FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pablo Post-It's Journey Home]

Hrmm, this was rather disappointing to me, unfortunately!

It showed a lot of promise at the start. I like the whole sketchbook aesthetic and the usage of post-it notes, erasers and sharpeners as these unique traversal tools. The levels that require you to move the post-it notes to create platforms is something I've seen before, but it was still nice, and I looked forward to seeing how the game would evolve and challenge me. It makes a token effort to keep things interesting with stuff like portals and the like, but...

Unfortunately, the game never seemed to go anywhere interesting with the initial concept. Most of the levels were fairly brainless, requiring you to just walk to the end and make obvious interactions with no chance of error. Compared to post-it notes, erasers and sharpeners were severely underutilized in any sort of creative way, and in general it felt like the game didn't know what to do with its mechanics to create interesting puzzles or platforming challenges, instead just repeating the same ideas and levels over and over with insignificant differences, the equivalent of just shuffling the pieces around and waving your hands wildly as a distraction.

It's a bummer because I do want to like this! It's cute, and the levels where you're moving the post-its around to create a bridge or staircase are interesting...it just...doesn't do anything beyond that. Get creative!

[Botanica (DEMO)]

Nice to see some updates on this project! While some of my previous complaints still remain, I feel like a lot of good work has been done, as this version felt like it had an overall better sense of flow and just felt better to play in a lot of respects than the previous version. For example, the new directional melee attack allowed for some more interesting maneuvers, like pogo-jumping over the boss. While the game is a bit of a Kirby clone and starts off a bit slow, it does some interesting stuff with boss fights and setpieces as it goes on: nice work!

For feedback, I'll try not to bother reiterating previous feedback and such. Instead, I'll offer some new feedback that came up while playing this:

*When your seed power is on cooldown but you try to use it, I wish there was some sort of reaction from the player character, like have them shake/vibrate while playing an 'errnt' error sound, or something to that effect.

*I understand it might be for balancing or preventing some sort of exploit, but it sucks when you pick up a new seed power but need to wait for it to fully recharge before you can use it. I picked it up because I needed it, so I want to use it immediately!

*While I like the idea of switching seed powers, it feels like not only is the throwing knife too powerful, your levels strongly favor the usage of the knife to deal with obstacles like logs hanging from vines. Because of this heavy incentive to stick with knifes, I never felt like it was worth it to try any of the other powers.

*It's a little bit strange that you can use the mouse for the new directional whip attack, but you can't use the mouse for anything else, like advancing dialogue. Feels weird to have to disengage from the mouse just to press the keyboard, and then go right back.

Best of luck on your further developments!

[RoboNips]

Not too shabby! It's a nice little block-breaker arcade game with an interesting twist of the paddle being a platforming hero and your safety net crumbling away with every miss. Overall it's fun and has some good juicy presentation that makes everything look and feel good: the retro arcade vibes are strong with this one!

There are some aspects to it that detract from the experience for me, however:

For one, the game got very repetitive for me rather quickly, due to the lack of any sort of evolution or progression to the system or challenge: for example, there were no harder blocks to break, no enemies, no power-ups, etc. There also didn't seem to be any sort of interesting scoring system, like combos, to try and get skilled at doing. Block-breakers can also just naturally be a bit frustrating when you're trying to hit some remaining bricks but you just can't aim at them properly. Speaking of...

The biggest issue for me though was the physics engine, which seemed to be very wonky when calculating collisions and would result in balls bouncing in very odd ways. At first I thought it was just wonky when my character would jump into balls, which I could understand because it's two fast-moving objects colliding and that can get confusing to calculate. But no, even when it was just the ball bouncing off of blocks, it would get weird occassionally, particularly when it would hit the corner of a block, but the block was part of a wall of blocks, so it doesn't make sense for it to go off at a weird angle suddenly.

Anyway, still had a decently fun time with it!

[The Supernatural Power Troll]

Huh, quite the interesting game! It certainly has a very humorous vibe to it, especially in regards to the intro and other cinematics, and has some neat experimental stuff like the generated dialogue for NPCs which react to seeing a troll, eating food, and all sorts of other events. The levels have a lot of variation to them as well and were fun to puzzle through, with the intermissions serving as a nice motivating factor. Some stand-out moments include the Medusa fight: that was really cool to lure humans into the beam with food and then throw them for damage!

It's nice, but there were a lot of rough aspects that got in the way:

*The game says you can use the arrow keys to move around, but they actually don't work, and you can only move with WASD.

*As humorous as the intro is, it was incredibly indulgent in how long it took to let me play the damn game. Could stand for some editing.

*I don't understand how the power-ups work. I keep finding these things for super-jumps and shrinking and so on, but all I can do is throw them at enemies to give them the powers when I would prefer to benefit from them myself instead. Is it just impossible to use them on yourself?

*What's up with the ads coming up when you die? Just feels really out of place and gross in a game like this.

*Had some weird bugs like how trying to quit to the main menu would just keep darkening the screen and not actually quit.

*I dunno how helpful this is, but something about the game just feels kinda...off. Like, the levels almost give this kinda vibe where they are something like you'd see in Mosa Lina where it's a puzzler with the freedom to solve issues in multiple ways, yet all of the power-ups scattered around seem like unhelpful red herrings that I don't know how to use and the solution usually just boils down to throwing food at humans to distract them. Either that or the solution is too hard-coded and doesn't allow freedom, like needing to throw the jump powerup to get the human to jump over the snail with no other way to proceed.

*In addition to the above, the game just feels really janky at times with weird collision and physics. For example, there's an area in the medusa fight where you fall slowly for no reason at all: what the heck is going on there? If you jump or go off a platform in other parts of the room, you fall at a normal speed. I just get the feeling that the game is barely holding itself together, and this screwed me over with unfair deaths at times.

Overall, the game just has a very weird, janky and experimental vibe in many respects: in some ways it's amusing and I like it, and in other ways it throws me off with how unintuitive it is. I can see this being a bit of a divisive one!

jacklehamster responds:

The powerups are only meant for humans. That's really the premise of the game, where the troll can't use powerups but can only grant them to humans. Most levels are designed with powerups in mind, though there might be multiple solutions. Towards the end, you pretty much have to use all powerups to solve levels.
I run into issues with physics. It was the first time I worked with Phaser, so I haven't gotten everything figured out...

[Pengu: Lost and Wanted DEMO]

Hey, this was a pretty cool demo! For the most part, the engine feels very promising and delivers some great Sonic-esque gameplay: the controls felt intuitive, the levels look great and boast some interesting layouts/routes with all sorts of fun obstacles, and the sense of speed and freedom to pull off so many interesting movement tricks and quick reactions were great! For a demo, I also thought the presentation looked high-quality as well, which surprised me. I bet you can build something incredible based on what you've shown here!

I ran into a few things here and there, but I wasn't quite sure whether I'd call them an issue with the game or just something I as a player need to get used to and master:

For example, there were a few times where I was sliding and saw a ramp upcoming and I tried to jump at the edge of it for a bit of a vertical boost, but that ended up awkwardly killing my momentum: instead, I should've just let my slide continue and go off the ramp naturally, but maybe the game could be built to work with either?

There were also times where I wasn't sure what direction to hold to keep going: like, if I slide to the left into a spring that sends me flying to the right, should I keep holding left the whole time or do I switch to the right once I bounce? I knew to just keep holding the same direction if I'm going through loops and going upside down and such, but those other cases made me unsure what to do.

Anyway, those are just some cases to think about as you keep designing the controls for this: really looking forward to seeing a full game of this!

[Pico & Schmuck Save Tankmas]

Hey, this was a pretty neat cartoon! The voice actors are fantastic, the script is humorous, the concept uses the background lore well: all in all, funny stuff! It's also nice that it has skip functionality to make replays easy to do for achievement hunting.

In terms of feedback:

*Would be nice if this had subtitles: it can be really difficult to tell what Dr. Schmuck is saying at times! A volume control option for music/voices could be nice too.

*Not to split hairs or be some sort of rules lawyer, but if I have to be honest, this doesn't feel much like a game to me: it's very short yet so much of this 'game' is completely non-interactive with so much rambling before you even get to any sort of choice, and all it has is a few choices which all just lead to instant game-overs instead of interesting branches.

*So much of the script was just Dr. Schmuck rambling on and on and it got so annoying to listen to him. I mean, props to the voice actor for getting into the role, but uh, maybe they sold it too well? Take that as a compliment, haha.

PukeBomb responds:

Appreciate the feedback. This was all intended to be a part of a larger project; which if fully fleshed out, would've been probably a bit more fitting to your taste. But, since it was relatively dropped, we did it in our own way and didn't waste the effort that went into it up to that point. Then had to slap on some somewhat odd "storytelling" to make it somewhat fit together. We were given a short time frame and rushed, then it went nowhere, so then we had to release quickly to maintain relevance during the holidays.

[SCAMS_FOR_THRILLS]

Haha, I really liked this game! I'm always down for a fast-paced Warioware-esque minigame spree, and this delivered that in spades with an interesting tactical challenge on top of it!

Love the goofy concept and presentation filled with all sorts of wacky gags like the voicemails, and I was impressed at how good the interface felt, letting me move or minimize windows, scroll with the mousewheel, and so on: usually these emulated desktops are compromised in their functionality and not nearly as close to the real thing! The minigames were very creative as well, with some of my favorites being the catfishing one and the form fillout.

While I had a great time, I do still have some feedback:

*Just like I had some minigames I thought were very clever and cool, I also had some ones I felt were stinkers, like stealing candy from a baby which is just too simplistic and remains the same. Yes, it's nice to have some simple games here and there for contrast, but this just felt like a placeholder or something akin to that. There's also an issue with the randomization leading to some games happening more than others, or certain games having the same pattern within them, like the catfishing game keeps asking me about the alice in chains concert over and over when I know there are a lot of other scenarios, haha.

*I don't mind the minigames having some variance to keep you on your toes, like how the Desktop Buddy maze changes, but I found it weird that some minigames like the Corgi Stacking and FBI Download keep getting harder and harder despite still giving the same reward, making them not worth it, while others remain static. It just feels so inconsistent and weird...I suppose you could argue that it's part of the strategy to ignore those games for the ones that are consistently easy, but I dunno.

*This is on me, but I completely forgot about the Upgrade menu the first time I attempted this game. While I eventually did use it, leading me to my first victory, I'm just not sure if it's necessary, since I feel like the game works fine without it. Yes, there is some interesting strategy with it in regards to risking your rent money for long-term gains through dancing frogs and such, but I just liked the purity of it being entirely skill-based, and the difference the upgrades made when I learned of them felt like it made the game too easy.

Nice work, especially considering it's a game jam game!

[Milk Quest: Milk & Cookies]

There's a lot I like about this game! For one, I like that the game has a lot of interesting movement techniques and combos that it expects you to learn and perform almost immediately through challenging level design: always appreciate a game that doesn't baby me too much! I also like that each of the characters has their own strengths and unique movesets that recontextualize the levels, opening up new paths and varying up the gameplay in new ways. Finally, the game just has some pleasantly cute and funny vibes to it!

Unfortunately, I found myself having a rough time despite that:

*For one, the world is very drab, being mostly a dull, gray, maze-like obstacle course: even though I enjoy the obstacles, it just feels so sterile, lacking charm and making me feel like I'm never making any meaningful progress since it all looks the same with no notable landmarks or shifts in visual style.

*The biggest issue is how unpolished and clunky the game can feel. For example, I suffered through a lot of weird collisions that glitched my character through walls/floors in weird ways and got me killed unfairly.

*But most of all, the controls just felt very unintuitive, with wall jumps in particular being annoying since I'd want to naturally press away from the wall instead of into it while jumping, but since there is no wall stickiness, I just fall off the wall the nanosecond I press away, leading to my jump not happening. I tried my best to adapt to how the game wants you to do it, but man, it was hard to do so and I was constantly frustrated.

*There are also oddities like how if you use your double-jump and land on a spring, it won't refresh your double-jump, which seems illogical since landing on a spring should be equivalent to landing on the ground.

Overall it feels like a pretty good attempt at making a challenging and fun platformer adventure: I feel like it just needed more time in the oven to get the controls and physics polished up, and I hope I was able to provide some insight into that!

[Robots Out of Time]

It seems like a cute game so I tried my best to get a partner to play this, but unfortunately wasn't able to get anything done. First few attempts had us getting consistently disconnected after 10 seconds or so, not able to make any meaningful progress. Our next few attempts had us trying a VPN to put us both in the USA, and while that solved the disconnection issues, it introduced so many bizarre desyncing issues and lag that the game was unplayable. Oh well!

To be fair, it's a game jam game so you were under some strict limits, and me and my partner were separated by a considerable distance so it wasn't ideal conditions for a solid connection, but still, yeah, was a bummer! I love the idea of a coop adventure though, so if you attempt something like this again, I'd be down for it!

[Gar-Type]

Yowza, what a crazy game we got here! This feels like an incredibly high-quality creation that's been polished to a mirror-sheen, delivering a fantastic adventure with great graphics, a story with twists and turns, heart-pumping music, intense gameplay, cool boss fights, and of course, all sorts of Garfield references which are fun to recognize. Top-notch stuff!

While I am very positive on this, I am a stickler for SHMUPs and did run into some issues here and there that I want to expound on. They are nitpicks in the grand scheme of things, but nevertheless:

*Once I brushed the glitter outta my eyes by looking past all the Garfield lore and references and just focused on the raw core gameplay, I was a tad bit unsatisfied. The gameplay is rather bog-standard SHMUP pew-pew-ing with the G-Drive not being exciting enough of a mechanic to distinguish it, the levels are too short, the boss fights are too easy, there's no elaborate scoring system, and so on. It just feels like mechanics are never built upon or expanded before they are thrown away, like those rotating lazer stage hazards. There's not enough to really sink my teeth into! Again, it's perfectly fine for a one-and-done experience as there's enough pomp and circumstance to make it exciting, but just feels rather shallow on closer examination/replays.

*I didn't realize you could click on that 'lore debrief' button at first since it doesn't look like a button, but rather the title/description of the box below. I would either redesign the UI to make this more intuitive, or just have the lore debrief always play once at the start (after all, you can design a fast-forward/skip through it if you don't wanna hear it on a replay).

*The game doesn't lock the cursor properly so you can end up screwing yourself over easily by freezing in place if you move your mouse over the edges of the screen and lose focus of the game. Even worse is when you try to use G-Drive when near the edge, as you can end up opening up the right click window and lose focus as well.

*This game falls into the classic trap of not knowing how to balance their boss fights against whether the player has a full arsenal or just their peashooter. It seems to be balanced for the latter, as if you come to the boss fight with weapons loaded, they are so damn easy, dying faster than they can even get through a single cycle of their moves. Very unsatisfying to cheat myself out of a full boss experience because I was playing well enough to keep my weapons.

*The weapons are nice, but the ravioli one seems like a trap since it just coats the screen in bullets and screws your vision over. I just don't think it has the power to balance out this downside.

*Unless I'm mistaken, the power-ups can be annoying in that, if you shoot them to cycle them forward, that doesn't reset their internal cycle timer, meaning it could quickly switch to the next one much faster than you'd think and screw you over from what you're trying to get.

*Was a bit bummed out that there is no save/continue option since I wanted to take a break. I know it's common for SHMUPs to not have such a feature since they are short, but still, it would be nice to have the option here.

Again, while that is a buncha text up above there, this is still fantastic stuff overall: well done on making this and ever-expanding on the Garfield lore!