FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Toe II Toe]

The game does certainly impress with its sprite work and animation and gives a good first impression, but I found it very lacking in content and gameplay.

Compared to other simple-yet-deep fighting games like Divekick or Footsies, I felt like this game was only simple, with no hidden depth to speak of. I wanted to employ tactics like ducks and blocks and such but it just never felt like they could lead into anything since attacks come so fast and with no telegraphs or openings being made by defense: for example you'd think a well-timed duck would make a big right hand from your opponent whiff and leave them open to a counter, but no, they recover in time and I gain no advanage by the time I stand up (or even worse, I get hit by an already thrown punch when I'm in the middle of standing up from a duck). I'd regularly feel like I had better luck winning a fight by just mashing rather than playing in any sort of smart way: felt like the equivalent of rock-em-sock-em robots or something like that.

I'll admit that I only played the single player, so maybe I'm missing out on the ideal two player experience. But still, I feel like this game just doesn't have enough content to it to make it worthy of dragging someone around to huddle around the keyboard and play for a bit. I like the idea of a simple fighting game, but I don't agree with the execution here.

plazatin responds:

Hey man, thank you for playing my game and the honest feedback, appreciate it. Block actually can be timed to block both jab and hook, and it opens up a lot of opportunities to counter once you get hang of it. This is further emphasized when playing against another player. For the duck, however, I must admit, feedback has been the same across even those who loved the game--it can be timed especially against a hook, but isn't worth using because it is too risky and prone to punishment. Admittedly, the game requires further tweaking. Luckily I am getting feedback from you and other people too, so thank you detailing your thoughts instead of saying game sux or leaving one star.

Also, the game was, in fact, meant to be a digitial equivalent of rockem sockem. The initial plan was to to see if a 20 second fighting game (for a game jam) was feasible. I honestly didn't think people would have complicated strategies for a 20 second match other than mash buttons.

Because of the positive feedback, people have opened my eyes to the potential and given me suggestions to improve the game. Some of them are (1) ability to choose time beyond 20 seconds, because people found it too short for player vs player where people are strategizing instead of just spamming buttons (2) tweak the duck and add a counter (3) more characters for an arcade experience, and some more changes. Hopefully after I've applied the improvements, you can give the game another shot.

P.S. although the game fell short, thank you for comparing it to footsies and dive kick!

[Chef Quest]

It's a cute little adventure, but I did feel a bit letdown by it!

I like the setting and the whole idea of cooking up various recipes to solve your patrons various requests, while simultaneously both managing a garden and delving into a dungeon with your various upgrades to discover new ingredients to be able to make these new recipes. The general feel of the game was very amusing as well with all sorts of funny dialogue and characters.

However, at the end of the day it just felt way too short, scripted and unchallenging to be fun. With all of the upgrades being handed to you in an obvious manner to unlock the next ingredient, with no time pressure to resolve a patrons issues (even when they're on fire, for gods sake) and therefore no need to plan out your garden or rush your dungeon delves, I never felt like I had to think. The game just felt like an overly long tutorial and I kept waiting for it to take the training wheels off and it never did and suddenly it was all done.

Would've loved to see this similar to a game like Papers Please or Potionomics or anything, where you go through days and have a big line of patrons with all sorts of randomized problems and you need to find time to dip in the back and choose what to grow and buy time to delve deeper for more rare ingredients and so on. As it is, it's still a fun little story, but I never felt like I was playing a game, more just following a script.

[Blam and Protect]

Cute little game, but unfortunately so shallow that it loses its appeal after a minute or so.

In general the construction of the game is decent with nice graphics, music and feel/feedback: I like seeing the various Newgrounds characters running around, and the core concept of blamming bad entries as P-Bot protecting the portal is quite novel. Certainly could work...

However, the gameplay just consists of holding down the fire button and aiming at the bad guys. It's pretty braindead, and there isn't much variation in enemies to force you to have to tackle them dynamically, like having some teleporter enemies, enemies that attack you, or slow but tough ones and fast but weak ones, or anything. As said, you only need to play for less than a minute to see all the game has to offer you: no interesting events or escalation of difficulty happens.

I really feel like the game missed a trick here: when I started, I initially thought that you were going to be like a sniper, accurately lining up shots to ensure you only take out the bad guys hiding in the line while not hitting any of the good submissions with friendly fire. That would actually breathe some much needed challenge and strategy into the game, since you'd need to carefully adjust and time your shots.

Would love to see this game come back in an improved state with more meat on it since, as I said, the idea behind it isn't bad at all. However, as it is now, you know what I'd say (apparently haha): this is like if nickleback was a game!

factzmachine responds:

HE SAW IT! HE SAW THE GAME OVER SCREEN!! ITS LIKE IF NICKELBACK WAS A GAME CONFIRMED!!!!! Fr tho Ty for playing futurecop, Tysm bro!

[SQUID ON ROAD]

Hmmm, bit of a weird love/hate relationship with this game! Ultimately I do think I very much enjoy this game, but boy do I feel like I have a lot of complaints about it, haha!

First, it was quite annoying that, despite using a mouse and keyboard, the game kept insisting I use touch controls and only showcased them in the tutorial. Eventually I discovered that I could hold the A and D to move left and right, and thank god for that because boy lemme tell you it was annoying to keep clicking left and right spots on the screen at first. Can't the game just detect my control scheme and display an appropriate tutorial?

While the boost mechanic in great and satisfying in theory, there were a lot of little things that made it much less so. First, even though the game says that killing enemies fills up the boost bar, I found that it felt like the boost bar filled up at the same agonizingly slow pace whether I killed enemies or not, making me feel silly for pushing myself to play aggressively since I wasn't being rewarded for it. Second, I hated that, no matter how many damage upgrades you get, the collateral damage from a boost always seemed to do 7 damage, which is 1 damage point away from the amount needed to get a kill: this made boosting very unsatisfying since no matter how much I tried to aim to ram as many people as possible and scatter them to the winds, the only target that would die is the main target and everyone else would immediately come back and shoot at me while I wait for the aforementioned slow boost charge.

A lot of the time it felt like dodging bullets felt completely up to luck. Yes, enemies do have telegraphs and the bullets move slow so it is possible to dodge them. But in execution, each enemy is moving to the beat of their own drum, so even if I try to time my attack after one enemy telegraph to avoid their attack, I can't track all of the others in the big crowd and one of them will plug me unavoidably when I'm dashing in. Additionally, even if I try to pull off a great attack move that will weave through bullets, sometimes the curving road will make enemies shift over which changes my trajectory into a bullet I wasn't going to hit at first. Argh, so annoying!

Despite all my gripes, though, I still found myself playing the game over and over: it's just a really fun and goofy concept with juicy, satisfying gameplay at its core. I'm not sure about the long term appeal since it was getting kind of repetitive going through the same events every replay, and the upgrades were a bit boring and samey, and I wasn't sure if there was a goal or ending to strive for, but for the most part, I'd say well done!

jefvel responds:

Thanks!! Great review as always!
I’m currently reworking a bunch of stuff in the game. In my previous games I could determine whether or not it was played using touch when first clicking the screen, but that info isn’t exposed by gamemaker sadly. I’m going to add a setting for it on first launch.

Also rethinking and working the way enemies and attack values work. Once I get in more enemy variation I’ll also make damage numbers go up significantly. Also yeah gotta do something about how bullets and the road curvature works. A goal is to make it work well using touch/keyboard+mouse/controller, which is a bit of a challenge!

Hopefully I’ll have these things figured out in a future version, I’ll do my best! Thanks again 🙂

[Moomoo's Maple Mishap v2 (Second Demo)]

Hey, not too shabby! Apart from the wonderfully goofy intro cinematic, I'll admit it didn't have the best first impression, as the desert level felt a bit barren and boring in terms of the landscape and assets. However, bit by bit the game seemed to improve and, by the end, became a really fast-paced and smooth game to play with all sorts of cool obstacles courses and boss fights that I enjoyed blazing through, quickly reacting to transition between rolling and wall-jumping and such in a satisfying manner. Really liked the boss fight too!

For the most part I think the game is quite smooth and responsive, but I will say I did have a few problems here and there with the roll, primarily trying to transition out of it: sometimes when I'm rolling and I jump it'll get me out of it, other times it'll treat my jump as a forward boost instead and keep me flat on the ground. Maybe it'd be good if jumping from a roll stops the roll and you need to re-roll: maybe not? Also there were some slight things I'd love changed, such as the 'milk power' mode: felt like it was really unnecessary and without purpose, and didn't have the powers you'd expect from growing big, like maybe being able to crush spikes and such. Speaking of powers, it'd almost be nice to maybe see more cow-themed powers since the theme seems to be going to waste.

For the most part I found it to be a very promising demo: apart from some small kinks with rolling, the movement was nice and smooth and the courses very fun. Looking forward to seeing more development!

[head hunting.]

Wow, I was really surprised by this one: took me on a topsy-turvy ride where I went from initially hating the game to absolutely loving it!

As said, when I first started I found it very difficult to get used to the controls, or even figure out what the heck were the controls in the first place since nothing was explained. Even when I got the general gist, so many aspects like how it was difficult to keep track of where the arm was since it didn't reset after you stop using it but you can't see where you left it, and the physics sometimes behaving very oddly, was quite painful and made me come close to quitting.

However, little by little I got used to swinging around, and what I found was a very short and sweet 'getting over it' experience where the game puts you through a series of increasingly challenging and creative obstacles, like going from a big grabbable canvas to separated ones and less flooring to catch yourself, and eventually going to real wacky ones like a thin rope. I ended up getting really addicted to testing and perfecting my skills with the swinging and all that, and it was so satisfying to get through it all (despite the downer ending, haha)!

I think the key to me sticking with the game was probably that fancy opening cutscene: when you have a strong first impression like thatt, it kinda puts a seed of hope in the back of your mind that makes you give the game a bit more patience, like a "if they put so much effort here, they must've put a lot in everything else as well" kinda deal. Anyway, well done, and we'll see if I go back for the lunch stuff (unfortunately, it's a bit annoying with no save/load and no skippable intro)!

[Franco Fox in Fairyland DEMO]

It ain't bad but...it's not that great either? Basically, the game reminds me very much of those memes where they're like "that game sure was a game" or something akin to that, haha.

Again, it's not a bad game, heck, I'd even say it's a good game. Certainly does make a good impression with its cute intro, and overall the game has a solid sense of craft to it in all respects: graphics, sound, music and retro aesthetic. Couldn't see any major complaints with the movement or anything either, other than it was a little confusing that the bounce you get from an enemy goes higher than the bounce from a box (maybe you shouldn't even bounce that much from a box in the first place, if at all). So yeah, all in all, it was good.

But in general, while it was "good," I just found the game to be very plain and bog-standard, and therefore not very fun. It pretty much just felt like a basic platformer or Mario clone without any unique mechanics or ideas of its own, leading me to questioning why I should even bother playing it. Not only did it not seem to have a hook or anything like that, the game was also in general very unchallenging and thus not very engaging, and any bonuses to strive for that might've engaged such as those big stars were both very simple to get and ultimately pointless as I was unsure what their purpose was.

There are also some slight bugs like how you can fire the weapons as fast as you can press the button: feel like that should be limited to a locked fire rate, otherwise it is an unfair advantage for people with faster fingers to cheese certain parts of the game by absolutely blasting them away.

Might just be a case of the game being a slow burn: the bonus level does showcase some more challenging late game levels that we might see in a full release, but even then the overly simple movement and lack of juicy effects or some sort of unique style made it still feel less than impressive. Furthermore, even if the game is a slow burn, I'd still argue that the game should step up the pace and hook us with something early to keep us interested and all that, but despite my complaints, I am looking forward to seeing the final version of this eventually since it is promising and shows effort, so best of luck!

LuckyDingoStudios responds:

Thank you for your thorough review! I wanted this game to be relatively simple and basic so it would be easy for anyone to pick up and play, but I can see how it being too standard would make it feel like it's nothing special. I don't think I will be changing the core mechanics to be more complex at this point, but I will try to add more unique elements that will hopefully help the game form more of its own identity and to be more engaging to play.

The unlimited fire rate on the weapons was intentional because I thought it would be fun to spam it, but most players seem to think it was an oversight or makes things too easy, so I most likely will limit the fire rate in the full game based on the feedback I have gotten.

[Bird Tapper & the Great Krampusnacht Cleansing]

It's a very goofy and fun game, but I actually found myself getting a bit too annoyed with it in the end and thus feel very mixed on it.

Overall the game starts out strong and feels quite well-constructed. Speeding around the map poking and throwing the enemies was very satisfying due to the strong feedback and gave the game a strong feeling of reckless abandon and power tripping. I especially loved some of the subtle touches like how enemies react and scream on your approach like Metal Slug enemies: very nice stuff! Seeing all of the cool power-ups and fighting the bosses were also real neato: certainly lots to love here!

But there were just so many annoyances that got in the way of my enjoying this game:

For one, it felt like unless you get lucky and guess the intended route to destroy all the hives and make it to the exit in one go, you'll end up doing some really tedious backtracking. Speaking of backtracking, I found the handling of respawning enemies really weird: sometimes I'd leave a screen with an enemy left alive on it and come back to the screen and he's nowhere to be found, but more often than not I'll kill everyone, leave the screen, come back and suddenly they're all back and since I move so damn fast and am not expecting them I crash headfirst into them and game over, argh!

I also found the powerups less than ideal. Yes, I love how wacky they are, but for the most part they felt more like they made the game harder than easier. The poke/slap combo is very consistent, fast, and controllable, but power-ups like the maestro and phone suddenly make your attack incredibly inconsistent and random. Yes, I could just not pick them up and play the game without them, but where's the fun in that: I want to use the power-ups, but they just shouldn't feel like a downgrade!

There are also some slight annoyances like being able to pick up a health item when you're already full on health and thus wasting it. These annoyances that can get me killed when combined with the overly-punishing continue system that makes you start a level all over on death, as well as a lack of a save/continue system, kind of soured me on the game, despite me wanting to love it.

[WHAT THE HELL?]

It's very nice and promising for a beat-em-up, but in its current state I'd only say it's a good rough draft or prototype: as a full game it gets incredibly stale very fast.

It's clear that a lot of effort has been put into this and it is very cool in a lot of respects. The art, sound and music are all very charming, the basic fighting system feels satisfying and intuitive, it has some unique mechanics like the use of the yoyo to both crowd control and keep combos going, and so on. For as much as first impressions go, it was looking pretty damn good, and I love a good beat-em-up.

But because I love beat-em-ups, I'm very harsh on them, and as said, this felt really rough in its current state:

*In general, the game felt very stiff and slow. I don't know if I can detail all of the things that make it feel stiff, it's just little subtle things, like how long it takes to be able to move after doing an action, how you can't hold a direction when doing a combo to slightly nudge yourself in that direction, how lenient inputs are treated and whether the game drops them, etc.

*The game got very stale very fast, and I could barely force myself to get through the levels. It's just walk a bit forward, fight a group of the same enemies over and over with only minor adjustments to their formation, with the same background looping over and over, and every level using the same music track. Without any sort of special events/minigames to change up the pace, without any changes to the background or music, without extra little interactables like weapons or debris, without a large variety of enemies that actually need to be dealt with in different ways, it just feels endless and that you're not making any progress.

*Enemies felt very spongy: having to do 2.5 combos to finish off the weakest mook felt like too much work and just made combat a real slog as you gotta keep knocking them down over and over. It also just made every enemy feel like each other: you'd think the wisps would have weaker health to match their ethereal state and faster/lighter movement.

*I was confused at the purpose of some moves, such as the jump. Typically jumps can serve as a dodge, but in this game I found that I always got hit by enemy attacks even when I was at the apex of my jump and should, in theory, be over their attacks.

*Parries felt rather unsatisfying to pull off due to the lack of a nice riposte, and I could barely even tell whether I was getting health back since the bar updates immediately instead of previewing how much health I got and slowly filling up, or something akin to that. Parries also felt awkward to time since enemies attack so fast: could maybe stand to give them better telegraphs, similar to the beefy skull enemies.

*The game puts a lot of purpose in keeping combos going with the yoyo and all that, but for what purpose? What do combos do and why should I keep them going? Do I get more points and maybe it leads to getting a 1-up or other power-up?

I give all this feedback though because I do think this shows an incredible amount of promise and can be something great: if you can, I'd love to see a more polished and enhanced version of this! I want this to go from "WHAT THE HELL?" to "WHAT THE HELL?!"

[good: baseball]

It's a simple game, but I wouldn't consider that a detriment as I found it to be very fun and addictive!

The tense feeling of trying to get both the charge and angle just right for a smash hit is incredibly satisfying due to the cool touches of slow-mo and freeze feedback from an exact hit. Sound design is also great: love the different clangs of the bat depending on how hard you hit the ball, and the various sounds the ball makes against environmental objects like the road and fence (haven't been able to hit the car yet, but I'm super hoping its windows shatter).

I also found the design touch of having strikes not take away from your potential full allotment of successes (unless, of course, you get three strikes) to be quite nice as it ensures consistency with scores and avoids people restarting a run in progress.

If I had any complaints, is that I'd love if the game was a bit more juicy in some respects: for example, sometimes I'd get confused by the slow-mo, and I'd love if there was some sort of sound dilation or heartbeat or tint/fade on the screen to signify the transition to slow-mo. Over all though, nice work!