, plus the only controller I own is a switch pro controller which can be VERY weird to set up properly. I'm now aware shift is odd for a lot of people, I found it fine, but if I had more time I'd add remappable controls.

The ice bug is caused because momentum is preserved on ice (if you walk from regular terrain onto ice, it won't slow you down) however if you spawn on ice, the code checks for your movement before checking if you're on ice, so the first frame of movement basically ignores the ice and lets you get up to about 40% of full speed immediately. Didn't realize the cause of this bug until watching your review, might have to go fix that one.

The sad face at the end was just added because I thought it was silly, I really didn't think about it much at all if i'm bein honest lol. It would have probably been nice to put a happy guy if you got a new high score or somethin.
The game does run infinitely, and there are about 150 levels to play through. Eventually the hardest levels do start repeating, but they are so extremely precise that I just wouldn't expect many to make it through a whole loop of them.

Overall though, I'm glad you liked the game! The visuals are usually my main focus, so I'm very glad you liked the juiciness, despite the obvious flaws overall. I'll be taking your feedback into consideration for my next project, whenever that will be :]

[Turbulence]

Decent little arcade game! I found the concept rather unique and I was surprised at how it builds it up as the levels go on: got quite addicted!

I will say, though, that I did have a rather confusing start to the game in learning what was going on: I know you're probably limited on graphics or something due to the jam, but if you just had some animations to represent the air flows in gameplay, such as dots or lines swooshing by, I felt like it would've been much more intuitive and satisfying to play instead of having to memorize the flows at the start (besides, you already showed you could make sparkly dots when the balloons are collected, so why not do the same here?)

All in all, it's not the most exciting game despite its uniqueness, but it still provides a decently good time and I found it quite fitting for the jam theme, so well done in that regard!

[The Time I Was Stranded in Some Planet]

Wow, this was a really great adventure: it's short but incredibly sweet in my book and surprised me quite considerably!

It's true that it is a little short especially in terms of exploration where all of the collectables are within like 10 feet of each other, it's a little janky with bullets not functioning sometimes and some events not resetting properly like how the alien talk prompt reappears on continue even though you've already gone past that point, it can be a bit annoying with the floating eyeball enemies showing up and the way they phase through walls to attack you with no way to defend, and it is a little simple in a lot of respects, but goddamn if I didn't have an absolute blast with this!

I absolutely love the Blaster Master-esque player/vehicle synergistic gameplay with various upgrades, and I found the story and dialogue so wonderfully goofy and charming: I just couldn't stop playing with the way the pace kept everything going. The end boss fight was a great cherry on this sundae that I was really impressed the game had, especially with the cool escape sequence at the end. Very well done!

streq responds:

Thank you so much for the feedback! I agree with all of the negatives you mentioned. Some of it is due to a bunch of "I'll fix them later"s that I straight up forgot or got used to. Regarding the flowers, they were originally a last minute addition (the game was a submission to a 9-day long game jam, it featured no boss fight, and ended after collecting the flowers), so some of the flower spots were chosen at random and never questioned again!
I'm very glad you enjoyed it, thank you for playing and taking the time to write this!

[Orderless: New Skies]

Wow, I'm usually not a fan of RPGs, but this one really grabbed me! Definitely hits a lot of good points for me: not only does it start quickly and get you right into the action (whereas most other RPGs would lock you into watching hours of unskippable cinemas and exposition before deigning to let you control) but the combat has fun action timing for both offense and defense and doesn't baby you as it actually starts out pretty hard! Another great thing to note is the stylish menus and overall presentation: definitely gives it a real professional feel to it all (though I do think the font can be quite tiny at times). Pretty neat stuff!

In terms of feedback, and I know this sounds odd considering what I said earlier, but the pacing and story felt very odd. Again, I don't mind that it doesn't give you any exposition and gets you right into the game pronto: that's awesome. What I do mind is that there barely seems to be any dialogue at all as you proceed forward: you'd think the characters would chit-chat about their confusing situation a bit more, but they just get on with things a bit too fast! The worst part was the boss fight after the knife guy: after you win, considering it's such a big event, you'd think the game would take a breather for a second, have the characters talk about what just happened and what was wrong with that guy. Nope, they don't say a word, and in fact get right into a fight with some nameless mooks after a few footsteps! Did that last fight not mean anything? Are our characters mute? I'm not asking for an exposition dump or hour-long cutscenes, but jeez, I want at least a little crumb of story and interaction here and there to know what the heck is going on, haha!

Anyway, for the most part, despite some oddities here and there, I think this demo accomplished what it was going for, in that I'm definitely intrigued and am going to be following the development: best of luck and looking forward to seeing how this shapes up!

[Merged Gravity DEMO]

Hey, pretty cool precision platformer you got here! It's simple, but I found the gravity switching mechanic very fun to pull off, and I felt like the game did a great job at keeping me hooked with the well-paced increase of difficulty and introducing of new mechanics to contend with. I also liked how the game taught controls and concepts with intuitive design, like the gauge around the ball that signals your charges left, and the warning that pops up to remind you of the restart button when you're out of charges. All around pretty well done and fun!

In terms of feedback, I'd say that the order of levels felt very odd at times: not only did it feel odd that there were some suddenly super easy levels appearing after other levels were ramping up the difficulty, sometimes a new mechanic like the timed buttons or gravity gates would appear, then suddenly they'd vanish and not show up again several levels later. The game was also lacking pizazz and juice: would've loved if there were some additional effects to spice things up, like maybe a cool warping sound effect when you beat a level to act as a celebratory fanfare along with your cool visual warping effect. Another real bummer for me was the lack of a save/load or continue option: it may not be that long, but I can easily see this being a game that someone (such as me) would need a few sessions to go through, so it not having anyone feels super unreasonable. Heck, even if it was a short game, a level select or save/load wouldn't hurt, so why it is absent!

EDIT: Jesus Christ, those last two levels were ridiculously hard gauntlets to get through! A bit overkill as I think since it's such a crazy difficulty spike compared to the rest of the levels, but through perseverance and confidence in the game's controls/physics I was able to clear it: (though I wouldn't be surprised though if some people would just quit here and feel justified in doing so!)

ChimeraDev responds:

Hi! Thanks so much for playing and the review!

I want to clarify that the game doesn't have a save system due to time limitations; that's why I focused on making the game easier to play if you come back to it! Since the progression is made in such a way that the earlier levels feel like a breeze!

Now for the level order, it might feel odd, but it's to introduce "hidden mechanics" like gliding! This is all taken in mind for introducing different segments for a final level, and not to over-load the player with a new mechanic!

I'll take this feedback in mind for future updates/games very kindly! Thanks for taking your time to write and give proper feedback! It's always extremely appreciated!

[Tricky Keys 2]

Wow, really impressed with this game! Certainly another great entry from Team Bugulon: the game not only had a pretty interesting and fun concept, but it has a very professional level of polish to its presentation and game feel. The way the game kept upping the challenge and introducing new mechanics was very addictive. I thought I was gonna be able to carry some of my skills over from Tricky Keys 2, but this was so wildly different!

Can't think of many complaints, though I'll admit it did take me a bit to grasp and remember all of the controls and rules: might've been some ways to more intuitively help in that regard. For example, it'd be great if a red 'enter' prompt would appear with a undo symbol to let you know how to go back and edit your code, similar to how there is a green one to signal that you can start. Perhaps it'd also be nice if, during the AI edit mode, the playing field would be grayed out or unanimated to more delineate switching modes and that you can't move yet. Also I'd like it if there was a more significant wiping transition when you go back to edit: it isn't necessarily clear at first that the world has reset. But as said, I was able to grasp it pretty quickly with some trial and error, so it's all good for the most part.

I'll also admit that there didn't feel to be that strong of a story aspect as it lacked the powerful antagonist from the first game and there was no real goal or stakes explained. Furthermore, this game never felt like its puzzles fully challenged me with some of the latter ones being quite simple and also tutorial-like for being so late in the game, and the ending was a bit of a dull thud with no grand finale or boss or anything. But still, overall excellent work once again!