FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pizza Kidd: Beat 'Em Up Demo (prototype)]

Hey, pretty promising! I love me a good beat-em-up and this definitely had a lot of good points to it. Neat animations, tons of cool moves to use on enemies in stylish ways, satisfying feedback from attacks, good PS4 gamepad support, and so on.

Having said that, though, I am a lover of beat-em-ups and so I gotta be harsh on this with feedback so hopefully it becomes great in its final form. I might be going overboard with some of this stuff as its tough to tell what you already know you need to do since it's just a prototype, but here we go:

*Tutorial was kinda bad in that it throws way too much information on you and I could barely remember it all. Don't get me wrong, some of it is intuitive in that it uses rather universal controls that a lot of other beat-em-ups do, but it also had a lot of wacky stuff that flew right over my head. If I had my way, I'd like it if the tutorial was separated into bite-size sections: basic movement, basic combos, special moves, grabs, etc. Also it'd be great if you could actually control and participate to build muscle memory and learn by example. Also it'd be great to have a move list to quickly reference at any time, like in a fighting game.

*There were some wonky control issues that made moves come up when I didn't want them to. The biggest issue was running: you should only initiate a run when you press the same movement direction twice in succession! In this demo, it was possible to run by pressing two different directions quickly, when constantly screwed me up. Basically, you should only run when you quickly press left+left or right+right, don't run when you press left+right or right+left.

*The enemies were incredibly boring and brainless and lacked any sort of variety or threat to them. Sure they were kind of fun to beat up like sandbags at first, but it started to get real monotonous really fast. Changing their colors and giving them more health and just increasing the amount of them doesn't make the game fun: I need enemies with different attack patterns to contend with that really make me think, improvise, and crowd control. You know, maybe get some jumping enemies, some grabber enemies, some fast enemies, some projectile throwers, whatever it be. Quality over quantity is the goal here. Without that I can't really get a feel for whether the combat is any fun in the long term.

*The fact that you couldn't go up or down in the space felt very limiting: usually beat-em-ups are 2.5D and have a great strategy to them where you need to use the whole space to crowd control: moving around to dodge or herd or control enemies. Don't get me wrong, 2D beat-em-ups can work, but this game didn't really show me it working at all: as said, the enemies were really brainless so all you had to do was just punch left and right and that was it: felt like there was no strategy to be gained, though if you vary the enemies to make up for this and work with the 2D space, then it would be fine.

*There were a coupla cases here and there where the game just felt kinda wonky, like maybe my punch hitbox being a bit shorter than I would expect, and the ground pickups being offset so much it looks like I shouldn't be able to pick them up: just subtle stuff like that, hard to explain it all.

Best of luck on working on this: love me some beat-em-ups and I'd love to see this become great as, while I do have some complaints, I think it has a solid foundation to work from!

PizzaKiddo responds:

thank you for play testing the early demo prototype... we'll have new updates late November early December. For more weekly updates, join our Discord or follow us on Twitter. We have noted all of your feedback... Thanks again!🙏

[Clockmachine Chaos]

Hmm, not too shabby! It's a bit too short, the levels feel really out-of-order which messes up the difficulty curve, and the game is a bit too unforgiving when it comes to getting totally stuck in a shape if you so much as dip a single pixel into the area when it reappears. But despite the simple graphics it felt very juicy, smooth and satisfying in terms of feedback, transitions, and effects, and the concept was interesting and intuitive and built upon in a nice, progressive way as the levels went on to keep me hooked. All in all, a nice little adventure!

[Spiders in Psy's Attic!]

Hmmmm, I dunno if this is a worthy sequel to the original smash hit by Levi "Spiders" Ramirez. While the original had some spiderific music play right at the start, this game only plays music once you die for the first time for some strange reason. It's also lacking those juicy effects like the damage feedback from the original, though this does try to make up for it with a heck of a game over message. The score doesn't even seem to reset properly on refresh either at times. I dunno...well, I'm more of a 'Hangover' kind of guy anyway, so I'll give you some points for the inclusion of Snoop Dog in the description.

[Garden Of The Crow]

Not bad at all! Felt like a pretty decent, short and sweet (or rather, short and spooky) point-n-click adventure! All in all had a good time and enjoyed the presentation and atmosphere that the game built (though some of the visuals were a bit too cutesy to be spooky, but eh, it works for my scaredy-cat self, haha). I wish there was a little more variety to the gameplay such as the flower coin matching game or the frog riddles to mix things up: felt like 90% of the game was just trading items over and over in a rather simplistic manner, not even having to think outside the box or combine items or what-have-you. Still, I did find myself getting addicted and before I knew it, had made it all the way through: what a spooky twist ending!

[Cavern Collapse]

Not too shabby! I don't think it necessarily has enough going for it to appeal for that long, but I think it has some solid fundamentals, in a sort of 'good student project' kind of way.

As said, the gameplay does show some promising aspects to it: I like how you are rewarded with more points for making skilled long-range shots. Similarly, hooking those double-sided gem rocks felt so great with the way they clear the entire board. I especially like the subtle touches such as how your score ticks up when you get points instead of just instantly changing: very satisfying! There's also a nice strategy where you want to hook big ones, but you need to think whether its worth the risk as it might entail letting some rocks go and losing precious bridge real estate. It's a simple game, but its decent!

However, I feel like it didn't take too long for me to get bored. For one, the game is rather dry: while the ticking up of the score was nice in terms of making it juicy, I wish there was more feedback on making more difficult shots, like getting a flash or voice clip or nice sound effect or just increasing the font size when hooking a 100 or even better, a 500 pointer. The game was also a bit confusing despite being so simple: I couldn't figure out why I wasn't being rewarded more points or some sort of bonus for hooking gem rocks, especially when the tutorial gave such importance to them: only the double gem rocks yielded any kind of benefit (and a good benefit indeed, though perhaps too overpowered considering how easily you can get so much of them later on).

As said before, this feels like it was put together for a decent little arcade experience: would've loved to see more complexity and progression from this, more levels and hazards and power-ups and all that, but you got the basics down and that's pretty solid.

Cyranek responds:

Thanks for playing and taking the time to write this all out. Really helps to get good feedback!

The geodes / crystal stones repair the bridge you're standing on when caught. Single gems repair 1 and double gems repair 5 (while also clearing the screen). I could've shown this better in the tutorial screen / telegraphed it better during gameplay.

Would love to come back to this and add a progression system and new game modes. It would definitely add some needed depth to the game. :)

[HELP! NO BRAKE]

Wow, pretty cool game! Love the special effects in play here: the feeling of speed from making turns and boosts and so on felt really satisfying, and I enjoyed myself with this simple to grasp but difficult to master wacky physics-based gameplay. All in all felt quite well constructed and polished, and I got quite addicted to playing.

Unfortunately, I did feel like the levels were really wild and out-of-order in terms of difficulty spikes. There were tons of levels that introduced new concepts way too early and way too difficultly, only for a later level to do it better and smoother. For example, there was an early lilypad-ish level that got introduced when I was still just getting used to driving in a basic manner, let alone now having to handle complicated jumps, and then right after that the difficulty suddenly goes back down to simpler tracks, and then comes a level that could've been used to introduce jumping with way more comfort and room for error. While some levels were great and felt good, it felt like too many of the levels were way too cramped and needing way too precise of inputs: sure you can have those levels, but leave for those later on, at least! It got to the point where I just lost patience and ended up quitting around the 13th level, lilypads (and I consider myself someone who likes a challenge!)

It's definitely a pretty neat game, just perhaps felt like maybe it was too cramped with too few levels: if there were more levels to be used for practicing techniques and if they were arranged better to slowly ramp up the complexity, I think it would've been great, but at the moment, I feel like it had a somewhat botched execution despite the overall great concept.

[Comatoast: Unjammed]

Hmmm, this was an odd one for me, but I could chalk it up to be being an old fuddy-duddy, I suppose, haha.

On one hand, despite the rather seemingly juvenile art and presentation, I felt like the game has a real charm to the way it was constructed and showed a lot of hidden depth and effort. The game is certainly unique with all sorts of weird events and levels coming up to keep things interesting. There are a lot of cool subtle touches like the way you character slowly gets ripped apart with the more times you die and get closer to game over. I definitely loved the weird warp zone bonus levels as well: gave me a real Super Meat Boy 8-Bit levels vibe. Overall, it is certainly quite the unique and weird trip.

The game can definitely be pretty janky though. Hitboxes for spikes felt really unfair and difficult to determine, and movement and physics felt really weird as well, possibly due to the way the graphics (especially the player) kept wiggling around and changing shapes so you could never get a clear read. For example, I actually thought my character kept sliding across the ground like ice, but it was just the weird idle animation and the way it shifts sidewise a bit as it loops. While the levels could be quite interesting at times, a lot of them would sometimes be incredibly boring and having nothing of interest. The combat was also lacking any satisfying feedback or strategy to it. The descriptions for item pick-ups would come and go so fast without me being being able to read them, and there wasn't a way I could click on my inventory items to see what abilities they had as reference either. Just made for a really confusing time.

And this is the tough part for me but, the game just felt super cringe, with the voice acting being the primary culprit. I know, I know, it's supposed to be intentional and all that, with the way the character keeps taking a gasp so he can continue his run-on gabbing and the way everyone is being all goofy, but I was straight into that menu and cranking the voice volume to zero pronto. I wouldn't mind if the voices would appear here and there at notable events, but it was a constant audio onslaught with voices and sound effects and other voices overlapping each other and making everything just a garbled mess and difficult to parse. It can work, but it just needs some construction to it, I feel: less is more.

crow-seeds responds:

Thank you so much for the feedback!

Haha, as a developer it's kinda hard to tell if something feels jank or weird when you've played the game for so long that you've gotten numb to the weirdness. If it's causing you too much trouble, the wiggling doodle effect can be turned off in the main menu settings!

The combat does feel a bit lack luster. Tried to add a combo system where you whack and then click stab to launch an enemy further (or the other way around for a different effect). Wanted to make it simple and easy to use to put more emphasis on the platforming, but I guess it still feels two dimensional. Maybe some more audio and visual feedback is in order? The levels in the beginning chapters are made to be simple to teach the player the mechanics, the later ones are much more interesting I promise!

Anyways, I wanted to say I appreciate long comments like these, I'll try to implement some of these changes in future updates!

Edit: Just realized the slippy moving back and forth and jankiness is due to frame rate and lag! Working on a fix, thanks for letting me know, testing on my lower end devices rn. This was not intentional and the janky hitbox was a result of this. Working on this asap

[Gappy 3]

Wow, great little game!

Not much to say about it, it's just some good ol' classic Gappy fun but in a GameBoy flavor and I had a good time playing it without any major complaints. Presentation was charming, music was cool, levels were fun and challenging, love the way the mechanics were varied in each world, jumping felt good and I didn't have any botched jumps due to bad inputs or anything like that, and so on: it's all that and a bag of chips!

If I had to search myself for some sort of complaint, it'd probably just be that the difficulty curve can be a little awkward: I definitely felt like the space gravity world should be switched with the circus world in terms of order, and some levels here-and-there were serious spikes in challenge. I also wish there was a save/load: I know it can be a short game technically but still, a continue is always a nice thing to have. Oh, I also felt like the special effects were lacking in some departments: for example I was surprised there was no water splash when you fell into water. Also thought it was kinda weird that you don't jump with space considering the game gives such credence to it, but eh, it was easy to figure out.

Anyway, overall well done!

LeviRamirez responds:

Thank you!

I usually always just give a passing reaction to your reviews as I just expect to see them every month but I just wanna say thank you, if my memory serves me right I believe you reviewed every game in the Gappy NG trilogy and it's crazy to think a game I made in 8th grade, remade 2 times, and uploaded in highschool would follow me all the way up to a junior in college. It's just mind-blowing, and you do an amazing work with all of these, always look forward to monthly reviews and I no I'm not the only one!

Anyways yup, that's the end of the Gappy NG Trilogy, notice I said trilogy and not series... Cause Gappy's got something just on the horizon and I hope to see you there :-)

[Faces Of 2022 Collab]

Wow, definitely a really cool idea for an art collab! Man, I was really hoping I would do well on this game but I really sucked: didn't expect the questions to be so hard as I thought it would just be matching faces to names, and that's hard enough as it is with the faces being done in a different art style! Still, I had to appreciate the cool trivia and enjoyed picking up whatever points I could gather.

Unfortunately, while I do think it is pretty cool, I did find myself having a lot of issues and minor complaints:

*The cursor is just an absolute pain to work with. Maybe it's built for mobile or something and it works there, but playing this with a regular mouse, I don't understand why I can't just move the screen around and click on things normally with the mouse cursor instead of the weird crosshair and the way it makes things awkwardly slide around like it's on ice. Please make it recognize that I'm using the mouse and change the controls to an appropriate scheme accordingly.

*Bummed out that there is no ability to click on people and have their Newgrounds profile pop-up: would love to be able to quickly compare the faces to their real faces, or be able to see their works and follow them.

*I would've loved if, when you get something wrong (or right), if it would display the person that was correct, and maybe even allow you to click on them to see more about them before continuing with the game. For example, if I get a question about someone's famous movie or whatever and I guess wrong, I would've loved if it would tell me who it was and link to them so I could see their famous movie. Instead, I just need to live with my error and never figure out who it was or see their art.

*It can get really tiring having to go through all of the faces for every single question: even if I was a wizard and knew everyone perfectly, it's still so much busy work to look for them (especially with the annoying controls as mentioned before). Would love if maybe each question chose a random assortment of, I dunno, 15 people or something, just enough to fit on the screen without needing to scroll, and you pick from them. Feels like that would keep the pace up much better. You know, still have everyone in a big gallery in study mode, but game mode, limit the potential answers.

Still, nice work putting this together, and wonderful work from all of the artists that took part!

Bountyspecialtist responds:

Longest comment I have seen on newgrounds lol.

[TROUBLE JUICE Demo]

Hmm, this unfortunately felt pretty rough to me, which hurts me to say since it looks like a lot of effort was put in.

I think the game is pretty professionally put-together: everything felt very intuitive and polished and, pardon the pun, juicy. Clearly a lot of effort was put into this and it shows in spades, even in the more subtle aspects, such as there being a lot of really cool effects like blood coming off of enemies and dripping down onto the ground below. Overall the game has a lot of charm to it with its goofy characters and wacky world.

But at the end of the day, style can only get you so far, and this really felt like a style over substance situation here. The gameplay just felt incredibly generic and something that has been seen so many times before, but worse: the arenas were so cramped, autoaim did all the work for me, the enemies were lacking variety, and the powerups and abilities were generally boring or confusing. I just didn't have a satisfying time shooting anything despite it being so juicy: just felt like there was no incentive system to the combat, no room to manuever or style, no anything except just blast the same brainless mob over and over. The game also had this annoying blur/chromatic abberation/whatever filter that kinda hurt my old man eyes, haha. But most importantly it was lacking the most important aspect of a demo: a hook or a concept or any sort of unique or special mechanic to sell you on it.

I certainly think that this has a lot of potential as seen from the effort put into its construction, so I'm looking forward to see what it becomes, but as it is now, I see nothing that really makes this gameplay stick out or hook me. Just feels like the wrong aspect was polished first: like instead of making a cool fun gameplay system in a graybox to start off and then polish it off with the cool visuals you have, you instead just worked on building fancy effects and assets with no cool gameplay to build around.