FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Cronela's Mansion GBC - Demo]

Hey, this is pretty neato!

While I admit that a point n click adventure wasn't the best decision to do for a Game Boy game as having to slowly move the cursor around with a d-pad can be pretty tedious and uncomfortable, the gameplay is a pretty fun and addictive adventure just like the classics, the presentation is very impressive and charming, and the game runs very smooth which surprised me as I'm so used to Game Boy games being technically slow, awkward and glitchy. Cool stuff you've pulled off here!

In terms of feedback:

*As said before, the control scheme of having to move a cursor around is pretty bad. Would much prefer if you went for another solution, such as just cycling through objects on the screen and picking an action.

*Would love if, when I'm moving the cursor around and hover over something, it would highlight or display the name of objects to let me know I can interact with them. Without that, it can be annoying to have to click everything to see whether its important or not.

*I was a bit confused as to whether I can finish any of the puzzles in the demo. I felt like I explored everywhere except for the locked-off demo areas: are the critical pieces I need within there or am I just missing something?

Elv13s responds:

What a great example for a review and not just leaving profound words in the comments and calling it a day. Quite helpful!

Yeah the controls can use a bit of work, maybe changing it to actual d-pad for character movement and interacting with A and B[shows options] wouldve been a smart choice. But alas, we're too deep into the dev and it is really a port of multiple version on the gameboycolor so it'll be a dishonor if i change it now.

the puzzles here are solvable, some can be brute forced too so youre not missing anything that's not in the playable demo.

and thanks! I really poured my all into this game, its a bit outside my "expertise" since almost all my other games are platformers, so its challenging to develop.

[CA-6 EX (Picture Poker)]

Pretty nice little poker game! It's not that deep or compelling, but the presentation, especially the dealer, is very charming, and it all feels very intuitive and polished, so well done in that regard! I had a good time playing this for awhile.

If I were to have any feedback, it would be:

*There was a bit of confusion at the start when trying to learn the rules: for example, I was annoyed to not have my clearly Straight hand recognized. In general, while I appreciate trying to be concise, I don't think saying that the rules for the game are similar to some Luigi game I've never played is a good tutorial, haha!

*It's not a big issue, but it'd be nice if making a bet that goes over your max bet wouldn't stop you outright, but just fill up as much as it can without going over. Or, you could just make an 'all-in' button.

*I feel like the UI could be rearranged to be more intuitive. For example, why not have the button to discard be below the betting buttons, since forms typically flow from top-to-bottom and discarding is your final confirmation you do after betting? Feels weird to go down to bet then go back up to discard. Might be nice if the discard button was bigger and fancier to draw more attention to it, too, as it almost looks like a secondary, unimportant action with its current look.

*It's a nice game, but I didn't find the gameplay compelling enough to chase after ranks or stars or whatever the goal is supposed to be. Might be nice if the gameplay evolves in some way more than just the betting numbers getting bigger. Maybe it does evolve eventually? But if it does, it didn't keep my attention long enough to get there.

GlitchyPSI responds:

[This feedback has been implemented in v1.1.0!]

Thank you for the feedback! I agree that some of my decisions were subpar, and that is mostly because they were a drag-from of the first version of this game which was made in a big rush. I will look into tweaking some things (ESPECIALLY the UI, betting and lack of tutorial besides a LC mention, excellent points!) for a final update now that all of your guys' feedback has made me want to polish it a bit more! It's definitely made me think of it better.

[NUTBREAKER: THE GAME]

Hey, I'm glad to see this game pop up again! For the most part, I think the game has improved in a lot of ways, both technical and gameplay, and has become quite the wacky woohoo adventure! Stylish combat, humorous dialogue, expressive animations, great attention to detail, all sorts of cutscenes and setpieces, interesting gear: the game is just bursting with so much goofy energy that I can't help but grin while playing it. Nice job!

However, in spite of that, I do think that my overall impression of the game is still somewhat similar to what it was before, in that it has a lot of style, but not that much substance or technique. Basically, it is 'dumb fun' in both a good way and a bad way. My feedback would be:

*While I like the tutorial's many little touches like how it puts in the extra effort to animate setting up the dummies and such, it is a bit of an overloaded info dump. It's just hard to remember all of the various techniques it introduces, especially since so many are so situational. Might be nice if it just teaches you how to attack, and leaves other techniques for when they are applicable, like teaching defense later on when enemies get harder.

*Combat has a lot going for it with various techniques, but in general it just feels like an absolute chaotic mashy mess, simultaneously feeling very easy if you just whale on enemies while also feeling very hard since some of them can delete your health bar outta nowhere if you blink like the spinny guys. Just feels like a lot of 'cool moves' with no real science or design to them: fun enough to play around with, but a bit shallow.

*Boss battles have a lot of pomp and circumstance to them which is cool to see, but many of them are either pathetically easy like the firefighter boss at the start, or just tests of patience like Sack and the cave boss since they require you to wait so long for them to become vulnerable with no way to speed that process up with skillful play.

*The controls feel very overloaded and unintuitive for a game as simple as this. For example, the dash being on A is an awkward to reach and unnecessary button: why not just have dash be used by double-tapping a movement key? Why not just use the number keys 1 thru 5 for the hotkeys instead of requiring you to awkwardly tab through them one-by-one with ctrl?

*I feel like the game is trying to add too many systems in instead of focusing on one thing. For example, I feel like inventory and gear is very superfluous and could be completely removed as it is mostly just used for dumb stuff. Hell, the game practically removes it by itself since you barely get a chance to spend money or acquire new gear after a certain point.

*My biggest issue with the game is that it starts off strong with a great beat-em-up adventure, but after awhile its like there is barely any gameplay, instead being replaced by constant dialogue, cutscenes, and these token 'puzzle' and 'chase' segments. Yeah, a bit of variety is nice, and I do like the goofy story and dialogue, but it just completely loses focus on what it had going for it: it makes me feel like maybe you just want to make a movie instead, haha!

I could go on, but while I do have various complaints about the game, I will admit that there is something about the way it's constructed that makes me want to forgive it all and just consider it another part of its charm, and I do plan on finishing the story since its compelling. There's just something so innocent and youthful with how overambitious it is, like a hyperactive child with a head that's overflowing with so many cool ideas they want to cram in without caring for whether they actually work or not. Ah, memories of youth...

[Unseen - The Story of Invisible People]

Hrmm, this is a rough one for me!

I really like what this game is going for, which seems to be a heartwarming tale of a ghost helping out various overlooked types of people through the challenges of their lives. It's shining a light on a very important issue through the more palatable medium of gameplay, while still having loads of information for people who want to look deeper and even get involved. Heart is definitely is the right place with this one, and it's very impressive that you constructed a large variety of different minigames for each character!

But as much as I like it in theory, I feel like it falters in execution. The mouse controls were an absolute nightmare to figure out, constantly glitching out in weird ways by resetting what it considered to be the center or the deadzone, and in general just being really unintuitive and unwieldly. The presentation was an awkward juxtaposition of very emotional music with child-like scribblings and animations, making it feel almost comical instead of serious. I could go on about the menus and other aspects, but I'll cut it short: in general, the game just felt like a mess that was barely holding itself together.

Now, a lot of its issues can be chalked up to game jam time limits, and for that you have my sympathy: this looks like you were trying to do something big, perhaps too big. For that, I have to at least give kudos to your overambition: it happens to us all! And as much as it was really weird, I did nevertheless feel compelled to keep going to see the rest of the story, so again, I feel like the concept had merit.

[Way of Knight 2: Recaptured]

Huh, this was a bit surprising! The game definitely doesn't make the best first impression from its incredibly dry and dull presentation: it does just enough to deliver critical information like the red lasers indicating what killed you, but I'd love some more special effects for killing pieces, making progress, etc. Despite that, though, I found myself getting addicted to making my way through this gauntlet, planning everything out so I don't trip any traps, so yeah, this is a decent example of when the core gameplay loop is able to shine through!

If I were to have any feedback other than the obvious matter of making the game a bit more exciting with some special effects and such, it would be that checkpoints would be nice to have. Maybe the game is technically not that long so it's not as bad as I think, but unlike a game with randomization where starting over is a fresh experience, having to just redo everything feels so tedious and adds nothing, I think.

[Magnolia Dwindlespark and the Mystery of the Entangled Propurrtions]

Whoa, this is a pretty unique game! Can't say I've ever played a game where I need to scale everything appropriately, but it tickles a similar addictive itch that a lot of other popular cleaning games do. For the most part, it all felt pretty intuitive to figure out: sometimes there's a bit of tedium as you keep trying to hit the sweet spot, but it's satisfying once it snaps into place. I like that it has a bit of a puzzle element to it as well, what with there being certain order-of-operations you need to do so you can scale other objects without them bumping into each other. Very creative and impressive for a game jam game!

If I had any feedback, it would be that sometimes it can be a bit frustrating or overwhelming. For example, I had a real hard time finding the sweet spot for getting the door to squeeze over the broom, for example, and I felt a bit put-off when I realized I had to individually scale different parts of the cat, or the various books on the shelves. Also it'd be nice if there was a save/load system in place: perhaps it's technically not that long to do in one sitting, but still, it's nice to be able to take a break so you can go at your own pace.

YaenGames responds:

Thank you so much for your consistently high quality feedback and kind words! I'm happy you found our game unique and satisfying.

I agree that the game can get a bit long on a first playthrough with all the books and so on. Was a little hard to gauge how many objects would still feel nice because of the novel game mechanic. Regarding the bookshelf, we were inspired by "A little to the left". Have a good one!

[Cursed Dungeon Escape]

It's a decent little escape room puzzle game: not bad, but not particularly exciting, and especially not hard at all, as I found the puzzles to be incredibly simplistic to an almost insulting degree.

The perfect example of this is the numbered barrels. Someone's natural instinct would be to read the barrels from left to right to get the sequence of 4693. But ho ho, you've been tricked, you fool! If you look harder, you actually need to read the numbers in order based on the arrow path! If you do that, you'll see that the sequence is...4693. It's the same damn thing! Someone could get the right answer by complete mistake! The rest of the puzzles are quite similar in how blatant the answers are.

It's an ok time-waster, I suppose, being largely inoffensive, but I just didn't feel that satisfied playing this one. Many of your previous entries intrigued me a lot more, and this fails to live up to those expectations.

[Cash Clicker: With a Gun!]

Holy cow, this is really something special! I'm not one for idle clicker games because they hurt my hands and are usually quite boring and manipulative, but this one not only has an auto-clicking option to save my hands from strain, but it also saves my brain by making the gameplay be an exciting romp!

The game feels incredibly well-made in nearly all respects. Everything feels very smooth, polished, and intuitive: at no point did I suffer any confusion or encounter any glitches or bugs. The game is absolutely bursting with juicy effects that make the experience positively electric. The introduction of the gun is an intriguing hook, and the gameplay keeps my attention through threatening goals that require me to sink or swim. There are a lot of neat tricks too, like how failing to meet a goal doesn't mean instant death, but a new enemy that you can try to deal with (but is really hard to do so!)

I enjoyed the learning process of figuring out the best way to get farther and farther. For example, on my initial playthrough, I felt like the gun upgrades were a waste of money because the low amount of enemies meant I couldn't get enough money from kills to make the investment worth it, but the burst of enemies later on means you can't avoid it forever and need to be prepared. I also found that sometimes it's best to not bother purchasing multiple instances of a tier, but to just wait for the next tier instead: the UI seems to naturally push you to this strategy with its !!! signals. Fascinating stuff!

Now, not everything is perfect. If I had a few complaints, it'd be:

*I found it frustrating that I can't see the amount of items I've purchased, such as letting me see whether I've purchased 1, 2, 3, or however many shovels. It just makes it difficult to keep track of everything without that: I'm unsure whether I've dipped into one tier too many times, or whether I've purchased a tier at all.

*As mentioned, some of the design decisions felt a bit odd, such as how the gun feels really worthless for a large portion of the game until enemies get more intense, making you stick with boring clicks and passives. In a similar fashion, the ultimate giving you a cash prize feels hard to ignore as an option, which feels bad because it's so boring compared to something cool like a minigun.

Funster10123 responds:

Thank you for such thoughtful and engaging feedback! Everything that's been polished was once a sore spot, just like the game's current issues. We plan on adding QoL features and balance patches to help improve the quality of CC:WAG. Thanks for playing!

[NG BBS Awards 2024]

I always appreciate when an art collab or awards show gets creative in its presentation, and the way this puts all of the awards into the world of an escape room game is pretty neat! Since it's an escape room, people will naturally be clicking around to check for clues, leading to them naturally finding all of the awards: much more compelling than flipping through a slideshow! Very clever, and I liked finding all the achievements and secret symbols!

Now, while I do give it full points for creativity, the construction of this is pretty rough:

*I really wish the navigation was much more clear: I didn't even realize I could click on the sides of the screens to transition to other parts of the room at first! There really needs to be some arrows on the side of the screen to make it more obvious.

*Similar to above, I really wish the game would highlight objects you're hovering over. Yes, the mouse cursor does change to a hand icon, but even with that, it's never quite apparent if, say, the bookshelf you're hovering over is just one clickable object, or if you can click on the items on the shelf as well.

*You might say that a lot of the confusion above might've been avoided if I looked at the help menu, but it would've helped if I had access to the help menu within the game itself, instead of only being able to access it on the title screen where it is easily missed!

*When you open up an awards book, you can still accidently click on stuff that is behind it that you shouldn't be able to, such as the drawing of Pico that links to the supporter page. It's also a bit disappointing that you can't click on the various recipients to go to their profile and follow them or whatever.

[Level 9 Access]

Pretty neat game! I enjoy the crazy fast-paced nature of the game, what with how every level turns into absolute chaos as all sorts of obstacles and hazards get introduced: the randomness of it all really keeps you on your toes, forcing you to improvise as best as you can! I easily found myself getting hooked to the game from how bite-size the levels were and how quick it was to immediately retry upon death.

I had fun, but if I had some complaints:

*While the randomness does keep you on your toes in a fun way, it has the downside of making the game feel very repetitive and like you're not progressing: replaying a level is just as different of an experience as moving to the next level, so why bother? Yes, the levels are different from each other in their geography and do escalate in subtle ways, but it just doesn't feel that significant compared to the random events. Furthermore, the randomness calls the scoring system into question, as it can just be up to luck as to whether it gives you a series of easy events that let you do it quickly.

*Sometimes the randomness can totally screw you over, such as when the game spawned two antennas I needed to align within lava, making it impossible to do so without dying. This wasn't even a justifiable punishment from being slow and letting the lava rise too high, as the antennas were spawned way at the bottom of the screen practically where the lava started, so it felt incredibly unfair.

*Slight nitpick but I found it weird that unlocking the exit doesn't give you a message or signal like it does for every other event: you'd think it would be something to celebrate, but you can easily miss the fact that you've unlocked the door because you're too busy trying not to die!

Still had a nice time, though, and I found it an interesting alternative take on the gameplay of your previous entry, RPG MK II!

BlueEagle421 responds:

Thanks a lot for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

You are right about the scoring system - the randomness can make it very hard or very easy to get a better time, but I also find it extremely satisfying when the elements align to your favor.
Speedrunning also requires strategic approaches.
And yeah the lava has it problems and I'm still figuring out how it improve it, make it more fair for players.

Making elevator opening more noticeable is a great idea and I will try to add some cool effects to make it more clear.

It's nice to hear that you remember RPG MK. II :) I wanted to try something different this time.

I also recently updated the game with new city types, new content and movement improvements. It can delete saved data unfortunately, but just letting you in case you played the older version.

Cheers!