FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Bunny Graveyard DEMO [Web Version]]

Pretty cool game! While the whole "it may look cute but its actually super scary" is a bit cliche nowadays, the game nevertheless had a lot of layers of interesting design to it where you go from PC interface to retro game to this weird hand-world and so on, and overall just had a really professional presentation to it that made me want to keep going to see what happens next. I especially loved some of the tricks like the way the game responds if you keep answering 'no' to the initial question (and boy did it make me dread what might happen if I screwed up the gardening gameplay)!

That said, I did have some issues with this game:

*The initial setting of the shift button to run was broken and didn't work: tried to reassign it in hopes to make it work but it didn't, then tried to reassign to ctrl but it didn't accept that either, until finally I had to reassign to space bar which finally worked (on the plus side, I did like how the game had a whole rebinding and test control area so you can verify this stuff beforehand).

*For a game that heavily revolves around text, I was surprised to see that the game does not allow you to press a button to skip/fast-forward text. Without this, it was really painful when I accidently examined something twice and had to wait for the whole spiel to pointlessly replay, not to mention it made it a huge issue for full replays since there is no save/load.

*Speaking of save/load, I was really hoping I could (I missed the message at the start saying its not possible) and was disappointed to see that when I tried to hit ESC to access a menu it just went to black, killing my game.

*While the game is intriguing and stylish, I don't feel like the game had the best first impression of its gameplay. The tedious maze at the start, the constant handholding and linear design that never wants to let you off the leash and just feels like tutorial after tutorial, and what little glimpses of actual gameplay there were was overly simple exploration and QTEs. Furthermore, the use of hands as a character was very strange to me (why not bunnies?) and I didn't feel like I had any emotional attachment or reason for playing further beyond morbid curiosity. It tells me that I'm looking for "her" or whatever but it felt super shallow and I didn't believe in it.

Basically, at the moment the game does have a bit of a 'style over substance' issue for me, where while the game looks and feels very well constructed, the gameplay itself is quite boring, restrictive and doesn't have a solid story hook for me. Nevertheless, the sheer level of style on display here is still enough to keep me intrigued, so I look forward to more!

[BIMSY'S BOUNTY]

Pretty cool game! It's certainly got that zany tombdude style to it all as usual with great animation and life to everything, and it provides some crazy manic fun as you aim to harvest as soon as possible while having to deal with obstacles like enemies crapping on you and corrupted crops, along with certain phases switching up grow times to keep things interesting and not get too repetitive. I liked the interesting combination of the harvesting action being able to also KO enemies if you aim into them as it offered some great feedback as well as cool decision-making, like if it's worth it to fully-grow a crop to use as ammo or just pluck them early to get the enemies outta your hair. Definitely a lot of depth and novelty to such a simple looking game: made it really quite addictive to go for a higher score!

I gotta say though, while I'm positive on the game now, my first impression of the game was pretty miserable. It sounds silly since the game is pretty simple, but I just didn't understand a lot of the rules on my first go, and I actually still am not sure how some elements work. For example, it wasn't clear to me that I needed to keep harvesting to get points: there was no sort of positive feedback like a ding or a money amount popping up from it and the tutorial put so much importance on hitting enemies with crops that I thought I just needed to sit on my crops to use them as ammo until enemies showed up. I also really wish there was some sort of score table that could tell you the value of each element, like what is the different amount you get for pumpkins vs turnips vs corrupted turnips and so on so I'd know how to prioritize. In a similar fashion, I also wasn't sure if different crops deal different damage when thrown at enemies: I coulda sworn corrupted turnips dealt more but it was unclear in the chaos. It's also annoying when a plant gets corrupted mid-pull: it can be fun to react in time and cancel, but I'd normally assume that whatever state it's in would be frozen during a pull.

[Sun Escapes Me]

An interesting little game! It's a bit shallow and short, but it doesn't overstay its welcome and keeps things interesting and novel by switching up the rules with each wave. There are some frustrating bits like how difficult it is to ricochet shots back at the sun since there's so little room to work with, but for the most part the game is exciting and fun thanks to the explosive feedback/effects and intuitive arcade gameplay.

That said, the design of the game was pretty questionable at times. I expected the rock wave to require you to shoot the rocks down quickly to prevent the sun from absorbing them and gain power: that way you're forced to play effectively and risky to keep all the rocks away. But no, you can just leisurely take your time and shoot the rocks at your own pace, killing any sort of excitement until you reach the required 100 points. It just made it a bit confusing because you'd think the game would always focus on you vs the sun, but when it comes to the rocks...why are you getting points for shooting them? The other waves made more sense since it involved you fighting back. Also, why does the game even have a high score system when getting points is required to reach certain wave progression at 100, 200 and 300: doesn't that just mean everyone who beats the game ends up with the high score in the end, unless perhaps the sun's final phase health bar has some wiggle room?

Overall though, it was quite the memorable experience due to the interesting wave progression that gets you to the final showdown: a nice, short and sweet story!

picochaz responds:

Thanks for providing such comprehensive feedback! You're totally right on all your points here, relying on score for progression was meant to be a temporary thing but I ended up getting distracted by other things in the game jam.

If I am able to prioritize revisiting this game, I'm going to use your comment as a blueprint to dramatically improve the points mentioned. Score should matter more beyond the final phase and things falling into the SUN should add to its gravity. This might even spur levels in the game itself... who knows?

It is most appreciated that you took the time to provide your thoughts like this.

[Danger Creek]

The core concept of the game itself isn't that bad: blasting away enemies that are trying to reach the bottom with a wacky assortment of weapons. It can be some good simple fun and there is a certain amusement at watching your guns get more and more wacky with all sorts of weird shots you get from each wave, but ultimately I found it quite repetitive and lacking in the long run, heck, even the short run. The shooting just didn't feel that satisfying at its core, the enemies never really showed any sort of challenge or intelligence and the variety of enemies were incredibly shallow with them all being basically sponges: once you've encountered wave 5, you've pretty much seen the entire game and it just starts recycling the same assets over and over. I gave up around wave 15 out of boredom: I do see from some other comments that the game does get harder and harder to the point of impossibility which is promising, but I couldn't see myself getting that far based on the initially dull first impression. I definitely think the game could be pretty cool: just needed more time in the oven that a jam can't provide to really balance it out and give enough variety to keep the novelty up.

[Dead Fish Clicker]

Cute little game: has some amusing little bits to it like the recorded speech and it's overall animated and goofy presentation, but for the most part I found it lacking as an idle clicker game.

There really wasn't many interesting upgrades or changes to the complexity of the game as you play to give it a sense of progression, so everything felt ultimately pointless apart from the achievements. But even considering the achievements, I was disappointed to see that the game doesn't even save progress so it expects you to achieve everything in one run which is pretty unreasonable. But more important than that, I found that the clicking registration was really odd: felt like it kept eating my inputs unless I delayed them considerably which was really frustrating and broke my rhythm, and when something as fundamental as the clicking in a clicker game isn't working, it really didn't give me much faith for anything else.

Of course, I'm no doubt taking this too seriously since it's obviously just a little gag game for a laugh, but still, I always hope to actually be surprised with some hidden quality to these games and am always bummed out to be disappointed.

[Walk with Frog Wife]

Hmm, bit of a mixed bag, this one: first impression was overall good but the game quickly lost its novelty for me.

There's a lot I do like about the game: the graphics are cute and charming, I love the feel of reloading the gun one bullet at a time (especially because the sound effects pitch up, nice touch), the concept is certainly unique and fun considering escort missions are usually the bane of games, the, uh, use of a growing belly to give feedback on how well you're doing is clever, and I like that the game has an assortment of endings depending on how well you did.

However, at the end of the day, I found the game to be way too easy and simple. Reloading is super fast so you're never outta bullets, the enemies are slow and easy to hit, and it's just got the one short level and you're done. Just feels like it doesn't have any sense of challenge or design to it, and that severely diminishes the reward. If it had some more challenge or variety to it, I think it could be great, but as it is, it's just bleh. It also has some weird stuff like how the game doesn't just end immediately if you deplete the bar.

[Into The Web Of Swine]

Hmm, this felt like a miss to me. Really feels like a work in progress that ran out of time (understandably, game jams are hard) as the game just felt incredibly dry and plain and just not fun to play. The idea of having to commit to certain movements and thus time it right to dodge obstacles is an alright concept, and playing the more difficult contracts where there are tons of different obstacles can lead to some fast-thinking improvisation, so the concept is not without merit. It's just that, without any sort of pizazz or sense of progression, it feels so boring and ultimately pointless.

My initial impression was really bad because I picked an easy contract (which I think is logical since I still didn't know how the game worked) that was absolutely, pathetically easy and devoid of any challenge. As said, picking a harder contract later on helped me see the game in a bit of a better light, but by then the damage was done (and even then, the game was just devoid of any exciting feedback or effects). Oh, and there were plenty of bullshit deaths were obstacles would be right where I initially spawn, so that didn't garner any faith in me for the game's construction.

Speaking of the contract system: not to backseat game dev, but I think it would most likely work a lot better if, instead of picking contracts where you can get stuck in a boring configuration for a long time like I did, you throw that away and just make the game be an endless mode that keeps ramping up the difficulty with each level you beat, and then you get a high score at the end: I feel like this would keep the novelty and pace up a lot more.

[Crimp Kicker]

Hmmm, this was a bit rough for me. It's a funny story with some amusing art, and I really like the concept of the game being some sort of crazy fusion of pinball and kitty cannon where you have to plan your initial launch to hit a bunch of targets: it certainly allows for some fun physics/ragdoll chaos but with a strategic twist. And I do like the little touches it has, like that little pause when your crimp hits something to add a bit of satisfaction. But the design just seemed more chaotic than the gameplay itself and it left me feeling confused and frustrated.

The controls were a bit confusing to get used to as they were inverted from what I expected, but as long as I changed my mind to think of it like physically pulling your leg back instead of stating the trajectory, it was alright. Still, though, it made it difficult to aim, and I hated how if I dragged my mouse off the screen it would shoot instead of waiting for me to let go.

The level difficulty seemed all over the place. Some of the later levels were pathetically easy like the car level (you'd think the cars would take a few hits since they're so big or something to shake things up) and the levels where you get bouncy balls so winning is almost guaranteed since they keep picking you up. The very first level, in comparison, is practically a nightmare to beat since you need to ensure you hit all of the lamps and various other high up items before you lose too much altitude. Definitely feel like the levels were incredibly out-of-order and create a terrible first impression since the difficulty only seems to go down past the first level.

The novelty of the game ended up wearing off quickly. All the levels were pretty much the same and any sort of novel obstacles like the bouncy balls or the cars which should've been tougher to kill were too few and put haphazardly around without any sort of sense to it all. Also it was super frustrating that the game put so much weight on the initial kick: the game was practically screaming for some sort of limited powerup that you could use to slightly influence the crimp post-launch, similar to something like how Burnout lets you slightly steer the car and blow it up after a crash.

I really, really want to like this game because I think the idea is great. But as said, right now it just feels like the levels aren't setup in any sort of intelligent way: you were setup for glory but it ended up being some sorta Jackson Pollock painting.

[Grunko Blocks]

Wow, really great little puzzle game on display here! It's not really showcasing any new or unique mechanics so its not the most original or progressive game, but for what it is, it feels good to play, has a charming caveman theme, teaches the mechanics well, increases speed as you go to keep the novelty up, and has plenty of juicy and fun feedback, so all in all, I had a good time and ended up getting quite addicted to it! Definitely a solid, well-constructed game! The only thing I was a bit disappointed in was that there wasn't any sort of special response or fanfare for getting a big combo: would've loved to see the guy get excited or for the game to have some text to say how many bonus points I got for such a move. Oh, and there's some weird sort of issue with the font/text that makes it look rather choppy and hard to read. Other than that, though, great stuff, and very impressive given that its a game jam! Would love to see this get enhanced into a bigger game with more levels, more special mechanics, and other cavemen to meet and battle against!

[Rainy Day: Pixel Art Edition]

Bit surprised by this one! It didn't make the best first impression, what with its incredibly small and difficult to read text, its odd, stilted english that makes me think it was badly translated from another language, and its middling graphics and animation (particularly the way you die where you just flop down immediately), but once you get past that, I actually found a rather creative puzzle game with some really unique mechanics! The whole transferring between dimensions and managing your ghost dog and solving the various riddles using the clues: I thought the game taught this concepts very effectively through its subtle tutorial and I easily found myself getting addicted to solving puzzle after puzzle and seeing the main pillars light up.

It's definitely a little clunky in some aspects: for example, I solved the floor tile puzzle by standing in such a way to glitch-hit two panels simultaneously, the hitboxes for the red fires were a bit unclear, and the bad translation really hurt the hints for the animal statue puzzle (I'm actually not sure why I solved the second one with three locusts). I also felt like the game was too short and therefore the story didn't get enough time to build up and deliver any emotional weight, but I got the general gist of it.

I think its a good case where, despite being a little janky, buggy, and confusing, it nevertheless has an interesting bit of mystery to it that makes you want to play more despite it all: don't judge a book by its cover and all that, so kudos on that.

Got the good ending eventually! A bit confusing though: only figured out I had to hold E and put flames in the bowl thanks to comments, I would've never figured that out myself.