FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Asgard's Fall]

Pretty nice little survivors-like! It's early in development, but I'd say you got a pretty solid foundation so far as I found the combat quite satisfying and addictive with how you'd setup the graphics, special effects, and impact/feedback for it, and I found the variety of weapons and enemies to fight to be very fun and interesting as well. Game overall has some pretty solid presentation for aspects like the title screen and menus and death animations too, so I like that attention has been made to aspects like these that are usually glossed over (though it'd be understandable if you left these for later on, but I like that you've done them as they help first impressions).

In terms of where to go from here, my feedback would be:

*While, as mentioned, the feel of combat itself is quite fun and exciting, the feel of progression aspects isn't quite up to snuff. Picking up currency is lacking that addictive 'ding-ding-ding' quality to it due to no sound effects and the currency itself being quite dull (I dunno what they even are, some sort of scrap metal?), and acquiring upgrades is lacking the fanfare that it deserves considering how important of an event it is (would love a more explosive level up effect, and picking an upgrade would be great if it played some sort of associated sound effect, like thunder for picking Thor abilities).

*Combat can get quite messy and chaotic and could use some elements to help visibility, particularly to help enemy ranged units and their bullets stick out more so getting hit by them wouldn't feel so sudden and unfair: perhaps a signal/telegraph for their attacks and outlining the units and their bullets would help them pop-up and have a consistent language to them.

*Could also use some other nice things, like a visible bar or cooldown timer for your dash, and perhaps making the upgrade progression bar bigger so increasing it is easier to see: the later levels come so slowly and it's made even worse but the small bar as it makes it look like you aren't even increasing it at all even more when the increments are so tiny.

*The rune upgrades are a little lame compared to weapon upgrades as they largely seem to be tiny statistical upgrades that are confusing and unexplained (what the heck is ignite chance, for instance?)

SmaexGames responds:

Thank you! That is some solid feedback, really appreciated. For the rune upgrades I'm working on a more simplified but powerful version. For example all the confusing increasement stats (increased ignite damae and so on) are now only available in the skill tree, properly explained. Also I think about adding icons for faster recognition. So you have simpler stats like flat damage, piercing chance, more projectiles and stuff like that.

[Amazing Monk]

Hmm, in terms of a student project game, it's decent: you kept the feature scope low so as to deliver a full game without falling into the usual trap of being too overambitious and never finishing, and while the gameplay design is simple, it can still provide an adequate amount of fun with its strategic jumping and dodging of obstacles that get progressively more complex. It's a good start with much to learn and create future projects from.

Viewing it without that student project context, however, the game is quite bog-standard and a bit boring, being very similar to thousands of other simple 'Flappy Bird'-esque games of its ilk. It's lacking any sort of hook or mechanic to make it significantly different in an interesting way (for example, the game could maybe provide a more interesting challenge if there were some sort of pressure that pushes you to go up faster, like lava coming up), and the game is a bit clunky and lacking both polish (in that there are elements like grappling onto the wall to slowly grind down that don't work consistently) and pizazz (in that there aren't many special effects to pep things up, and the special effects you do have, like the screen shake for every single jump, are nauseating due to their repetitiveness).

As said, it is quite boring in the grand scheme of things, but it's still an important step on the journey of game creation and perfectly fine for a student project: best of luck on future developments!

[Escape Burger World]

Decent little escape game! Nothing standout or mindblowing but it was a short and sweet little experience, and the art having this old-school flash style is amusing in how nostalgic it is. Not great, but not bad either: plainly ok, haha!

In terms of feedback:

*Found it confusing how they were clickable objects in the environment that didn't give any textual response: some were because they require an item to be used on them (in which case I'd love some hint text to appear if you click without the item on hand) and some weren't used at all for any purpose like the cash register or plaque, which was odd as it made them feel important when they weren't.

*I actually got stuck for a good portion of time because I didn't see the lower-right arrow in the behind-the-counter area to access a whole new area: you can blame this on me for being dumb because the arrow is there and I could've noticed it, but some part of me feels like the background art should allude more to there being an area there in the first place (like a door, or a gap that implies a hallway off to the side).

*The safe code at the end was a weird one to solve: there's a nearby paper which I thought was a hint that alludes to scheduling which made me think the code might be something to do with dates or employee ids or whatever, but instead the code was just on a random unrelated box in storage. Furthermore, the graphic for the safe code input makes it look like it's 5 digits, but you can put up to 8 digits in, and the solution is actually 6 digits, further adding to the confusion.

*Some minor glitches like the mouse hole overlapping the box which you can drag out, and the whole ice cream dispenser machine was some sort of pointless red herring which dispensed ice cream later on for no discernable reason?

[Grave Digger]

Argh, this is a rough one! Shows some solid potential for beat-em-up fun but has way too many rough, unpolished, clunky points to it as of now.

The game does show some solid fundamentals that could be used to build a great action roguelike akin to Curse of the Dead Gods or Cult of the Lamb and so on. For example, I liked how enemies showed lots of variety in their behaviors, displayed fair attack telegraphs, and could be satisfyingly stunned/interrupted with the player's attacks. I liked the weighty feel to the player's attack strings and being able to chop down parts of the environment. I liked how the game incentivizes you to not play cowardly by giving you powers as long you keep your combo up. There's a decent hack-and-slash engine within this!

Unfortunately, there were definitely loads of annoyances that brought this game down though. The incredibly harsh tilted angle of the playing field combined with the barely noticable shadows made perceiving objects very difficult, especially when combined with the very small screen size and zoomed-out camera. Coins were very annoying to pick up without any magnetism or hit box generosity. Damage feedback, especially from the little pink blob guys, could be incredibly confusing with them turning on a dime to hit you or even being able to hit you despite being knocked down. The combo text pop-ups took up way too much of the screen which hurt visibility, and the associated combo power-ups felt too random to be able to actively strategize. The movement of the character felt very clunky where they awkwardly keep moving despite letting go of the controls. And so on and so forth.

As said, while the bad far outweighs the good at the moment, I feel like there is a good engine buried in here and would love to see a post-jam polished version of it.

[Dinner For Mom!]

I definitely like the concept that this game is going for with its whole control-control Pikmin-esque or Tonight We Riot combat, and I do like the charming presentation and gross themes it plays with, but apart from the bare minimum I never quite felt like it introduced a unique hook, making the gameplay feel quite uninteresting.

Thoughout the game the combat just felt a bit brainless and tedious. I can understand that the civilians would be easy to take down, but once cops started to show up, I thought I would have to strategize in some way, like engaging carefully to single them out without alerting the others, micromanaging their movements to avoid taking damage, perhaps splitting them up to crowd-control, and so on, but it never got more complex than just sending all your people to dogpile them and the other cops would just stand around waiting for their beat-down.

The enemies never tried to attack me either so I didn't need to try and dodge while my minions wear them down or anything. The boss made some interesting moves like forcing my lumps to sleep which made me have to get close and engage to bring them back up, but it was too little too late as that was the end of the game and just a token effort of complexity. Other than that, there were the weapons like rocks, but I found it too annoying to have to order them to pick them up after use over and over, and the grenades were just a liability since I'm never sure when the grenade person will get ordered and he'll just blow all of my lumps up anyway.

I also just had a lot of weird bugs, like where a rock was forever un-pickupable because someone I told to pick it up died and he wouldn't give up the rights even after death, and for no reason I just suddenly insta-died at the start of the boss fight (and then felt weird that the game just gave me more lumps than I even had before, making the final tally/score pointless).

Obviously I understand that it's a game jam game so it's not going to be the most polished thing ever, but even with that understanding, I never felt like the minion controlling aspect did anything very unique or was something that felt good to utilize, so I don't feel like it's that intriguing as a prototype unfortunately. Certainly could be something nice with a bit more work: as I said it started to get a bit interesting with the boss fight mechanics, and I'd like to see if it evolves beyond that.

Sulfur-Cretin responds:

completely understandable, the game in general is very messy but due to it being a jam game, making updates can end up breaking the entire game. I do agree that the game only starts to get interesting near the end, but I'm glad that part was fun.

Also just to note about the game giving you a bunch of lumps after dying, when making a jam game you have to look through a very different lens when it comes to difficulty if you want people to see through your entire game. I made it so if you reached a check point early on with a ton of lumps (lets say 12) it will override any amount lower when you get to a check point. This made the game much easier and fair but I can understand if it was a bit strange, it could use some rebalancing.

Even though the game isn't the greatest, I'm still planning on making a content update in the coming weeks because it's had the best reception out of all my games so far, but I don't see it fixing the base mechanics of the game. Thanks for the review, I get REALLY nervous watching you playing all the front-paged games, but I appreciate you giving your honest and critical opinion.

[The Spin Slasher]

Hrmm, it shows some promise, but unfortunately due to its nature it begs comparison to games like Vampire Survivors and its many contemporaries, and in that respect it falls incredibly short for me, essentially feeling like some sort of bootleg Vampire Survivors clone that is bugged to never let you get another weapon to add to your arsenal.

As said, it does show some promise. In general, the concept/theme is interesting and the graphics and special effects are decently charming. The best part that stands out from other survivors-likes is that this has a nice variety of monsters with different attacks and properties, like the bats who stop-and-go, the slimes who split and leave behind puddles that slow you, the zombies who can crawl after sawing their legs off, and so on. In theory I think it could have some nice strategic combat.

The game, however, ends up feeling very bland and repetitive both from a moment-to-moment and a long-term progression viewpoint. The upgrades are incredibly unexciting as they never evolve your gameplay options in any way, being just bland statistical increments that are practically unnoticable. You don't necessarily have to be like other survivors-like where you have multiple weapons going off simultaneously, but the single weapon this game has, the chainsaw, is very boring and begs a more interesting control scheme, like being able to swing it around all physics-y like a ball-n-chain. Apart from the enemies changing, late gameplay felt practically the same as early gameplay making it feel so pointless.

Perhaps with a bit more of an interesting combat mechanic (like more control over the chainsaw) and more interesting progression/upgrades, this could be pretty cool, but for me, it currently feels a bit underbaked and doesn't have a nice hook yet.

[Train Journey]

Wow, quite surprised with this one!

I have to admit that my first impression of the game wasn't great. While the game had a rather professional feel for its presentation in terms of graphics and sound, the game seemed to be a rather unchallenging and standard platformer that felt rather directionless and confusing from the way it just plops you into the world. Even accepting it for what it is, I found myself constantly having my jump inputs ignored when I tried to jump from the edge of platforms, frustrating me to no end since falling is instant death, not just damage, and lots of progress was lost. The graphics, as nice as they were, could also be a bit overly busy to the point of confusion: there was a pitfall that was practically invisible between seats on the train in the section with the first heart upgrade you can get after the forest world, for example. The only thing keeping me going was the rather mysterious and intriguing feel the game had to it with its story (or lack thereof), but as I made my way through the forest picking through all these text logs and letters for unrelated stuff, I was worried it was just gonna be some sad artsy-fartsy crap, haha.

However, as I made it through the forest which slowly got more challenging and puzzle-like, had a rather impressive boss fight against a bear, marveled at how much the world was recontextualized with the pogo stick upgrade, and made my way through the bonus zone for a collectible, I was hooked and wanted to play more and more! It was a slow, rough start but I could finally see a glimpse of the gameplay loop and wanted to see what new worlds the train would take me too!

That said, the issue with not being able to leave the game and come back to a checkpoint, only the start of the level from a train, was incredibly annoying when it first happened to me as I Iost a lot of progress to the point of considering quitting the game altogether since it seemed incredibly illogical and annoying, no matter the excuse.

I haven't beaten it yet, but I'm looking forward to coming back and seeing what else the game as to offer: I just need to find a good amount of time to set aside for this due to the whole save point issue!

EDIT: I've now made it through the temple level and got the shooty and all that. It was definitely another grand adventure, but I will admit it was quite exhausting and stressful and not in the best way. Through a combination of cramped corridors, limited space, spongy enemies, and so on, the game just seemed to be overly forcing you to deal with these encounters and traps with no wiggle room, and it made it very tedious. Many times a pack of slimes would be in my way and the only safe way to engage would be to tediously lead them back several paces until you could kill them: this tedium led to me just wanting to push back them and take the damage just so I could keep the pace up, for example. Not only that, there were a lot of traps like with the rotating turrets that didn't even seem possible to get through without taking damage, and it almost seemed like the game just gives you health items around the trap as an inelegant apology for recognizing that it just couldn't be designed well enough to let you not take damage at all. I'll still try and continue, but like I said, these design choices are really weighing me down and making me lose the will to go on.

Meivuu responds:

Thanks for the review! I'm not terribly good at optimizing pico-8 (it limits how much content you can actually implement, akin to retro consoles) so many of your gripes stem from that :)

If this was another engine I would absolutely be able to make the quality of life changes that fix the things you complained about, but at this point those things are deeply baked into the game and I don't have enough space in the game to change that (some of them were choices intentionally made so that the game could have more content). If you're wondering why I chose such a limited engine, it's because I was already fairly familiar with it and the limitations helped me actually finish the project and prevented it from getting too out of hand.

I think the pitfalls and other minor graphics tweaks like that can absolutely be changed though and I'll add that to my list of changes for the next release.

Among other challenges, the turrets are certainly dodgeable, in some cases it's just a little tricky to figure out how to get past them without getting hurt.

[The Wizard Ran: chapter 8]

Wow, what an amazing ending to this series! Feels like it encapsulated all of my favorite parts of this series, being the crazy time-travelling fourth-wall breaking mind-bending adventures, tons of weird secrets and references and callbacks, crazy puzzles and setpieces like getting stuck in the void, multiple endings, and a classic good ol' boss fight against god filled with fantastic spectacle. There's been some ups and some downs on this adventure, and I wasn't as committed as I'd like to get every single secret and ending on our way here in previous chapters, but I feel quite satisfied and found this whole experience incredibly memorable. Well done!

In terms of feedback:

I gotta admit, I was a little disappointed that the whole time-traveling adventures through previous chapters to collect lore for the final plan(s) wasn't done by actually going and playing the previous chapter's respective games, but I appreciate the convenience and momentum by doing it all in this game, so it's all good.

Had a weird softlock for a bit: I was going to do Shade's plan as I had already done the Run plan, but then got stuck in the void. I got out of the Boid, but then whenever I tried to start Shade's plan by refreshing the page to go back to the start, it would just take me back to the void again, where I would get out, try to start Shade's quest by refreshing, and loop back into the void over and over. Eventually I got out: not even quite sure what I did differently to break the loop! I was trying out minor things like reading the lore things, trying to do the Ran ending again, talking to people, and a lot didn't seem to have an effect until it did. Oh well!

Speaking of Shade's plan, it was a bit weird that I was able to initiate the boss fight but I still had a remaining empty pip for the plan? Bit odd, though I did go back and see that getting the remaining pip in the first world (or last world, technically) just tells you its pointless since it's too late and warps you to the fight, so whatev.

Loved all the music remixes! I always forget to shout out music and sound in my reviews, need to get better at doing so, haha.

Speaking of sound, I wonder what's being said when you die in New Mexico you die in real life. The world may never know.

adriendittrick responds:

Thanks as usual for your detailed review :) there are still many bugs in this one but finding them all will take much time and I need to move on to other projects X)
This whole series was a great gamedev experience for me, and I loved all the community interactions I had :)

[Hedgehog Dilemma For Robots]

Great little arcade game you got here!

For the most part, I have no major complaints as I feel like the game is a wonderful fusion of style and substance! For style, it's got a rather charming look and feel to it all with its cartoony graphics and some great juicy feedback and special effects, and for substance, it's got an addictive and exciting risk/reward gameplay loop through its proximity damage system and a great variety of enemies that force you to stay on top of things and improvise. I had a great time and it just feels so good to get in the thick of it with a bunch of enemies and blast them away!

If I were to have any complaints, is that I do find the metaprogression of the game to be a bit odd, in that it'll slowly dole out new abilities like blasting and such, but then eventually you just have everything from the very start and suddenly the game starts off harder: just feels a bit weird that, as a high score game, it's a bit unfair as the progressively different starting conditions and higher power you get make the scoring a bit compromised and unfair? Like whistlers are a big problem initially, but post-tutorial runs are much easier due to your higher firepower. I would almost expect that every run has you collecting the powerups to get more powerful to keep it consistent, though maybe that's not ideal. Oh, and the screen is so vertical that I find it impossible to fit the whole screen on a desktop computer.

Also, as a minor bit of confusion, I have no idea what the purpose of the 'draw' menu is supposed to be about. I guess it's a nice bonus? I was kind of expecting that whatever we draw would be added to the background play area, but it just gets deleted once you're done?

ClayGodLordThing responds:

Hey there! Thank you and I'm glad you like the game! The idea of the progression system is so that people don't have to experience the slower parts of the early game again once they get a bunch of the powerups. The early game can be a bit frustration/boring after a bunch of replaying so that was our solution. The draw room was something I just made for fun, you can share it around by screenshotting whatever you made or got as your score. That draw screen however runs better on the downloadable windows version.

[Days Without]

Hrmm, this is a rough one for me. The game does remind me a lot of cool 2D survival horror games like Lone Survivor, and when this game works, I think it is quite well-designed with some solid art, exploration, combat, and an intriguing story. Was impressed at some of the little touches it did for events, and that it was even going so far to include multiple endings!

It's quite the buggy game though! Here are a few examples:

I had one time where I saved at a dog, fell down a hole, then was sent all the way back to the start when I started the game despite me saving, and that felt really unfair (especially when it let me go back to the save point for other deaths/endings).

The worst issue was that there seems to be a really weird problem the game has with performance where it is constantly stuttering, perhaps due to it forcefully redrawing the inventory HUD over and over when you go past interactables?

Speaking of the inventory HUD, I had it remain on the screen even when I died and went back to the title screen and it was blocking text behind it, so there's definitely something funny going on with that.

There were also a lot of weird interactions where confusing options will be present (why is there an option to pet donut and pet buddy, aren't they the same?) and where you can walk around after petting a dog and after a brief delay you'll be frozen in place for the response (why not just keep us still for the whole interaction so it feels less awkward?)

Apart from bugs, the game is also a bit oddly designed. Felt like it was more of an action game than a survival horror game with the way it kept dumping me in huge loads of ammo, both from pickups found during searching and from killing enemies: would much prefer if the game limited your resources more to push stealth or avoidance as strategies, since being able to easily blow all of the enemies away just makes it too easy to the point of boredom.

It's certainly quite the interesting game and I want to love it, but the bugs, choppy performance, and lack of difficulty really kind of bring it down for me. It's a bummer because I think it could really shine if it just had some more polish to it!

Elv13s responds:

Hi!

Thanks for trying out the game, the game was made within a game jam limit so some bugs and the length were pretty much inevitable, tho Ill try and fix them [already fixed some] in the future when this game is expanded.

The HUD bug is new to me, if you like to elaborate on how and when it happened, ill try and fix this issue, thank u for finding it out, and sorry it happened to u.

the saving dog is different from Job's old dog, Buddy. It kinda implies in the story that he had one before the events of the game occurred.

yeah, the moving while some interactions can be quite the jarring experience, ill keep the player still when those happen. I just figured players may want to skip fights/dialogues for speedrun sake [also as this I a jam game, I wanted people to have to play the game faster as there were many entries to play through]

multiple endings are a last addition, so bugs can occur there, ill go back into this game and fix them. really thanks for the feed back and for playing