FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[ScatterPaws]

Hmmm, this one was rough for me: I really like the concept, but I think the execution was flubbed a bit!

There's a lot to like about this game in theory. The whole concept of a cat running around the house wrecking stuff for attention while dodging distracting cat toys under a time limit is very cute. Combine that with the vague laser pointer guidance movement mechanic that has the cat slipping around and pinballing off walls, and it just adds to the chaos and creates an authentic cat experience! The game also had some wonderful graphics and animations that made it look great. I was really onboard at first and thought that, while there was a bit of jank to it, it'd all be great.

Unfortunately, as the game went on, those janky aspects overpowered the good concept and it just kept getting more frustrating. I understand the idea of the cat slipping and sliding on tile/hardwood flooring, but the physics involved just seemed really out-of-wack and too chaotic where it crossed the line from intended challenge to absolute annoyance. The objectives were weird too in that you are forced to scratch objects in a certain order: feels stupid that you can't just scratch objects in any order you want. Speaking of scratching, the way the scratching worked just felt so vague and unsatisfying: dunno why it doesn't make an effect or animation when you're not near something despite going on cooldown. In general the audio and feedback of the game felt quite missing as well: would've loved more sounds and such for bumping off walls and the like, as without it the game feels so quiet.

In a way, while the game did feel really halfbaked and missed its mark for me, I still think it's an ok game jam result because I did find the concept very fun in theory and would've loved to see a more polished version of it. Just imagine a game that had even more interesting mechanics and levels, like different friction coefficients for all the different flooring types and so on!

[Octillery VS. Collection]

Hmm, bit of an odd egg and difficult to judge!

On one hand, I feel like the games are just absolute insanity with most of the humor just being non-sequitur and too personal/inside-jokey for me to understand. Just feels like I'm reading some kid's cringey/edgy diary or fanfic where they make fun of their bullies or weird discord friends and it's like, I don't even want to make fun of it, it's more like I feel like I shouldn't even be reading it in the first place and it's not my place to judge. Really feels like it is a game that should've just been shared with friends and family, not with the public: it's too personal and inscrutable.

It didn't help either that some of the combat seemed very confusing and overloaded. For example, I died in the very first fight in Jonathan's Adventure 2 and I was surprised to get kicked out all the way to the main menu: it was so overbearingly hard that I just figured it was one of those fights where you're destined to die (and with how confusing this game is, heck, maybe it is?)

I will say though, for as much as it looks like it is kinda low-effort weirdness, it actually did end up intriguing me and kept me hooked to see what the heck was going on. It's like there's some sort of charm and smart design behind its strange facade: almost like a lot of effort went into making it look like it was low-effort despite actually being high-effort, almost like Cruelty Squad or something akin to that. Outsider art, perhaps.

In a way, it was certainly more interesting and memorable of an experience than many other RPG Maker games that I've played, where they usually just bore with way too more generic exposition and grindy fights with no strategy: this at least gets right into the action and provides you with a lot of options! So I will give it that much at least!

Vidyabatter responds:

Thank you! This was genuinely helpful!

[SQUADADDLE]

Pretty neat game! For the most part, I had a lot of fun with this. I love the fast-paced, bite-sized platforming challenges, and I love how juicy and lively the game is: everything is just so animated and stylish that it really elevates the experience.

That being said, the game can be a bit frustrating at times:

The controls were a bit awkward to get used to: not only are you super tiny yet move so fast that it can be difficult to judge your movements, some rooms that would make you do really challenging maneuvers felt like a huge difficulty spike. Eventually I got decent at it, but I just wish it had walljumps instead of climbing as it might be a bit more intuitive, or maybe if it had controller support it'd work a bit better.

Sometimes I was questioning what the goal or rules of the game was. Scoring at the end of the levels isn't really explained and you never see how the numbers add up: couldn't tell whether time left was giving me more points or if it was a flat rate, and how much of a bonus the fruits were giving was difficult to tell as well. Wasn't sure whether the game has an ending to it either: the way everything is randomly generated makes me think it's endless, but it was rising in difficulty, so maybe it eventually ends? It was also a bummer that every run ends with a game over and a sad little dude: you'd think it would celebrate me getting a new high score or something, but if everything just ends in sadness, and the game just feels pointlessly endless, it really hurts motivation to retry.

Also there were some odd bugs like ice sometimes not doing anything to you whereas other times it would have that slow start-up slipperiness that you'd expect.

Again, though, while it was a bit rough starting out, I still find the game very addictive and fun, so well done!

kaiakairos responds:

i was awaiting your review!! i wanted to respond but I waited to watch your video first to get a full picture of your thoughts.
I was actually intending on adding something that told you how exactly the score counted up, but I gave myself a deadline of the 25th of february and wasn't able to get it in in time. The score is calculated +500 for level completion, + (time left * 100), + 2000 if the bonus was picked up.

The game is significantly easier to with a controller, and would have been the intended way to play, however I never got the support in because HTML5 controller support can be finicky, plus the only controller I own is a switch pro controller which can be VERY weird to set up properly. I'm now aware shift is odd for a lot of people, I found it fine, but if I had more time I'd add remappable controls.

The ice bug is caused because momentum is preserved on ice (if you walk from regular terrain onto ice, it won't slow you down) however if you spawn on ice, the code checks for your movement before checking if you're on ice, so the first frame of movement basically ignores the ice and lets you get up to about 40% of full speed immediately. Didn't realize the cause of this bug until watching your review, might have to go fix that one.

The sad face at the end was just added because I thought it was silly, I really didn't think about it much at all if i'm bein honest lol. It would have probably been nice to put a happy guy if you got a new high score or somethin.
The game does run infinitely, and there are about 150 levels to play through. Eventually the hardest levels do start repeating, but they are so extremely precise that I just wouldn't expect many to make it through a whole loop of them.

Overall though, I'm glad you liked the game! The visuals are usually my main focus, so I'm very glad you liked the juiciness, despite the obvious flaws overall. I'll be taking your feedback into consideration for my next project, whenever that will be :]

[Turbulence]

Decent little arcade game! I found the concept rather unique and I was surprised at how it builds it up as the levels go on: got quite addicted!

I will say, though, that I did have a rather confusing start to the game in learning what was going on: I know you're probably limited on graphics or something due to the jam, but if you just had some animations to represent the air flows in gameplay, such as dots or lines swooshing by, I felt like it would've been much more intuitive and satisfying to play instead of having to memorize the flows at the start (besides, you already showed you could make sparkly dots when the balloons are collected, so why not do the same here?)

All in all, it's not the most exciting game despite its uniqueness, but it still provides a decently good time and I found it quite fitting for the jam theme, so well done in that regard!

[The Time I Was Stranded in Some Planet]

Wow, this was a really great adventure: it's short but incredibly sweet in my book and surprised me quite considerably!

It's true that it is a little short especially in terms of exploration where all of the collectables are within like 10 feet of each other, it's a little janky with bullets not functioning sometimes and some events not resetting properly like how the alien talk prompt reappears on continue even though you've already gone past that point, it can be a bit annoying with the floating eyeball enemies showing up and the way they phase through walls to attack you with no way to defend, and it is a little simple in a lot of respects, but goddamn if I didn't have an absolute blast with this!

I absolutely love the Blaster Master-esque player/vehicle synergistic gameplay with various upgrades, and I found the story and dialogue so wonderfully goofy and charming: I just couldn't stop playing with the way the pace kept everything going. The end boss fight was a great cherry on this sundae that I was really impressed the game had, especially with the cool escape sequence at the end. Very well done!

streq responds:

Thank you so much for the feedback! I agree with all of the negatives you mentioned. Some of it is due to a bunch of "I'll fix them later"s that I straight up forgot or got used to. Regarding the flowers, they were originally a last minute addition (the game was a submission to a 9-day long game jam, it featured no boss fight, and ended after collecting the flowers), so some of the flower spots were chosen at random and never questioned again!
I'm very glad you enjoyed it, thank you for playing and taking the time to write this!

[Orderless: New Skies]

Wow, I'm usually not a fan of RPGs, but this one really grabbed me! Definitely hits a lot of good points for me: not only does it start quickly and get you right into the action (whereas most other RPGs would lock you into watching hours of unskippable cinemas and exposition before deigning to let you control) but the combat has fun action timing for both offense and defense and doesn't baby you as it actually starts out pretty hard! Another great thing to note is the stylish menus and overall presentation: definitely gives it a real professional feel to it all (though I do think the font can be quite tiny at times). Pretty neat stuff!

In terms of feedback, and I know this sounds odd considering what I said earlier, but the pacing and story felt very odd. Again, I don't mind that it doesn't give you any exposition and gets you right into the game pronto: that's awesome. What I do mind is that there barely seems to be any dialogue at all as you proceed forward: you'd think the characters would chit-chat about their confusing situation a bit more, but they just get on with things a bit too fast! The worst part was the boss fight after the knife guy: after you win, considering it's such a big event, you'd think the game would take a breather for a second, have the characters talk about what just happened and what was wrong with that guy. Nope, they don't say a word, and in fact get right into a fight with some nameless mooks after a few footsteps! Did that last fight not mean anything? Are our characters mute? I'm not asking for an exposition dump or hour-long cutscenes, but jeez, I want at least a little crumb of story and interaction here and there to know what the heck is going on, haha!

Anyway, for the most part, despite some oddities here and there, I think this demo accomplished what it was going for, in that I'm definitely intrigued and am going to be following the development: best of luck and looking forward to seeing how this shapes up!

[Merged Gravity DEMO]

Hey, pretty cool precision platformer you got here! It's simple, but I found the gravity switching mechanic very fun to pull off, and I felt like the game did a great job at keeping me hooked with the well-paced increase of difficulty and introducing of new mechanics to contend with. I also liked how the game taught controls and concepts with intuitive design, like the gauge around the ball that signals your charges left, and the warning that pops up to remind you of the restart button when you're out of charges. All around pretty well done and fun!

In terms of feedback, I'd say that the order of levels felt very odd at times: not only did it feel odd that there were some suddenly super easy levels appearing after other levels were ramping up the difficulty, sometimes a new mechanic like the timed buttons or gravity gates would appear, then suddenly they'd vanish and not show up again several levels later. The game was also lacking pizazz and juice: would've loved if there were some additional effects to spice things up, like maybe a cool warping sound effect when you beat a level to act as a celebratory fanfare along with your cool visual warping effect. Another real bummer for me was the lack of a save/load or continue option: it may not be that long, but I can easily see this being a game that someone (such as me) would need a few sessions to go through, so it not having anyone feels super unreasonable. Heck, even if it was a short game, a level select or save/load wouldn't hurt, so why it is absent!

EDIT: Jesus Christ, those last two levels were ridiculously hard gauntlets to get through! A bit overkill as I think since it's such a crazy difficulty spike compared to the rest of the levels, but through perseverance and confidence in the game's controls/physics I was able to clear it: (though I wouldn't be surprised though if some people would just quit here and feel justified in doing so!)

ChimeraDev responds:

Hi! Thanks so much for playing and the review!

I want to clarify that the game doesn't have a save system due to time limitations; that's why I focused on making the game easier to play if you come back to it! Since the progression is made in such a way that the earlier levels feel like a breeze!

Now for the level order, it might feel odd, but it's to introduce "hidden mechanics" like gliding! This is all taken in mind for introducing different segments for a final level, and not to over-load the player with a new mechanic!

I'll take this feedback in mind for future updates/games very kindly! Thanks for taking your time to write and give proper feedback! It's always extremely appreciated!

[Tricky Keys 2]

Wow, really impressed with this game! Certainly another great entry from Team Bugulon: the game not only had a pretty interesting and fun concept, but it has a very professional level of polish to its presentation and game feel. The way the game kept upping the challenge and introducing new mechanics was very addictive. I thought I was gonna be able to carry some of my skills over from Tricky Keys 2, but this was so wildly different!

Can't think of many complaints, though I'll admit it did take me a bit to grasp and remember all of the controls and rules: might've been some ways to more intuitively help in that regard. For example, it'd be great if a red 'enter' prompt would appear with a undo symbol to let you know how to go back and edit your code, similar to how there is a green one to signal that you can start. Perhaps it'd also be nice if, during the AI edit mode, the playing field would be grayed out or unanimated to more delineate switching modes and that you can't move yet. Also I'd like it if there was a more significant wiping transition when you go back to edit: it isn't necessarily clear at first that the world has reset. But as said, I was able to grasp it pretty quickly with some trial and error, so it's all good for the most part.

I'll also admit that there didn't feel to be that strong of a story aspect as it lacked the powerful antagonist from the first game and there was no real goal or stakes explained. Furthermore, this game never felt like its puzzles fully challenged me with some of the latter ones being quite simple and also tutorial-like for being so late in the game, and the ending was a bit of a dull thud with no grand finale or boss or anything. But still, overall excellent work once again!

[Mini Arrows]

Cute little game! It's quite easy at the start with it's one-button controls and simple levels, but it's understandable considering they are teaching the mechanics and I was glad to see how complex it ended up getting towards the end with very hard routes that you need to plan out or react quickly to: always fascinating to see how challenging one-button games can be! Overall I felt like I had a great time: my only complaints would be that I wish it had a few more challenging levels at the end, and that I do feel like the music is a total mismatch, being way too overly loud and energetic for a cute puzzle platformer like this! A nice short and sweet experience!

[Crazy Office Escape Part 2]

What can I say? Similar to the first part, this is a pretty decent escape room game. It's nothing groundbreaking, some of the presentation aspects are a bit lackluster and it can be a little annoying/confusing at times with the puzzle logic and the hitboxes for the interactable areas and such, but for the most part it does a good job at keeping the momentum going with clues and items and puzzles that keep popping up and you can't help but keep making connections, making it a rather addictive experience!