FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Towerland]

Hmm, I think it's got a decent core to it with all the proper elements for a roguelike shooter as well as an interesting visual appeal/aesthetic, but as it is now, I found the game to ultimately be very shallow and boring.

The enemies were dumb, unthreatening and lacking in any sort of creative attacks, the player feels stiff with a slow projectile that lacks any sort of satisfying feedback (for hits, that is, as deaths feel satisfying with the way they gib), the dungeons were way too linear and without any sort of interesting paths or obstacles to shake things up, and there was no loot or objects to be found in the dungeon to spice up the run during it: instead it is replaced by a very boring statistical upgrade menu at the beginning of a run that you can barely notice its effects.

Considering it takes after Binding of Isaac, I was very surprised to see so many features lost, such as loot, shops, branching paths, and so on and so forth. In general, the game just felt very plain, like a prototype that only has the bare essentials and missing any special sauce to it all. It also was janky in some respects with the money magnetism being pretty weak, movement a bit too stiff and acid puddle hitboxes being way too big, to name a few.

I will say, though, that I'm not the biggest fan of the Binding of Isaac because of its, to me, interminable slow start of every run (which I think you've unfortunately recreated too faithfully here with the hero's slow and piddly projectiles) and some other aspects, so I will grant that perhaps I'm just not the ideal audience considering that this does look to be following in those footsteps.

As said, I think it is a decent prototype for a game that can only get improved from here!

[Stress Quest]

Wow, what a crazy good time! It's a simple game, but I love the amusing story concept of managing stress and love the madcap race to do all sorts of quests like a warioware game. Presentation is great with its very stylish cartoon graphics and everything so animated and full of life. Got really addicted to this and just had to play it to try and get a higher score!

I do have a few nitpicks with the game:

For one, I wish the map screen didn't have to involve scrolling around: I found it very unwieldly and clumsy to control, and was super frustrated when it screwed me over by not allowing me to click on quests fast enough. I would've preferred if the map was static/small enough that everything just fits on the screen without scrolling needed.

Two, there were a few minigames here and there that I felt were a bit confusing: for example, the cooking minigame was difficult to parse at first as you can barely tell there is a pot to put ingredients in and I thought I just needed to click the ingredients in order. Also I found it disappointing that winning the duel minigame doesn't even give you an animation of the bandit being blasted away.

Three, the sound mixing was a bit out of wack: some minigames like the slay creature one and the cooking one have barely audible sound effects while others have perfectly audible sounds.

Four, some minigames were a bit too forgiving: I won the photo one when I had like one pixel of the serpent in frame, haha.

These are just small nitpicks however: in general I had a blast playing this! Would love to see if this game had some sort of campaign to it, like a week long saga where every day gets harder and harder with a bigger quest variety, more tough deadlines, and faster speed increases: almost a bit of a shame that it just has the one difficulty mode at the moment!

[Little Fellas]

Hmm, seems like a decent concept, but at the moment it just didn't seem to have much to it.

Usually with these types of games it can be really fun to see how the little guys grow and evolve as it can change their behavior pattern so that they have all sorts of fun dynamic interactions and such on their own accord that are fun to watch, similar to a fish tank or a game of the Sims or Spore or whatever.

Unfortunately here, the little guys just seem like boring shells with no personality or autonomy: they just exist for you to directly make them breed or feed instead of it happening organically. Because of all of the guys being boring shells with no personality, I felt no reason to want to breed or grow them into evolved forms since it was purely cosmetic: what's the point?

Not only that, but the controls were frustrating as well: was never sure in what way or how long I needed to shake to get them randy, and a lot of times my shakes would end up chucking them into the wall for insta-death.

Again, I think it could be a good idea and it floats some interesting ideas around like how you have to sacrifice units to feed others, but in the end it just felt repetitive to grind out all the different forms and it just hurt my arm from all the shaking.

0chin responds:

Its a bit hard to animate all of that in two weeks of work with some of us working actual jobs on the side and only 2 animators. Maybe with an update we’ll add more 👍🏾

[Vizzy & The Lost Cat]

Fun little platformer you got here! Loved the manic and fast-paced platforming fun that the game had, the good amount of enemies/obstacles/layouts to the levels, the satisfying juicy effects for things like collecting loot, and the smooth controls. All in all felt well-constructed and fun: fun enough that despite not getting to the finish line on my initial playthrough, I have now already replayed it to get all the way to the top!

While I'm overall feeling good about this game, there were some nitpicks to be had:

*Enemies felt like there were a bit too spongy at times: I would prefer more of them to take less shots as this sponginess coupled with not being able to hold down to auto-fire really dud a number on my old man hands.

*I know it's probably part of the appeal and to add replayability, but it was quite frustrating to not have any way to backtrack: so many times I'd jump up only to realize that now I had missed a yarn ball and had no way to get it without restarting the entire game. Argh! This also extends to the doors: I'd prefer that you have to press up or something to enter as sometimes I would accidently go through by just passing by when I wasn't finished yet exploring.

*While the enemies do explode with loot in a satisfying way on death, I still found it a bit lacking that the enemies themselves did not explode with a graphic or sound or shake or any feedback: I know they overlap so some might say what was the difference, but it just bothered me slightly.

*Found death a bit overly punishing: I got practically all the way through the game, only for me to die once near the end and lose all of the money completely! You'd think it would just take a certain amount or just restart me back to the amount I had when I entered the level.

*While the levels do a good job at mixing things up, especially with the levels that had moving/rotating platforms, it still did feel slightly samey at times, especially due to the same graphics and music being used over and over. Maybe add a bit more variety or cut it shorter so that the time commitment matches more closely with the level of content. It's not that bad though: there are practically in sync already.

*Unsure if there is a bonus ending or anything for collecting all the yarn balls and a high score of cash? Kinda of felt pointless since it felt like it didn't make a difference at the end.

Nice work!

[Pengu's Bubble Gun]

Not too shabby for a Bust-a-Move clone! Certainly has all of the basic elements in place: controls felt smooth and intuitive, making combos gave a satisfying pop, and so on. However, ultimately it felt like a bit of a shallow clone and I lost interest rather quickly. For one, it was a bit lacking in juice: felt so bad that both the cannon fire and ball clacking into place didn't have any sound effects to go along with it, and you weren't rewarded for big combos with more explosive feedback. The game just didn't have much excitement or progression to it, what with the never-changing gray background and low-energy music, really slow progression of levels, and lack of any exciting bonus modes.

The one unique aspect of the game as well, being the Pong-style minigame, was a wash for me. I actually kind of found the Pong-style minigame a bit annoying: might've been because the collision physics of the ball/paddle were a bit wonky or maybe it just happened too often, but I preferred the cannon-style gameplay and was always bummed out when Pengu took a combo I was building up away from me: I wanted to get it using the cannon!

Again, not bad for a game jam game, as it is a good prototype for a Bust-a-Move game: with a bit more meat on its bones and some unique mechanics, it could shape up to be really good!

[Apocalypizzapie]

Pretty funny and goofy game that, unfortunately, due to weird kicking controls and a lack of progression to the enemy variety and obstacles, did not entertain me long enough to stop me from wishing there was a time counter to let me know how long I had left. It definitely had a solid first start what with its funny story and satisfying kicks, but seems like a classic case of too little content being stretched over too long a time.

I actually found the jump attack really satisfying to pull off: loved bouncing off of enemies and building up a combo where I never touched the ground. Watching them fly across the screen and explode was just great! But I really hated how incredibly unintuitive it was to tell where enemies would be launched. I so wanted to pull off these awesome attacks where I'd launch UFOs from the sky into the tanks and cannons, but the aiming just seemed random and uncontrollable. Likewise, I found it great that I could also kick projectiles back, but it never seemed worth it since it always seemed to hurt me (or rather, the pizza) as well, no matter how hard I tried to time it. Not only that, but there were plenty of times where I would kick an enemy into another, only for it to not count and be ignored for some reason.

If this game just had a bit more meat to it with more enemies or some such, and the issues with the kick control were rectified, I think this game would be dynamite, and I'd love to play it more to get all the endings. Unfortunately for now, I will settle for my ending C, which was rather funny thanks to the charming presentation!

[Mini Musou]

Hmm, not too shabby! Like a Musou game, this does a decent job at making it feel satisfying to cleave through swarms of enemies: it's nothing super great, but it's satisfying enough feedback considering it is a jam game.

Unfortunately, while it is initially fun to run about and smack enemies, the novelty doesn't last that long. With only one enemy type, a simple combat system, and this very small map with no other objectives, it easily becomes very repetitive to just keep going up and down, cleaning out the bases over and over. To add insult to injury, the controls can be a bit janky: not too bad to do the normal combo attacks and movement, but I had a ton of difficulty trying to do the charge and dodge moves.

It's not bad as a prototype or skeleton for a musou game: as said, the cleaving through enemies is fun, so if the controls were ironed out and more content like new enemy types were introduced and maybe some sort of story/objectives or escalating difficulty to the game were added, I think it could be quite fun! To sum it up, if possible, please focus on making the mechanics more involved rather than thinking more booby costumes will be enough to keep me distracted, haha!

cheesycoke responds:

Thank you so much for the feedback!! Yeah enemy variety is something I wanted from the very beginning but unfortunately couldn't get realized in time. I def would like to expand on this eventually with more enemies, boss fights, etc but that story/objective idea is really interesting! Has a lotta potential I'll keep it in mind, seems fun to mess with.

Also oh god yeah I was fucking around with the controls until the very end. Lotta back and forth of trying to get certain functions working, really needs some polish there. Very unfortunate though, was hoping the booby costumes could distract from that (but for real appreciate the feedback!)

[Roxy's Windows]

Hmm, it's certainly an interesting idea very reminiscient of games like Hypnospace Outlaw and Gone Home and such, games were you piece together a story from scattered documents, but unfortunately, unlike those games, a lot of things kind of bogged it down for me and it never felt like it had a strong initial purpose so it made me lose interest rather quickly.

For one, the controls are quite wonky. It gets most of the controls right and intuitively follows most OS rules, but there were plenty of times where it would act in odd ways, such as selecting the wrong file when trying to click on a file next to another one. It actually took me a long time to even realize I needed to tap a document to make it create other lines: I thought they were just all one line documents at first, haha! The worst part for me was trying to read documents in a folder, as there was no back or next button: I'd read a document, close it, then have to open up the folder again to find the next document and click on it: sounds minor but when you have to do it constantly it really killed my motivation.

But more so than that, I just felt lost without some sort of guidance or goal or story. I mean, there was a story about these characters and dealing with normal angsty young people things, but I didn't really have any setup or much reason to care about the characters. Most of these other interactive UI games or investigative games provide some sort of impetus or quest or reason, but it was absent here. Most other games start small and build up some tidbits of knowledge to work from first as a basis, whereas this one just dumps it all on you at the start. Besides story, I'd also love if maybe there were some more puzzle elements or something, like having some documents locked away behind the cloud and you need to search for the wifi password and enter it to get access, instead of the wifi password just being a little joke. Basically, for me, this was just a haphazard array of documents that felt aimless, but that could just be me: some people might actually like the level of freedom that this provides to just wander about.

Bleak-Creep responds:

Always appreciate a detailed review. I think a lot of these thoughts are totally valid too. We had originally planned there to be more puzzle solving elements in there and we had even made up some locked folder icons, but we didn’t have enough time to work them into the game to meet the deadline. I’m not sure if that’s something we’ll add in later on, but I do think it’d help shape the narrative in a bit more linear sort of way, which could be a better way to experience the story.

Thanks for playing!

[Super Chicken TD]

Hmm, seems like it could be a decent little tower defense game, but overall I found it quickly turning repetitive and boring (though it is quite understandable given its a game jam game, of course)

The number one thing I think the game is missing is juice: there are so many events in the game such as upgrading your crops, resources being gathered, enemies being killed, and so on, that have absolutely no feedback to them. Not only does this make the game really bland (especially considering its already an idle game), but it makes it difficult to read and understand its mechanics. For example, would love to see crops, when they generate resources, bounce or sparkle or spew particles out which are gathered up by the counters, as it felt really unsatisfying and slow to see resources just unceremoniously tick up the counters. Also was super disappointed that the crop graphics never get updated when you level them up: really made progression felt pointless.

Besides that, I also found the game just very slow and without any sort of strategy needed to it. So much of the game is just waiting around and letting your chickens do their thing, which they do easily: I never felt like I needed to build a certain chicken to counter some sort of enemy type or plan for a certain upcoming wave or put my chickens in some sort of formation or anything like that. Ultimately, it all just felt pointless as I had no idea what my goal was or whether it was keeping score or anything.

There were also some frustrating aspects of the game like how you could be trying to upgrade a chicken, but they run away in the middle of your click and you end up selecting something else since they moved the button! In addition to that, it was annoying how you could be trying to click a button for something like upgrading a chicken, but since the button is on top of crops you end up selecting that as well: should have proper layering and precedence to avoid this. I also accidently restarted my whole game: I paused the game and then saw a green button in the center of the screen under the 'game paused' message which led me to believe it was an unpause button, not a restart button!

Again, I'm probably giving way too much feedback considering it was a jam game, but I think there are good lessons to be learned from this. From what it was, it does have a decent skeleton to it for an alright idle tower-defense game: with some more juice, more strategy, and a goal to strive for, it could be dynamite!

[Catatattack!]

Augh, this is a rough one for me!

I really want to like it as I love the concept: fighting against enemies on top of these moving cars is such a cool action setpiece! Reminds me of that highway fight from the Matrix, or Contra/Metal Slug with all its epic craziness. Definitely has a solid first impression, and I had plenty of fun combo-ing the crap out of these black cats while trying to maintain my footing: satisfying hit feedback and managing the chaotic situation were very cool.

Unfortunately from there, my impression just got worse and worse.

For one, the players moveset and physics were really annoying and frustrating to handle. The grounded attack combo is satisfying to pull off, but I really hated the air attack: all I wanted was just some of neutral jump kick or something, but instead you get this ineffectual dive that flings you off the damn screen. So annoying when you get hit and you want to attack back, but since you got pushed into the air slightly you end up doing that stupid air dive and kill yourself. Physics were annoying too in that air control was really annoying: something about it and how you end up gliding forward too much and can't stop the momentum.

I can appreciate that the game tries to amp up the excitement by introducing more obstacles into the mix as you move forward in phases, you know, to make the situation even more chaotic, but I just found all of them incredibly annoying and unfair. Despite having a telegraph for the dropping animal meteors, I never felt like I had enough time to dodge due to the unintuitive diagonal movement, wack hitboxes, and that they can layer on top of each other without being able to tell. The cop crosshair was super annoying as well since it was difficult to tell when he is actually going to fire: would prefer if maybe you did a lock-on system that you can dodge instead of it just pinballing everywhere and firing randomly.

As said, I definitely think hearts in the right place: the concept of an epic chaotic fight on top of moving cars is really cool, the air move probably has an intended use that I'm just not understanding, and the numerous obstacles are intended to increase the chaos and fun. Unfortunately it just didn't work out for me and I dropped it rather quickly out of frustration, especially since I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to attack the boss anyway. Good attempt for a game jam game!