FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pixel Mania!]

This was a bit of an odd duck for me with a lot of ups and downs, making me a bit confused on how to feel about it!

On one hand, many kudos for hiding a game within a game, and done in such a secretive way that many people might not even realize there is a secret in the first place and might just write this game off as a bog-standard collectathon platformer that it appears to be at first glance: takes some balls to pull off a risky move like that! Even though the whole 'player rebels against the creator' angle has already been done many times before, it was still a neat twist and I enjoyed how the gameplay evolves in so many ways and had multiple endings and such as you get deeper.

On the other hand, I came very close to quitting this game two times and it was only through the grace of god that I got lucky enough to make it through. The first time was me boring myself on the initial boring collect coins gameplay loop: as I was just quitting the game, I happened to glance at the description and luckily see the hidden clue, for any other time I would've just quit and thought the game was dull as dishwater. The second time was in the big unfinished RPG world where I was starting to get really annoyed with how big the world was and how easy it was to lose so much progress from a flubbed jump or a dumb trap: I was just about to quit since it felt like I was making no progress, but again, luckily I happened to find the spaceship at the very last moment and then get a cool ending boss fight.

So yeah, it's a bit difficult to judge! While I enjoyed the secrets and subversions, I still found it a bit of a pain to play at times: even looking past the things I mentioned, there are also other silly things like bad feeling platforming physics and the annoying need to redo all the dialogue/cutscenes on a fail. It's like if parallel worlds exist, I think this is the only world where I got lucky enough to actually play and beat the game, whereas every other world I would've quit out of boredom or annoyance and I wouldn't blame them for doing so. I mean, I did get the ideal experience, but does that mean it's good, or that I got lucky, and how should I score it? Ok, now I'm getting silly, but anyway, it's a mixed bag I guess!

blit-blat responds:

Thanks for the review! On reflection I'm not happy with how well hidden the "real" game is. I knew I wanted all to be revealed on the end screen to make people go "wtf? Where were the gems? I best play again!", but it could probably have been signed posted a bit more in game. Throughout development I did worry that the base game wouldn't hold people's attention long enough for them to complete the game, and unfortunately this was borne out in the fact that people unlocked medals to about word 2-3 and then stopped. Does no one read the Author's Comments before playing anymore?! :P

Improving the base game was difficult for a few reasons, the first and main reason being time. I started developing the game on January 4th, giving me just under 3 weeks to build the game and release on Pixel Day. The second reason was variety. The obvious thing to add to the base game to spice things up would be enemies. However, I wanted to make the two games feel fairly different and if there were enemies in both I felt this would be a bit of a cop out.

I'm interested that you found the RPG world to be too big; in my view it felt far too small! My original plan was for it to be much bigger - the four zones (green, blue, yellow, orange) were all meant to be large separate areas. Ultimately time got the better of me and they were combined into one. Maybe it's because I know all the shortcuts and secrets, but combining them into one world made it feel very small and easy. Will seek more outside views next time.

In terms of losing progress, can you expand a little, please? All collectibles should be retained at death, you just start back at the entrance to Proto-World. If you meant during the initial Code Monster chase or the battle at the end, then yeah I meant to add different dialog in after replays and fails, but alas, again time got the best of me!

[Omen of Trident 2704]

Pretty nice point n click adventure! There were definitely a few rough spots here and there, such as the sometimes awkward logic used for puzzles and note gathering, as well as the minimal amount of sound/music, but for the most part I enjoyed this short and sweet adventure! Definitely thought the game was very charming with the dialogue and various interactables containing flavor text, and the presentation was very classy as well with the pixel-noir graphics. Also loved the little touches like how the title screen gets corrupted after the ending: left quite the lasting impression! Would love to see a more expanded entry of this or something in a similar vein.

[Split-shot West]

Hmmmm, it's unfortunately very rough in its current state. Not only does it have some bugs and general jank to it, but I found the combat to be really crude: everything is just too chaotic with how fast bullets can fly and enemies shooting so erratically without telegraphs for it to feel like I can skillfully play and get that ideal cowboy tussle. Elements like the tables and such felt underused too.

I will say, however, that I find the concept very interesting and wish it would be built upon. I find it very reminiscent of much-loved Resi Evil 4's combat where you switch between movement and stand-your-ground precision aiming, and I could definitely see this working in a similar manner with better enemy and encounter design. So in that regard, I think this is a pretty cool prototype and a great example of a game jam result: despite it all, I find it having a lot of potential and I can't help thinking what it's final version would be like!

Oscura responds:

Thanks for trying it, I agree with a lot that you said and really wanted to do more with this concept when making it, however I struggled with time to get the results I wanted so I wasn't able to create the game I had exactly imagined. I had a lot of fun making it nonetheless and learnt a ton which I hope goes to improve the way I approach/make future games. Thanks for playing!

[sinesurf]

It's a simple game, but something about it feels really chill and smooth, and that ends up making a rather addictive game. Takes a bit for it to actually get exciting, but once you get pretty far into a high-distance run it can get really wild and crazy: maybe too crazy to actually ever be able to consistently get high scores from skill and not luck, but it's fun nevertheless. Not exactly long lasting in its appeal, but its decent while it lasts.

I'm probably making a mountain out of a molehill, but I found the separate scores for both distance and hangtime to be very confusing. Typically a game just has one type of score and that helps the player realize what the goal of the game is, but since both have their own scoring and both work against each other (by going for high hangtime you create too much risk for distance to safely work, and by going for distance you must play it too safe to ever get high hangtime) I didn't know what I was supposed to do. You'd think that if the game wanted to reward you for both, it'd make them synergize, like by getting high hangtime you get boost power that you can use to get better distance, or something like that. I guess I should just think of the two separate scores as two separate games in one package, but I dunno. Anyway, weird rant over, haha.

[Incestor]

I'm probably too old to enjoy this, haha. Some of the jokes were alright, and the idea of going back in time and messing with history through incest is...interesting, but I didn't feel like it was used to its full potential here. Would love if it had a bit more to the jokes, as well as some more polish (you can't even put the effort in to have the cursor be layered on top to he speech boxes?) but eh, some of its laziness adds to its amusing appeal, I suppose.

[Assembly Destruction]

Wow, not that bad at all! It's a bit rough and doesn't have a story or goal to strive for at the moment, but the combat reminded me a lot of something like Hammerfight or Highfleet, and I absolutely loved the sheer chaos of improvising whatever bits you could find to build the best you can, as well as the cool locational damage and the deep strategy it provided as you decide how to prioritize your attacks on different enemy ships weaknesses. Felt like it had a pretty good amount of polish to as it intuitively flashed whatever parts you're hitting, and always felt quite satisfying to blow stuff up and watch it crumble!

As said, though, it's definitely a bit rough. I found it incredibly confusing to understand the whole attachment system and would love a better explanation for that: even when I feel like I did understand it later on, I would still connect or not connect pieces in weird, unexpected ways. Controls were a bit annoying: kept trying to hold-release to grab-drop objects but instead it wanted me to click to grab and then click again to let go, and that really made the rapid assembling you need to do during combat very frustrating.

I'd say this is an excellent example of an ideal game jam result: it's rough and shallow at the moment, but it makes me very intrigued to see a more polished up final product of this since it has a very cool core mechanic and lots of potential!

[Maptroid]

Huh, it's certainly an interesting subversion of Metroid games. I can imagine the pitch meeting: "what if we made a Metroid game where the map screen and the game screen are switched?" And well, it was intriguing enough that I stuck around to play for a bit and see what it was like: maybe you really can boil down a Metroid game just to its raw map elements and it would be just as fun.

Unfortunately, it didn't take long for the intrigue to dissipate and I was just left bored. With no sounds or music or juicy effects apart from a few token screenshakes to help the lackluster minimal graphics, the game just felt incredibly dull. Every dead end I encountered just made me dread the absolutely dreadful amount of backtracking I'd eventually have to do considering there was no fun movement or combat or anything to spice up the travel time.

So while it was an interesting experiment, unfortunately this was an experiment that didn't work for me. Graphics aren't everything and sure, if you had a Metroid game on Atari or something lowfi like it this would probably be what the game would be like, but still, I think this proves there's a good reason to have a fun character to control and an interesting world to see. Reminded me of playing Doom from the 2D map view: sure it's possible, but it's definitely not the exciting experience I want!

[Spent Shells]

Feels more like a prototype than an actual game at this moment: it's not bad, but it doesn't really feel that good either? Reminds me of the introductory example of a juiceless game in Game Maker's Toolkit "Secrets of Game Feel and Juice," unfortunately.

It's certainly got all the essential pieces for a top-down shooting roguelike, and it can give you a few minutes of shooting fun. It's got a decent variety of enemies and even includes some nice boss fights to fix things up. Everything seems to run fine and all that hoohum.

But I found the game getting incredibly boring and repetitive very quickly. Not only is it lacking any juice or pizazz to the combat with its lackluster feedback and uninteresting combat mechanics, and not only is it lacking any sense of a goal or progression to it with its repeating levels and bland stat upgrades, but it hasn't done anything to add its own interesting flavor to the genre, making it just feel so redundant, like you were building some sort of engine/toolkit for other devs to use to make an actual game with (maybe that is the case?)

As said before, it's a decent prototype, and I'd hate to see the effort go to waste with just this: hoping this isn't the end and you continue to build upon this to make an actual interesting shooting roguelike game with some sort of unique twist or fun mechanics!

[Tower of the Scorched Sea]

Wow, what a great adventure we got here! Overall great in all aspects I could find. In particular, I never found myself getting bored with this: not only does the game keep introducing new fancy mechanics like the variations on the light beams, and not only does the game do a great job at making so many varied and unique rooms that showcase all sorts of creative combinations of said mechanics, but also the game varies between slow-paced puzzle-solving and fast-paced action platforming through traps which keeps things constantly feeling fresh and exciting! And what a lovely boss fight to finish it all off.

If I were to have any complaints, is that the game might be a bit too easy: never really had a serious head-scratcher of a puzzle and with 3 hearts it felt like the action platforming could be a brute-forced at times. Still, even that simple nature is a positive of the game: despite it being easy, it didn't stop it from feeling fun and addictive and a heck of an adventure!

[The Reboot]

Pretty cool game! Definitely looks like it had a lot of effort put into it: the very fancy intro cinematic as well as the cool HUD with the robo-butler gave a solid first impression, and the way the grid shows where you can place things and the cards all snap into place and give previews and feedback and so on were all very intuitive and satisfying. Love the little touches like how every time you restart, a nuke goes off, giving a very diegetic/in-universe reason for the restart, haha!

I'll admit, I had a real rough time with the game initially: there was a part in the tutorial where you have three lower districts that look like they all need help to get balanced up otherwise you lose, yet you still have a quota for total to meet, so their just didn't seem like anyway to win. I was stuck for a long time there and the confusing lack of feedback it was giving me whenever I failed kept me in a loop until I solved it in a way I didn't think would work but it did??? Beyond that, I also had a tough time with the game as well where I didn't understand why I wasn't able to not build something where I thought I could, and it just felt like a lot of it was up to RNG and such (though maybe that's the point, just nuke it until it works out sometime, but still, this subtle feeling of futility was annoying, though I'll admit I might just be bad).

Overall had a lot of fun trying to get good at optimizing this city with all these crazy goals to meet: certainly an interesting balancing act to pull off!

(By the way, the robot-butler-whatever keeps throwing me off: they have these two lines right beyond their eyes that look like lips, so I feel like that's their mouth, but then they've got a mustache looking thing below that, so those two lines must be the nose and the tiny bit way below must be the mouth, but I just can't accept that and it disgusts me, haha)

MartinJacob responds:

Thank you so much for your detailed comment!

You are right about the tutorial part on balancing populations, which was quite hard to bring about (I am still not 100% satisfied with it) as it explains a mechanic that isn't intuitive at all...
About placing buildings, you can always only place them at the "end" of calculations (next to the building that has a number displayed on it), except for the "NEW" buildings which you can place next to any other building. I agree it's another part that would deserve more signaletics

About the RNG, yes it's meant that way, especially when reaching higher scores you sometimes have bad luck... But planning ahead and optimizing your strat will get you a long way

About the Butler, lmao I can't unsee it