FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Madness: Bullet Mayhem [CHECK DESC.]]

Definitely could be really cool, but it's incredibly rough and janky at the moment and needed some serious fixes and polishing.

When it works, which is rarely, it can provide a decent time: blasting dudes away with the guns, particularly the shotgun, can be very satisfying as you watch them explode in a shower of blood and gibs.

There's just so much getting in the way of that potential action. The isometric camera angle makes it difficult to parse the action. The levels are incredibly cramped, boring and difficult to move around in due to the wonky collision. The AI is incredibly dumb and gets stuck jittering in doorways constantly. Shooting for some reason has the bullets come from your chest instead of the gun and there isn't even any muzzle flash or recoil, making it all feel really unnatural. Standing near a wall while shooting can have your bullets disappear instantly as if they collided with something despite clearly aiming away from the wall (and this happens constantly due to the cramped levels). The sound levels are incredibly unbalanced and there is so much distortion and glitchy effects for things like the flamethrower. And so on and so forth.

I want to like this game but it just feels really badly constructed with so much that gets in the way. If this is just a demo that you guys plan to work on further to polish it up, then I think it could have a future since the heart is in the right place.

[Astronite - Landing on Neplea]

It's quite rough in its current state, but very promising!

The biggest issue I had with the game was its performance. My first playthrough of the game actually kept getting more and more laggy over time that it eventually became an unplayable 1 FPS slideshow of a game. My second playthrough thankfully did not suffer that issue, but nevertheless still had some considerable lagginess to certain screens with smoke/rain/explosions/etc that made it frustrating. I'd like to say that the lag added some cinematic slow-mo to scenes like how some old-school bullet-hells work with so many explosions going off, but in this case it just felt really bad and would drop my inputs, among other annoyances.

There still were some other minor issues, like how if you try to shoot a block at point-blank range it won't register any damage, how I feel like blocks took too much damage to break (or rather how slow and weak the gun feels, perhaps), how I couldn't hold down the button to keep firing my gun, and how the graphics were a bit grainy in a weird compressed/resized way. But overall the game did show some promise: the cinematics were nice and impressive, the movement abilities were fun to use, the story setup and taking away of the abilities was interesting, and the boss fight was cool. It is retreading old territory and not doing anything particularly impressive or eye-catching, and it definitely has those performance issues which need to be taken care of, but it feels like it shows some good promise and could definitely be great if its gets fixed up!

[Weird Wally's Warzone]

Haha, it's certainly clunky and undercooked in its current state, but I do think the concept has a lot of merit!

There's definitely a lot missing here that makes the gameplay very confusing and unsatisfying, such as the lack of feedback for attacks which makes it difficult to comprehend how much damage they do and why some attacks don't work on certain units. Furthermore, the controls can be frustrating: I kept trying to aim the red line attacks with the mouse but they are unfortunately stuck going in whatever direction the player is facing.

However, the whole concept of having this huge assortment of moves with all sorts of strengths, weaknesses and utility functions associated to them could definitely be used to create some really chaotic and fun improvisational gameplay! I love the idea of scrambling to find a move that isn't on cooldown that can work with whatever threat you're facing, as it looks like what you might have going here is that some moves are only effective on certain age groups. Certainly some creative moves besides standard damage attacks as well, like the boof pass to debuff an enemies movement and the hypnotize to freeze a group.

Unfortunately at the moment it can be a bit difficult to deduce the logic behind what attacks works and what doesn't against certain units, and furthermore some moves are too overly effective while having such small cooldowns that it doesn't force you to explore the rest of your options when you can keep cycling through that small group of moves. Still, with some tweaks here and there I could see this concept getting some serious mileage! Reminds me of some other game jam games that randomize your guns every few seconds and such to make it very chaotic, but in a fresh new way with this crazy piano keyboard assortment of moves. I bet it'd be a big hit with the old-school MMO crowd, haha!

[Adventure Kitty: Drill Buster]

Wow, this one really surprised me! I'll admit I didn't have the greatest first impression: yes, the game was charming with its comic book presentation, but I thought the game seemed a bit too overly simple and yet spent way too long explaining mechanics that were already made obvious by the intuitive visual design of the game (yes, I know that's probably just Felicity's character to do so but still). I was also afraid that, by missing a feature to look down farther, than the game would be too hard to plan a route and end up missing a lot of coins and get softlocked unless you restart in an annoying trial/error way. But the more I played, the more I was surprised at how the game kept things interesting and amped up the challenge with all sorts of new obstacles and mechanics that were really fun to contend with! And I never got in a situation where I got screwed over by not being able to see ahead either as the camera always seemed to frame the action far enough ahead when necessary. Put that solid gameplay together with a funny little story and you've got some really addictive and fun stuff here!

There are still some slight annoyances here and there, however: for example, I didn't like how there wasn't an option to fast-forward through a text scroll without outright skipping to the next line. As much as I liked the arrow collectibles since it made it more challenging, I was disappointed that they didn't have satisfying visual/audio feedback like the coins did. I didn't like how it didn't track the coins I've collected past a level and reward me some sort of bonus: I know the bonus is being able to skip some doors if you've stockpiled so I'm being irrational, but it just felt so defeating to see my stockpile deleted and I'd love some sort of medal for beating a level with a lot leftover. And there were a few others than I'm forgetting, but for the most part it's minor nitpicks in an overall fun little game!

[Buns: Bunny survivor]

Not too shabby of a take on Vampire Survivors! Personally, I'd say it actually strays quite far away from Vampire Survivors since combat is more directed instead of being automatic, so it's more in line with offshoots like 20 Minutes Till Dawn, but I digress. Overall the game is quite cute and well put-together: graphics and effects are nice and satisfying, power-ups are interesting especially with the whole balancing act of positives and negatives, and it keeps ramping things up with new enemies and events as time proceeds. Love the cool graphic touches like the hair that changes color and flows behind.

Unfortunately, at the end of the day, I just found it to be quite stiff and frustrating to play. Not a bad game or anything, but just minor things about it rubbed me the wrong way. I didn't like getting penalized for getting power-ups with debuffs, I felt like the player hitbox was too big and led to unfair damage that was difficult to recover from, I hated how I couldn't aim separately from movement and therefore had to keep awkwardly adjusting, I disliked how vague the fire rate was and how it limits your shots based on carrot supply and doesn't buffer inputs, and so on. Maybe it's just an unfortunate consequence of the limitations of the Pico-8 engine (especially with not being able to aim separately from movement) and stronger competitors like 20 Minutes Till Dawn and Holocure overshadowing it. I'd still say its good, but just not something I'd consider over those stronger contemporaries.

[SUPER BATTLE CITY]

Hmmm, this was a rough one for me. Had some interesting stuff going on that surprised me, but it didn't nail the landing.

Definitely was not impressed at the start, as the tank gameplay was incredibly boring. Controls were stiff, AI was brainless, objectives were unclear, feedback was unsatisfying with enemies just disappearing without nary a poof: all came together feeling like an incredibly amateurish 'my first game' project. Construction of the game was very shoddy: I'd sometimes have bullets whizz right through me or through an enemy without hitting, I'd have enemies spawn camp and make it impossible to respawn after dying, and enemies didn't even seem to try and go for the home base at the bottom. I wouldn't blame people for immediately dropping the game and not continuing onwards to see the more interesting stuff. Speaking of...

As said, then the game surprised me with a sudden twist intermission and then it suddenly dumps you in a black void where eventually you find the dripping blood as you proceed. Despite the games initial shoddiness, it had me hooked now as I really love these hidden twists and wanted to see more. And indeed, it made a good showing with the disturbing/cursed imagery and distorted music/sounds that kept me on my toes. Some nice creepypasta vibes going here.

Unfortunately, at the end of the day, all the game was doing was just shallowly guilt tripping me: "oooooo how dare you kill people in a video game about killing people ooooo you bad man, why didn't you just turn the game off ooooo." Maybe this twist was novel years ago but nowadays its been done to death. Not to say it couldn't work but there wasn't sufficient enough build-up to immerse me and make this moral twist work: the short playtime combined with the shallow and broken gameplay made it comical to say the least. Speaking of, then it tries to lampshade the whole thing with "floppa, lol". At least try and say something instead of running away under some shield of irony!

At the end of the day, this game just reminded me of those games that have the audacity to have a sewer level but try to justify it by having the protagonist mug at the camera and say 'lol sewer levels amirite' while winking. It doesn't work because you're still in a shitty sewer level! It's style over substance, trying to disguise a bad game with some intrigue but not combining the two well enough together. Basically I think this was a novel attempt, but it's just too short and shallow and shoddily constructed to get its twist across. Play Duloga instead which did this premise way better in my opinion: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/757605

MoeAnguish responds:

I appreciate your feedback, however, this game is just a shit post with floppa. It wasn't a serious project by any means. So i didn't "try too hard" with it. And the guilt tripping and everything was part of that. This entire thing is one bad joke that i thought was funny, basically.

[Fit Puzzle Blocks]

Decent game, but it might be a bit too chill for its own good for me, haha!

Overall the game does have a chill and relaxing repetitiveness to it with its simple puzzles that can be satisfying and addictive to do for some. For me, however, I felt like the game was too simple to the point of being pointless busywork. Not saying every puzzle needs to have some sort of 'gotcha' to them or complex design, but even after 20 levels I never got stumped despite playing very brainlessly. Hell, practically every puzzle has the puzzle pieces placed very close to where they are supposed to go (so a piece in the lower-left ends up being in the lower-left on the actual puzzle as well). If it does shake things up a bit later on, I wouldn't know since I got too bored to continue.

I would say that, at the very least, the game can be quite zen and addictive despite its simplicity, but there were definitely some wonky control issues getting in the way. The default isometric camera, while fancy-looking, definitely makes the game way more difficult to read and control: much prefer the top-down camera for its intuitiveness. Was disappointed that I couldn't drag and release pieces to control, instead always have to click once to pick them up and click again to place them down: felt unintuitive. Also felt wonky that picking up a piece would have it snap to center it instead of respecting the initial anchor point relative to where I clicked.

Again, could be a case where it's just not for me, but it works for others. But I'd argue even if it is a chill game, it might be helped with a bit more complexity and more satisfying effects for placing down blocks and winning (though what is there isn't too shabby).

[Lina: Witches Of The Moon]

Pretty nice shmup! Certainly had some cute and solid presentation/construction to it overall: loved how satisfying it was to blast away and see the explosive feedback from enemy deaths, and I loved how the game kept things interesting by constantly introducing new enemy types, new bosses, and new hazards and bullets to avoid, all while dangling this intrigue about the moon over you as a bit of story progression.

In terms of feedback: I'm a bit conflicted about the power-ups. It's very exciting to get powered-up and start blasting away huge spreads of bullets along with your cat, yes, but the fact that you can lose all of that by getting hit once really sucks the wind out of my sails: so much work and time invested to lose it all so easily. There's also an issue with difficulty: if you're all powered-up, you can just blast through bosses and waves effortlessly with barely having to dodge, and yet if you don't have any powers, then later waves and bosses can feel ridiculously spongy and a real repetitive slog to wear them down with your basic bullets. Not sure what the ideal solution is here.

Furthermore the gameplay is a bit basic and without any unique mechanics: it's not bad but I can see it getting a little repetitive for some despite the game attempting to keep things spicy with new enemies and such.

Also I really hated how when you kill the last enemy on screen, it just disappears instead of giving a satisfying explosion and point pop-up like it does for all the others: if you could somehow change it so that it doesn't wipe the screen of effects immediately, that'd be great. Currently the only way to see the last explosion is to leave a power-up on screen so it delays the effects clean-up.

[MarshMallow Madness: THE GAME]

It's a nice funny little gag, certainly, but if I were to rank it as a game I'd say that it is very awkwardly constructed and feels like it is barely held together. Collisions were really wonky and have you warping over and jittering all over the place, and the placement of the invisible walls were bizarre as well (why have these weird walls around the sign post pillars?) It's also an incredibly short game that doesn't provide any actual gameplay: you'd think it might be some sort of challenge to adjust the angle/power of your cannon so you get launched into the marshmallow accurately, but no, it's just a foregone conclusion that you hit it. Again, though, it is a nice novelty to play something which was once just a movie, and it did have some nice interactions like handing over the nickel which it made very cinematic and intense for such a simple action.

[Blob Omelette]

Wow, really surprised by this one! This game might look simple at first glance what with its simple moveset and lack of direct control over movement, and it can be a bit confusing to understand your abilities at first due to some wonky animations (though the tutorial does a good job at getting you there eventually), but I seriously got addicted to this! Every level kept me hooked by ramping up the challenge with introducing new obstacles, new mechanics, new subtle ways to use my abilities like being able to cling to conveyors and such: I just didn't want to put it down! I'm also such a sucker for hidden objectives like strawberries in Celeste that I was happy to collect the challenging hidden eggs and keys here (though it did suck when I missed an egg and couldn't go back for it except to restart the whole level). I hope people don't sleep on this one due to its simple graphics and controls: think you did a great job at keeping the pace up as once it gets its hooks in you its hard to stop playing!