FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Dungeon Deli]

Jeez, I hate to say this, but I had a really rough time with this game and found it very difficult to stick with it, eventually having to quit to preserve my sanity.

At its core, the game is quite the interesting experiment. Similar to games like Necrodancer, it is attempting to change up the typical dungeon formula with a mechanical twist, being not only rotating directional attacks, but also constantly shifting modes that affect the field. It changes typically straightforward combat and navigation into a improvizational puzzler that keeps you on your toes and has you dance around in a bizarre, but intriguing way. It's definitely unique and it piqued my interest!

However, while the mechanics are interesting in theory and ideally should make a fun puzzle dungeon, the more I played, the more I got aggravated with the huge side-effect of tedium that the mechanics wrought:

*It's just so damn annoying that each step you take has to shoot out a bullet, and you need to wait for that bullet to go and hit a wall (which can be very far away at times) before you can take another step. Over and over and over, it adds so much time and turns movement into such a chore, especially if the room is already clear of enemies: why wouldn't you make it so that the player has to decide when to shoot, or at least turn off the auto-shooting when the room is clear? I'd also turn off the modes when a room is clear too: it's all such pointless tedium!

*I also didn't find the whole rotating bullet aspect to be that fun. Ideally, I'd like it to be that you'd be dancing around an enemy to try and always keep your gun pointed at them, but there's just no way to do that, meaning that all you can do is just try to keep them on one side of you and stall until your gun rotates all the way back around. With that, it's just turned into basic kiting but with more steps: not that exciting at all.

*To add to all of this, the game is rather dry in terms of pizazz and juice. For example, killing enemies just has them instantly poof away instead of giving some sort of satisfying feedback. I understand it's a dungeon crawler so I'm not expecting big explosions and fireworks, but something would be better than nothing.

*There were also a couple of bugs here and there, like how an enemy moved during my shooting when they aren't typically allowed to do that.

As said, I appreciate the experiment as I think the idea behind this has merit, but the current execution of said idea is not my cup of tea.

EvanMMO responds:

Thanks for playing. Looking forward to the vid!

[Planet Invasion]

Hmm, bit mixed on this one, unfortunately.

Game definitely had a pretty good first impression with the very humorous and animated opening cutscene. The concept of protecting your planet from incoming planets with a unique planet-clashing mechanic was quite novel, considering you could've easily opted for the more traditional turret shooting mechanic instead. Also, there was certainly an attempt at keeping things interesting by always upping the ante with bosses and larger planets to contend with. There's certainly a lot of potential here!

However, I just overall found the gameplay to be rather unsatisfying and dry, despite the attempts made. Few points to consider:

*The core mechanic of crashing planets into other planets by dragging them just didn't feel that great: there was no sort of fun feedback or physicality to be had, both due to the simplicity of such an action and the lackluster special effects. Would've loved a more interesting and challenging core mechanic, such as maybe being able to fling or flick planets into each other, either directly or perhaps indirectly by spawning gravity wells that change their trajectory.

*The game was confusing from lacking feedback for elements like your current experience points and how far you are from your next upgrade, as well as the cooldown timers for your laser/missiles/etc and where they are being pointed.

*It felt like so many times I would run out of ammo through no fault of mine and be unable to contend with a boss or a planet about to crash into me. It was also weird that we aren't able to grab the tiny space debris, considering we are able to grab small planets that are bigger than it: I guess I can understand why you did it to compel you to play differently, but it still feels illogical.

*Powerups were confusing at times: for example there is a bigger cursor powerup which I thought might've let me be able to grab the next biggest tier of planets, but no luck. Would've really helped with the above issue as well if it were the case.

veeh1ve responds:

Thanks a lot for the feedback! I've already started rewriting and tweaking some things, but you did bring up some things I haven't considered. I'll certainly look into them.

[Lights Out (NGPD2024 Demo)]

Pretty decent puzzle platformer! Has a nice retro aesthetic, the concept of shutting lights off and racing out of the darkness is cute and childlike, and the mechanics are built upon with new stuff at a good pace. It doesn't exactly wow me or anything, but it provides some decent fun.

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

*The default controls were pretty bizarre and unintuitive. For example, I would expect the menu to be accessed with ESC, but it's done with Enter? As another, I would expect the main/interact/confirm button to be something like Z, X, Space bar, or maybe Enter, but D? Why D, of all buttons?

*I felt like maybe the levels were paced a bit too quickly. For example, I was surprised that, on the same level where you introduce buttons, you also introduce the twist of using batteries as objects to hold down a button. That's quite the loaded level! But then again, better to be fast-paced than too slow.

*I was really scared of levels that had a bunch of ghosts, because it felt like it creates so much busy work to clear them out before you can actually play the level. If I were to die, I would hate to clear the ghosts all-over again, going back and forth to aggro them and pull them to the light, one-by-one.

*I found it odd that, while there is a symbol for acquiring the coin in the level, there's no symbol on the calendar to indicate that a level has been normally cleared.

[Y.O.F.F.]

Oh man, this is a rough one. The concept that you're going for is solid and there are glimpses of greatness in here, but the execution felt incredibly ham-handed and unfinished.

As said, this has the makings of a great speedrunner game in the likes of Mirrors Edge, Neon White, and so on. When the game is firing on all cylinders, it can be a load of fun as the courses turn into very exciting rollercoaster rides where you're dashing and jumping with style through all sorts of clever designs. I quite enjoyed trying to clear some of the more challenging aspects, like this part where you need to triangle jump upwards between two platforms!

But overall, the game felt incredibly janky and awkward to play:

*Not being able to strafe is a strange design choice, and movement in general felt way too slippery and strange, especially as there's a weird sideways adjustment you make upon stopping that I see no reason for.

*I didn't like how your gauge is instantly killed if you let go of forward for even a nano-second, as it made it so overly delicate and didn't let you do stuff like drifting.

*There's no coyote time so I was constantly having my jump inputs ignored when jumping from the edge of platforms.

*There were loads of missing sounds and feedback, such as when you get a feather: without feedback, I had no idea whether I got it or missed it.

*The game doesn't even get simple things right, like how it doesn't even update your facing upon death or level transition.

As said, there's definitely potential here, and I really, really want to love this: it just needed more time in the oven!

Kunishiro responds:

Thank you for the review!

[Gates of Hades]

Huh, I hate to say this, but this felt, well, pretty bog-standard and boring, like some sort of unfinished 'my first game' student project or something. I could barely stand to play past a minute based on the terrible first impression.

There's so many aspects that feel like they are placeholders, such as the menus and UI, and the gameplay is just so uninspired, being an arena shooter with no unique concept or powerups or interesting combat design. Shooting enemies just wasn't satisfying, the levels drag on, and the controls also felt incredibly awkward, especially with the jumps which are momentum-based and don't allow any air control.

It's strange because there are so many elements that are technically good on their own: sprites and artwork are nice, music is cool, the arenas change up as you go, enemy variety is good, there's some decent special effects like the gun casings spilling out, and so on. But for some reason, the game feels way less than the sum of its parts.

There's certainly potential here: as said, you've got some good assets, and the skeleton for an arena shooter is present. There just needs to be more pizazz, some sort of juicy hook or concept, some spark of joy to make the gameplay interesting!

Paytonio responds:

I appreciate the criticism. It's fair to say there's a lack of a hook in the game. The design philosophy was inspired off of Sonic 2 where the final batch of levels are brutal to encourage you to run through the easier levels as practice. The intention is to make the run where everything finally comes together as satisfying as possible. I see how that isn't a very intuitive philosophy, though, and unfortunately very few players will experience this rewarding feeling from the game. Luckily, I will be able to create my next project with this in mind and I will be sure to make my vision clear from the very first level.

[SUPRA DREAM BEAN GARDEN DRIFT]

I tried my best to figure this out, but despite my best efforts, I have no idea what this game is or what the appeal is, and am left baffled and confused, unfortunately. I just really couldn't tell whether this game was some sort of experimental outsider art, or just busted!

In some ways, the game has a lot of potential in its weirdness. The graphics have a certain level of charm and craftsmanship to them, and the level design is rather surreal with its flower design and void-like structure. There's a feeling that there is so much going on with all sorts of alerts and alien mechanics, and it's an adventure to try and learn how everything works. I felt like the strange way the car reverses on a dime is reminiscent of games like Big Rigs. There's some satisfying juicy hitfreeze when hitting objects, and the way the car drifts is also neat.

But on the other hand, I was completely lost. Controls and goals weren't explained and even when they were explained they could be contrary to how they operate. The game's performance would constantly dip into single digit FPS on certain sections of the map. I wasn't sure if aspects like glitchy void, the powerful car reverse, were intentional or just shoddy/unfinished. Despite my best efforts, I felt like I was making zero progress.

It was certainly...something!

tscoct responds:

Ye, sorry, this is my first time ever writing on Tic-80, so the performance was the only unintentional thing, everything else was more or less fitted to work in conjuction with each other

[Pixel Fixel]

Huh, this is a pretty nice and chill puzzler you got here! I was a bit confused and wasn't fully sold on it at first, but there was something really interesting about learning the main conceit of the game through experimentation, and the act of arranging gradients tickled my 'strangely satisfying' sense quite well! All the fun of taking a trip down to your hardware store and playing with their color swatches: maybe with this as practice I can finally see the difference between true white and off white!

If I were to have any feedback, it might be that it'd be nice to see the fastest/par score within or at the end of a stage, instead of only being able to see it in the menu. It'd also be nice if it were to grade us at the end of the level, give us a medal if we got under par and all that jazz: add a little bit of addictive razzle-dazzle for the achievement hunters and all that.

It does also get a bit tedious and overwhelming as it just keeps increasing in scale and utilizing colors that are so close to each other where its super hard to eyeball the very minute distinctions in color: I'm not sure how you would do it, but it would've been nice if the levels somehow evolved or changed things up in a different way with a new mechanic or some such.

[Kiwiman X-TREME]

Hey, this is a great arcade game you got here! The concept of being stuck within this circle and jumping to make triangles is a unique and well-executed concept, the overall construction of the game feels very charming, polished and professional, and the game has lots of variety and build-up with all sorts of enemy types that force you to play in new ways. There's also lots of nice little touches, like the triangles you build leaving paint on the background which slowly builds up. Great, classic, addictive arcadey high-score fun all-around!

If I were to have any feedback, it might be that I'd love if the scoring system was a bit deeper and allowed for more player expression and mastery. For example, being able to catch enemies in your triangles to kill them for bonus points, getting a style bonus if you 'graze' enemies as you build, getting a time bonus if you build your triangle quickly instead of waiting around, and so on! Being able to flex like this could add a lot of satisfaction and depth to the gameplay, introduce some exciting risk/reward as being stylish gets you closer to getting new lives but could get you killed, and most importantly, it would make starting new runs from scratch (which can be a bit boring due to getting used to the higher difficulty you were previously at) less repetitive.

By the way, you wouldn't happened to have played Resonance of Fate, would you? The whole triangulation mechanic? Oh, never mind...

[Boog A Spook]

Hmm, this feels quite promising as a goofy Dead Estate-ish clone, but in its current state, it feels really undercooked.

There's a lot to like about this game. In general, the game is very stylish and filled with life through all sorts of charming graphics, animations and so on. For example, I really liked all the goofy graffiti, the gibs that explode on killing enemies, the way you pinball around on death: it's great! Furthermore, the game does a decent job at having a good variety of enemy types and wacky weapons to use, and spices the waves up by introducing new obstacles in addition to enemies. There's certainly some promising combat to be seen here.

However, as stated before, the game just felt so rough and unfinished in many ways. Overall the combat now just feels unsatisfying, repetitive, and even confusing, especially when it comes to aspects like the altitude of enemies: so many times I tried to jump and shoot an enemy only for my bullets to somehow whizz right through them for some bizarre reason unless I hit the exact height sweet spot. Cooldowns for abilities were very strange as well with them awkwardly pausing at 99% like a bad Windows loading bar before eventually completing. While you tried to use shading to help players determine the altitude of enemies, it didn't work for bullets, which were always difficult to tell in the heat of combat whether they were above or on-level with you. And there's various other little nitpicks here and there that just made the game feel rather cheap and barely holding together.

If I were to be cynical, I'd say that you tried to distract players from a mediocre, unfinished game by waving T&A in their faces, but I'm hoping that's not the case. Nothing's wrong with some T&A if you wanna go there, but the game needs to be fun first and foremost, and I wasn't feeling that in this. Again, it's certainly promising and very charming graphically, but everything else needs more time in the oven.

[NG BBS Awards 2023]

Pretty cute presentation you got here! I was impressed with the nice cinematics and animations, and thought the book interface was charming and well-done. Functionality was decent as well and I liked that you could click on pictures of threads to have them pop-up in a window for further investigation and reminiscing. Basically, I had a good time flipping through the book and made it all the way through before I knew it!

It does have some rough spots I feel should be ironed out, however:

While it is nice, it is pretty rough in a lot of spots:

*While I liked that I could click on pictures of threads to have them pop-up in a new browser tab, I was disappointed that I couldn't do the same for profile pictures: would've been nice.

*The mouse pointer isn't offset properly: I tried to click on buttons by hovering the tip of the pointer finger over them, but found I needed to shift over to the center of the hand instead. Just awkward to determine what I'm pointing at in general.

*In addition to the mouse pointer being difficult to aim, the navigation was confusing because not only do buttons not react on hover to let you know you're pointing at them, there was no indicator for where the page flip button was: lots of times I tried to click on the corner of a page to flip it, only for the book to close!

*Perhaps this is intentional, but I tried opening the B book and flipping to other pages within it, only to have the game crash and boot me back to the title screen except with the mouse no longer working.