FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Desynced Katana (Jam+)]

Hmm, I really like the concept, and when the game works it feels great, but it did feel quite rough in some aspects that I wish were fixed up.

As said, for the most part, the game is pretty neat. The graphics and presentation is quite bland and simple, but the act of slashing through multiple enemy attackers in slow-mo and watching your shadow replay is very exciting and slick when you pull it off. Some aspects like the fact that your shadow is your actual hitbox is strange at first, but it works to the game's benefit because it forces you to tackle every single enemy that is attacking you in a combo, which is the ideal scenario that should be pushed. Indeed, some of my favorite levels were the ones where you just face a bunch of opponents and have to deal with them in an almost puzzle-like manner, slashing all of them without hitting one a second time since it would force you out of the combo.

The big issue for me was dealing with enemies that have a lot of health on them, like elites or bosses, as when it came to them, it put the breaks on the gameplay way too harshly and it became so boring. Whenever you hit an enemy with multiple hitpoints, it makes it so that they block your second attack no matter what. Because of this, it's best that you just strike them once and then wait, since if you attack again, they block and you are punished and need to wait to recover stamina. But it's just so annoying, since the game, by activating slow-mo and everything after the first strike, is practically screaming at you to take another swing! But no, the best thing to do is wait, waiting for the slow-mo to end and then waiting for the enemy to attack again: so much waiting! Would love it if there was some risky way to keep the offense going through skillful play: for example, maybe when you hit them, you can choose to wait it out if you want to play it safe, or you can look at what direction they are getting ready to block in and try to attack from the opposing direction: if you do it fast enough you can keep the combo going and it will keep looping like that, whereas if you don't they will block and you need to scramble to get your stamina back. If there was something like this, you could also have some kind of cool Sekiro-esque combat going!

[The Saloon]

Not too shabby! It definitely throws you in the deep end right from the start with no direction which can be a little frustrating, but eventually I came to grips with the system and had a good time! Overall the game seems well put-together and solid for a jam game: the gameplay is fun, hectic and juicy and there's an interesting strategy in both where your space bar serves as a weapon change and a dodge mechanic at the same time and where you must manage your weapons and perks to handle whatever comes up.

The only complaints I have is that, while it is fun, it's quite short and doesn't take long for it to feel rather shallow, unbalanced and unfinished (which is quite understandable for a jam, of course). I found it odd that the game doesn't slowly introduce more elite enemies into the spawns as waves go on, but rather just puts them in randomly, which makes it so sometimes you get elite enemies right at the start before you find your footing, or you get boring melee waves later on that are too easy with your now advanced arsenal. Gameplay could feel unbalanced where sometimes you just get stuck plinking away with incredibly weak feeling guns at spongy enemies. And of course, I wasn't sure if there was any sort of goal, story, or high score to strive for.

Definitely a pretty short and sweet game, and could be an effective prototype if this is built upon!

[Dice Catcher]

Wow, had a ton of fun with this one! Loved the concept/design and found it very intuitive and satisfying to play, loved the bosses and the variety of different strategies that they make you need to employ, loved the cute little story, this game had it all in a nice short and sweet package! Only real complaints I have is 1) my initial impression of the stun zone was quite negative, probably because I felt like it should only affect you if the center of your reticle is within, not if any part of it is, but eventually I got used to it and 2) disappointed that there was no save/load since I got to the last zone and was hoping to continue later on after a break. Most likely going to go back and finish it proper nonetheless, however!

[Webble and Stoney]

This game was really rough for me: part of me had a good time, but it was only after I gave the game so much forgiveness for its jank and such that would usually make me quit before I got anywhere.

While it certainly has a charming first impression with the story cutscene and the chill vibes it exudes, the gameplay got stale rather quickly as it was very generic and wonky. The worst part was when I got to a level that seemed to require jumping over some bushes, but I could only get it to work occasionally: most of the time the bushes would kill me and I wasn't sure what I was doing wrong. Eventually I came to the realization that I needed to jump around the bushes in an awkward fashion by abusing coyote time: would've loved if I realized that sooner, but the fact that the game was jank enough to sometimes let me jump over the bushes really screwed me over and gave me false hope.

From there, while I did encounter some other oddities and glitches, I overall had a bit of a better time and liked some of the other obstacles like ducks, which were fun to hop between. Heck, despite my gripes, I even tried the game again to see how fast I could speedrun it in hopes to get a better ending, so you did hook me somewhat. However, I left the game frustrated when I got another bad ending with no clue how to prevent it since I felt like I ran through it incredibly fast (2 minutes or so). Oh well!

[Glassware]

Hmmm, unfortunately a bit of a mixed impression on this one.

I really want to like this as I find it quite charming. The presentation is really cool with its pastel aesthetic, the characters are goofy and unique, there's all sorts of neat touches like the receipt printing out at the end, and I love the inclusion of a catalogue which reminds me of old-school instruction booklets that tells you all about the enemies and weapons you can get. When the gameplay works properly, you can really get addicted to this fast-paced, almost Warioware-esque chaos of a battle system where you need to react fast to whatever situation comes up next.

However, while I like the game in theory, I feel like it needed more time in the oven as overall it came off rather janky. So many of my deaths felt like they were due to the controls acting oddly, either eating my inputs or my character moving differently than I expected, most likely due to wonky physics or slopes or what-have-you. Plenty of other deaths were due to the level transitioning and having me land right on top of an enemy spawn with no time to react: super unfair and frustrating! Tooltips would wonk out occasionally and display double, and I expected the tooltips to come up if I moused over something instead of standing below it. Also I hated how I needed to wait for the receipt to print out so slowly just to be able to retry (you'd think it'd go faster or be skippable if you click the screen for a fast-paced game like this!)

Furthermore, even if the game worked perfectly, it did feel rather shallow: didn't take long for the levels to keep repeating, both the items/enemies to exhaust the roster and lose their novelty, and I wasn't sure if it was ever gonna build up to something like a boss or a grander goal instead of just looping over and over. The items also felt a bit annoying in that they have so many negatives to them: I get that it's necessary to make the game harder and harder, but it felt awkward when usually a game gets harder by introducing tougher enemies or levels, not by me choosing it.

Definitely feel like there is something cool in here: just needs a bit of polishing up in my opinion!

[Oddwood]

Wow, really fun game! For a game jam game, I'm really impressed at the professional-looking presentation: the graphics, animation, aesthetic, and feedback/juice are very nice and appealing. Couple that with the very chaotic and addictive gameplay from a great concept and I was having a blast trying to keep myself alive.

I definitely did have a bit of a confusing time at the start: I completely forgot that the jump button existed and just figured that the only way to avoid damage was to just be quick and decisive with whatever the dice grants you. It actually was kinda fun to play like that, though ultimately futile given the threats that come up, so I'm glad I eventually realized that there was another option for defense. Curious whether anyone else had that experience: I feel like it was natural to assume due to the focus on automated movement and random dice, but maybe I'm just dumb.

Some feedback more to do with the game rather that my foolishness were:

1) I found it very difficult to keep track of resources like health and such. For some reason, I thought I was being hit constantly and about to die, but I'd somehow make it out with higher health than I thought. I think what led to that confusion is that, while the screen shakes and plays a sound when you get hit, it also shakes and plays a similar 'bad' sound when it rolls the dice, which felt very unnecessary and sending confusing signals.

2) In regards to the upgrade system, I had no idea what the dice upgrades were. The muscle upgrades were very clear, but the dice updates...did they like add to your pool or something to make it have a higher chance to appear? I had no idea.

Would love to see this game get expanded upon as it feels like it has a greatly constructed core: some more enemy types/weapons/dice, a story/goal to progress on, and so on, it'd be great!

Frogrammer responds:

thank you so much for your feedback, really appreciate it and glad you enjoyed the game!
1) i just think the way GUI was put makes it very unclear, however the upcoming update which is going to have text pop outs will solve this problem hopefully.
2) ye picking a new ability will add it to the pool and adding the same ability twice will increase it's chance to appear

[Terato Tamer]

Pretty neat game! Certainly quite funny and charming with its unique take on RPG battles through the use of seduction to lead to both amusing discussions and an interesting party system. Kinda reminds me of the Shin Megami demon negotiation system. Had a fun time trying to get farther and figuring out the ideal dialogues and teams and so on and so forth. That said, I did have quite the rough start and plenty of complaints...

A big annoyance I had was the dice system and how I don't feel like it did a good job explaining how it worked. After tons of testing and examining the results, I was able to determine that blocking has your dice subtract from their dice to determine how much damage the enemy deals to you, and dodging has you avoid all damage if you roll as high or higher than the enemy. This is actually some neat strategy as it has you favor dodging for low enemy rolls but blocking for high enemy rolls and such. But that's all work that I had to do when the game could've easily had a bit more direction either subtly through feedback/animations/etc like number/math pop-ups or more directly through instructional pop-ups when you're selecting the options. I couldn't even tell you how the seduce dice work: I think it deals a bare minimum of 17% except when you roll significantly higher? I shouldn't have to do all this work, just make it clear for god's sake! And this isn't even counting how frustrating the game could be at times since it did leave so much of it up to luck.

It's a minor annoyance, but I hated it it wouldn't remember your choice positioning. Take for example that you're trying to seduce, which is the top option. You pick that and then defense comes up, you pick dodge, which is the bottom option. You go back to the attack phase and mash confirm since you just want to seduce again, but lo and behold, it's now on the attack option which is the bottom option since it memorized the bottom option from your dodge choice despite it being for a different turn phase.

And finally, and this is super-nitpicky perhaps, but for a game themed around dice, I felt like it was barely utilizing that theme, as the dice were just being used to determine outcomes of moves which is a bog-standard method of how any RPG works. Still a nice game and everything, but I wouldn't call it themed around dice by any means: by that measure you could submit any RPG or heck, and game with RNG to this jam.

[Jimmy Blitz and the Rocket Dice]

Wow, I really loved the heck outta this! It's a simple game at its heart, but I thought it did an excellent job at using the dice theme to create a very clever game concept that's fun and intuitive to play. Got really addicted to playing through each level as it hooked me by escalating the stakes through more complex and varied objectives. It's not even part of the game mechanics exactly, but my favorite part had the be the dialogue and the music, particularly the little stings at the end of levels: just so bloody charming!

I don't have many complaints: sometimes the rocket physics of the dice can be a little janky where one seconds I'm struggling to get them to move and the next second the slightest tap suddenly flips them like crazy (but it just adds to the comical appeal), switching dice can be a little confusing when you're got more than two since you're not sure where you'll end up, and I wish there were more prominent visual indicators when you're getting too sus and when you're using slow-mo, like screen tinting or other special effects (since sometimes I wasn't sure if slow-mo was doing anything since it was so subtle). Rather, the biggest complaint is that I wish there was more! Just as I was starting to feel like I was getting really skilled at the controls and wanted something to really challenge me to prove my worth, the game was over! Oh well, consider it a compliment that I just wanted more and more from this! Maybe an enhanced version someday? But of course, you're free to just leave it as a very nice game jam game.

[All Right on the Knight]

What a bizarre game! I'm not quite sure what I think of it as it took me on quite a trip, with various ups and downs.

It definitely started out a bit rough, what with the weird entry zone where you've placed plaques on tops of pillars which, since the up button is used to both read and jump, make it impossible to jump off of the pillars except through awkwardly abusing coyote time (deliberately jumping way late). Definitely not a great first impression, but once that was settled, I moved on and the game started proper and was a decent gauntlet of obstacles.

Indeed, the game was a fun little challenge at first until I noticed that a lot of obstacles seemed to be built to flow a little too perfectly...a bit of an experiment later and suddenly the game had no challenge to it, since all you had to do was hold right and the game played itself! As clever as it was to realize the hidden meaning of the title and fun to watch the game beat itself like one of those auto Mario Maker levels, I felt cheated: I was hoping for a good challenge but the game was built to offer none! Why even bother continuing...

But then the game revealed a bit more to it. Yes, I could technically keep blasting through the levels by holding right, so there wasn't any challenge so to speak. But the game seemed to realize this fact and have fun with it, such as the level which can easily be beaten by turning left and walking a few steps, or by insisting to go right to go on a grand journey. Indeed, now the game was an amusing and comical story as you read the tablets of knights debating the honor of going right and so on and so forth, just like how I was debating what the game was all about. Not only that, but the game actually did have some challenge to it, but not in an obvious manner, but rather where you can stop holding right and attempt to reach hidden areas with bonus tablets to read for more amusement. What a mysterious game!

It wasn't quite what I wanted, and I don't fully agree with it on some levels, but it was a bizarre adventure and not something I'm going to easily forget, so kudos on this weird metagame!

TmsT responds:

Thanks for sharing your experience in such detail! Seeing you come to understand the layers of trickery in the game while demonstrating it for your video totally made my day. Not to mention provided valuable feedback I can learn from, sometimes confirming weaknesses I wasn't entirely sure about but didn't do anything to fix, other times enlightening me about other stuff I hadn't really considered. The whole game is basically a joke that I took too seriously, but in the end I'm happy you gave it an honest play - and that you found it bizarre!

[Little Mother]

Hmmm, bit mixed on this one. Started out pretty strong, but didn't build up or explain enough to whatever the heck it was rambling about in the end.

On one hand, I felt like the overall presentation of this was pretty cool with its storybook-esque graphics and I loved the little touches like how the music changes as you go further and further. Despite how simple and boring the gameplay was on a technical level, those techniques coupled with the myterious story kept me hooked and looking forward to seeing how everything resolves, so it was definitely an interesting experience in that regard. Very atmospheric and unsettling.

But on the other hand, I don't really like how everything ended up in the end, and it felt like it ruined the experience for me. Where at first there was intrigue and mystique, it quickly devolved into rambling hoity-toity metaphorical mumbo-jumbo that just felt silly since it came outta nowhere. Ooooo, life and death, pain and suffering, ooga booga: it felt really flat and jarring to come up so suddenly. I really don't know what the heck it was all talking about: perhaps it is something important, but I don't feel like the game properly built up to it, and to be honest, how could it since it was so short. It's like it was trying to speedrun to some sort of 'deep' ending but without immersing us into it first, cheapening it. Similar to getting advice on cooking from someone who's never cooked in their life, whatever the game was talking about wasn't able to be taken seriously by me.

It didn't help either that the game had some bits of shoddiness to it that ruined the mood, like the weird way your character overlaps obstacles with their legs in front while the body is still technically behind due to awkward layering. Would love if perhaps this game was expanded upon to give enough time and design to give whatever it was trying to say the pathos it deserves.