FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Half Hour Hexagon]

Not too shabby of a survivors game! While the minimalistic presentation might seem low-effort on first glance, I think there is actually a lot of charm, style and juice put into so many facets of this that elevates it considerably and makes it feel so lively and smooth! Definitely makes a solid first impression that got me excited to see how the gameplay evolves.

Having said all that though, while it did have a strong first impression, it didn't take too long for me to get quite bored and feel like switching off:

*So much of the gameplay was just being chased by this braindead spongey cloud of enemies that can be easily avoided by running circles around it: never feels like I'm making any sort of progress as whenever I kill something, more enemies get added to the cloud to replace them.

*There were technically a lot of different enemy types, sure, but they were all the practically the same with no different AI patterns to make you strategize or think: any statistical differences they have become moot as they all just become one with the cloud.

*Upgrades/levels came very slowly and were terribly unexciting due to most of the upgrades being boring passive statistical upgrades like bullet speed or movement speed. Eventually I get some interesting stuff like fire bullets or ice shield, but they were few and far between: by the time they showed up I was already ready to quit from boredom, and afterwards it was back to those boring passives being the only options available.

*Similar to upgrades, I was really hoping for more interesting events to happen, like bosses or new different enemy types or sudden bullet barrages to dodge and so on. The game did eventually have a cage event which was quite exciting, but again, it was so little, took so long to happen and only lasted a bit before the game devolved once again into just circling around and plinking away at the cloud.

*The final nail in the coffin was me playing for around 15 mins and only getting $86, which was not even half the amount needed to get a single permanent upgrade: talk about a motivation killer! Usually games make getting the first upgrade very easy so you can get a taste of the process. The amount of grind that you're asking for is crazy to me, especially considering how repetitive and simple the gameplay is. The upgrades didn't seem very interesting either: just more passive number tweaks instead of fun gameplay additions like new abilities.

I don't necessarily think this is bad, but it's just very basic nowadays, like a prototype or a student project. This might've been cool back in the day, but with other free survivors games like Holocure raising the bar, this unfortunately falls short. Still, if I were to view it in a vacuum, I do think it shows a lot of promise and good craftsmanship/presentation: just needs more oomph.

[Heliox Station]

Wow, solid little puzzler you got here! Felt very well constructed all-around: movement felt very juicy, well-animated and smooth, puzzle elements felt very intuitive and varied, and the general presentation and world had a cool sense of mystique to it. With such good gamefeel and fun brain-scratcher puzzles that kept escalating, as well as that bit of an intriguing story hook and cool atmosphere, it was very simple for me to get addicted and blast through this!

While character movement was generally smooth and well-animated, there were definitely some oddities. The character physics were a bit wacky at times, with the jump feeling both very floaty on initial jump and very heavy on falling, and in general the little guy felt a bit too fast which made some puzzles, such as the fan puzzles, a bit tricky to be precise in your movements. The walljump/cling interaction was particularly terrible as well with how the little guy just floats a few feet away from the wall, awkwardly leaning in mid-air in the opposite direction: you'd think at the very least he'd lean into the wall and make contact with it for the sliding to make any sense!

While I did like the puzzles a lot, I will admit that the difficulty curve was a bit wild due to some real crazy spikes here and there. One of the earlier spikes for me was where you need to put a mirror box on top of a box and then resummon the box to drop the mirror box: stumped me for quite some time as I don't think any puzzle before that set any sort of precedent for any of those new techniques of stacking boxes or resummoning as a trigger or whatever to serve as a hint to work from. I didn't mind the spikes so much as they did spice things up and I was surprised at how much some puzzles pushed outside-the-box thinking and wanted more of that, but outside of those instances, things were pretty easy, so it was a weird mixture of severe ups and downs.

There were a couple of other weird things, like there was a moving platform where if you stand on it, you're fine, but if you stand on a box on the moving platform, you won't follow it and instead fall off, and I also found the lasers a bit fiddly and annoying with how too precise they were due to them bouncing at the exact spot of contact instead of just generalizing towards the center of the block for consistency. But overall I had a great time and got all the way to the end: cheers for this!

[Odd Verdure]

Wow, considering how often GB games feel so janky and stuttery to me, I was really surprised at how incredibly smooth and fluid this game felt! Not only did the game feel so nice, the gameplay was really cool as well: I'm always a sucker for grapple-based games, and this was a nice plant-based Bionic Commando that I really enjoyed getting more skilled at pulling off complex grapple manuevers!

It was a little awkward to get used to the game initially. At first I thought the game was similar to something like Dustforce or Mario 64 where you collect flies to open up doors to levels, but then it was a bit awkward to find that within those doors was just more of the same instead of something different. Furthermore, it was a bit frustrating with how easy it was for the plant to bump into things and then get stuck in this looooong stunned state where all you can do is fall: wish there was just a bit more wiggle-room to get close to things without being stunned.

I do like the game, but I had to admit that it was starting to feel quite repetitive and a bit draining. My favorite parts was when I was pulling off some really challenging grapple moves that required skill and timing to get flies, but those moments were very far and few between: most of the time flies were easy to get and just required plodding across the large map, and what flies were actually difficult could be skipped due to not needing to get them all. There was just so much backtracking or dead ends as well that exhausted me: I wish the game felt more like a classic linear level with obstacles and pits instead of this open world, because at least when I fall into a pit I'll just respawn in front of the obstacle, whereas here I have to awkwardly trudge my way back to try again. Basically I was looking for sprints but this game was cross-country: still ok but not quite what I wanted, and that's fine.

EDIT: Went back and enjoyed my playthrough with a bit more practice, and was really pleased to see the challenge rooms afterwards! Just what I wanted!

MondayHopscotch responds:

Thanks for taking the time to write a detailed review! In our own playtesting during dev, I think if you try to improve your completion time, you may find more situations that appeal to your enjoyment of challenging grapple moves. A lot of the most complicated movement options really show up when attempting to optimize speed runs. But I also understand that not everyone wants to come at it from a speedrun direction.

Bionic Commando was definitely an inspiration for this game :)

[Paper Planet DEMO]

Pretty cool game! Overall felt like the game had a nice, addictive, 'simple to learn, difficult to master' vibe to it: felt great to blast away at ships, use the shields to block red bullets, and decide between moving side-to-side or teleporting depending on the situation. Great variety of enemies and upgrades, cool boss fights, great juicy graphics, intuitive and helpful symbols/colors and guides like the position highlighter, lively animations for both in-game and the menus, and gotta love that charming old-school Flash aesthetic as well: well-done all around!

If I were to offer any feedback for improvement, it would be thus:

Menus were a bit awkward and buggy in some cases. Overall I'd love if the buttons would react a bit more dramatically on hover, like becoming bigger and another color: right now all they do is sometimes turn a bit more grey, or not even react at all. Certain interactions also bug out, like if you select 'start game', but then use one of the menu shortcuts before picking a game mode, the two game options will remain on screen, whereas if you use the arrows, it will make the two game options disappear.

I found it a bit frustrating that while some of the item descriptions tell you what they do, such as increasing fire rate but decreasing damage, other item descriptions will just offer some sort of cryptic quote. Yes, it can be somewhat amusing and add to the mystique, but I'd prefer if you'd just go all in one way or the other: either have them all be cryptic or all be informative (with me leaning towards informative).

The shop option, while very neat and unique with the way it is done in-game by shooting at the various purchase choices, can be a little awkward and had me sometimes just wanting a more classic menu: I'd have times where I would overshoot money at an option and then have to wait for it to come back before I could purchase something else, and other times the continue option would take so much unnecessary ammo to activate. I do really like the implementation in theory, though, as its very charming, so I could live with it if it remains as-is.

I found it a bit strange that, despite selecting 'story' mode, there was no story. Not sure if it's not present for the demo for some reason, which is a shame as that would be the primary hook for me.

For the most part, everything is very clear and visible with important aspects being color-coded, but as the gameplay went on and I started to be able to fire more bullets and flood the screen, it became more difficult to track things, primarily being due to my bullets being a similar shape and color to basic enemy planes: maybe some more differentiation would be nice, like enemies always have a certain colored outline.

There's also a lot of weirdness that came due to rebindable controls. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have rebindable controls, but when you're playing the game, the in-game tutorial will still be based on the default controls (so for example, it will still say 'A' and 'D' at the beginning despite me switching it to arrows keys). Furthermore, while the tutorial menu uses the rebindable keys, it uses weird language like 'Mouse0' and 'Mouse1' instead of Left Click and Right Click, or those nice mouse symbols that are used in the in-game tutorial. Basically I wish the tutorial would be as nice looking as the in-game one, but respect the rebinded controls like the menu one.

Finally, as much as I do like the game and have fun with it, I'm just not sure whether it feels like something I would actually spend money on. Arcade/score-attack games like this always feel difficult to spend big money on since they can feel so short-lived due to a lack of long-term progression or story hook, and not to mention that there are so many other games of this ilk vying for competition, with many of them even being free. Best of luck, though!

[Trust Issues]

Hmm, to me this really feels like a case of a great game concept, but executed in a rather unsatisfying, frustrating and confusing manner.

As said, I really like the idea of being in this awkward mexican standoff with a bunch of people who could or could not draw and start shooting at you at any moment. Moving around near yellows while trying to keep some cover between you and them, ready to fire off when they turn red, makes for some tense reactive scenarios. Reminds me a lot of things like various SWAT/police games where you need to make sure you only shoot if lethal force is warranted, or Watchdogs with its minigame where you have to time your superhero entrance to catch criminals in the act: not too early and not too late.

However, the gameplay was awkward on several levels. First, a lot of the game felt very clunky to control: shoot-outs with red guys almost always ended with my bullets going into walls that they shouldn't have collided with, or hitting two people standing nearby each other leading to unfair deductions, and/or with me taking unavoidable damage unless I tried to awkwardly snipe them from across the room. I can understand the game making the player slow and having to stand still to aim in a tactical sense, but it just felt so stifling and led to gunfights where it just feels up to luck: there needs to be a better way to intuit or react to reds, I feel.

Secondly, the rules/design of the game was confusing as well. You'd think that people would only turn yellow/red if they've got their eyes on you and are in close proximity, but no, they'll do it despite being on the opposite side of the level, making it just feel random and silly and prime for 'laming it out' by waiting out-of-sight to determine who is red and only popping out to snipe them safely. Taking this into account, you'd think that you could reasonably use the fact that someone has turned red once to treat them as red forever, even if they turn back to grey, similar to sussing out an impostor in Among Us, but no, if you try to shoot someone who was red but has gone grey again, they won't take damage for some reason, and if they're yellow, they could be treated as 'innocent' despite them being red before! I suppose you could argue that I'm misinterpreting the rules, that it's not good enough to shoot them based on their previous intentions, but only if you catch them red-handed in the moment, but it just felt really unintuitive. Are reds a pre-determined set of people within the crowd, or does anyone in the crowd have the potential to turn red? I just didn't know.

Would definitely like to see this concept revisited!

MoeAnguish responds:

Thanks for your feedback!
Like some other people have commented, the "Mexican standoff" thing can be pretty difficult especially in crowded levels, and to me personally it felt like an interesting concept, but i understand it isn't for everyone.

As for the reds turning grey again, i actually tried to keep them red. But the difficulty increased a lot to the point where it's almost unbeatable since you might have like 5 reds in one area preventing you from going to certain places or finding cover. And as for them turning yellow again, i thought it should be something that should keep you alert but you can't trust that it WILL mean they'll attack you, to make things a bit more tense.

At this point i might actually revise this game and make another installment of it with the feedback i got. But for now, i thank you and everyone else who offered constructive criticism and feedback on the game!

[Jack 64]

As usual, I'm always conflicted on these kind of games.

On one hand, not only are they incredibly inside-jokey and therefore not really fit for public consumption, but they are done in this real "ironic" low quality that, while amusing in some way, still nevertheless feel, well, low quality, what with its awkward physics, collision boxes, lack of hidden-hand mechanics like coyote time, and so on and so forth.

But on the other hand, everyone seems to be in on the joke and love it, so what am I complaining about, and the game does have a certain charm and craftsmanship to it, not only with its wacky low quality visuals and sounds, but with its hidden secrets that I enjoyed sussing out, like a sky bridge to cross the sawblades safely, as well as a hidden sky bridge at the start if you jump in a weird way near the house that leads to some normally unreachable money.

Shine on, you crazy diamonds!

[Jetpack Kiwi]

This shows some good promise, especially with its initial first impression, but unfortunately the gameplay wore thin for me rather quickly and left me feeling rather let-down. Feels like a case where the game's meagre content has been stretched out to artificially increase playtime, making it paced awkwardly, going on for too long and becoming repetitive.

As said, it all seemed pretty good at the beginning. Pretty cool intro scene that reminded me of Contra 3, a very nice controls menu where you can both see the controls and preview them in a little simulation box. Moving onto the gameplay, there's some decent classic shooting action with all sorts of power-ups and upgrades, and new enemies being introduced to spice things up, alongside bosses, as you press on. Not too shabby at first glance!

However, as said, the game just feels incredibly repetitive and boring as I got into it. Levels just feel endless due to a) the enemies showing up randomly instead of in interesting formations or waves and b) there are no interesting obstacles or events to contend with, like maybe blocks/walls you have to shoot through or mountains to weave out of the way of.

Furthermore, it doesn't really feel exciting to shoot enemies as they feel a bit too spongy and don't provide satisfying damage/kill feedback, and power-ups feel awkward in that it just feels random in what you get instead of being controllable in some way, such as Twinbee's bell juggling system.

In summary, it feels like way more exciting events happen in the first level of Galaga than this game does over its entire playtime. In this, you just hold down the trigger and try not to fall asleep.

I feel like the first step to helping this game would be to condense it down: for example, I feel like the first level would be much better paced if you would compress all four sections of the first level into just the first section, that way all of the new enemies would be introduced at a good pace and it'd end with the boss fight in good time before it gets too repetitive. But more so than that, I feel like this game needs more craftsmanship to its levels to give them a story, a flow, a rhythm to it, with all sorts of waves and formations and events and such, instead of just a load of trash you shoot at for way too long. Look at other shmups and see how their levels are elegantly constructed.

[Prepare to be a Maze]

Wow, quite the interesting puzzler you got here! I found the whole tutorial process very memorable: thinking it would be a simple matter of just rotating the maze and moving it over, only to realize there was something in the way and I'd need to thread it through was wild! Seeing how the game expanded upon that with multiple pegs and needing to rotate and all that was challenging and required some mind-bending to get used to it, but eventually I got in the groove and made it through. All in all, a very short and sweet game that, while it might not have the fanciest graphics or sounds, did just enough to make it intuitive by highlighting pegs that are getting in the way and fun by playing little fanfares when you beat the level. The only complaint I could see having is that I wish it had even more to it, and also that I wish it had some sort of level select or save/load system.

[The Adventures of Bluke Bifton DEMO]

Quite the interesting point-n-click adventure you got here! For the most part, the construction of it feels very impressive and professionally polished, with voice-acting and graphics/animations in particular being well-done (though one could argue that maybe some things, like the idle animations, are TOO animated, haha). The concept of a world without violence was also a neat story hook: gave me some Invention of Lying vibes with how silly it could be.

A particular thing that I enjoy with a point-n-click adventure is interacting with all sorts of objects in the environment to get fun flavor text and jokes, and I was glad to see that was the case here in spades: a nice touch was the object itself reacting in small ways to your examination, like the lightbulb getting pushed or the bed shifting! There were plenty of other nice touches that really get you immersed like how when you walk over the broken window space, you'll hear glass and wood cracking under your feet.

Unfortunately, I do have to admit that for a demo, it didn't have quite enough meat on its bones to really get me hungry for the full game, as I'm not quite sure what the full game is going to be. Oh, I can make some general guesses that it will be something akin to Monkey Island point-n-click adventures with some minigames here and there, but I really don't know anything for sure as it never really lets you off the leash (heck, I don't even know enough if it ever does eventually let you off the leash as for all I know it might stay just as linear and guided for the entire game!)

While the demo is a bit unsatisfying, I still overall feel like this shows a lot of promise and craftmanship, so kudos to putting this together and I hope it goes well!

[Goblin Cobble]

Oof, this unfortunately felt like an unfinished rough draft of a prototype that probably shouldn't have been put up for public consumption, at least until significant post-game-jam work was done on it. There are glimpses of an interesting concept here and some nice little touches like the building animations, but it's just too buggy, confusing and unwieldly in its current state.

I really have no idea what I'm supposed to be accomplishing in the game and what the stars at the end of the level signify. For example, am I just supposed to kill the heroes as fast as possible, or am I supposed to let them have a long run and feel good before they get struck down? Could've used some more instructions and story cinematics between levels to explain goals.

The controls are very awkward to deal with. I don't know why rooms are drag and drop, yet the assets like treasure chests and goblins are click to select and then click to place: shouldn't they work the same? The hitboxes for picking assets also was weird to target at times as well.

Game was also very buggy: for example, if you place assets down in a room but then re-construct the room, you lose the assets within and can get in an unwinnable situation if it was the way that contained the stairs!

There's a lot more to comment out but I'll save my breath. Feels like an unfortunate case of overambition and game jam time limits clashing: tale as old as time and nothing to be ashamed about as it happens to every indie dev!